How to use the Customers You Have to Recruit New one
How to Recruit New Customers–Using the Ones You Already Have
Nudging your customers to sing your praises is the best advertising you never bought. But be careful: There’s an art to this ask.
When the recession decimated the corporate-gift-market accounts of the Goulet Pen Company, founder Brian Goulet sought out new ideas–and customers–at a fountain pen show near his Richmond, Virginia, home. “It was a revelation, seeing all these fanatical people in fishing vests with pockets stuffed with fountain pens,” says Goulet, who quickly realized that pen fans represented a community that he’d missed. He wrote a new business plan, going from pen maker to online fountain-pen retailer. He began to participate in online message boards and forums, and also created a large social media presence, a newsletter, a blog, and more than 1,800 how-to videos, along with interactive, live-stream ones, generating hundreds of comments daily. With revenue in the low eight figures after growing 25 percent in 2018–his wife, Rachel, is co-owner and COO–Goulet has simple advice for companies eager to generate positive consumer comments: “Go where the conversation is happening, solve problems, and add value.”
Unsure of how to make the Big Ask? Many entrepreneurs are bold types, but in seeking help, “they basically cede their authority” to customers without giving them a reason to act, says Art Markman, professor of psychology and marketing at University of Texas at Austin and author of Smart Change: Five Tools to Create New and Sustainable Habits in Yourself and Others. There’s an art to converting customers into your evangelists.
1. Keep it legit.
Reviews that single out your company’s great customer service are disproportionately likely to rate it with five stars, says Darnell Holloway, Yelp’s director of business outreach. “What customers want is to be so inspired by your business–mainly through impassioned employees who understand the value of service in building a brand, along with personal communication from the owner–that they’ll spontaneously want to tell people how great you are,” he says. Don’t extend a quid pro quo–for example, offering a gift card for a good review. That violates Federal Trade Commission guidelines. Yelp advises companies to display signage rather than ask for reviews, such as its “People love us on Yelp” stickers. The implicit message to customers, he says, is “You too can love us there, by posting a review,” without asking them directly.
2. Give customers the tools.
The owners of AuraGlow, which sells teeth-whitening products, turned to technology to offer a virtual free trial to prospects, as well as a way to showcase product benefits. The company built a tool that uses pattern recognition and neural networks to allow users to “whiten” their teeth from an uploaded selfie. It’s word-of-mouth in every sense–people then share their before-and-after pictures on Facebook and Twitter, which drives sales. “The best way for people to hear about AuraGlow is by seeing how others could be improved,” says Marco Massaro, the company’s CEO. “That’s how we’ve stayed the No. 1 teeth-whitening brand on Amazon.”
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