Want Your Customers to Hunt You? Mark Your Trail
22 Feb
When I was a kid, my dad often led my brothers and I through the forest in a woodland tracking game of sorts. Dad would trek into the woods, leaving signs along the way to mark his path.
Three stones lined up big to small pointed the way. Three stones stacked atop each other meant we were headed the right direction. A sappling bent over signaled a change in direction.
Every 100 feet or so we’d see a new sign. Each marker renewed our enthusiasm for the chase. If we went 10 minutes without a clue, we’d give up and go back to camp, or beat the crap out of each other.
Your customers are a lot like my brothers and I were: They’re hunting something. Leave enough markers, they’ll find it…and you.
Why not take advantage of their scavenger instincts?
While you can’t leave a stack of rocks to guide your customers (well, you could…), content marketing gives you markers you can leave:
- Landing Page: You’ve found the start of the trail. More signs ahead.
- Newsletter Series: This way! Look, more clues!
- E-Book/White Paper: You’re on the right track…keep on coming!
- Blog Post(s): Follow us
- Thank You Note: Congratulations — you found your quarry!
You need to give them a steady stream of clues to keep ‘em in the hunt. Otherwise, they’ll get bored and quit hunting you.
Or beat the crap out of each other.
Mark your trail and leave a scent, it's almost hunting season right?
Mark your trail and leave a scent, it's almost hunting season right?
I love the concept of leaving info for your customers to find out more about your business. This allows the customer to go as deep as they want to go in their experience with your business.
i do with with our videos on YouTube. When watching one of the videos, I've added a link that lets the viewer know they can subscribe to the United Linen channel by clicking on the provided link. on other napkin-folding videos, I leave a link that will take them to the next napkin-folding video in the series.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYycsSCQcso
This is like the TV show LOST. You can watch the show and move on or you can dig deeper and find hidden easter eggs and other media to further your LOST experience. I'm reminded of a blog post i read not too long ago about this very thing…
http://www.bedeviant.com/churches-learn-from-lo...
Good job Scott. Keep 'em comin'
I love the concept of leaving info for your customers to find out more about your business. This allows the customer to go as deep as they want to go in their experience with your business.
i do with with our videos on YouTube. When watching one of the videos, I've added a link that lets the viewer know they can subscribe to the United Linen channel by clicking on the provided link. on other napkin-folding videos, I leave a link that will take them to the next napkin-folding video in the series.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYycsSCQcso
This is like the TV show LOST. You can watch the show and move on or you can dig deeper and find hidden easter eggs and other media to further your LOST experience. I'm reminded of a blog post i read not too long ago about this very thing…
http://www.bedeviant.com/churches-learn-from-lo...
Good job Scott. Keep 'em comin'
Cookie crumbs, stacks of rocks…it's all about showing them the way!
You do a great job with your content, Scott. The United Linen videos are a great service to your customers. That's what good content marketing is about: Giving them value, making yourself indispensable, earning trust. Good work!
Cookie crumbs, stacks of rocks…it's all about showing them the way!
You do a great job with your content, Scott. The United Linen videos are a great service to your customers. That's what good content marketing is about: Giving them value, making yourself indispensable, earning trust. Good work!
This is something we have been working on ourselves within our business as well as helping our clients implement these concepts in their business.
We call it the “follow-up to the follow-up.” In the end, you want your prospect/site visitor to complete some form of transaction (sign-up to your newsletter, subscribe to your blog feed, fill out a contact lead form, maybe even buy something) but they may never figure out how to do so until you show them “how” and “where.”
Scott, you do a good job of saying and “showing” that with this analogy. One clue/follow-up links to another clue/follow-up. For instance, someone follows a link from Twitter to a blog post (like this) and the blog post links to a whitepaper/e-guide that builds off of the content in this post. The e-guide links to the newsletter sign-up form where they can have more information just like it emailed directly to the person's inbox and the auto-responder from the newsletter sign-up form has a link to a contact lead form where the person can schedule a free consultation.
Now you've got a person, who has read some of your material, downloaded an e-guide, signed up for your newsletter, and may end up scheduling a meeting with you that creates the opportunity to either solidify the relationship (without the sale) or convert the contact into a customer!
I can't say we've got it all worked out and implemented, but we're certainly working on it! Thanks Scott!
This is something we have been working on ourselves within our business as well as helping our clients implement these concepts in their business.
We call it the “follow-up to the follow-up.” In the end, you want your prospect/site visitor to complete some form of transaction (sign-up to your newsletter, subscribe to your blog feed, fill out a contact lead form, maybe even buy something) but they may never figure out how to do so until you show them “how” and “where.”
Scott, you do a good job of saying and “showing” that with this analogy. One clue/follow-up links to another clue/follow-up. For instance, someone follows a link from Twitter to a blog post (like this) and the blog post links to a whitepaper/e-guide that builds off of the content in this post. The e-guide links to the newsletter sign-up form where they can have more information just like it emailed directly to the person's inbox and the auto-responder from the newsletter sign-up form has a link to a contact lead form where the person can schedule a free consultation.
Now you've got a person, who has read some of your material, downloaded an e-guide, signed up for your newsletter, and may end up scheduling a meeting with you that creates the opportunity to either solidify the relationship (without the sale) or convert the contact into a customer!
I can't say we've got it all worked out and implemented, but we're certainly working on it! Thanks Scott!
It sounds like you've got it figured out pretty well, Brian. Implementation is definitely a challenge. Where do you find you're having the most trouble?
A phrase I used when I spoke to SEMCLT a few weeks ago is that if you don't give your customers a next step to take with you, they'll take it with someone else. If you're not planning for a lot of “next steps” with your customers — focusing instead on hurrying to the transaction — you'll lose a lot of business.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Brian.
It sounds like you've got it figured out pretty well, Brian. Implementation is definitely a challenge. Where do you find you're having the most trouble?
A phrase I used when I spoke to SEMCLT a few weeks ago is that if you don't give your customers a next step to take with you, they'll take it with someone else. If you're not planning for a lot of “next steps” with your customers — focusing instead on hurrying to the transaction — you'll lose a lot of business.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Brian.