In my varied past, I spent some time on stage as a professional opera singer, a wonderful and enriching experience. One thing I learned was that during the curtain call when there was applause (assuming you got applause), you never wanted to let the applause die down before leaving the stage. Really it was ideal to leave when the applause reached its apex and therefore leave the audience wanting more of you. They were never quite satisfied and probably would be talking about you for some time after leaving the show. It’s the same reason that no matter how hard you scream for an encore, you never get to hear that one more song.
You may wonder how this relates to an effort to market and promote your business.
Let’s make sure that we’re not confusing what someone wants with what someone needs. If you start to leave people needing more, than your product or service is not providing what is necessary to sustain the consuming experience and it is likely that you will lose that customer. Meeting the market’s needs is fundamental to having a product or service that is worth anything at all.
What I’m emphasizing here are wants. A fundamental rule learned in every Economics 101 course is, “Man has insatiable wants and desires.” The statement didn’t say insatiable needs. Every human on earth has basic needs: we need to eat, we need to work, we need adequate health care, we need shelter, we need clothing, etc. Meet the needs and you’ll be okay, but probably not hugely successful, nor will you likely be able to sustain much growth.
What is imperative is that you are able to find how you can leave your customers or clients “wanting” more. And this really begins with their initial exposure to you, say through your website, and goes clear through the lifecycle of that consuming experience. Seth Godin in “Embracing Lifetime Value” reiterates how important it is for you to be able to quantify the value of that lifetime experience in order to understand what resources need to go into the relationship. You can then keep them coming back for more.
So, how do you make sure that your customers or clients leave with what they need but leave definitely wanting more?
- Make sure your website landing page tells them exactly what they need to know, no more. I believe that it is imperative to give enough information to fulfill the promise of the ad or email that drove them to your site’s landing page, but there is no reason to go beyond that. If they need more information, provide an easy means for them to contact you so you can enter into a direct dialog, either by phone or chat, which as most salespersons will tell you, is how you can overcome objections and secure the sale.
- Try to invite questions that will cause them to engage with your site, with your brand or with you by picking up the phone. The key to consumer loyalty is the ability for them to directly engage in your brand. Many marketers profess that companies no longer really have control over their brand with the new social media tools. You may as well accept this fact and make it as easy as possible, plus it will help you learn about what your customer needs or maybe even wants.
- Regularly add new, relevant content to your website so people will want to come back and see what’s new. This seems so obvious but I can’t tell you how many business owners build a really nice website and then never touch it for months and months. Not a good idea. Fresh content will also help improve search results.
- Make sure you are enhancing or adding features to your product or service, something your competition isn’t. This also seems obvious but it’s easy to become somewhat complacent as you start to have some success and forget about what improvements could be made to what you offer. Always be innovating.
- Constantly tell them how much you appreciate their business. Everyone loves to be appreciated and I believe this is rapidly becoming a lost art. Loyalty comes by making sure to say “thank you.” Reward loyalty through offers that entice them to come back. Make it lucrative for them to refer you to their network of contacts.
Leave them needing more and you’ll lose them. Leave them wanting more and they’ll come back.
Let me know your thoughts.
I appreciate the heads up and that you’ve subscribed. I’ll do some investigating and post a comment on WP’s site. Maybe others are having similar issues and there’s a fix out there.
Hello, this is really interesting. Can you show me additional resources to read more ??
cheers very much, I have to say your website is amazing!
Wow! what an idea ! What a concept ! Beautiful .. Amazing …
I really like the fresh perspective you did on the issue. Really was not expecting that when I started off studying. Your concepts were easy to understand that I wondered why I never looked at it before. Glad to know that there’s an individual out there that definitely understands what he’s discussing. Great job!
Even though I do think your write-up is on the proper path there are one or two tips which i tend not to believe.
Thanks for the feedback Hiedi, I appreciate the thumbs up.
I appreciate the honest feedback. What were the specific tips you didn’t believe?
Thank you Vito, I appreciate your comments
Thank you Rudy, I appreciate the thumbs up.
There is another great blog about getting mass traffic from Twitter via your WordPress based sites. Check it out: http://www.wordpressrobot.com/5-steps-to-becoming-highly-infectious-on-twitter
Excellent post, I’m regular visitor of this site, keep up the good work, and I’ll be a regular visitor for a very long time.
awesome stuff, cheers man
Thanks for the comment Laura. Have you been to seomoz.com. They’re a great resource for design and common sense in websites.
I just like the style you took with this topic. It isn’t often that you just find something so to the point and enlightening.
Hey You’ve got a great blog here! I’m definately going to bookmark you. I have a MLM Tips website which pretty much covers Automatic Lead Generation, Website Traffic, SEO and Basically how to Conquer The Internet for your Business. Come check it out when you have time.
awesome stuff, cheers man
Hi there, I identified your weblog via Google although searching for very first aid for a heart attack and your submit looks quite exciting for me.
my God, i thought you were going to chip in with some decisive insght at the end there, not leave it with ‘we leave it to you to decide’.
I appreciate the comment but I’m not really sure what you mean. The article concludes with some pretty specific suggestions.
I have been examinating out some of your posts and i can claim pretty clever stuff. I will make sure to bookmark your site.
I really enjoy reading the articles on this blog. I’ll bookmark this so I can read more later
Valuable information and excellent design you got here! I would like to thank you for sharing your thoughts and time into the stuff you post!! Thumbs up!
Howdy there,Superb blog post dude! i’m Fed up with using RSS feeds and do you use twitter?so i can follow you there:D.
PS:Have you thought putting video to this web site to keep the readers more interested?I think it works.Sincerely, Violeta Hoffpavir
You may have not intended to do so, but I think you have managed to express the state of mind that a lot of people are in. The sense of wanting to help, but not knowing how or where, is something a lot of us are going through.
Valuable information and excellent design you got here! I would like to thank you for sharing your thoughts and time into the stuff you post!! Thumbs up
I am happy to find so many useful information here in the post, we need develop more strategies in this regard, thanks for sharing. . . . . .
Bookmarked your site. Thank you for sharing. Definitely worth the time away from the books.
Thank you for your post and great suggestion on the video. I will likely be doing this in the near future.
hey,this is Long Nitterhouse,just discovered your Blog on google and i must say this blog is great.may I quote some of the Post found in your post to my local people?i am not sure and what you think?in either case,Thank you!
Sure, I’d just ask that you link back to my site. Thanks for your comments.
Hi there, I found your blog via Google while searching for first aid for a heart attack and your post looks very interesting for me.
Hello,this is Jessica Kozloski,just observed your Blog on google and i must say this blog is great.may I quote some of the article found in the web site to my local buddies?i am not sure and what you think?in any case,Thank you!
That is very sublime stuff. Never new that beliefs could be this varied. Thanks for all the enthusiasm to extend such helpful information at this site.
Awesome post, I’m a huge believer in commenting on blogs and forums to assist the blog creators know that they have created something of worth to the cyberspace!
It’s a wonderful web page of yours. I surfed by and discovered it really informative. Bookmarked and assess you back again in a while
Your write-up was incredibly attention grabbing and was just what I was searching for.
If you don’t mind me asking I just wanted to get the scoop on what is the difference between blogenenigne and wordpress blogs? Is it easier to use or more efficient? I amseeing a lot of blogs powered by this software popping up lately and wondering if it is better or not? Thanks…
Thanks for your comment. I am not familiar with blogenenigne so I can’t comment about that. I do like WordPress. It’s an easy CMS to use, especially for blogs.
There is obviously a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points in Features also.
Search Engine Optimization is , in reality, quite easy and your guidelines will surely help any Internet Marketeter. Definitely bookmarked!
Thank you for your comments. I appreciate it. David
Wow! Thank you! I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog?
Thanks for your encouragement. If there are ideas that you find useful, by all means use them. Obviously I’d love a mention.
thanks, very well written post, found it through a random google search and i shared it on my facebook
I saw this page bookmarked and really liked it. I will certainly bookmark it as well and read your other articles tonight.
seo powa. Thank you very much
this page is exactly what i’ve been searching for! found this blog bookmarked from a friend of mine. I will also share it. Thanks again!
I just wanted to let you know, I actually like the piece of writing on your website. But I am employing Firefox on a machine running version 9.10 of Crashbang Ubuntu and the design aren’t quite satisfying. Not a important deal, I can still fundamentally read the articles and research for information, but just wanted to inform you about that. The navigation bar is kind of difficult to apply with the config I’m running. Keep up the good work!
I appreciate your comments and your willingness to share. Thanks!