Multi-dimensional customer interactions
As they say, variety is the spice of life. When interacting with your target market, variety in the methods and means of communicating with customers and prospects is the spice of successful marketing and, in the end, a catalyst for improving top-line revenues.
This mind map depicts a simplified multi-dimensional approach to communicating and interacting with customers and prospects. This approach uses a variety of methods and media to communicate with a targeted audience, while also providing that audience with a variety of valuable information designed to educate that audience with regard to how you can address their current and future needs.
Multi-dimensional customer interaction campaigns consist of three main components:
- Multiple communication vehicles are used.
- Instead of sales hype, all communications contain useful information designed to educate the recipient.
- Communication occurs regularly, systematically and over a long period of time.
Multiple communication vehicles are used to communicate with the target audience. Individuals respond differently to various modes of communication. To reach diverse personality types, companies must communicate with their target audiences using a variety of communication vehicles, including face-to-face meetings, phone calls, email (both person-to-person as well as email blasts), website/blog and direct mail. Not only do individuals respond differently to each of these communication vehicles, but each of the different vehicles reinforce each other. Just as learning approaches that address multiple senses (sight, sound, touch) reinforce learning, so too does a multi-dimensional communication approach reinforce the information that you are conveying to your customers and prospects.
Instead of sales hype, all communications contain useful information designed to educate the recipient. The form and type of information is specifically targeted to the needs of the individual if the needs are known. If the needs are not known, then the form and type of information are varied over time so that at one or more points the provided information addresses the specific needs of the recipient. Perhaps one month you can talk about “Pain A” or “Solution X” with a specific audience, then next month talk about “Pain B” or “Solution Y.” Some communication recipients might respond to “Pain A”, while others respond to “Solution Y.”
Communication occurs regularly, systematically and over a long period of time. First of all, it takes time for prospects – and even customers, who probably don’t know all that you provide – to get to know you. Secondly, the customer or prospect may not have a need today that you can address, but could have a need that arises in the future. I hear stories all the time about customers and prospects who neglected to call a company simply because they were “out of sight, out of mind” or because the individual was not aware that the company could provide a needed solution.
The marketing and selling process is all about educating the potential customer. There’s no use in forcing the customer to buy from you if they don’t have a need (or at least perceive that they don’t have a need). However, a need that your company is able to address can arise at any time for a customer or prospect, and it’s the job of the salesperson and marketer to continue the education process and maintain visibility with a customer or prospect until an actual need arises. By using a multi-dimensional customer interaction approach, you can increase dramatically the odds that a customer or prospect recognizes that they have a need and makes the connection that you have a solution to address that need.