The trend in marketing towards personalization and giving your audience what they want, transcends just content. It needs to permeate your interactions with them. If you don’t take their preferences into account, there is always someone who will and when they do, it reflects poorly on your efforts no matter how well thought out they are.
Creating content your audience is interested in is easy enough. But you also need to give them information they find valuable in the format they want it in.
Let’s take your local currency program, for instance. Is it online? Why not? Do people need to stop by your chamber to purchase gift certificates? Why add the extra layer of friction for people who want to sit in the comfort of their home and order them from you?
It’s not hard or expensive to implement an online solution for your local currency program.
If They Ask Online, Don’t Give Them Paper
Serving your customers in their preferred way sometimes means doing things outside of the way you’ve always done them. The other day, a purchaser of chamber bucks posted on their local chamber’s Facebook page asking what businesses were in the chamber bucks program. They had money to spend and wanted to know where they could do it.
The first thing the chamber should’ve recognized was this person was reaching out to them on social media. They posted in the middle of the day on a weekday. They could’ve called the chamber or stopped in for the information but they didn’t. It’s safe to assume online is their preferred method of communication.
The local chamber got back to them right away, which was great. Who doesn’t love an immediate response? However, they followed this immediate response with an answer of “Come in and we’ll give you a list.”
This chamber failed to connect with their constituent in the method they’d prefer. The chamber did it the way they’ve always done it — on a piece of paper. The chamber could’ve easily posted a list or an attachment of participating merchants to the Facebook page or their website and directed the person there. Instead they placed the onus on the person to come to them for the information they needed.
This inconvenience will be remembered.
Reach your community in the method they’d prefer. This often means providing information in multiple ways. While that seems like more work for you, your constituents will appreciate getting the information they want, how they want it.
