Help Customers Help You

I'm hearing much buzz recently about Dove's successful extension of their "Campaign for Real Beauty". Others have already enshrined this 75-second video called "Dove Evolution" as the most powerful use of Web 2.0 by a traditional advertiser ever, so I won't bore you with further adulation. Suffice it to say Dove will end up selling a lot more product for a lot of years as a result of this fairly modest effort.

Can you do something similar for your business?

• Can you get people saying nice things about your company and your products?
• Can you help people see your company as honest and open and transparent?
• Can you create ways for consumers to prefer your store because of how you give them a feeling of being in control?

Yes, of course you can.

• Reward customers with unexpected kindnesses. (we have some great ideas for this)
• Reward repeat customers even more lavishly
• Encourage customers to write testimonials, and let them know when theirs is published.
• Add product reviews to your website, then actively solicit customers to write reviews.
• Give your customers good information for free
• If customers consistently cancel orders because you gloss over some key fact in your store (like shipping times), then make that policy clear, even if you feel it puts you in a poor light.

Notice none of these involve posting video on YouTube. They do, however, encourage customers to like you and share their positive feelings with others. That's the whole point of successfully leveraging customer voices in your marketing.