Marketing your business is necessary, of course, but do you want to know what's even smarter? When your customers market your business for you.
I'm not talking about 'word of mouth' or a referral system.
I'm hinting at an affordable and often organic marketing process involving one of the most effective and powerful communication mediums available: the photograph.
While videos are gaining serious marketing street cred, images are still king on social media these days. It is pretty rare to see a Facebook status update in pure text without an accompanying photo of a friend's meal at lunch, driver's seat good hair-day selfie, or drooling baby.
People love to share images, especially of themselves doing something interesting.
How do you harness the power of your customers through shareable images? You play on the modern narcissistic need for many to appear playful, colourful, and interesting to the world.
If you provide the canvas for people to present themselves on, you've just enabled a team of marketers to work for you and your business for free. This process creates, what is called in the marketing world, social proof. Social proof is when customers willingly document their interaction with a product and then share the experience with their personal networks.
Consider the local outdoor furniture business Decked Out Home & Patio on Cowart Road.
They have truly mastered this game for a Father's Day contest they are running on Facebook.
They have a giant red Adirondack deck chair on their premises which the very nimble can climb and sit in for what makes an incredible photo op.
This chair has got it all: it clearly demonstrates the nature of the business, it is colourful and fun, and it allows the customer to directly engage with the business in a feel-good way. Photos taken by visitors are shared to various networks and on many social media platforms thus exponentially increasing the reach of Decked Out's profile.
This chair seriously warrants its own hashtag #bigredchair on Twitter.
There are lots of ways to encourage your customers to interact with your product, business or organization in a shareable manner.
Consider a mascot, a backdrop, or a sculpture if it makes sense for your business. Even a bright outdoor wall mural could become a photo draw to pedestrians.
Creativity is at the heart of customer engagement. Consider what kind of visual validation is most suitable for your business and then look for photographically stimulating ways to present your product for customer engagement.
Keep it simple yet aesthetically bold. Make it irresistible and obviously built for interaction.
Finally, don't forget to provide customers with instructions on how to share, tag and mark their photographic interaction with your business online.
Until next week, stay in the black and keep coming back.
