Guest Post from Chris Doster from Digital Response Marketing Group
As a “newbie” to the digital marketing space, I may only have a “surface level” comprehension of this ever evolving profession, but I know my customers…
Since the days of dial-up AOL and old school cell phones with plans that required a bank loan, I’ve been marketing products and services to the medical device industry about as far back as when Gates and Jobs (R.I.P) were just getting started..
I might be a dinosaur when compared to “digital strategists” of the modern day new media, but some things will never change. One constant, in my humble opinion, is the fact that with all the high-tech “reaching out” methodologies and social channels that exist to make companies more engaging, and accessible, is that the CUSTOMER, still rules…
Now as a guest columnist, I don’t mean to ruffle any virtual feathers here, but since the dawn of the “world wide web”, those of you with the secret skills of “I.T” haven’t always been the most popular staff members in the office. Much like the respected yet confusing golf pro, it often seems that the “geeks” that create software, apps and sites and make them tick, make many customers go “blink, blink” with blank stares like a “South Park” Character.
You might proclaim to the customer that you have the “golden ticket” to traffic, conversions, and “conversations”, but you still get “the look”
So do I have all the answers for the fledgling social media marketer, of course not. But this much I do know; I am your target audience. I know enough to be dangerous in regards to “search and social”, but you all play a game I am not familiar with…
From my experience, the majority of business owners are way too busy making payroll and making a marketable product. To assume they understand your business would be assuming you know theirs….do you?
My simple suggestion would be to consider what I was taught back in the dark ages of that lost art of face-to-face sales calls. Combine the “high tech” with a bit of “high touch” and remember that people buy from people.
All the “CMS” tools and knowledge you may drop on a client, all the technical jargon and “buzz words” may make you appear as the “King” (or Queen) of the Digital marketing world. But if you forget that “nothing happens until there’s a sale”, and that making a connection with your prospect is your most important tool, you just might forget that “Customers” still rule…
