How Multi-Channel Marketing Increases Your FAN Factor

“Once your fans become engaged, loyal and utterly rabid about your brand, they start doing the selling and marketing for you.”

This is a beautiful thought, isn’t it? It’s a phrase that I use regularly in my books, my presentations, and even occasionally in my enewsletter. The thought that you could have customers who are so loyal to your business that they do the marketing and selling for you is something many business owners only ever dream about.

Of course, that’s also the hitch in this phrase–it’s a motivating thought…but how do you get there?

Let me start by saying that there is so much noise on the internet these days about how a person can make six figures in a month or how you can make your email sign-ups explode. You get sucked into buying courses or attending webinars and conferences, but you don’t actually learn anything. Thankfully, getting engaged, loyal, and utterly rabid fans isn’t difficult–it just takes time, personalization, and customization.

Some people on the internet would have you believe that you can start making six figures overnight. Maybe someone out there can. Maybe you’ve heard a story of this happening. I’m not saying it’s impossible, I’m just sharing the cold, hard fact that for most of us building that perfect customer base isn’t going to be easy. However, it IS going to be rewarding. How do you build it? There are a lot of different approaches, but I happen to be a fan of the approach I often refer to as The Fan Factor.

The Fan Factor operates differently than does the traditional direct sales pitch. With the conventional approach, the more you try to sell and market directly to your target audience, the more your audience is going to tune you out. What we want is for your audience to come to you–for inbound marketing to take place. I like to use my StichFix example to explain this in greater detail:

I first became aware of StitchFix from sponsored Facebook ads. Then I noticed some of my Facebook friends were raving fans posting photos of fabulous outfits they’d purchased from the service. I resisted signing up for several months but eventually the Facebook retargeting ads, Pinterest pins, and my friends’ raving fan posts wore me down. Now I am a loyal customer and it has transformed the way I shop for clothes.

There were a few things at work before the sale to me took place. Let’s revisit them.

• You’ll note that I was originally made aware of StichFix through sponsored ads on Facebook–but it didn’t convince me to try it. That’s because while Facebook is a great way to build awareness, few people on Facebook are in “buy” mode when they’re browsing their newsfeeds.

• By using multi-channel marketing (using more than one marketing resource to capture attention of a specific audience) to showcase services rather than try to sell services, my interest was peaked. For some people, that’s enough to try something. These are the leads you want to nurture into FANS.

• You’ll notice it wasn’t until I got some WOM (word of mouth) convincing that I actually made the StitchFix plunge.

in today’s over stimulated world without being pushy. The good news is that there are multi-channel marketing solutions available for a variety of budgets, so this is a strategy that any business owner, big or small, can use to their advantage.

Multi-channel marketing is just one method you can use to start building your audience from scratch. Keep in mind that every business–even the really successful ones–probably started out with ZERO fans. While it’s understanding that you want your business to be successful right now, it takes careful planning and unique marketing to get there.

Categorised in: Digital Marketing, FANtastic Marketing Tips