Our Overflow Podcast this week centers around possible dangers that could occur by implementing social media tactics, when the offering isn’t ready for the rapid word of mouth distribution of the message.
Cameron and Joe set the stage for the discussion as it relates to a former client who had hired us to help with their marketing efforts. We had immediately assessed their need for a re-branding and re-positioning strategy in order to achieve their stated goal of reaching an entirely new demographic. This tourism / destination site had seen a steady decline in attendance as their core clientele had simply continued to get older.
We addressed their graphics standards and decisions regarding marketing materials, attempting to migrate them towards development of email databases. As things would transpire, budgets were impacted and our services were no longer contracted.
In today’s environment using social media, we were lamenting the fact that the account would be very exciting to work on again since there is so much interesting content available for distribution via cost effective social channels.
However, it was pointed out to us and is the main point of this discussion … we were also trying to push them into addressing overall operational issues of the facility to ensure that the expectation levels were met once we reached that new audience, and persuaded them to attend an event on the property.
There is only one chance to make a good first impression, and if there are serious flaws in the operation it doesn’t matter how good the communication is, you will potentially lose that customer forever. At the very least it will take considerably more effort to win the customer back for a second visit.
In this case, we can envision the damaging potential from the key demographic for achieving long term success, which also mirrors early adopters of social networking, who would arrive on site but then quickly disseminate negative and disparaging information about the poor services and tired physical plant.
The key take away from this line of thinking is to make sure that you have addressed all of your serious issues regarding your offering BEFORE embarking on a social media campaign to attract new customers!
The opening and closing theme for the Overflow Podcast is called Showdown at the Bridge, by Eric Dietrich.
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