Loyal customers are vitally important during difficult economic times like we’re currently experiencing because they’re less expensive to sell to: you don’t have to spend weeks sometimes months building credibility because they’re already sold.

But what if your business is relatively new and you just don’t have many customers who are coming back yet? Or what if you just lost several of your business customers and you need to cultivate new relationships?

Can you do something to accelerate the process of turning casual customers into raving fans who sing your praises?

Enter the art of creating a fully satisfying customer experience.

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A Satisfying Experience is the Key
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A “satisfying customer experience” means that the many ways that your customers interact with and use your products are designed to satisfy in a meaningful way.

This goes far beyond solving the customer’s basic problem.

And this is where the magic can happen.

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Dimensions of a Fully Satisfying Experience
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Customer experience is all about “how” a problem is being solved. And this “how” can be broken down into different types of experience including:

The more of these dimensions that are touched in an appropriate way, the more satisfying your customer’s experience will be.

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Customer Experience: Albuquerque Turkey
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I can’t think of a better product that we can all relate to than food so I’ll talk about my experience at Spinelli’s Market, a local deli/grocery store to which I love going–especially for their awesome sandwiches.

Although Spinelli’s sells some mainstream brands of snacks and soft drinks, the best parts of the store are the aisles of imported Italian foods, pastas, sauces, and olive oil and the deli counter where they sell salads and cut to order deli meats.

The awesome sandwiches are made at the deli counter in the back of the store.

You give your sandwich order along with your choice of sides (pickle, a deli salad or fresh fruit or chips) to one of the guys working behind the counter and they make your sandwich while you wait.

I usually use the time to browse through the stores aisles and pick something to drink.

When your sandwich is ready, the counter guy will call your name. You then take your sandwich wrapped in white butcher paper along with whatever else you’re buying to the front to pay.

Sometimes I eat my sandwich in the store at one of the little metal tables in the front and sometimes I take my sandwich home.

Those sandwiches always make an impression. Every time I’ve brought a family member or a friend or a business associate to Spinelli’s for sandwiches, they will ask from that time forward “when are we going to that great sandwich place again?”

Spinelli’s sandwiches are a great example of a supremely satisfying experience. Here’s why:

My heart feels full too because I’ve eaten something prepared with thought and care and because buying lunch from a local business is contributes to the health of the community I live in.

Now take a moment and compare this experience with visiting a big franchise place like Subway or Taco Bell.

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Creating a More Satisfying Experience for Your Customers
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So what about your business, what can you do to create a more fulfilling, satisfying experience with your prospects and customers?

Here are four steps I recommend to get you started.

=== Step #1 Remember Why You Started a Business to Begin with

Before jumping into the specifics, I think it’s important to take a moment to remember why you started your own business. Was it because:

And make sure your heart is fully engaged too. When your heart is fully engaged you enable customers to engage with their hearts as well.

=== Step #2 Ask Yourself, “How is the Reason Behind my Business Showing Up in My Products and Services?”

If you started your business because you care deeply or have a passion or have a true innovation, I imagine it’s showing up in the products and services you offer. Even without deliberate effort.

Take a look at what you currently sell and in what ways is the care and love for your business showing up in your products and services.

For example, the Spinelli family supports the Slow Food movement, a grass roots movement which encourages people to eat locally grown and produced whole foods.

In addition to sandwiches, the Spinelli family produces and markets a line of Italian sauces and sells made-from-scratch entrees that busy customers can heat and eat at home.

=== Step #3 Ask Yourself, “Are There Ways Customers Can Experience More of What We Care About?”

My guess is that if you sell something special, your customers know.

But if you aren’t talking about what goes into creating your products and services, they may not know how to articulate this difference to other people.

If this is the case, you and your customers are missing an opportunity for word of mouth marketing.

For example, one of my clients creates girls dresses using patterns and fabrics from the 1950′s and 1960′s. I love her work because the dresses are cute without being frilly or fussy.

But there are lots of cute kids clothing lines out there. I felt her products were something special

I suggested to her, as part of her marketing, to share the story behind how she found the pattern and why it appealed to her.

Her stories are funny and entertaining and they help store owners who carry her lines and the customers who buy the outfits feel involved in something special and unique.

=== Step #4 Choose One Small Change to Make so Customers Feel More Engaged and Satisfied

By far, the easiest change you can make is to tell your story to customers so they understand why you have the business you have and sell the products and services you sell.

Sharing your story helps people feel more engaged and satisfied for several reasons:

(1.) They have a way to articulate to others a reason for trying your products and services. Referring others helps your customers look good to others and you want to make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

(2.) It allows customers to feel like a part of something larger. When you share your story those who share your experience or point of view find a kindred spirit to be with.

(3.) Stories are easy to understand and remember because they touch us not only intellectually but emotionally. Human beings seem “pre-wired” to absorb and integrate information that comes in narrative form.

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Bottom Line
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To create more raving fans it’s important to understand what makes your products and services uniquely satisfying to current customers.

This satisfying experience goes beyond simply solving a problem… a satisfying experience engages the senses and emotions as your customers use your products and services.

Four steps I recommend for creating a more satisfying experience are:

1. Think back to why you started your business to begin with

2. Ask whether that reason is reflected in the products and services you sell

3. Find ways in which your clients can experience what makes your products and services special

4. Find an opportunity to tell a story and more fully engage your Customers

Author’s Note: This article also published here.

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Judy Murdoch helps small business owners create low-cost, effective marketing campaigns using word-of-mouth referrals, guerrilla marketing activities, and selected strategic alliances. To download a free copy of the workbook, “Where Does it Hurt? Marketing Solutions to the problems that Drive Your Customers Crazy!” go to http://www.judymurdoch.com/workbook.htm

You can contact Judy at 303-475-2015 or judy@judymurdoch.com

Read more articles written by Judy Murdoch

Same as it Ever Was

At its core, online marketing follows the same principles as any other means of marketing – a provider has a product or service they wish to sell, so they advertise in order to draw potential customers’ attention to the information they’ve put together. Just like television commercials, online marketing has to be creative and informative to truly catch the attention of the discerning customer. We’ve all heard of popup and banner ads that do nothing but hog resources and annoy potential customers rather than attract them to the product, and that result is hardly healthy for any business.

And Now for Something Completely Different

One method that sidesteps the click-away tendency is the use of a blog to market the product. Blog is a shorthand term for web log, and refers to a serial, online journal or record intended for regular viewing. Examples of blogs include noncommercial ventures such as personal diaries posted to Livejournal, the daily record of campaign events for the more tech-savvy politicians, and ‘hobby’ blogs that cover an activity such as cooking or model airplanes. However, they can also include outright commercial ventures, such as a blog intended to promote a new product, consisting solely of video posts explaining the various advantages to the new product.

It’s Easier Than Herding Cats

Some blogs strike a balance between these two extremes. Consider the highly successful LoLCats website. This site began solely as a hobby, posting humorous images of cats. However, due to effective word of mouth promotion among people with similar interests, the site grew quickly, spinning off additional sites and generating an extraordinary amount of advertising revenue. The site has grown so much that Time magazine reported the company was purchased for two million dollars in 2007.

Now, this result is obviously not the norm. For every cheezburger success story, there are thousands of blogs that toil on in obscurity, accomplishing nothing at all. The differences can be many, but they can be boiled down to concerns relating to effective marketing.

Give it the Old College Try

Let’s say that a user named Ron has a passion for low budget college cooking, and wishes to make money writing about it. Ron starts a small blog, using the popular WordPress blogging system, and begins posting two or three times a day. He posts recipes, money saving ideas, and ‘bet you didn’t know’ material, building a decent sized archive. To get an audience, Ron begins visiting and participating in cooking and college related forums, mentioning his blog and its goals to his audience, gathering new users with patient, active efforts.

Eventually, Ron takes two steps toward commercial success when he monetizes the blog through an advertising revenue program (such as Google’s AdSense), and by using the blog to promote his new eBook, “Collegiate Cuisine”. To hook readers, he promises not only recipes he’s already included on the site, but special tips on inexpensive ways to get cooking tools and a few new recipes he hasn’t shared yet.

Will this model work? Perhaps. If Ron is too pushy, he might turn people off to his product before they ever come to his site. If he’s too timid, his message will get lost in the tide of the Internet. If he chooses poorly in the ads he allows on his site, users won’t click and the ads will generate no money. So the second key is research and careful attention. Ron and other blogging marketers have to study the market, pay attention to peoples’ needs and input, and adjust their presentation accordingly.

But is There Any Money in it?

To return to the point that there is money to be made in blogging, one would be remiss not to pay attention to the successful Problogger. In the classic ‘make money teaching others to make money,’ tradition, this is a blog that makes its revenue by teaching users how to make money through professional blogging. Many other sites, such as FreelanceWritingGigs, swear to Problogger’s integrity and efficacy and the site does provide a great deal of information. So there clearly IS money to be made in the blogging-as-marketing world.

Back to the Basics

The key to blog marketing is the same key to any business venture, appropriateness. The savvy businessman will evaluate their entire business, and do the research to determine if blogging is a vital addition to what they’re trying to accomplish. Blogging allows for a wider audience than local advertising, which could lead to expanding into nearby cities, or shipping to distant locales. It is an option that should seriously be examined, and approached with the same degree of research and caution as any business venture or proposal.

Article also published here.

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Enzo F. Cesario is a Copywriter and co-founder of Brandsplat. Brandcasting uses informative content and state-of-the-art internet distribution and optimization to build links and drive the right kind of traffic to your website. Go to http://www.Brandsplat.com/ or visit our blog at: http://www.brandsplatblog.com/

Read more articles written by Enzo F. Cesario