Forums are great for learning, sharing of ideas, and generally
masterminding with peers, but give some thought to the impact
they can have on your lead generation efforts, as well as
on your customer relationship management activities.
Joining an active forum can significantly accelerate your
rate of learning – whether you are a newbie or an experienced
practitioner.
For newbies - even if you merely ‘lurk’ in the
shadows and don’t post on your forums - you will learn
a lot by reading questions by others, and the helpful replies
by experienced forum members.
The benefit for the experienced members can be thought of
as a web version of masterminding - ideas can be shared and
validated, and various techniques can be discussed with peers – often
on different continents and in different time zones – something
not nearly as feasible in the physical world.
Apart from the information sharing and networking that forums
offer, they have the potential to both positively and negatively
impact your marketing efforts, levels of customer satisfaction,
and the overall sentiments towards your customer relationship
management.
The remainder of this article will give you some ideas as
to how you can use forums in a positive way to improve your
marketing initiatives. A follow-up article (Forum Perils
for Customer Relationship Management) will cover how to avoid
the negative impact forums can have on your business.
Forums can positively impact your marketing strategy and
initiatives in the following way:
* Conduct Market Research / Investigate Market Reputation
Search engines make it so easy to research what is being
said about both your products, as well as those of your competitors.
Simply type in the name of the product of service you want
to research, followed by ‘comments’, ‘review’, ‘scam’,
or any other relevant term. Within seconds you will have
a list of website reviews, blog postings, and forum comments.
Ignore the first two (many are by affiliates just punting
the product hoping to earn a fee) – the ones to read
are the forum conversations, where you will invariably get
some pretty honest feedback – good or bad – about
the product.
If you get some glowing comments in public/membership forums
for your products, contact the individuals to see if you
can post these as testimonials. Negative comments should
also be reacted to – once again, contact the individuals
and see if you can rectify the situation. Often a ‘fixed’ bad
experience can convert a vocal detractor into a fan – most
people can tolerate a mistake, what makes them irate is when
you ignore them, or pretend that no problem or grievance
exists.
* Customer Relationship Management – use for Satisfaction
Tracking
If your business markets a product to quite a large user
base, it makes marketing sense to set up a product-specific
forum, and actively promote the forum to your customer base.
Once active, the postings by your customers will give you
a good indication of the overall sentiment towards your product,
as well as your service levels. Prospects can also use the
forums as a gauge of product popularity and level of active
support.
Your forum will also provide you with a communication channel
to your customer base. You can use it to conduct quick polls – essentially
a free customer relationship management alternative to paid-for
satisfaction audits by market research firms.
* New Product Ideas / Launches
Whether your website has a forum or not, it is worthwhile
to join a couple of the more active forums related to your
market. By monitoring questions, complaints, and cries for
help, you can possibly identify the need for new products
or services. A forum can also be a no-cost way to launch
a pilot for a new product or service. You can get some early
sign-ups/purchases without a major investment in marketing,
and at the same time use the opportunity to get some quick
testimonials.
* Positioning As An Expert / Attracting Traffic
Beyond merely identifying needs, you can use these forum
questions as an opportunity to position yourself as a helpful
expert. To do this, you need to monitor the most active threads
(gets the most readership), and where you have the expertise,
provide quality responses to posed questions. This will help
grow your reputation over time.
If you ensure that your signature includes your website
address – preferably with a short tagline indicating
your USP – this can prove to be a very useful method
for lead generation, and importantly, one that delivers qualified
prospects.
If you notice frequently repeated newbie questions, consider
setting up a FAQ section on your site, and then direct the
enquirer to the page, rather than providing a comprehensive
answer in the forum.
* Finding JV partners
Monitoring active forums has another positive marketing
spin off - it will help you identify potential JV partners.
In the same way you are being assessed as to your expert
know-how, you can use the postings by your peers to identify
those with whom it would make sense to explore setting up
joint ventures. This could get you access to mailing lists
that you currently do not have, and in so doing, significantly
broaden your marketing reach.
If you are adding an online component to your offline business,
or starting to investigate an online business opportunity,
consider how you can incorporate the points listed above.
For those suggestions that have a nice fit with your market,
make a decision to take action and include them in your marketing
activities. By actively and consistently applying these forum
tactics you will find that both your lead generation and
customer relationship management initiatives will be far
more productive.
© 2005 Intellinova (Pty) Ltd. - All Rights Reserved
For the past 20 years, Jeff Walters has been transforming
raw business data into profit-producing strategic information
in various data intensive sectors- banking, insurance, gambling,
medical, government.
He has lead several data-to-information projects: ABC Costing,
analytical CRM, datamart /data warehouse development, and
Balanced Scorecard.
Jeff can be contacted through: http://www.IntelliNova.com,
or http://www.SystematicDirectMarketing.com
This article may be reprinted, provided it is published
in its entirety, includes the author bio information, and
all links remain active.
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