Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

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August 30, 2010

3 Key Strategies and 3 Crucial Insights to Growing Business on the Social Web

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 8:06 am

What to Keep and What It Means Now

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At the Social Media Masters Summit, I spoke about three crucial business growth strategies.

  1. Make an irresistible offer. Remove things that customers don’t want. Enhance and expand what they love. Then find ways to add in extraordinary value that only you can provide.
  2. Grow products and services as you grow (and get to know) your customer base. Review. Revise. Repackage. Be on a continual cycle of offering something new for old customers and something revised or repackaged to new customers. Avoid dying by offering old product to old customers for too long. Avoid the huge risk and expense of building something new for a whole new market — dividing your resources while trying to attract people to something new.
  3. Value loyal customers. We never recover the lost of replacing one who deserts the fold. The loss of revenue over time is high and noticeable. When it is combined with the opportunity loss, the cost of acquiring a new customer, and the negative word of mouth (the average deserter tells three friends) the impact is huge.

I also spoke about three key insights we need to fully leverage the speed and reach of the social web …

  1. Solution is the new location. Once it was important to be at the corner of State and Main. Now it’s important to be at the top of a search engine when people type in a problem they’re looking to solve.
  2. The attention economy requires a clear message sent to a clearly defined customer group. The social web makes it easier to amplify our message and to reach out to the ideal customers and partners we want to attract. In geographically limited marketplace, we could claim to serve a less-clarified market, because the community was limited. The loss of limits leaves a lack of definition in a position to be entirely overlooked. The value proposition for a specific niche is what makes us different from all other competitor’s on the web.
  3. Narrowing a niche widens opportunity. Geography no longer limits our community and customer base. A clear narrow niche works like a laser beam to focus attention on what we offer and our best value proposition for the ideal customers that we’re trying to attract.
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No wonder the social web has become such a revolution. Once a brick and mortar store could count on a limited number ideal customers and be required to offer products and services beyond their needs to less ideal customers just to survive. The freedom of the Internet offers us an opportunity to choose the exact ideal customer base we want to serve. We can hone and tailor our products and offers to reach out with intention, knowing that the world market has far more customers of that description than any single geographic location ever could.

It’s the beauty of direct mail with out the cost of the catalogs … without the long development time between offers and seasons.

What businesses do you see demonstrating that they understand the reach of Internet? Not many I bet.
How are you leveraging the opportunity that the social web represents?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Filed under Marketing, Successful Blog | 9 Comments »




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9 Comments to “3 Key Strategies and 3 Crucial Insights to Growing Business on the Social Web”

  1. August 30th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
    Jen said

    You’re so smart, Liz! These are all such solid concepts. I especially like the one about narrowing your niche- what would you say to someone that feels they have an ever-changing niche? Is that possible?

  2. August 30th, 2010 at 10:02 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Jen,
    I’d say look for what all of the “moving niches” have in common. I bet there’s something consistent in there.
    If you can define THAT people will find it easier to attach to you and to tell others about you.

  3. August 31st, 2010 at 12:03 am
    Melanie Kissell said

    As I read through this eloquent post, your words were forming a vision of chiseling away at a beautiful piece of stone to create an exquisite sculpture.

    Social media venues, most assuredly, obliterate barriers.

    Exemplary post and thank you!
    Melanie

  4. August 31st, 2010 at 9:36 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Melanie,
    Thank you for your beautiful comment.
    We work together to reach out to each other connecting in new ways. We’re building communities in a new space in asynchronous time. Location has become where we are today.

    thank you. You are not a stranger. :)

  5. September 4th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
    Laura said

    These are such wonderful points! Something for bloggers, and businesses to think about when trying to reach their crowd on the web. I know that when I search for a company or question through google I typically stick to the top 5 links that come up – I rarely venture away from the 1st page on answers! How can businesses make sure they are near the top of the list??

    Also, I check sites (like Yelp!) before heading to restaurants for reviews and menus. Have you discussed reputation management on your blog? (I have only read a few of your recent posts – but you’re no longer a stranger to me!). If not, that may be a good topic. I recently read this blog article about reputation management: http://jsncafe.com/2010/08/managing-your-reputation-one-post-at-a-time/

    It was very helpful in my learning of social media and how important the little things are!

    Enjoy the Labor Day weekend!!

  6. September 4th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Laura,
    Welcome and thanks for taking the time to leave your thoughts and insights here.
    Being findable and in the right ways is important … being findable by the people we want to work with and who help our businesses thrive is survival. We’re learning every day how to get connected to the folks who make a positive difference in our lives.

  7. September 19th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
    Liz Strauss – Be Irresistible said

    [...] 3 Key Strategies and 3 Crucial Insights to Growing Business on the Social Web (successful-blog.com) Posted in Guests [...]

  8. January 3rd, 2011 at 2:22 am
    mcx tips said

    Hello,
    I have read your article and found it very interesting. I was wondering what kind of advice you would give to someone who wants to develop a product, but is not 100 percent sure if it will work out. It’s very expensive to build a prototype and get it started.
    Thank you, Strauss

  9. January 3rd, 2011 at 5:26 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi mcx,
    The best thing you can do is talk with the people that will be your main customer group. Tell them your ideas and ask them what they would want such a product to do for them and what they would be willing to pay fhat. If it’s an outstanding idea, you might even be able to get some to pay at a pre-launch price.

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