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Transform Your Brand’s Customer Experience

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Have you figured out that bringing a new customer into your business and keeping that customer as an active member of your roster are two different marketing functions? I’m sure you have! Freelance professionals must build and guide the entire arc of the sales process, from reassuring prospects who’d like to discuss follow-up questions about the capabilities of your service or product, to developing an efficient and welcoming onboarding procedure for new customers, to devising post-sale services or training that anticipates the type of support that will be helpful. Really, B2B selling is about presenting a positive customer experience at relevant (but not necessarily every) touchpoint.

It is well-known that B2B customer expectations are rising as they become more selective about vendors they trust and where they spend their highly scrutinized budgets. It may be too harsh to say that B2B customers have become jaded, demanding and fickle, but many are confronted with dozens of sales pitches in an average week as vendors compete for attention. But there is good news: 1.) You know that a well-designed and implemented customer experience matters to those with whom you do business; and 2.) It’s possible to distinguish your brand from competitors by delivering an exceptional customer experience (CX). In fact, a first-rate CX, as your market segment defines it, is one of the most powerful business growth accelerators and brand builders available today.

As products and services become more indistinguishable, and proliferate into a mass of “me, too” offerings, Freelancers and other business owners are in search of meaningful competitive advantages and CX has emerged as a potential deciding factor that can impact either customer loyalty or customer churn. Freelancers will do well to examine how your customer experience operates in real time, so that you can identify any lapses, improve efficiencies and create a consistently reliable and seamless experience that represents the best of your brand. Read on to learn the steps you’ll take to devise a successful CX transformation.

Planning: strategy and blueprint

Break down the steps of your typical buyer’s journey as lived by a prospect, starting with determining how most prospects find you. A Word-of-Mouth referral from a colleague has been revealed as the beginning of most B2B buyer journeys—have you determined who are your most enthusiastic referral sources?

It’s also been revealed that B2B prospective buyers prefer to avoid interacting with vendors until a particular service or product appears emerges as a strong candidate. At that point, the prospect will contact chosen vendors and confirm impressions about the product or service, Finally, a decision will be made about which brands will be added to a short list for an assessment by the decision team. CX marketing experts say that in the planning phase of your CX transformation, you should answer three questions:

  • What do you want customers to feel or how do you want them to react at the most important moments in their buyer’s journey your brand?
  • What behaviors or decisions influence those feelings or reactions?
  • How can you amplify or reinforce those factors that positively impact how a prospect feels or reacts to pivotal moments in your buyer’s journey?

Finally, as you devise an implementation plan blueprint for your CX transformation, keep at top-of-mind the following objectives:

  • Attract: Win more customers through distinctive value propositions and smarter targeting.
  • Serve: Deliver seamless, experiences.
  • Retain: Engage customers meaningfully at moments of genuine need to promote loyalty, repeat business and Word-of-Mouth referrals.
  • Grow: Drive sustained growth by meeting more customer needs that stimulate repeat business and referrals.

CRM Platform: the foundation

Using a Customer Relations Management platform provides many benefits, such as the ability to effectively and efficiently manage decisive aspects of customer behavior— which can reveal a better understanding of customers and give you insights into which buyer journey factors are most relevant to prospects, so that you can upgrade and transformed those experiences. With CRM, you can manage customer relationships more effectively and build a more customer-centric business. The primary benefits of using CRM include improved customer satisfaction, enhanced customer retention, increased sales efficiency, streamlined business processes and better data insights.

CRMs with AI capabilities include intelligent automation, predictive insights and AI agents that can take autonomous actions to further amplify these benefits. That data will show you a 360-degree, comprehensive view of your customers and guide you to build a personalized customer experience that will resonate. You’ll also can be positioned to develop stronger customer relationships and drive business growth—repeat business, enhanced customer lifetime value and brand advocacy that promotes loyalty.

Process: the operational aspects

What process transformation actually requires is an operating rhythm that’s advantageously timed to support each phase of the CX transformation rollout. You’ll verify the timing with performance outcome metrics, that are ideally powered by AI, so that you can evaluate customer responses. Weekly monitoring of key touchpoints such as customer engagement and drop-out rates will keep you on top of the process. When an effective process is in place, CX transformation benefits multiply. When it isn’t, you can quickly make the correcting adjustments.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Disney Food Blog. Riding the teacups at The Mad Tea Party in The Magic Kingdom Walt Disney theme park, Lake Buena Vista, FL

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Content Gets Competitive

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Freelance friend, you are a working professional who knows the environment in which you work. You know all too well that the B2B marketplace continues to become more saturated and, as one would expect, more competitive, as the years go by. B2B buying decision-makers, who are your prospects, have also become more demanding. The 2026 B2B Global Pulse Survey by McKinsey found that today’s buyers expect …consistent information and immediate access to expertise. When those expectations are not met, research shows, they move on.

In order to reach the planned revenue target, Freelance professionals, as well as small business owners and other marketers, must keep up with the growing expectations of prospective customers and get smarter about the strategies devised to promote and explain the case for using your product or service. As you do, keep in mind that your prospects have begun to consult B2B influencers to guide their buyer’s journey, as posts in this diary have recently indicated. The influencers are perceived to be both highly knowledgeable and independent. That’s a trend that will no doubt inspire you to create more authoritative content. Memorable and impactful will be your guiding stars.

B2B brands are investing more in editorial excellences, in-depth guides, and contributions from subject matter experts to provide real value.

Thought leader level content

Buyers want substantive proof of the business case that supports your service or product; enthusiastically delivered promises are not enough. Buyers are in search of informational marketing resources that ensure they’ll be able to make informed decisions when evaluating potential purchases. As a result, expectations continue to rise, making it more difficult for Freelancers to stand out as a professional who has a solution that has the potential to solve the problem or facilitate reaching the goal. Measurable outcomes and Return on Investment are prioritized, making case studies, industry reports, and original research the drivers of engagement and trust in your marketing content. Letting the quality of your supporting data confer to you thought leader style expertise is now a must-do for B2B Freelancers, because your prospects are being seduced by influencers. However, the research you quote is most likely to have been sponsored by a well-respected marketing research platform. As long as the data refers to the point you’re making, you’ll be taken as credible.

Interactive

Here’s the blistering truth—B2B buyers don’t want to talk with salespeople, as confirmed in a 2025 sales survey conducted by the business and technology research platform Gartner; 67% of B2B buyers indicated that they prefer a rep‑free experience. They’re up to here aggravated by avalanches of cold -calling mass marketing emails. Prospects on a buyer’s journey do like the opportunity to evaluate products or services anonymously by using digital tools before they engage with a vendor. Interactive explainer videos that include embedded clickable hotspots that adapt to the prospect’s learning path are a favorite resource, as are webinars that facilitate live chat and interactive infographics.

As the buyer’s journey heats up, prospects are happy to speak with a vendor (maybe you!), to confirm the self-guided research and discuss negotiable matters, such as the possibility of customization and price. To help reel in your sale, Gartner recommends the following:

  • Provide content that demonstrates your brand understands the pain points, goals, priorities, concerns and questions that prospective buyers need to make the right decision—
  • Help buyers quantify the benefits of your product or service for their organization (e.g., including solution performance data and other details). Consider creating free DIY interactive digital tools, such as interactive images, infographics, or surveys, that will help you present a memorable user experience for prospects who are on a self-guided buyer’s journey.
  • Help prospects feel confident and in control of the purchase decision (e.g., by providing a choice of tailored recommendations based on prospect input).
  • Encourage prospects to advance step by step as appropriate through their buyer’s journey by including compelling calls-to-action.

Brand storytelling

Humanizing your organization by inviting customers and prospects to get to know you is the reason to develop a brand narrative. Sharing customer success stories, divulging your motivation to become a founder and other mission-driven details can make your brand feel more relatable and relevant to current and prospective customers. Sharing relevant backstory details about your company—starting with what inspired you to launch your entity—can have enormous benefits for your business, including capturing consumers’ attention and helping you truly connect with customers. Ultimately, a strong customer relationship can help drive growth and increase sales. Brand storytelling is a marketing strategy that involves using authentic narratives to connect with your audience and build genuine emotional connections. It’s more than just promoting what you sell — it’s a way to share your values, purpose and background in a way that resonates and sticks. A company’s brand story should include certain key factors: 

  • Company mission statement: Your company mission and vision statements must be included in the telling of your brand story. You want people to support and feel connected to your company and what it stands for; not just the products or services you sell, but for your values. Ensure your company’s vision and mission statements are visibly accessible on your company website. 
  • Specifics: Include customer testimonials to verify how highly customers think of your brand. All-purpose, generic statements such “many people love our products” are just empty platitudes. Your storytelling will ring true when you mention a customer’s (first) name and describe their review in specific terms, such as, “This product saved me money and made my life easier.”
  • Simple and meaningful language: Potential customers should be able to easily read and understand your brand story in all its forms. Don’t exclude your audience by using words or phrases that are buzzwords or jargon that may not be understood and therefore will not resonate or show your authenticity. Instead, use meaningful language designed to evoke emotion and build brand intimacy.

Redesign/ reuse

Marketing experts call this “recycle-repurpose,” but I think redesign – reuse illustrates the task better. You might like to think of content creation like a traditional Sunday dinner that many American households probably still adhere to. When I was growing up, most American mothers would put a roast of some sort into the oven, peel potatoes or cook macaroni or rice, trim the spinach, shell the peas, or whatever and if energy allowed, or if guests were expected later in the afternoon, a cake or another dessert would be baked—from scratch. The kitchen would have a hunger-inducing aroma!

Like content creation, a big, traditional Sunday dinner is expensive to produce in terms of creativity, time and money. To maximize ROI, my mom cooked extra food on Sundays so that leftovers would be available for our Monday night supper. The Sunday dinner strategy can also be used to maximize the ROI of the marketing content that you create. For example, take a look at at the case studies you’ve developed. It’s almost certain that some clever editing will give you two or three sentences that can be dropped into your next newsletter or email marketing letter or become a social media post on its own. Effective repurposing of your long form content. Meaningful quotes that were first heard in a podcast, webinar, or panel that you participated in can be included in a video that gives an overview of one of those appearances. Recognize that your content is a valuable resource is an important aspect of your marketing strategy that is worthy of repackaging and is an enabler of the consistent publishing that prospects expect.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Breya Jones. Bridge tournament in Louisville, KY (2024)

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Spice It Up In September and Beyond

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Happy August! I hope you are enjoying summer, whether the season is a busy or slow one for your business entity. If taking a vacation is on your wish list, I hope that it has, or will, achieve its purpose, and allow you to see new sights or return to familiar places, have fun, recharge your energy, and lower your stress level. I also hope that you’re finding time to read at least one business book that’s helping you to sharpen your business acumen.

September and the fourth quarter will soon arrive and now is the time to consider how you can successfully position your organization to achieve a strong year-end finish. Selling a product or service is usually a challenge, especially for Freelance professionals and small business owners. B2B marketplaces are nearly always crowded, typically consisting of a handful of market leaders that are trailed by a passel of “me, too” offerings. Unless your company has a sizeable marketing budget, it can be a struggle to build and sustain marketing or branding campaigns that will heighten the perception of your value and make your product or service appear more appealing to prospects. In short, today you can begin thinking about how to identify for your business a new competitive advantage.

The time is now to assess potential strategies that can position your entity to generate higher sales revenue in the coming months and it’s entirely possible that your preferred strategy can be carried out at a comparatively modest expense. Listed below are strategy possibilities that are accessible to Freelancers and SMB owners. Keep in mind that your promotional messaging must address urgent buyer pain points. You must do more than merely being clever as a way to get attention. The purpose of whatever new strategy you implement now is to leverage the competitive advantages you plan to highlight will result in customer roster that has a higher value, increased sales revenue and an enhanced customer lifetime value.

Read on and consider what you might have the means to do to fulfill the important goal of optimizing your brand visibility and image and maximizing sales revenue and profit as we look forward to the waning days of 2026.

I. Dare to be different

How can you clearly communicate to current and potential customers that your product or service will effectively address worrisome pain points and solve problems, enable them to achieve mission-critical goals without expressing those very important strengths in boring and predictable text? Useful information should not be ignored but…brands that are competing for the same target customer group can all sound alike. Target eyeballs cannot help but glaze over. The curse of commodification can creep in as prospects wade through sound-alike sales funnels that echo chamber repeat the same sales pitch. Isn’t it time for you to dare to be different and take a brave step forward?

Caution must be exercised and controversy is to be avoided for sure. You cannot afford to turn off the potential or current customers. But by choosing the right product attribute to showcase and then creating a cheeky tagline—or short video, or catchy image—that cleverly and succinctly describes your lead attribute, you can steal the thunder of competitors and propel your brand to the head of the class. If the Boston Red Sox can win 15 games in a row during July and escape an early death that had fans and sports announcers talking about “next year” sometime around Memorial Day, you can claim the spotlight for your brand and leap to the front of the pack. The suggestions below can stir up your creativity. Just do it.

  • Use humor to reframe the perception of your offering and your entity and escape the constraints of commodification
  • Align with a cause, such as climate change or animal rights (but avoid getting preach-y)  
  • Choose a unique visual branding style. Think 1950s retro, or find inspiration in the work of well-known artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Peter Max, or Yayoi Kusama.

II. B2B influencer marketing

Another strategy that has the potential to help you separate your entity from the congested marketplace is to align with a B2B Influencer. While originally a strategy used by your B2C counterparts, competition for billable hours in the B2B sector has stimulated the acceptance of influencer marketing by those in the B2B sector, including Freelancers.

B2B influencer marketing is not a means to showcase your services or products—that’s a B2C strategy. Freelancers and SMB owners work with B2B influencer marketing specialists to increase the stature of their brand and use that professional capital to build credibility that facilitates trust and relationship-building with potential customers who, if all goes according to plan, will become paying customers. The goal of B2B influencer marketing strategies is to align your organization with recognized and respected industry thought leaders—the influencers— whose industry knowledge, reputation and loyal followers can be leveraged in your target market sectors.

The most effective B2B influencers are well-known and respected experts and regarded as thought leaders in their field. B2B influencers aren’t celebrities, but they are trusted members of influential online communities. They are also respected speakers who are regularly on podiums at industry conferences and other business events. The knowledge and experience they’ve acquired gives the influencers great authority and credibility that’s enabled them to build a sizeable, loyal and often activist following.

Based on that authority and credibility, the best B2B influencers are able to build trust and enthusiasm for brands within their community of followers. They are also known to make endorsements that can stimulate purchases made by decision-makers within the community. A brand endorsement can result in a significant number of positive reviews posted on social media platforms that are capable of creating a word-of-mouth campaign that can spread to the general public and stimulate still more purchases of your brand’s services or products.

The influencer phenomenon is a growing trend in B2B marketing. Apparently fueled by the entry of Millennial and Generation Z into stakeholder and decision-making positions, prospective buyers are increasingly more trusting of the recommendations of independent thought leaders, that is, influencers, than in the marketing content you provide. Millennials and Gen-Z are comfortable with influencers and that preference is starting to impact purchasing.

  • Increase brand awareness. By aligning with a B2B influencer with a large following in your target market, your brand will have access to a new audience of highly-engaged prospects.
  • Enhance credibility. B2B decision-makers increasingly trust industry thought leaders, sometimes more than marketing content. This trend is becoming more common as Millennial and Gen Z buyers move into stakeholder and decision-maker positions that impact purchases. Millennial and Gen-Z stakeholders and decision committee members are comfortable with influencers
  • Increase leadgen and sales. Selecting an influencer who is closely aligned with your brand values can help you reach specific groups of prospects who are highly likely to become your customers.

III. Get strategic about social media

You may not have the bandwidth to undertake a major overhaul of your presence on social media platforms, but if you take just three steps, your social media ROI will become more significant for your business.

  •  Define prospects: Successful B2B social media speaks to specific customer personae and post content that addresses their specific pain points and how your service or product will solve the problem or help achieve the goals. Enhance your leadgen and site engagement by posting content that helps decision-makers for your service or product. Make your marketing content speak to their pain points, goals
  • Meaningful messages: Create content that speaks to the value that prospective customers are looking for. Clarify your understanding of why prospects feel they need your product or service? How does your offering make their life easier?
  • .Create a content calendar. This will solve two problems for you: 1.) If there are specific times of the year that you want to post, you’ll remember to do so; and 2.) You will post consistently and give your audience fresh content that drives engagement.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Stock AI image

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Don’t Get Too Personal

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Personalized marketing defines the future of marketing. Personalized marketing has not delivered on its promise. Got it.

Personalized marketing was supposed to revolutionize how you communicate with prospects, build and strengthen relationships with customers and promote your services and products to target market segments. Its purpose is to tailor your marketing messages, customer experiences and other communication with individual customers based on their unique attributes, purchasing history and preferences. Higher customer retention rates, increased sales revenue, increased customer lifetime value and decreased customer churn are among the most valuable benefits associated with personalized marketing.

Marketers were highly enthusiastic. But then came trouble in paradise, as consumers signaled concern about the privacy of their personal information and browsing behavior, which caused some turbulence in the digital sector. A reset occurred, as certain leading internet browsers instituted a ban, or allowed users to restrict, the use of third-party cookies, the mechanism that enables tracking of online behavior. As a result, marketing leaders (and that includes Freelancers and small business owners) have had to rethink their marketing personalization strategies, just when they were wrapping their heads around Customer Relations Management software and how Artificial Intelligence capabilities refined and optimized the effectiveness of personalized marketing strategies. Sigh.

So, it was necessary for brands to go back to square one marketing and shore up collection of first-party data that customers were willing to share. That information is more valuable than ever now—-and isn’t it better that you own and control your customer data, that customers and prospects know what you know about them; and they also know that you won’t sell their personal data? There’s a lot of upside that results from expanding your collection of first-party customer info—the process helps you strengthen relationships, because you’ll have more opportunities to better understand customers and you’ll be better prepared to improve their experiences with your brand.  You can apply personalization on any digital channel if you have access to customer data — often unified through a customer data platform put into place by your CRM service, which will use AI and algorithms to tailor customer experiences based on his/her data and behavior.

Realize that your customers expect and appreciate a personalized experience from the brands they regularly engage or do business with regularly. A McKinsey research study found that 76% of customers are more likely to purchase from brands that personalize. Customers want to know that the brand understands who they are and their needs and does not bombard them with unwanted sales offers.

The benefits of successful marketing personalization

  • More consistent and relevant customer experiences. Personalizing customers’ experiences shows that you understand their preferences and interests. This makes them more likely to engage and remain loyal to your brand, since they know you won’t pummel them with unwanted info.
  • Increased sales conversion rates. The more relevant your offers, the more likely that prospects and customers will value and accept the call-to-action you’re prompting them to, whether that’s purchasing a service or product, signing up for a subscription, or scheduling a consultation. Personalization enables you to entice customers with offers based on their past purchases, interests and real-time behaviors, since you’ll know what matters to them.
  • Higher customer loyalty, retention and lifetime value (LTV). Personalization sets you up to deliver relevant marketing messages and content, as well as the context in which to make recommendations for services or products, add-ons or upgrades, that are likely to resonate. When your organization demonstrates to customers that you are paying attention to their priorities, customers are more likely to give you repeat business and extend the customer lifecycle, which is vital for retaining customers in the long term.
  • Maximized marketing efforts and budget. Personalization ensures you’re always targeting customers with highly relevant offers. This means you’re not wasting your (and your customers’) time and resources. Coupled with the increase in conversion rates and revenue, this makes personalization an incredibly powerful tool for maximizing marketing spend and return on investment (ROI). It can even apply to your broader branding efforts, such as choosing the best name for your YouTube channel in order to engage a specific niche audience and earn more returns from your multimedia content.

 Types of personalization

Marketing personalization can be expressed in different ways, depending on what you want to achieve. For example, some personalization is one-to-one, meaning it’s directly related to the customer’s specific information — a technique increasingly powered by AI personalization. Think email marketing, from blogs or newsletter to special offers or events. Other times, personalization is applied using a targeted approach through customer segmentation, where you choose specific characteristics or customer attributes for a customer group based on their buying history or other interaction with your brand puts them into the segment receive a certain personalized experience.

Personalization can be as simple as having a person’s name in an email rather than an all-purpose general greeting, or as detailed as including the details of a customer’s recent purchase or web browsing in that email. It could also include showing particular product promotions on a website based on a person’s past purchases, or sending special promotions via SMS or a mobile application. Customers expect personalization on every channel, a continuity across website, mobile, SMS (text) and email communications.

Other examples of personalization include:

  • Product recommendations based on past purchases or online browsing
  • Product promotion info based on the website pages visited
  • Email offers to a segment of customers who own a particular product or receive a certain service
  • Communicating with a customer post-purchase to ensure they are happy and have no difficulty using the product or service and accessing its benefits

Boundaries matter

While there is no doubt that customers and prospects expect and appreciate personalization, they want to ensure their privacy. When, where and how much your brand personalizes the customer experience deserves consideration. It is imperative that you avoid making those who’d like to engage with your brand feel that you’re getting too personal, that they’re being closely watched. The feeling that business owners and marketers want to communicate is “I matter to this brand.” Build your personalization strategies around that thought and avoid activities that may feel like a violation.

When inviting those who engage with your brand to share certain info, you can take an important step in relationship-building by demonstrating that transparency is a policy you live by. Customers worry about brands collecting too much data, using information in unexpected ways, or creating experiences that feel too close for comfort. How data is used, confirming that it will not be shared with third parties and demonstrating that cybersecurity measures have been installed to discourage data security breaches will go a long way toward earning the trust of your customers and prospects. Clearly stated privacy policies, explicit consent mechanisms, giving customers control over their data and only personalizing in ways that genuinely add value to the customer experience you provide are must-dos.

Tools for effective marketing personalization

To effectively personalize your marketing efforts, implementing data analytics tools is necessary. Analytics tools track customer behavior that reveals website interactions and email responses, for example, so you can accurately tailor your strategies in response. Utilizing a marketing Customer Relations Management platform will optimize those capabilities by centralizing customer data to facilitate targeted, personalized communication. N.B.–maintain the quality of your customer data by taking steps to ensure that it is updated and accurate.

CRM analytics serve as the foundation for both customer journey mapping and sales forecasting by providing the behavioral data needed to understand how prospects move through your sales funnel. Every touchpoint, interaction and transaction recorded in your CRM becomes a valuable data point that reveals patterns in customer behavior and purchasing decisions.

Customer journey mapping relies heavily on CRM data to identify which channels, types of content and engagement lead to conversions. This info helps you understand which activities are most likely to indicate a purchase, or make the prospect more likely to make a purchase. You’ll also learn where in the buyer’s journey prospects are prone to abandon—or accelerate— their buying decisions.

Finally, your marketing CRM platform will greatly improve sales forecasting and ensure the data will be accurate when you analyze historical CRM data to predict future performance based on current sales funnel activity and even seasonal trends. CRM reporting tools enable you to track every interaction across the customer lifecycle, providing the comprehensive data needed to create reliable revenue projections and identify which touchpoints contribute most to creating sales.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © The Everett Collection. Jean Porter and Jimmy Lydon in the film Sweet Genevieve (1947)

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Why They Aren’t Your Customers

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A business owner is always on a mission to attract potential new customers, to introduce them to the company’s products and/or services and pique their interest by helping them to envision how using one (or more) of your offerings will make some aspect of their life or work better—-solve a problem, save time or money, achieve a goal, or enhance the company brand, for example.

You are aware that the answer to most sales appeals is “no;” but have you ever unpacked the deal-breakers that cause prospects to turn you down? Respectfully, I suggest that you explore this uncomfortable question. What you learn may surprise you, but I’ll wager that it will not discourage you, even if you discover a lapse that you should have anticipated. Being all things to all potential buyers is not a goal for the vast majority of business entities. If you’ve made a couple of mistakes, you’ll have a chance to fix things. As for non-customers, they can be grouped into four categories that describe their relationship with your brand:

  • Prospects who are unaware of your company, service, or product and may also be unaware of your product or service category.
  • Prospects who are aware of your company and its offerings, but they are uncertain that your service or product is an effective solution for their needs.
  • Prospects who are aware of the category of services or products that you provide, but your company is unknown to them.
  • Prospects who are satisfied with the services or products provided by a competitor company and they are not motivated to change.

Every now and again, fortune will smile and a non-customer will decide to investigate your online marketing funnel and become an active prospect. This individual could enter into active engagement and request information that leads to a chat with you. As you answer questions and position your solution as a preferable alternative to what s/he uses now, you may spark a level of trust and confidence that convinces the prospect that there is something better—and that better mousetrap could be your product or service. Make the most of what could be a good opportunity and listen for cues that subtly reveal a prospect’s niggling dissatisfaction that, with skillful handling, could blow up to become the motivation to abandon ship and buy from you.

Engagement

The most immediate way to assess a prospect’s feelings is by noting the level of engagement s/he demonstrates. A serious prospect will actively participate in discussions with you, either directly in conversation or by way of interactions with your online sales funnel. S/he will make comments, ask questions and solicit recommendations for how to use the product or service in specific situations. Serious prospects want to understand how your product or service will perform; will the results and outcomes justify the purchase? Will your product or service address specific pain points, solve a formidable challenge, or help to achieve an important goal? These prospects will be engaged with you every step of the way. Their responsiveness is typically swift; they are happy to follow-up on emails or to take meetings.

By contrast, prospects who are merely browsing are not prepared to become a paying customer anytime soon. They may need to obtain the support of higher-ups in their organization; they might be waiting for budget confirmation and timing. Prospects who are just looking around are inclined to be casual about their communication with you or your team. They might be motivated by curiosity to comparison shop; or maybe there’s a missing element in what they’re using now, something that was not a deal-breaker when they bought from your competitor. So, your commitment phobic prospect will occasionally search for a product or service that could become a potential replacement and mentally entertain a comparison. But will the prospect change horses?

For this prospect, there is no rush; s/he might take days or weeks to respond to your follow-up attempt. Casual prospects may postpone meetings without requesting a reschedule date; the feedback they give is likely to be vague and noncommittal. If you’re chasing someone for a response, or repeatedly trying to reestablish contact, it’s almost certainly indication that s/he isn’t fully invested in the conversation—or, worse, they’re simply not that interested. Ask yourself: which prospects make an effort to stay engaged with you and which respond only when you reach out—if that? When it’s the latter, you may find that the prospect is even more unreliable than they let on.

Urgency

Prospects with an immediate need for your product or service are usually far more likely to convert. They’ll have a specific problem that requires timely attention and they’ll make that clear early on in your interactions. Whether they’re on a tight timeline or under pressure to resolve a pressing business issue, serious prospects will express a desire to move quickly. You might get questions such as, “How soon can we start?” or “We’d like to get a solution in place by X date.” These statements indicate that the prospect is motivated and ready to move forward and make a purchase.

By contrast, a prospect who is merely browsing will not exhibit urgency. S/he might express interest, but when it’s time to take the next step, there will be hesitation. Commitment phobic prospects push timelines into the future or claim that they need more time to think things over. The lack of urgency may signal that the prospect isn’t prioritizing the purchase or, worse, that there is no plan to move forward. As a rule, when prospects are serious, their enthusiastic and consistent engagement communicates that they are eager to do the deal. If you detect only lukewarm interest, expect that prospect to disappoint you.

Decision-maker

One of the most frustrating experiences in sales is trying to mid-wife a buyer’s journey with a prospect whom you discover doesn’t have the authority to make purchasing decisions. Serious prospects usually have the power to buy, or they’re closely connected to the one who does. If your prospect must refer decisions to higher-ups, or is unclear about who will make the final call, this could be a red flag.

Early in your conversations, smart Freelancers ask the prospect questions about their decision-making process, such as “Who else will be involved in the decision?” or “What steps do we need to go through for final approval?” It’s critical to know if the person with whom you’re communicating has sole authority to make the buy, or if s/he has one vote on a decision team of five people, for example. Or maybe your prospect is doing the legwork for the sale because the person(s) who can green light the sale don’t like getting directly involved in sales (it happens). Whatever the protocol the prospect’s company follows, if s/he is serious, that person will give you accurate info about the purchase approval process and will fill you in on the internal steps and timelines needed to make a decision.

Uncommitted prospects, on the other hand, tend to be ambiguous, if not evasive, about who holds the decision-making power. If the prospect repeatedly tells you s/he needs to consult someone else about the sale, but never seems to move the process forward, that individual is most likely wasting your time. Without clear authority or a transparent decision-making process, it will be difficult to determine when, or if, the sale will be approved.

Moving forward

A serious prospect will move through your sales funnel with consistency and purpose. S/he will ask questions, including those intended to obtain information on the service or product delivery and implementation timelines and pricing specifics. Even if discussions and negotiations take time, there will be clear forward momentum.

Commitment phobic prospects, as you might guess, tend to stall. It’s possible that what appears to be genuine interest is demonstrated early on as the prospect engages in preliminary discussions. But when it’s time to progress to more concrete steps—such as proposing a delivery and implementation timeline, or reviewing a proposal—you find that communication becomes opaque and slows down, it does not bode well for the possibility of consummating the sale. This stalling tactic is manipulative as it traps you in uncertainty and denies you from good faith business practice. Such prospects may be unable to guarantee an adequate budget, or they may be in serious negotiation with another vendor and merely using you as a bargaining chip or a Plan B option. You are advised to be circumspect.

It’s important to recognize the potential significance of persistent delays and face up to the possibility that the prospect may not be willing and able to make a decision. If the prospect habitually postpones meetings, this could surely indicate that this individual is unreliable, probably because the authority to make the purchase is not in hand. Do yourself a favor and monitor how quickly and smoothly prospects move from one step to the next in your sales funnel; any unusual delays are worth questioning.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © MoustacheGirl for Getty Images

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To Court Your Competitors’ Customers

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Motivating prospective customers to do business with you is the leading function of independent Freelance professionals and business owners. You may not look at it this way, but recognize that your pool of potential customers also includes those who are currently doing business with one of your competitors. Think about it—how many B2B customers are buying within your category of services or products for the first time? Unless your solution is new to the market and not available from others, your customers have been someone else’s customers and every once in a while some of them might decide to look around to see what’s new or a better fit for their needs.

While it’s true that getting your unique selling proposition in front of prospective customers is essential to converting them into paying customers, there are messaging refinements you can make to strengthen your appeal to prospects who are currently active in a competitor’s camp. Some in that cohort might be dissatisfied with the experience they’ve had when using a certain service or product, or maybe the vendor relationship was underwhelming. Others might simply feel a little restless and inclined to look around and find out who else is out there (you!). Here are tactics that will be useful for your outreach to competitors’ customers.

Analyze the competitive landscape

You need to learn who your competitors’ customers are from a demographic standpoint and obtain insight into what motivated them to choose a competitor. Among the information you’ll appreciate understanding are factors that cause competitors’ customers to become one-off users and factors that lead them to become loyal customers—what are the triggers for each cohort? Study the websites and social media platforms of your primary competitors as a way to learn what might matters to competitors’ customers.

Conducting a competitor analysis will help you understand the Unique Sales Proposition (USP) and perceived advantages of products and services offered by your rivals and get a handle on what it could mean to their customers. What persuades their prospects to choose those offerings instead of yours’ and what can you do to make your offerings more appealing to them? How and where your competitors market their services or products, their pricing strategy, payment options, market visibility and brand popularity are certain to be integral to attracting and keeping those customers. By analyzing the strengths and potential weaknesses of competitors and comparing them to the strengths and weaknesses of your organization, you may be able to identify gaps in the market and find ways to promote what it is that rivals’ customers might be persuaded to perceive as a better on your side of the fence.

Identify gaps in the market

Does your competitive analysis reveal incompletely addressed customer needs or preferences? Those factors might crack open a window that lets you pull in a few of your rivals’ customers. Incisive competitive research may lead you to discover that a cohort of competitors’ customers would appreciate a more comprehensive customer service package—maybe after-sale training, for example? Or perhaps, in this era of rising prices, a couple of payment options that you’ve never bothered to promote, could turn the tide in your favor and carry in a few of your competitors’ customers.

Because you will not be able to research the pain points and priorities of your competitors’ customers because it’s almost certain that you cannot access their contact info. Unless someone visits your social media or website and chooses to reveal an email address—you cannot send a survey and hope for a response. So, you’ll have to get creative to learn about the unaddressed needs of your competitors’ customers.

Visit your competitors’ social media accounts and do some social listening by checking out comment sections. There you may learn of pain points or perceived inconveniences that you can address in your marketing messages. You will also be wise to read industry articles and visit the social media platforms of those organizations to read market research published by major market research firms that report on your industry sector.

Get visible

Today’s buyer journey is not like it was even a year or two ago; prospects may not contact vendors until they are well into the buyer journey. Prospects now explore potential vendors for the solutions they need and on their own compare offerings, get an idea of costs and only then will they reach out to two or three candidates to get details and create a shortlist.

Your strategy is to be proactive. Find out where competitors’ customers discover new products or services—do they watch product or service reviews on YouTube? Do they follow industry experts or influencers on Instagram or TikTok? Customers trust brands that meet them where they already are and provide value before the sale even happens. Once you’ve learned who their guiding stars are, establish a presence for your entity in those spaces.

You want to get into organic search results with helpful content that answers questions that are important to prospects and that can include getting out in front of hesitation by addressing common objections. Showcase the outcomes your service or products can produce and how to achieve them. Blog posts, short videos, webinars, or educational product Q & A guides may be effective. The more consistently you show up with the right message, the more likely you will be able to win over your competitor’s customers—as well as finding a few new customers for yourself.

Promote your USPs

Once you understand what differentiates your brand from its competitors, as well as the evolving shopping habits of your target market, you can begin to promote the desirable and unique qualities that make your brand stand out. These might include your prices, delivery time, product availability, convenience, quality, or customer service.

These traits, which are part of the USP, should be consistently promoted across your entire business, including your website, marketing and PR, packaging and customer experience from buyer journey to post-sale. By upholding these values throughout your organization’s customer experience, you can ensure that potential buyers will know why they should switch to your brand.

Nurture brand loyalty

Acquiring new customers is much more expensive than retaining an existing one, as research has shown. Once a customer has made his/her first purchase, it’s essential to encourage repeat visits if you want to see a strong return on your investment. Building these connections will instill consumer trust and brand loyalty, ensuring that you’ve won a customer for life.

Email marketing is a time-tested way to nurture customer loyalty and it is easy to personalize—a feeling that customers value. Brand loyalty starts with how you onboard people. When you acquire a new customer, put yourself in that individual’s seat and envision a customer journey that will resonate. For example, customer’s are inclined to appreciate a discount code but in the immediate aftermath of post-sale, they’ll likely appreciate more a welcome from you that explains who you are, what the customer can expect regarding the initial stages of working together, a request to meet and discuss the product or service purchased, invoicing and payment options. In other words, you can show your value by providing relevant information that also teaches them why they should open your emails. Set the tone early, and they’ll stay engaged longer and that is one of the pathways to loyalty.

Final thoughts

Customers leave brands—your competitors or you—that stop serving their needs. They leave because someone else made it easier to understand, easier to trust, or easier to buy. That can be you.

You may need to set up a marketing complicated funnel. You may not need a sizeable marketing budget. You do need to research and learn the pain points, hot buttons, priorities and emerging next big thing—way of doing business, customer service needs, buyer journey, payment options, or whatever else. You also need to pay attention to customers and prospects consistently, to help yourself make smart improvements and prove your value where it matters most. When you do that, you don’t have to out-shout your competition. You just have to be their obvious choice.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Courtesy of Brimfield Antique Flea Markets. Featuring 5,000 dealers, Brimfield Antique Flea Markets is believed to be the most popular and largest such event in the U.S.

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How Does Influencer Marketing Work for B2B Freelancers?

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Influencer marketing has been white hot for a minute and it’s getting even hotter. A strategy born of user generated content and nurtured by early bloggers soon produced content creators who came to be considered authorities within their niche fields of expertise, developing loyal audiences for their blog content and generating follower communities along the way. Those early pioneers earned reputations and gained recognition for product reviews that showed trustworthy insights and built credibility. The DIY grassroots aura and absence of corporate advertising gave it all the blessing of authenticity. The independent and impartial assessments provided by the bloggers encouraged engagement and audience trust. But this is America so gradually, bloggers with the biggest followings in the scene featured sponsored content on their sites (often disclosed through affiliate links) and next, collaborations with retail outlets and product brands.

The phenomenon was accelerated by the introduction of social media platforms and exploded with the arrival of visually-focused platforms. Images, and especially videos, provided an ideal environment for newly minted marketing influencers to showcase themselves and the brands they represent with exciting visual content. The visually focused platforms caused an inflection point that gave rise to influencer marketing stars who found a lot of work in the B2C sector, in particular fashion, beauty and travel. Bloggers and others who had a flair for creating appealing content plus the ability to connect with and encourage relationships with their audience began to grow significant followings and exert influence over the behavior (aspirations) of prospective and current customers.

The rise of B2B Influencers 

While originally a strategy used by your flashy B2C cousins, competition for billable hours in the B2B sector seems to have stimulated the adoption of influencer marketing in the B2B sector. However, be advised that B2B influencer marketing is not about showcasing services or products. Rather, B2B influencer marketing is about helping you build trust and connect with prospective clients who, if all falls into place, will be more inclined to become your loyal clients. The goal of B2B influencer marketing strategies is to align your organization with recognized and respected industry thought leaders—the influencers— whose industry knowledge, reputation and loyal followers can be leveraged in your target market sectors.

B2B influencers are well-known and respected experts and thought leaders in their field. They’ve acquired impressive knowledge, experience and authority that confers recognized credibility that’s enabled them to build a sizeable, loyal and often activist following. Based on that authority and credibility, effective influencers are able to build trust and enthusiasm for a brand within their community of followers by making endorsements that can stimulate purchases made by decision-makers within the community. Furthermore, a brand endorsement can also result in a significant number of positive reviews posted on social media that creates a word-of-mouth campaign that can spread to the general public and can stimulate still more purchases of the brand’s services or products.

On a national level, you might think of sales training expert Brian Tracy, marketing wizard Neil Patel, professional development guru and author Stephen Covey and leadership and personal development maven Brene Brown as powerful B2B influencers. The best influencers assist brands by providing targeted exposure, building industry credibility, facilitating strategic partnerships and product or service endorsements that, ideally, will substantively enhance brand recognition, reputation and sales. Potential B2B influencer marketing goals for your organization could include:

  • Increased credibility and trust for your brand within your target market
  • Heightened audience engagement with your marketing content
  • Enhanced perceived value of your brand
  • Increased stature and influence of your thought leadership
  • Accelerated rate and quality of leads generated and an enhanced sales conversion rate

Is influencer marketing for you?

Let’s examine how influencer marketing could be useful to B2B Freelance consultants. As usual, your first act will be to assess your client base and refresh your understanding of your target market(s). You must know whom you’d like to influence, what you’d like to achieve and why that achievement will matter. Verifying your target market will enable you to recognize which influencers, marketing tactics and channels can be expected to resonate with your clients and prospects. So that you can begin to recognize the expertise, authority, connections and social media presence your most effective influencer should have, it’s imperative that you clarify the problems and projects that clients and prospects ask you to resolve. As you go through this process, you’ll also get an idea of whether (or not) influencer marketing might be a fit for you.

Identify and investigate influencers in your industry

Take your evaluation process to the next level by investigating the types of content your clients and prospects usually engage with and the platforms that supply it. What types of content do they find relevant, whom do they follow and on which platforms can that content be found? Also, what are the most common questions they’re looking to answer and the problems they want to resolve?

Next, develop a list of influencers you’d like to contact. Your job here is to speak and get to know who you might like to work with. Does this candidate have not only the industry experience and authority that you’d like but does s/he have the connections and clout in your niche to move the needle for you? Essentially, you’ll search for influencers who can help you reach and impact your ideal audience. It’s no help if an influencer has a large community of followers but does not have a prominent presence in your industry and niche. Before you decide who you’d like to follow and follow-up with, verify precisely how your potential influencer can produce what you want, which is probably some combination of upgrading and/or increasing your leadgen, enhancing company brand, encouraging brand loyalty, upgrading and expanding the earned media you receive and, ultimately, impacting purchase decisions that increase your client roster. Keep all that in mind as you look for good potential influencers. Here are common methods you can use to find influencers you can meet and interview.

  • Social media. Many influencers have large followings on social media platforms and it makes sense to start your search there. You’ll want to choose influencers who have a strong presence on the preferred platforms of decision-makers for your service or product. Engage with the content of influencers who seem to have promise for you. You can follow those who look promising and then reach out and initiate contact. This strategy gives you direct access to potential influencers and enables you to build relationships.
    • If Facebook is your preferred platform, use their search function to find influencers. You can also check out industry specific Facebook groups or pages to find B2B potential influencers.
    • Instagram is your gateway to connecting with Millennial generation decision-makers and discovering the influencers they trust. Search the platform for producers of excellent and consistent content and then visit the site profiles of those content producers you find compelling.
    • LinkedIn is the usual suspect for all things B2B, including finding B2B influencers. You can search your industry to find influencers directly. Definitely join and investigate relevant LI groups and watch for influencers within their membership ranks.
  • Networking at industry conferences and events. Attending in-person meetings and conferences provides a unique opportunity to network with professionals and identify potential B2B influencers within your niche. The strategy is effective for discovering and getting to know B2B influencers with whom you can potentially build a mutually beneficial relationship.
    • Attend relevant conferences in your industry.
    • Actively participate in networking sessions.
    • Identify B2B professionals with significant industry influence
    • Establish connections and express interest in collaboration

  • Discover B2B influencers through industry publications, influential blogs and speaking engagements. This strategy lets you evaluate is the credibility of influencers by learning who is featured in respected industry publications, which indicates expertise, authenticity and most likely, influential relationships.
    • Regularly follow industry publications and relevant blogs, with an emphasis on organizations such as chambers of commerce or other well-respected professional societies and business associations. Identify content contributors and speakers who have the industry expertise and reputations that you seek.
    • Familiarize yourself with the content of industry experts that you find promising
    • Reach out to suggest the possibility of collaboration opportunities.

Evaluate B2B influencer industry authority and credibility;

Confirm the authority and credibility of potential B2B influencers within your industry by examining their past collaborations (if possible), content quality, consistency and presence in prestige publications. Your job is to investigate which B2B influencers’ audiences and authority align with your target market and can be useful for you. Refer to your research to develop a candidate shortlist.

Reach out to your follow-up list gauge and request an opportunity to discuss the possibility of an influencer marketing relationship. Enhance your appeal to your intended influencer with a personalized and compelling outreach message that demonstrates your awareness of his/her industry authority, as evidenced by the quality and consistency of his/her published content, speaking engagements and /or professional awards. Express your admiration for their insights and expertise.

If your invitation to talk is accepted, during the conversation inquire about the brands and types of campaigns your would-be influencer has previously collaborated on. If the initial discussion leads to further and more specific talks, request a link to his/her portfolio to verify the success of past collaborations and get a feel for how a collaboration with you might work.

Negotiate terms and collaboration agreements

Clearly define and commit to writing in a signed contract your expectations of the influencer marketing campaigns, the roles and responsibilities of the influencer you’ll partner with and the compensation agreement (monetary amount and due dates) with your selected B2B influencer. Execute this agreement by producing a transparently communicated legal document—a contract.

Keep in mind that a contract is only as good as your ability to enforce it. Help yourself by keeping your wish list and the timeline for its achievement realistic. While discussions and negotiations with your preferred influencer in advance of finalizing the contract, do your best to confirm which items of your wish list outcomes seem possible for your organization as well as the amount of time and other resources that will likely be needed to get you there.

Monitor and measure campaign influencer performance

Monitor the performance of your B2B influencer campaign by tracking the relevant associated key metrics, such as client and prospect engagement, click-through rates and shares, follower growth and expansion, leadgen growth and expansion, brand reach and impressions and sales revenue. In sum, you’ll want to evaluate the campaign ROI outcome and understand the costs associated with your influencer marketing campaign versus the sales revenue that can be attributed to the campaign.

It’s imperative that you obtain an objective and comprehensive assessment of your influencer marketing activities. As with all of your business strategies, obtaining a big-picture performance evaluation is a must-do. Once you learn which strategies and campaigns are effective, and therefore worthy of your investments of money and time, and what failed to live up to your expectations, and might either benefit from an adjustment or maybe should be dropped will, as always, show you the path forward.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © gstockstudio for Freepik

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Motivation to Climb Your Customer Loyalty Ladder

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You know that customer loyalty is a powerful resource, one that directly impacts business growth by reducing customer acquisition costs and customer churn by generating referrals and increasing your company’s average customer lifetime value (CLV) to grow your customer list and company revenue. Jeffrey Gitomer, a recognized authority on sales and customer loyalty and author of 15 books, has a blunt observation to share with Freelancers and business owners. In his book Customer Satisfaction Is Worthless, Customer Loyalty Is Priceless (1998), Gitomer shares an outrageous truth—if you disappoint a customer even once, s/he will tell 10 people about your faults. On the other hand, when you (merely) satisfy customer needs and expectations, it’s likely that your customer will tell no one—you did your job and so what.

The good news is, when you show some enthusiasm and exceed the customer’s expectations, s/he will usually tell others how wonderful you are. Here’s the lesson—Freelance professionals and other business owners cannot expect to maximize the potential of their business venture by simply showing up to do the job; that won’t move the needle and make a positive impact on reputation (brand) or revenue. You’ve gotta hit the ball out of the park every time, because acting like an order taker, making sure the fries and everything else are in the bag, is not enough.

In his book, Gitomer identifies critical moments in the buyer’s journey that influence whether customers will become your devoted brand advocates, make a one-off purchase and disappear, or remain indifferent and ignore you. By using what Gitomer describes as the customer loyalty ladder, you’ll refine the timing of the marketing and sales messages that you create to persuade prospects to become customers and eventually become repeat customers.The customer loyalty ladder takes it further and shows how to cultivate loyal customers and even brand advocates who become cheerleaders and make referrals, give testimonials in your favor and play a decisive role in the vitality of your customer list. It’s powerful stuff.

Each rung in the ladder represents a different stage in customer loyalty to your brand. It’s no secret that customer loyalty can make or break your company’s long-term success. You may be aware of customer retention statistics that indicate the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%, while the probability of selling to a new customer is only 5-20%. Gitomer labels the process of moving up the ladder as the customer acquisition journey  Identifying where each customer stands on your customer loyalty ladder enables you to deliver a marketing message tailored to move that customer toward the top.

As you probably guessed, the customer loyalty ladder starts at the bottom with those the author calls suspects; they are not yet, and may never become, an actual prospect. Suspects barely know that you and your enterprise exist. The top rung of the ladder is where your most loyal and valuable customers reside: they’re the highly coveted brand advocates. Gitomer also cautions that in the nebulous middle are those with whom you’ve done business but unfortunately feel that you (or your team) did only what was necessary—nothing more, nothing less—causing this cohort to feel no attachment to your product, service, or organization. These folks may or may not do business with you again.

Stage 1: Suspects

These people know your brand exists and might have some level of awareness as to what you offer, but they’re not ready to make a purchase. They might have seen an ad, visited your website, or checked out your social media—but they have hesitations still. Suspects may potentially have use for your service product, but it’s not a front-burner issue. They are the largest group and they are ruled by inertia or indifference.

Stage 2: Prospects

Members of this cohort have demonstrate interest in your service or product and may have asked for more information. They know your brand exists, they have some awareness of your service or product, but they’re not ready, or able, to make a purchase yet. They’ve most likely have seen an ad, visited your website, or engaged with your social media but they hesitate to proceed. Prospects are weighing their options, and your organization is just one of perhaps several choices in our increasingly competitive B2B marketplace. You may be able to motivate prospects by tempting them with discounts for first-time buyers, free trials, or free access to gated content that they covet. Whatever the case, your goal here is conversion – turning prospects into first-time customers. Look at website traffic, ad engagement and email sign-ups to gauge brand awareness.

Stage 3: First-Time Customers

Needless to say, a customer has done business with you, made at least one purchase. You finally got the customer to take a chance on your brand and it is a relief and validation. But you can’t exhale yet—to be truly successful you’ll need repeat business—that is, customers who return to do more business with you. Over the years, make it a point to calculate the customer lifetime value vs customer acquisition cost of those on your customer list. 

There are a lot of one-off purchases made in the world. Every business owner is delighted to receive that first purchase a welcome a new customer, but there can be no misunderstanding that a viable customer list is not created through a series of one-offs. The first purchase is a critical juncture, when you would be wise to take steps to turn a one-time buyer into one who becomes a loyal advocate over the long term. Your job is to start the process with immediate post- purchase contact. A follow-up email thanking the user, providing value with how-tos while the customer anticipates delivery, or a quick survey to ask the customer to evaluate customer service are all a good first step. 

Examine conversion rates and purchase behavior – how many return for a second order? Make it a permanent part of your post-sale follow-up to touch base with them to see if you missed the mark in any way or if there’s anything you can do to help them make the most of their product. 96% of consumers say customer service influences brand loyalty.

You can also start sending personalized follow-ups with complementary product suggestions, or even go as far as offering incentives for the next purchase (discounts, loyalty program enrollment, etc.).The key takeaway is that a positive first experience can make or break your customer retention efforts. If you fail to act, or if your approach is wrong, you’ll have a much lower chance of encouraging repeat business.

Stage 3: Repeat Customers

A repeat customer is anyone who has done business with your company more than once. These customer see value in your service or product, but it will nevertheless be helpful to remind these customers why they should continue to do business with your organization. This is where you can implement a well-structured loyalty program. Tiered loyalty programs allow customers to earn points or exclusive perks over time.

You can also use data to send personalized recommendations that align with their purchase history. Whatever you do, keep up the attentive customer service. It’s been reported that 61% of customers will jump ship and defect to a competitor after a single poor customer service experience.

Stage 4: Loyal Customers

Loyal customers are deeply connected to your brand and choose you because of you and not just because of the products and services you sell. They have an emotional attachment that guides their purchase habits and they are among your most valuable customers. Don’t just take my word for it—one study found that loyal customers can drive up to 65% of a brand’s revenue, even though they typically make up only a small percentage of total customers.

Without question, it is in your interest to go above and beyond when considering how to reward and thank these customers with ultra-exclusive benefits. Your rewards should free shipping or discounts, for example. Instead, think early access to new services or products that you introduce, behind-the-scenes content, invitation to a launch event and unexpected surprises like handwritten notes all go a long way. Use customer lifetime value (LTV) and engagement metrics to see who keeps coming back. You can even poll them and let them tell you why they come back again and again. Give these customers opportunities to interact with your brand beyond purchases with events or opportunities to offer feedback on new product releases. The priority is to make them feel as if they’re not just another customer, but very special people who are part of the movement.

Stage 5: Brand Advocates

Eventually, your most loyal customers may become motivated to become brand advocates. This top rung in the customer loyalty ladder represents your most powerful customers, those who serve as an organic marketing channel for your brand. These customers actively promote your brand to their friends, family, colleagues, even random people they come across on a daily basis. They leave glowing reviews and share your products on social media, too.

Brand advocates are your most valuable customers not only because their testimonials and cheerleading bring interest, excitement and trust to your service or product that results in customer referrals and maybe some PR too. the enthusiasm of brand advocates also lowers your cost of customer acquisition and drive customer growth naturally.

So, how do you move people up the ladder of customer loyalty into this stage? Continue taking other steps to make customers, especially repeat and loyal customers, feel like VIP insiders. Seek their insights from your brand advocates when making decisions about your service or product; involve them in beta testing new features or entry into a new market, invite them to exclusive VIP-only events. A customer who feels involved and part of your business, while also receiving consistent value, can be an influential promoter of your brand, giving referrals and singing your praises.

Assess your customer list

First, examine your customer list to figure out where you’re struggling the most. Maybe you have a hard time getting customers to take a chance on your brand but once they do, they stick around. You have an acquisition problem. Or, perhaps you get customers to buy once but they never come back to make another purchase. You have a customer retention problem and problem with customer churn. Gitomer recommends that you focus on the following questions:

Analyze your customer retention KPIs and figure out where you have the need to level up your performance. You now know what to look for at each rung of the very useful customer loyalty ladder and understand how the customer acquisition journey along with the customer loyalty ladder can improve your ability to improve the CLV in your customer list. To get you started, Gitomer recommends that you focus on the following questions:

  • How can you convert one-time buyers into repeat customers?
  • What’s the best way to incentivize loyal customers to become brand advocates?
  • Where do you see prospects abandoning the customer acquisition journey and how might you correct, or limit, the problem? fix them?

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Depositphotos free image

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Storytelling Is the New Advertising

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Not long ago, advertisements you saw in newspapers and magazines were made to capture attention with style and flare. Whether those advertisements were from back in the day, or 21st century pop-ups that invade the screen on your device as you scroll through websites, ad copy displayed flawless visuals and meticulously phrased text, both carefully crafted to dazzle and persuade a broad swath of the ad’s target market viewers. But that was then and this is now.

In the here and now, tightly scripted advertisements appear to be losing their hold on audiences. The viewing public, some of whom are within your target market, are apparently tiring of what can easily be interpreted as ad agency engineered, focus-group tested and totally corporate. Your future clients, and maybe you, too, value what feels genuine, relatable, believable—authentic. Your future clients are hungering for comfort food served in a favorite neighborhood place, not a four- course banquet served in a grand, Michelin starred restaurant.

What future clients are increasing drawn to is storytelling—personal testimony that comes across as unscripted and communicates a set of values and guiding principles that inform how you conduct your business and and even personal life. The influence and impact of storytelling continues to expand and it seems to already have become the future of adverting in B2B and B2C markets.

Advertising experts call the emerging storytelling phenomenon the trust economy and it is winning loyalty (and wallets) with its apparently unrehearsed, believable, real first-person accounts that are overtaking the glossy ads of days past. For example, brands that feature storytelling by the company founder—maybe showing a clip that illustrates what’s happening behind the scenes or revealing that a percentage of company profit is devoted to a certain philanthropy and also explaining how the recipients benefit— are winning customers, growing their follower and customer communities and surpassing the usual results of traditional advertising. In today’s marketplace, authenticity—which is a defining ingredient of trust— has become real currency. Authentic storytelling is how you can earn it.

Maybe the rise of storytelling is a reaction to all those banner ads and pop-ups that clutter screens and have come to annoy digital audiences? Ad-blocker usage is high, especially among Generation Z (born 1997-2012) and Generation Alpha (born 2010-2025) cohorts, whose members show skepticism toward traditional advertisements. According to marketing researchers and thought leaders, authenticity is now a leading B2B purchasing driver, with prospective buyers more likely to buy from brands they perceive as transparent and real. This generational demand for “truth” means over-engineered marketing campaigns and content may no longer resonate with your target audience. But the apparently candid testimonials that typify storytelling are perceived as believable, authentic and trustworthy.

Powerful stories

On every continent and throughout human history, people with a gift for telling a story have held power in their community. We like hearing a good story that is told well. Stories told by company founders and even employees have a persuasive resonance in today’s marketplace. For example, entrepreneurs who share factors that motivated them to launch their business entity and tell the company origin story—and perhaps bravely admitting their struggles, pivots, or failures — create intimacy and relatability with their audience that neither impossibly glamorous models or bland-looking actors who were once the faces of hundreds of companies, smiling and spouting the official brand messages—cannot match.

Furthermore, traditional ads—TV, radio, print, or digital— are more expensive than ever and their returns are diminishing. By contrast, trust and authenticity-driven advertising (marketing) campaigns often require smaller budgets and deliver outsized impact in viewer engagement and word-of-mouth.

Storytelling, which is an outbound marketing strategy and therefore defined as a push promotional marketing tactic, is fundamentally different from the typical message broadcasting that defines outbound marketing, from television, radio, or print ads to sponsoring the holiday tree lighting in your neighborhood.

Expert storytelling invites the audience into a journey. Stories are a shared experience, personal and intimate and capable of making what is a transactional relationship—selling and buying— into communities of shared values and beliefs and whose participants can develop loyalty. Harvard Business Review notes that brands that present authentic narratives in their advertising and other content marketing activities see measurable improvements in consumer trust and loyalty. As well, Nielsen’s Trust in Advertising Report highlights that recommendations from “people like me” remain the most trusted source of brand information and vastly outperforms paid ads.

Build trust into marketing strategies

The core of storytelling is about developing a narrative that is believable and therefore resonates on an emotional level with audience members. The goal is to create a connection with your audience that inspires trust in and loyalty to your brand. A marketing strategy whose message prioritizes truth and has authenticity as its core delivers story narratives that your current and future clients will believe in. Your brand story, when effectively told, can connect with your current and future clients on a deeper level, providing feelings of belonging and loyalty. This emotional connection is crucial in building a lasting relationship between the brand and its consumers. When developing your storytelling strategy and choosing key elements to incorporate in the narrative, you might include:

  • showcasing not only the company founders, but also employees as storytellers
  • Sharing behind-the-scenes happenings with humility, honesty and maybe a touch of humor as well
  • Participating in social media as well as selected in-person community events or platforms to create opportunities that invite two-way communication with your clients, prospects and other followers
  • To evaluate the impact and outcomes of your storytelling marketing campaigns, measure not just impressions but also viewer sentiment, advocacy and engagement metrics

Develop your brand story

Storytellers may sound unscripted and in the strictest sense of the word, that may be true. However, effective storytellers, whether they are entertainers or entrepreneurs, know their talking points. They know the theme and purpose of the narrative. They know how to present the story to the audience and make it capture attention and flow. In other words, creating an effective brand story requires careful consideration. Here are key elements to keep in mind:

  • Know your audience: Understanding your target audience is always essential in public speaking. Make a list of what you feel represent your values, guiding principles, priorities and purpose and consider how they impact the company. You may also want to include challenges and pain points and a reach-for-the-stars goal or two. Tailor your story narrative to resonate with your audience.
  • Clear message and purpose: You don’t want to rant, you don’t want to humble brag. You must have a purpose, an objective, that can lead you to devise a compelling story. Your story should have a clear and concise message. Avoid overcomplicating the narrative; focus on the core message you want to convey, keeping it simple. You should have a Call to Action—what do you want your audience to do—maybe make a purchase, so that they can feel philanthropic by knowing that a portion of each sale will be used to fund a worthy cause, e.g., a healthcare or educational organization?
  • Authenticity: Authenticity is crucial to storytelling. Your clients can easily detect inauthentic narratives, which can damage a brand’s reputation. Ensure that your story aligns with your brand values, company vision and mission.
  • Emotional appeal: Incorporate elements that evoke emotions. Whether it’s joy, sadness, inspiration or nostalgia, an emotional connection can significantly enhance the impact of your story.
  • Organize the narrative: Your story must have a beginning, middle and end. It must have an intro that intrigues viewers and a conclusion that inspires them. A Call-to-Action will tell them how to direct the emotions your story has built up; it creates a common purpose among audience members and is a bonding and community-building experience.
  • Visual and verbal aspects: Combine visual and verbal elements to create a cohesive and immersive experience. Use imagery, videos and written content to bring your story to life.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Alejandra Brun/ Agence France-Presse for Getty Images. Charles Robinson, member of the Choctaw tribe (AL, LA, MS, OK), dances during his storytelling presentation in Lima, Peru, August 2003

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How a Social Media Strategy Can Power Up Your Brand

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The old saying is still correct—clients (and those who might become clients) do business with those they know and like and do more business with those they know and trust. If you operate in the Freelance B2B consulting sector, you know it’s vital to continually demonstrate your expertise because that’s one of the best ways to win the respect and trust of prospects who might hire you. It’s imperative to make it clear to those motivated to become paying clients that you’ve got the right stuff, that you can be a trusted resource, that you have the capability to resolve their pain points by recommending the right business solution.

Your mission is to get the word out about your insights and abilities and showcase a brand that inspires trust. Bring to audience attention your relevant and timely info that’s delivered in the form of perspectives and insights that resonate. Seeing is believing and becoming a familiar presence in media outlets that your target prospects visit and trust will pay big dividends.

In the B2B sector credibility, relevance and trust are the building blocks of a winning brand reputation and are the foundation of a successful business venture. You access those building blocks by demonstrating value to prospects and peers. One of the most reliable strategies you can enact when your goal is to demonstrate value to prospective clients is to position yourself as a trustworthy thought leader who provides relevant, timely and actionable information. Among the most efficient channels to broadcast information to your target audiences is social media.

Social media has become a cornerstone of the B2B product and services buying journey. Prospects typically view up to 12 types of content, with 40% of B2B buyers including social media in their purchase research. As your prospects search for info, the right SEO search terms could call up your content and make your thought leadership info available to impact a purchase. Remember also that social media platforms are a two-way street and equally useful for not only broadcasting information, but also for listening and learning by starting and contributing to conversations. By becoming active on LinkedIn, which is the preferred B2B platform, and also X, YouTube and/or Instagram, for example, you’ll not only have a presence on platforms your prospects follow, but you’ll also get confirmation of their topics of interest in the moment, plus a heads-up on what may capture their interest in 2026. Below are four strategies for using social media to enhance your brand and grow your client list.

  1. Provide informative and timely content

By positioning yourself as a go-to source of useful insights and info, you’ll win audience trust—and that is vital. The quality and timeliness of the information you deliver, whether by text, video, or audio, will enhance your value. Distributing your thought leader content on social media platforms favored by your target audience maximize distribution and help you build a following. You’ll benefit from increased name recognition, eventually acquire trust and influence and, ultimately, you’ll create for yourself a solid brand reputation. Insider’s tip: linking your blog and/or newsletter to one or more social media platforms when you publish is a great way to share your compelling content with a wide audience (readers will find my weekly blog at LinkedIn activity/posts.

Video is a growing medium in the B2B sector because social media audiences find it easy to digest and, apparently for that reason, an attractive format. While YouTube is the platform of choice, all major platforms host video/audio content, that runs the gamut from short-form clips to long-form videos and live streams. Posting a webinar in which you took part or the podcast on which you made a guest appearance are excellent video opportunities for B2B Freelance professionals.

Case studies and client testimonials likewise make compelling video content. In fact, it may be easier to recruit your satisfied clients to sing your praises in a video rather than providing a written narrative of the process. Furthermore, if you’d like to present a show-and-tell tutorial that explains the rationale for using your product or service and quickly break down how users can benefit, a video interview in which you take center stage may be easier for prospects to visualize how your solution can be implemented for their needs. BTW, video/audio content, plus any noteworthy information you post to social media platforms, such as a case study, should also be posted on the only platform you own and control—your website.

  

2. Share client success stories

Nothing succeeds like success and sharing the occasional client success story (maintaining the client’s confidentiality, when requested) helps prospects envision the effective solutions that you might create for them. Examples of your willingness to personalize your solutions by, for example, simplifying your solution or providing an upgrade, or facilitating post-sale training or other supportive services—without violating your competitive advantages—are persuasive and make for memorable brand-building content for your organization.

3. Be authentic and consistent

X and LinkedIn are the usual go-to platforms for serious conversations. When you have something relevant to contribute, whether you make a thoughtful reply to a comment or offer a new perspective that you expect to generate comments from other readers, you demonstrate your authenticity, as well as your expertise and maybe out-of-the-box creativity. Joining one or more LinkedIn professional groups that are related to your industry or subject expertise can introduce you to a good forum, where you can contribute insights and learn new perspectives from thought leader peers.

4. Be transparent about values and culture

A growing number of consumers, B2B and B2C, are interested in the values and culture of companies with whom they do business. Storytelling is a relatable format and social media is an ideal platform for you to demonstrate and express what your company stands for and how your values impact your business practices. Your clients and prospects are not dismissive of a company’s purpose, vision, mission and guiding principles and may be very pleased that you’ve shared this foundational information.

Moreover, don’t hesitate to show behind-the-scenes evidence that shows you immersed in community work, be it a corporate social responsibility initiative, board service, or other volunteer participation. If you participate in a charity event, such as a holiday toy drive for local children, or sponsorship of your neighborhood Christmas tree lighting and party, consider documenting portions of the proceedings and, better still, invite top organizers to contribute a short interview to describe the goals for the event and the constituency it benefits in a video (be sure to respect the privacy of other participants). Clients and prospects like to know that you’re giving back or paying it forward.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Statista May 2025