Although we are past Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, we are still in the depths of the retail season and it’s a perfect time to think about how marketers can fully utilize every opportunity to make connections with their customers. According to ShareThis, “millennials users are 3.6x more likely to share content on social networks, and 2.3x more likely to click back on content shared by their peers. ” This shows the exact impact every customer can have if we properly encouraged, or incentivizedbrand engagement on social media platforms.
The sharing activity of a generation accounting for $200+ billion in spending power (Abrahamson, ShareThis, 2014), is very telling about the data we should be receiving at the check out after your customers virtual shopping cart is full and they are ready to purchase. Currently, many companies rely on sharing buttons after purchases are made to poorly encourage customers to provide free marketing on private social networking profiles. I personally have never seen anyone in my social network share their purchases on their social media site and I’m willing to wager that customers rarely utilize these features when they buy products online.
However, there are other ways companies can encourage their customers to share purchase related content online. By simply asking customers to connect their social pages or provide their social media handles at check out, companies open themselves up to a relationship with their customers. This can allow companies to interact with their customers after a purchase, follow up with them, and use the data collected from a purchase to create personalized messages. Since Millennial’s purchases are driven, in large part, by their social connections, companies should start behaving as a friend to their customers and interact with them on social sites.
Harvard Business Review states that companies who show empathy towards customers online are more successful in their social media marketing efforts. Through showing empathy, companies can make a customer feel valued (Parmar, Harvard Business Review, 2015). For example, if Starbucks utilized data from app downloads to tweet to customers asking how their coffee was that day, or if JetBlue tweeted at their customers wishing them stress free travel before their flight, they would build on their customer relations and improve their brand experience.
Many companies have begun to interact with customers online but we need to begin to engage and learn from every customer to humanize our brands by showing our customers we care. Since the majority of buying decisions now begin with the advice from friends, it’s time that companies became friends with their customer through utilizing the benefits of social networking. By adding a field at check out for customers to enter their social media handles and web pages, you can open a valuable avenue of communication for you and your customers. ||||
That’s me – Erica Susan Krauss. I thrive on sharing experiences with others and creating memorable impressions. In my life I have encouraged sharing experiences in communities, traveled to share experiences across America, and helped enhance and create experiences for companies and customers.
SHARING EXPERIENCES
While studying at college in upstate New York, this drive for creating community lead me to get involved in multiple campus groups. I became a Resident Advisor in my sophomore year and always wanted to create programs and socials that made new and seasoned students want to get involved.
Celebrating SUNY Oneonta Red Day
SUNY Oneonta was a fantastic school to find sub-communities and I was a huge advocate for getting involved to improve the experience of college. Although I gathered numerous residents of mine to attend on-campus events, I wanted to reach a larger amount of students.
Organized SUNY Oneonta’s First AIDS Awareness Walk, Fall 2010
Because we did not have a football team, the feeling of school pride driven by sports was minimal. However, I noticed that everyone who attended our medium sized, NCAA Division III school bled red and white. As an athlete who intended to play on the volleyball team but tore my ACL right before tryouts, I wanted to still have an outlet to express my passion for sports and overall Red Dragon pride.
Club Expo for Oneonta State O-Zone, Fall 2011
In my third year of college I began to take action towards creating this space after meeting with Director of Athletics and previous long-time, winning Women’s Soccer Coach for SUNY Oneonta, Tracey Ranieri. After a full semester of battling with the Student Association (SA), Oneonta State O-Zone became a club seeking recognition with over 50 attendees who attended the first club meeting. Once unanimously voted into recognition by the SA Senate, we began supporting and enhancing existing experiences and creating new experiences on campus. O-Zone brought the school mascot, Red the Red Dragon, to sporting events. We hosted half-time games and distributed giveaways to increase attendance and add to the experience of the game. While increasing the sense of community at games, O-Zone also developed new traditions by hosting events such as the first bonfire rally on campus.
Event flyer for SUNY Oneonta’s First Bonfire, Fall 2011
I also wanted to share one final experience with my classmates in the final week before graduation so I organized a Senior Bar Crawl to celebrate our successes. I organized specials at all the local bars and sold 288 T-shirts for the event which had even more attendees.
Winner of the Senior Bar Crawl T-Shirt Contest, Spring 2012
Through out my college career I involved myself in creating spaces to share experiences. So after I graduated I wanted to continue finding experiences to share with others.
EXPERIENCES ACROSS AMERICA
At 4 am, the day after I graduated, my parents drove me to the Albany International Airport where I hopped on a plane to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, for Jeff Ellis and Associates, Auditor Training.Jeff Ellis and Associates is a lifeguard licensing company that assists water parks and pools internationally in providing safe and exceptional experiences for their guests. I was a lifeguard during the summer while attending college and worked my way up to become Lifeguard Supervisor at SplashDown Beach water park. I then applied to become a National Staff Auditor for Jeff Ellis and Associates the following Summer.
Traveling in my rental car across America in my Auditor uniform.
As I traveled the United States, for the better part of a year, assessing and teaching safety skills and emergency plans, I was able to experience many different sub-cultures across the country. I sat in a pizzeria with two men who were losing their houses to forest fires in Colorado Springs, went to a free bluegrass festival in Portland, Oregon, and rode a cruiser bike down the boardwalk of Venice Beach, California. Every city had a different flair, a different feel, a different experience.
Partaking in a company-wide photo contest, Summer 2012
While it was interesting enough to visit many major American cities, I also enjoyed visiting many notable amusement parks and taking note to the different ways each of them created exceptional experiences for their customer.. I surveyed how parks fostered unique experiences like the lazy river concept of Schlitterbahn or the indoor waterpark/family resort lodge theme of Great Wolf Lodge to set themselves apart from the saturated tourism industry.
After a year of traveling the country as an auditor, I finally wanted to settle in one location and create experiences as a career.
CREATING EXPERIENCES
I landed in Washington, D.C. – the closest city on my “Favorite-Cities-of-America” list to my family in New York. As a Sales and Marketing Associate for The Bozzuto Group, I was directly involved in creating “great places that people call home.” (Bozzuto, 2015). I spent two years having an active role in sales and learning buyer mentality at Senate Square Apartment Community. In 2014 I was awarded Outstanding Sales and Marketing Associate for achieving the 4th highest sales and closing ratio in the company and I attribute my sales success in being more concentrated in creating a fantastic renting experience for my prospective and current residents than closing a sale.
Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich Social at Senate Square, Summer 2015
I was then promoted to Leasing Manager where I was able to concentrate more on the Senate Square experience. Through resident relations, hosting community events, and fostering and maintaining relationships with vendors and partners to provide services to our residents, I have strengthened the already solid Bozzuto experience in my building.
I have also worked with two start up companies, Mission:Bars and Project Overlord, where I helped build brand image and create a company experience for customers. Mission:Bars is a very customer-experience-centric company that strives to create a tight community around a healthy lifestyle. As their Social Media Manager during their seed stage crowdfunding, I was able to help them raise $30,000 so they could continue providing experiences like free fun runs and yoga classes while selling all natural performance bars.
Co-Founder of Mission:Bars Kathleen Hodge, teaching MISSION:yoga
In December 2014, I joined the Project Overlord family as they developed their first product, RimTech. Leading their public and media relations department in the beginning stages of the company, I learned the importance of setting a strong brand presence through creating a message for a customer experience and not just a product.
Founder and CEO of Project Overlord, Terrence Gaskin, and I, Spring 2015
SHARING MY EXPERIENCE
Through out my young career I have helped other companies, projects, and people strengthen their voice. Now I plan to practice what makes me thrive through sharing my experiences with you and, hopefully, creating a few memorable impressions along the way. That’s me – Erica Susan Krauss: authentically uninhibited. ||||
erica susan krauss 