When a person comes to you with a problem, pointing at the fact that they are the reason behind the problem is not going to set them at ease or help them get past it.
When a customer comes to you with a problem, telling them that their behaviour is why the problem exist is not going to set them at ease or help them get past it.
Reality and facts are really of little help when emotions are involved.
Do unto others what you would like them do unto you.
Isn’t that THE golden rule?
Be kind to others if you want them to be kind with you.
Be honest and trustworthy with others if you want honesty and trust.
Don’t cheat on others if you don’t like to be cheated on.
But also – with a marketing twist.
Don’t put out there content you would not read yourself.
Keep your forms simple, as you like them when you are the prospect.
Don’t reach out to people after one signal, since you don’t want to book a meeting after downloading a guide.
It’s a golden rule indeed, yet one we fail to practice often.
And the main reason might be that we are inclined to believe that we are somehow special, that we are worthy of forgiveness, that we (and our product, and our services) will always get a second, and a third, and a fourth chance.
The harsh reality is that we are not.
So, do unto others what you would like them to do unto you.
If you are a start-up, with a single product, and you sell to other businesses, then product marketing is basically the foundation of your whole go-to-market.
The way you talk about the product, the way you differentiate from other alternatives, the unique point of view that makes you worth considering, the material you need to go out there and influence people, the knowledge of you target customer and of their pains.
Perhaps you can’t afford a product marketer. But make sure that whoever is doing marketing will focus on those things for at least 80% of their time. It will pay off.
Three reasons why this is a great customer service interaction.
05:46 PM | Me: Hi! We made a mistake when trying to change the credit card linked to our account. Basically, we put the wrong e-mail address, and now I have paid for a fully new account instead of payment for the account we already have. Messy, eh?
05:46 PM | Bot operator: If your scheduled payment failed, please, refer to attached Help article for instructions on how to re-process it.
05:46 PM | Bot operator: [App: Article Inserter]
05:46 PM | Bot operator: Did that answer help, or are you looking for something else?
05:46 PM | Me: Talk to a person 👤
05:46 PM | Bot operator: Sure thing! Ahrefs typically replies in under 4m.
05:48 PM | Person from Ahrefs: Hi there thanks for reaching out. Which email address did you pay by mistake to?
05:49 PM | Me: The original account is with *emailaddress*, I paid now with *emailaddress*
05:49 PM | Person from Ahrefs: I will check with our billing team to help move it over to the correct account
05:50 PM | Me: Thank you. Is there something I have to do?
05:50 PM | Person from Ahrefs: nope, please wait for 2-3 hours for the change to be complete
05:50 PM | Me: Thank you!
06:07 PM | Person from Ahrefs: Hi there, the switch is done. Kindly check *emailaddress* and confirm? Please let me know if you have any further questions.
All in all, a billing issue was solved in 21 minutes, and I got exactly 4 minutes of interaction with a chat bot and a customer service rep.
Note: a couple of bonus points for the tool that Ahrefs is using, that first suggested a relevant article from their knowledge base in the attempt to fix my issue without interaction, then allowed me to download the full conversation without having to ask anybody.
Keep in mind that some tools that we use daily in marketing (and not only) are just ideas that stuck.
As such, it is good to periodically review them to make sure that they are still useful and that people using them agree on what they are for.
The funnel is such an idea.
Everybody uses it and talks about it all the time. Yet even within the same organisation, it is usual to have different people look at it from different angles, defining different stages in different ways, and generally using the levers for somewhat contrasting purposes.
So, asking what a visitor is, what a lead is, what qualification means, and agreeing on the process that moves traffic back and forth is a great place for teams to start. And to go back to whenever it makes sense.
Without this conversation, chances are that you are all focusing on separate parts. And that’s not how the funnel gets going.
You've got this 