5 Steps to Online One-to-One Marketing - Where relationships really matter.

(Photo: http://www.networkingwave.com/images/online_business_networking_groups.jpg)

If you have been by this blog recently, I apologize for not adding any recent reading material. I have not been posting to my personal blog because I have been posting material on the company blog where I work. But today, I wanted to share a marketing/lead generation strategy that I am using at my most recent project - one-to-one in online social networks.

The strategy is straight-forward, direct. The idea is to reach your clients online and engage them in a business relationship where customer service and transparency dominate interaction. This strategy consist of several easy but time consuming processes.

1. Research and gather data on prospective clients
In order to directly target clients, a good amount of research should be done to identify those clients that can really use your service. This helps keep your interactions relevant. In my case, I work for a supplier. I have researched my industry and have found around 200 clients that could use my products and services. I have gathered information such as website address, annual income, and client location. In many cases, there are contact names available on company websites which become useful when searching for contacts in social networks.

2. Identify contacts' professional profiles in social networks
Most contacts will be found in professional networks such as LinkedIn or Xing. Record whether your contacts have profiles in one, both, or several networks. As this strategy is still in experimentation, I hope to find that the more profiles contacts have online, the more engaged contacts will be in our interactions. At this point of the strategy, you still have not made contact with your clients. Just read profiles and get to know your contacts. Also study just how you are going to position yourself after you establish contact.

3. Establish contact
Since most contacts are in professional networks, it is easy to establish contact with most. A simple, "would you like to join my network?" should usually work. Or "Keep me as a contact in [insert sector]." Always keeping track along with way. Track how they respond. Do your contacts respond with acceptance and a message? This indicates upmost interest. Do they respond by simply accepting? Or is there no response? These behaviors are tracked so that you can prepare your next step.

4. Initial offering
According to previous records that you have kept, make some sort of offering. Here is where the customization comes in the strategy. I can't say too much here because this is where each contact will be different. You should make some sort of idea of how to communicate with each contact and personalize the message by keeping the content relevant to each contact's situation. Be creative and to the point. Too long and you lose the point - too short and you don't get to the point. The real goal in this step is to automatically engage the contact. Perhaps it is simply providing a link to the webiste/blog/FB page/twitter or perhaps your organization can develop a relevant tool to engage your contact on the initial offering.

5. Continuous content publication and relationship management
Once you have caught the attention of your contact, keep giving them something that can remind them of your organization. Always provide relevant content and give them content that they can learn from. If you have landed a contact as a client, manage the relationship by recording all the interactions. Meanwhile exceed the clients' expectations! If your client want 2 test releases, give them 4. All with the same quality and relevance. While you keep exceeding thier expectations, all the while educating them, they will never go away.

Have more input to this article? Leave a comment!!!