company is negative , there is always another brand ready to make a good impression .
YOUR CUSTOMERS DON ’ T STOP BEING IMPORTANT ONCE THEY ’ VE BOUGHT FROM YOU .
Once they move through your sales funnel — if you ’ ve been able to get them in , and keep them happy during the process — they now reenter the Sales Cloud and join the other voices . Was their experience as a customer good enough to share ? Did they leave unhappy ? Making the sale isn ’ t enough . We need to be creating sharable experiences for our customers through great products and service .
Once through the funnel , customers return to the cloud — this is almost always ignored . Current customers are treated as an entirely different pool than prospective ones . We bend over backwards for new prospects , while leaving current customers to fend for themselves . How many times have you seen special offers made to new customers of the brands you use , only to be left without the great rate , or free iPad , or any other special treatment they ’ ve been offered ? Focusing outside the funnel is what UnSelling is all about .
One of the arguments against valuing social media referrals is that there isn ’ t always an easily measurable line between referral and purchase . But has there ever been ? In the past , when I walked into a store to make a purchase , the sales person never wondered whether it was my sister ’ s recommendation , a billboard , or random chance that brought me in . Now that we can measure where a click comes from , we think that this line should be direct .
According to data from Forrester Research , “ 48 % of consumers reported that social media posts are a great way to discover new products , brands , trends , or retailers , but less than 1 % of transactions could be traced back to trackable social links .” These factoids come from consumer surveys , as well as the tracing of 77,000 online purchases made by American consumers over a twoweek span in April . What researchers found is that consumers almost never buy something right after seeing it mentioned in a post by a friend or retailer on Facebook or other social media outlets .
The key term here for me is that they don ’ t buy it “ right after .” We have so much information before us now that we may check 20 resources before making a click thru to purchase decision . That doesn ' t mean that these influences aren ' t important , or that they don ’ t lead to decisions and purchases . It may have taken three ads , two sightings on a friend ’ s blog and a lot of nagging from my mom to get me to buy a new pair of jeans , but each one lead to the sale with equal importance .
In today ’ s world , we need to drop our funnel-vision ways and focus on UnSelling if we ’ re going to remain top of mind for our market . Buy or goodbye is ineffective in a world where purchase decisions are made long before you even get a chance to pitch .
Scott and Alison Stratten are co-authors of four best-selling business books , coowners of UnMarketing Inc and co-hosts of not only The UnPodcast , but five children , two dogs and two cats . The website , the show and the books all represent their thoughts on the changing world of business through their experiences of entrepreneurship , two degrees ( Alison ), not lasting long as an employee ( both ) and screaming at audiences around the world ( Scott ; Alison is more polite ).
They were put on this earth to remind the world that not all Canadians are passively polite . Businesses like PepsiCo , Saks Fifth Avenue , IBM , Cirque du Soleil , Microsoft and others have been brave enough to want their advice , to the point that Scott has been named one of the Top Five Social Media Influencers in the world by Forbes . com . They now spend their time keynoting around the world and realize they rank 10th and 11th in order of importance in their home .
Oh , and they met on Twitter . How ’ s that for ROI ?
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