Social networking and community engagement technology made easy

You have a list of names. You’ve connected with hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. You know steps need to be taken beyond your social networking platform to communicate with them. You’ve begun to build what Seth Godin calls a tribe. What now? What are the next steps in communication? After all, not all tribe members are created equal. All are of importance and are key pieces in the puzzle. However, not all of them want the same message.

Email marketing has been around for years. It can be a highly effective way to communicate when done properly. When done poorly however, not so much, and honestly, could be annoying. It’s important to get the right message to the right people. Here are a few things to contemplate when you are thinking about the different roles your tribe have:

Current clients/customers – If you are an organisation offering multiple services, it’s important to separate your clients into which products or services they are using and follow up with information relevant to that. If there is something offered to enhance a current product, a newsletter is a great way to keep them up-to-date. However, if this newsletter is going to someone who is not using, nor has any need for the service or product you are talking about, it’s best to design a newsletter separate and pertinent to them.

Potential clients/customers – Having a social platform and a way for potential clients to let you know what they are interested is one way to get started. Your potential clients then have a way to reach out to you. When your tribe says, “I’m interested in XYZ product,” there is your queue to put them in the XYZ newsletter. The letter is more apt to be open and read because it’s something they want to read about vs. being opened by someone you randomly put on your e-newsletter list.

Internal staff/Partners – Internal staff and partners are going to get insider information that the public may not be ready for. If you’re working on new models and ideas, having a contact management system is a great way to communicate with this part of the tribe. Any quick announcements can easily be sent. This is especially good for a larger organisation with hundreds of employees and multiple partners.

A big reason I am discussing segmenting is because organisations need to cater the different NEEDS of the tribe. Segmenting allows you to do that. What are your thoughts? Do you currently have a system that can do this? How do you segment your tribe?

posted by Piers Hogarth-Scott in the category Email Marketing
Tags: Email Marketing, seth godin