What kind of atmosphere do you present to prospective clients?

One of the keys to effective marketing is that people need to feel comfortable about approaching you. They need to feel that you will warmly welcome them if they visit you or email / call you. This means the personality you project through your marketing in general and your social media marketing in particular, needs to be attractive and approachable.

Honey or vinegar?

As you know, some business owners can be confrontational or rude when using social networks or responding to comments on blogs. This is their prerogative. The thing is, prospective clients regularly check out potential service providers before deciding to get in touch. There’s an old saying, which goes like this: ‘You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.’ In other words, we attract people with honey (kindness) and not vinegar (bitterness).

The small Tea Room pictured in today’s post, is a place we used several times on a recent family holiday to Corbridge, in North East England. The coffee, tea and snacks were delicious, but it was the warmth of the welcome that saw us return there and recommend it. Had the drinks and food been just as good, but with a poor atmosphere, I wouldn’t have returned or recommended it.

The honey approach makes sound business sense – after all, business is all about people, so it pays to be personable.

What do people see when they research you online?

Why not take some time out today and look at what people see, when they research you or your business. Look at your social networking accounts and also the search engine results that come up when people search for you by name or business name. If using Google, sign out of your Google accounts before you do any research. This will help you see less biased results, as will using a proxy service like Hide My Ass. When signed into Google and doing a search, Google presents you with tailored results and you could miss things, which prospective clients or customers can see.

Do you prefer to hire people, if you know in advance that they will be approachable? Does the welcome you receive from a business have much of an impact on your decision to use them, return to them or recommend them?

Photo: Jim Connolly