Marketing Tactics: Transparency
Currently, I’m finishing up Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg. Obviously, there’s some controversy about it, people are a little tired of “leaning in,” and then there are the avid supporters. I won’t categorize myself; however, there was one point that I read over last night that I agreed with.
The point that Sandberg was making was nodding to emotions in the office. I could be overly summarizing her points, but an important one that she was making about emotions in the office was to be open, clear and honest. Granted, some emotions should be left out, but Sandberg was pushing to say to be as transparent as possible.
No matter your side on the issue of keeping personal things at home or being your whole self (carrying certain problems), Sandberg’s point on transparency resonated with me and it opened up some points about how transparency is a tactic that has become more, shall we say, transparent this past year.
Being transparent can be defined as free from pretense or deceit, readily understood characterized by visibility or accessibility or information especially concerning business practices. In general, just being open!
People have much more access to information in real-time, Tweet and Facebook their brains out, and are even more willing to be vocal when the brands they use have slighted them. All the more reason for a brand to start incorporating transparency into their marketing.
I’m not saying you need to oust the skeletons in your closet or to divulge in all of you marketing secrets. Using the marketing tactic of transparency helps to accomplish the following things…
Identifying the problem and addressing it
Intercom is a frequent tool that Team TrackMaven uses on a daily basis. It shows what users are online and gives us an idea how many sessions a user has using TrackMaven. There are also a number of other things that Intercom does as well.
Besides the multi-uses that Intercom provides and informative blog posts, I connected with them on how they identify problems that many product companies may have and how to address them.
I attended a webinar Intercom held about a month ago about “Acquiring, Engaging and Retaining Customers.” Des Traynor identified how companies are having issues with reaching out to customers the right way and he addressed this issue in the webinar. It definitely engaged me as a customer of Intercom because he identified an issue we were having at TrackMaven and took the time with a webinar to teach us ways to address this own problem with Intercom.
FAQs only skim the surface of issues with your product; however, taking the time to do a webinar, white paper, book etc. leaves the customer with a valuable takeaway. You’ve identified a common problem and it’s up to your company to be transparent to solve it.
As a company or brand, you want to take the reigns on a problem, rather than a customer or competitor beating you too it. Look back at what happened with RapGenius and Heroku.
Answering the questions
Two months ago, I went to B2B Camp and heard Marcus Sheridan speak. He divulged in his own marketing efforts and informed us that they really weren’t so hard or secretive. He caught my attention because he was so open and transparent. Sheridan even harped on that point of transparency pointing out the biggest problem with the marketing he was running in the in-ground pool business was that no one was answering the major questions asked. How much would it cost? Is fiber glass better than concrete? Who constructed the best pools in Virginia?
Marcus Sheridan then began answering these questions on his blog. He didn’t have to identify his own business, customers naturally gravitated to the site after determining he answered the questions. He began ranking higher on Google and business started trickling in again.
Another great example in “answering these questions” can come from Warby Parker.
Warby Parker has a one ring phone service policy, but also takes answering customers’ questions further by accompanying the answer with Youtube videos. It adds value to the question the customer is asking because Warby Parker took the time to create a video to answer it. The videos also provide a level of face to face interaction that you wouldn’t get over the phone.
Both of these tactics of transparency allows for the customer to relieve some frustration with answers. Don’t leave your customers wondering — engaging in conversation with them will only improve your marketing and your brand.
Show Feedback
My love for Buffer is surely apparent. I think it’s a great tool and I go bananas over their new blog posts. The one thing that really roped me in as a fan though were their Happiness Reports.
It’s a monthly post on their blog outlining how happy Buffer customers are. I can’t imagine a Buffer customer being angry with them because they respond to emails at light speed and always interact on social media outlets. Yet, I think even if there were a shift in emotions I have faith they would elaborate on the monthly Happiness Report.
The Happiness Reports are fantastic triumphs of showing feedback. Take a look at January’s report.
A lot of these marketing transparency tactics converge into the customer success outlet; however, if you’re making your customers happy, why not be open about it? Zappos is a perfect example of this. They have triumphed the customer service route and have been completely transparent in their marketing with it publishing their culture book and office tours.
It only makes sense to be more open with your marketing and with your customers. It’s a tactic that allows you to, in its name, to be transparent. Transparency gains a level of trust with your customers.
We’re all humans, so a brand being transparent with their marketing only shows that a company/brand is made of humans too…or corgis.
