Obama is keeping his 13 million supporters engaged by sending regular emails.
He is showing CRM people how customer database can be effectively managed and utilized.
Keep the customer engaged: - You have worked hard, closed the deal and got the database of customer. Now what? You have got two options – sit on the customer database or use it to keep him engaged. He has given you the permission to market yourself to him and onus is on you to utilize it. Customers can be engaged by informing him about new products, taking his feedback on new processes or products, remembering him on his birthday and anniversaries and of course you can use this database for future sales. Keep him engaged and sales will follow. It is about building relationships.
Make the communication personalized: - Days of spam are over. Nobody have time to look at spam. Also nobody wants to look at an email which is not personal. Personal messages help in connecting with customers at emotional level. Personalized messages convey that they are user specific and are unique to his needs and wants.
Make communication an easy process: - Obama mails which are sent to users always contain phone numbers of the recipient's local congressional representatives. By doing this he is just making it easy for users to get back to the person responsible in case required. How many company CRM managers would do that? Most of the customer service and CRM people try hard not to give their numbers and prefer providing call centre numbers and generic customer service email IDs. In India many times store managers of retail stores do not prefer to speak to customers, let alone give away the phone numbers.
Obama is showing way to marketers and CRM managers by taking care of his 13 million supporters (or customers). It is now up to us to learn and implement.
by rads , on April 16, 2009 12:55 AM
Wow!!! dint know about these principles of Obama. They rock, don't they. I sure hope he implements them well coz not all wud like to follow such rules.
by Ramesh , on April 16, 2009 7:56 AM
Obama is really a master at this. No wonder he rose from nowhere to beat such a formidable opponent as Hillary Clinton.
Lot to learn from him as you say.
by Adesh Sidhu , on April 16, 2009 7:32 PM
@ rads - Obama is a rockstar and we need to give him some time and he should be able to make difference.
@ Ramesh - You are right. He is master at managing fans/supporters or customers (as I would prefer to call).