What service providers can do better

Key influencers in today's day and age, may mean twitter, facebook, linkedin and various other social media friends and followers.

We all know that a clear strong brand is the foundation for great marketing, so for a service provider, ensuring that all people that may potentially influence your target audience is as knowledgeable on your service and its value proposition is as imperitive as the end customer knowing.

Also, knowing how your customers want to be interacted with and ensuring that you are communicating on a level that they are comfortable with and receptive to, is part of the parcel of understanding and appreciating your target audience. Too often, marketers and small business owners get caught up in things that don't matter. What does matter is understanding, appreciating and connecting with your target audience in a way that resonates with them in many levels.

When it comes to marketing, customers need to know that their "service provider" has devised the right strategy to meet their business objectives and this may be communicated simply through a collaborative approach to marketing and education.

Knowing more about your customer on a one-to-one basis is what will make any service provider more successful. Whether you use salesforce.com or any other customer relationship management platform, the gathering of information and its currency will allow you to connect your brand to the people that matter most - your customers.

While I am not an advocate for the way supermarkets are "pushing" customers to sign up for loyalty cards that are intrusive and that create a pricing issue, I am all for open forums of gathering data from customers who are willing to share.

September is great month to update your customer relationship management database and ensure that you have up-to-date data that is relevant and helps you ensure that your customers feel special.