More and more SMB’s are, at the very least, experimenting with social media. You can sense that as you see the activity by local businesses no matter where you are. The “Check Us Out on Facebook” and “Follow Us On Twitter” signs are springing up more and more on Main Street USA and for good reason.

The small local business person is at a crossroads of sorts. Traditionally, this group has accounted for much of the business growth in the US and has supplied the vast majority of jobs especially to groups that are in need of a decent job. With the current climate in Washington, DC working against everything that could move the needle for this group (credit the biggest factor) the SMB needs a chance to do something for his or her business that can get them started again.

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As a search marketing agency develops its positioning in the market, whether it is to serve a particular business niche; work with small to medium sized businesses or as a market leader, developing enterprise level solutions for multinationals; it is important to set and maintain a service benchmark by which the agency can be measured.

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A new report from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council report indicates that marketers under-value loyalty programs even as customers give the perks, discounts, deals and additional service opportunities high marks.

What makes a loyalty program successful? Both customers and marketers agree: deeper engagement and personalized contact drives loyalty, not mass blast communications and gimmicks.

The Marketer’s View

Most marketers (61 percent) believe that loyalty program participants are the best and most profitable customers. So it is not surprising that an almost equal number of respondents (65 percent) view customer loyalty program investments as a very essential, or a quite valuable part of the marketing mix. Where they fall down is in extracting greater value from customer loyalists. When it comes to in-depth profiling of customers, the vast majority of marketers still only aggregate and analyze limited customer data sets. 73 percent collect basic demographics and 68 percent track the location of members, but critical insights — such as advocacy rates (14 percent), brand loyalty and attachment (27 percent), personal preferences (31 percent), satisfaction levels (33 percent), and product preferences (38 percent) — are not being leveraged.

The Consumer’s View

Today’s consumer loyalist wants essential information delivered through multiple channels in the most relevant, personal and customized way possible.  More than half (58 percent) say they want more compelling personal benefits and services, as well as more relevant offers or individualized deals.

Customers are issuing a very clear warning to marketers: Give me relevant communications that reflect my history and connections to you, or I’ll go elsewhere with my business.

Smart marketers will respond by taking what they know about customer wants, preferences and behaviors and be more targeted, efficient and relevant in their messaging to improve response rates and increase customer gratification and purchase intent.

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Social Media impacts every business, every brand, and in doing so, connects a network of distributed communities of influence, making the world a much smaller place in the process.  Small businesses are in fact at an advantage in Social Media Marketing as they can focus on hyper-local activity that can offer immediate rewards or at the very least, the real-time feedback or lack thereof says everything about next steps.

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This week, I’ve got a question for you…

What is one of the critical differences between successful businesses owners and unsuccessful businesses owners?

It’s not how much money they start with, or where they come from.

It’s not their level of education.

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