Capturing the Glow

Don’t let the warm glow of a great first impression fade.[/caption] Congratulations: You’ve done it! You’ve hooked your intended audience. Whether it was a poster, a point-of-sale connection, a commercial, or email: Your approach was engaging, and they actually liked it. Success! Now what? After making a great impression, you have a very short window of time to follow up and leverage the good feelings associated with your impactful campaign. You want to convert a soft glow into a more lasting and meaningful connection. Remember: The smallest goal is usually to convert those warm fuzzies into a direct sale. Primarily, the objective should always be a focus on the longer-term relationship, on a personal level — and public consensus of the brand on a larger scale. When you’re creating your campaign, you should always think about what happens in the moments, days, and weeks right after your content and creative lands the way you’re planning — aside from adding your necessary call to action and contact info, then hoping for the best.

Here Are Some Examples of Solid Follow-Up

  • If you sent an email, and they opened it up and/or clicked.
Create a secondary email to follow up with people who showed interest, especially if they clicked on a link inside your email but didn’t follow to complete a transaction or reach out; one great idea is to provide a special offer. If you have a complete set of contact info for most of the people on this mailing list, you might even want to follow up personally with a phone call and see if there’s anything you can do for them. Some people are simply not as good at completing purchases or reaching out online.
  • If you made an impression in person, such as a luncheon or trade show.
The warm glow that someone gets from an intangible, like a nice conversation or a fun experience, is usually the quickest to fade. Then, they don’t even have an asset to fall back on to refresh their original good feelings — and memories can shift with time. (“Did I really like their demo that much or did I like the mimosas?”) Capitalize on it right away — preferably with a call or personalized invitation to another event, something that really captures your voice, rather than a typed letter in the mail. A business card alone simply won’t do. Follow up within two days, or your connection might have moved on.
  • If you have a television or radio commercial running.
We have to admit: This sort of thing is trickier. But it doesn’t mean that it’s any less important. This is a time to be sending out more communication than ever — which means it can never be just one piece of outreach. At the same time as your commercial, consider an ad in the newspaper or putting something in the mail. That way, once your bigger piece hits home just the way you meant for it to, after all of your hard work, your audience will soon see your brand pop up again elsewhere and remind them of that original glow. It’s even better than just hearing the commercial again on the way home.]]>

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