Marketing Lessons from the Gym – 5 Rules of Online Engagement

Lisa Hannah is the director of marketing at Janrain, a SaaS company that provides a user management platform for the social web. For the past 15 years, Lisa has driven B2B marketing strategy for start-ups and larger enterprises, primarily in emerging tech markets. Connect with Lisa on LinkedIn or on Twitter @pdxlmh.

Figuring out how best to engage with consumers online keeps many marketers, including myself, up at night.

Regardless of industry or size, B2B or B2C, all organizations face the very real challenge of building meaningful relationships with their users online. A recent experience with a local gym got me thinking about the parallels in success criteria for offline and online customer engagement.

A few years ago a friend gave me a set of 10 passes to her swanky gym as a Christmas gift. For several weeks, I skipped my regular gym in favor of this one with better amenities. During this period, I received exactly one voice mail from the gym asking how I liked it. I never called back, and they didn’t call me again. At the end of the 10 visits, I went back to my old gym.

Fast forward to this past summer. My husband gave me a three-month membership to the same upscale gym. During this period, they never bothered with a ‘welcome back’, asked how it was going, or prompted me to sign-up for an annual membership.

As much as I liked this gym, I couldn’t bring myself to extend the membership. As a consumer, I was stunned that they hadn’t tried to earn my business, and as a marketer, I couldn’t believe how they had blown it.

This experience inspired 5 rules for engaging with consumers – whether in the digital or physical world:

1. Know whom you are interacting with. I didn’t just come in off the street – two different people in my immediate network led me to the gym. Additionally, I filled out a form with demographic info, current gym membership and personal fitness goals. The gym could have used this data to market additional services to me and lock me in as a member.

Knowing your user online typically starts with a sign-up process via a registration form. Collect data that will support the type of relationship you want to build then use the data to make the customer experience better – and improve your bottom line.

2. Recognize customers when they come back. Although I had been a temporary member of the gym on two separate occasions, I was treated the same as a first timer.

Online, recognize users who return to your site. Make it easy for them to re-enter with a one-click login. Say “Thank You”, ask them questions about their experience. What do they like? Don’t like? What would inspire loyalty? A Blue Research/Janrain survey found that the majority of consumers are more likely to return and buy at a site that recognizes them.

3. Know their friends and influencers. This gym knew I had at least one friend who was a member. They could’ve asked me if had other friends and given me passes to share.

When a user signs into your site with a social identity such as Facebook or LinkedIn, you have access to their friends or contacts list. Make it easy for your users to see who in their network is a site member and give them an easy way to invite additional friends to your site. A Harris Interactive Poll reveals that 71% of consumers claim reviews from family members or friends exert a “great deal” or “fair amount of influence.

4. Make targeted, personal offers. The gym had my husband’s information, as well as mine. They had an opportunity to make him a targeted offer to gift me a full-year membership. Or to start selling me on converting the membership, maybe throwing in a free session with a personal trainer. Ironically, during the three-month period, I received several generic mailings from the gym, as well as their standard emails, but nothing targeted to me.

When collecting online user data, use that information to present offers and content that make sense to the individual. The amount and type of data collected can be dramatically improved when the consumer signs up with a social login. The 2010 Cone Consumer New Media Study shows that 53% of consumers will stop following a company if it provides irrelevant content.

5.      Show them you are a smart partner. Consumers are bombarded with offers daily. Demonstrate that you provide a good service and you’re clever; make them want to choose you and then tell others to choose you!

Social networks drive online conversations and have put word-of-mouth marketing on steroids. You can’t control what your customers say, but you can control the experience they have with you.

The gym had the advantage of a face-to-face relationship with me, and an in-take form they could have used to their advantage. Online engagement relies on the effective use of software tools and social networks are providing highly actionable data about their users. Use it to treat your customers better.

What have off-line experiences taught you about how to do better online?