Your customers don’t have a clue that you are holding an event in your store, that you offered them a discount, and that you now carry their favorite product in black. You told them. It was in your status. You tweeted it twice.

What? Are they not reading?

No! They aren’t. They don’t care . . .
→ Read More: Who Is Responsible for Connection?]]>

Your customers don’t have a clue that you are holding an event in your store, that you offered them a discount, and that you now carry their favorite product in black. You told them. It was in your status. You tweeted it twice.

What? Are they not reading?

No! They aren’t. They don’t care if they pass a reading comprehension test on your products. Just because you broadcast your message doesn’t mean you connect.

Who is responsible for the sad lack of customer connection?

You Are Not My Teacher

A colleague told me recently about her husband switching jobs from college teacher to high school teacher. The biggest surprise for him is the expectation that HE is now responsible for what his high school students understand.

This idea has been a shock to my communications system. As a college teacher, he made information available to his students, and they were responsible to read and understand. They did have to pass tests of comprehension. Now that he is teaching high school, his students’ knowledge is understood by his supervisors as a test of him and his teaching.

Hearing this story, it dawned on me that I assume a listener’s responsibility for comprehension. I certainly do with my husband and children. My background is that of a university teacher. I didn’t accept student excuses that they didn’t understand when information was right in front of them. I tend to think that if I’ve told someone once or twice or three times, they should get it. I hate to be told twice, because I remember what I’m told.

This story was a bit of a slap.

“Oh, no!” I thought. “I’m assuming my customers will listen to me AND that they will understand.”

That isn’t how marketing works, though. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you are a customer’s teacher—or mother.

Your Message, Your Responsibility

The marketer holds all of the responsibility for effective communication. If you want your customer to know that you carry a particular product and you mentioned it five times in your newsletter and on Facebook and a few times on Twitter and they still don’t know, you tell them again.

I think you risk losing a customer like me when you repeat a message over and over, because I pay attention. I find that kind of repetition tiresome, but it only matters how your target customer takes in information. If you are trying to sell me something, tell me twice then try another approach.  How will you know if that is true of your intended audience?

How will you know if you’ve connected?

Track how the tide of likes and unlikes flows. Watch your unfriends.

If you keep an editorial calendar, archive it. Note unsubscriptions and shares. Check for relationships between topic trends and the ups and downs of your contacts.

And, of course, ask your customers. The beauty of social engagement is that there are so many ways to check in with your customers and future customers. If you ask them whether you connected, they may tell you—either directly or by their silence.

In a classroom, I would still expect high school students to reach out for their own learning. In a collaborative or cooperative organization, I would expect those involved to take responsibility for information they receive. As I tell my own homeschooled children, they will get out of it what they put into it. This is not marketing, though.

Marketing is not collaborative, and you do not have a captive audience. You as a marketer are responsible for making the connection with your customers. They have no obligation to you.

Customer engagement is all on you.

Image © Ali Mufti | Dreamstime.com

Flow is the positive experience of losing oneself in a focused activity that matches high skill with high challenge. It’s being in the groove and finding the zone.

In his research, . . .
→ Read More: Finding Flow in 3Stream Flow]]> Flow in 3Stream Flow is based on the concept of flow as written about by psychologist Dr. Mihaly Csikszentimihalyi.

High skill and high challenge

Flow is the positive experience of losing oneself in a focused activity that matches high skill with high challenge. It’s being in the groove and finding the zone.

In his research, Csikszentimihalyi finds over and over that those people who experience flow go out to meet that experience. They seek challenges. They take charge. They have enough self-awareness that they know what they do well, and they enjoy a challenge.

[I]f we don’t take charge of its direction, our life will be controlled by the outside to serve the purpose of some other agency (Finding Flow 1).

Flow in business

At best, the experience of being in business for oneself should give opportunity for flow. Better yet, anyone in business should step forward and arrange the circumstances that encourage flow experience. We are more likely to find our own success and attract those seeking similar success if we are in the groove, challenging ourselves.

Going about your business of business without much awareness of what you personally find most challenging or what you personally do best may leave you without opportunity for flow experience. Create the opportunity. Dig in deep and figure out what you do best. Build your plans and your strategies around the skills and the challenges that make doing business a pleasure.

When we work with clients to write business plans or create website content, we need to know about them. We need to know what they do well, what they enjoy, where they find success. No successful business plan can be generic. When you work with us to develop your business strategy or to optimize your website, we put you at the center of your success.

Resources

Most of Csikszentmialyi’s works on flow are academic, but in Finding Flow (1998) he writes for a popular audience encouraging them to live life consciously. Csikszentmialyi’s most recent publications include two books on business and leadership with Dr. Howard Gardner (who also writes about multiple intelligences).

• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Isabella Selega Csikszentmihalyi, eds. (1988). Optimal Experience: Psychological studies of flow in consciousness, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper and Row.
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1996). Creativity : Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: Harper Perennial.
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1998). Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement With Everyday Life. Basic Books.
• Howard Gardner, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and William Damon (2002). Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet. New York, Basic Books.
• Howard Gardner, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and William Damon (2002). Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning. Basic Books.