When giving the option to make business decisions around assumed customer profiles or actual ones, the choice should be a no-brainer.  Don’t just assume you know what value your customers place on your service or product, actually know. Don’t just assume you know what you customers are happy with and what they are frustrated with, actually know. And then, once you actually know, maximize the value of that information. If you haven’t already, it’s time to embrace customer feedback and here are 5 tips to get you started…

1) Have a strategy and be committed to it. There are three main pieces to any good feedback program:

• Asking for feedback. First and foremost your strategy should NOT start with, “If we get customer feedback we will …”. Waiting around for customers to contact you with feedback is not a strategy; you need to go after it and do so on an on-going basis.
• Planning how you will use the feedback. This not only helps you generate the type of feedback you seek, but helps ensure that it doesn’t just disappear into a black hole. You need to know what you are going to do with the feedback once you receive it. Who will it be shared with? What business decisions will it influence?  Knowing these things are critical for any feedback program, no matter how big or small.
• Using it (and letting you customers know that you did). The entire point of generating feedback is to aid in the ongoing success of your business. Make sure that you not only have a plan for how to use it, but actually use it. And don’t forget to let your customers know that they do have a voice, that they are influencers of your brand – the more they realize that the more loyal to your brand they will become and the more open they will be to sharing with you in the future.

2) Be timely with your requests. Use key points of interaction to solicit feedback from your customers. This ensures that you receive it while their experience is still fresh and/or most relevant and results in more specific feedback. The less timely you are, the more general the feedback will be.

3) Be relevant with your requests. Don’t ask your customers to provide feedback on every part of your business all at once. Collecting feedback is an ongoing process and should be requested at many points of interaction (see #2), so keep each request short and relevant to the corresponding interaction. Want to know how you can improve your newsletter, link to a survey within your newsletter. Want to know if customers are happy with their in-store experience, use point-of-purchase cards or place a request on their receipt. Want to know how they like your new product, contact them shortly after, but give them enough time to have used it. Be selective in what you ask and when you ask it.

4) Keep it simple. The easier it is for your customers to give feedback, the more likely they will be to give it. Provide various ways for them to answer- online, by email, by phone, in-person, etc. And keep it brief with simple, direct questions.

Your customers are your businesses’ most valuable asset and listening to what they have to say is a win-win for you both. With the information in hand to make better informed business decisions that will improve your business in the ways that are most important to your customers, the results will be happier, more loyal customers and, ultimately, a happier thriving business.

So on that note… for all of you who have linked to this post from our newsletter, we want to know what you think! Didn’t link from the newsletter? We’d love to know what you think too. In the coming months you will see some significant changes to our newsletter and we want your input on the types of articles and features we should include. Please take our short survey and help us make our newsletter the best it can be. Thanks in advance.

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These guys know small businesses drive the economy and in Portland that is just what we need now, being known as a pretty slow start up scene when compared with fast runners Seattle and San Francisco. They may not seem so glamorous to the naked eye but these small start ups need investors to get them off the ground and angel investors in Portland have not been so quick to spread their wings.

Oregon Business Magazine has just published the article to explain who is out there and what they are doing to get these small businesses and startups funded and on a steady growth pattern. The young business leaders featured here bring with them a wealth of new ideas to “ignite the startup scene”. These are the guys who are investing in Portland’s small startups not only financially but with new ideas and dynamic views on how to succeed.

Find out who they are and what they have been doing.

eROI decided to find out by conducting a study of over 500 marketers to see what their current attitudes were towards mobile marketing and social media trends.

Get a brief on our study from ClickZ

Our study was geared towards learning:

• The interest in mobile marketing to marketers, if any.
• The importance of mobile marketing and social media to the marketer.
• How the marketer is integrating the media and how much research is being done to optimize it.

The study was successful and informative if not a bit surprising. If 91% of the US population uses a mobile device, what are the marketers really doing to access those consumers? Get the full study here…

This notation can be a hard one to embrace. For many, it is the complete opposite of how they are used to managing their brands – a well orchestrated set of controlled messages that consumers experience where, when and how the brand chooses. For many, it feels like giving up all control, and that can be an uneasy feeling. But it need not be.

Sure, this new landscape of consumer empowerment means that there are things a brand can no longer control, but that doesn’t mean a brand can’t have an influence on those things. By fostering dialogue and building strong relationships with your consumers, you  empower them to do more than just complain. By giving them forums in which their voices can be heard, and showing them that their opinions do matter, not only will they be less likely to post unconstructive criticism all over the web, but they will be more likely to share positive feedback and advocate for your brand.

Making this shift isn’t hard, but it’s not something you should dive into blindly. Taking some time to understand the dynamics of this strategy, plan your approach and align resources will be key to success.

Here are a few things for you to consider as you being down this new road…

• Extend beyond market research. Simply trying to predict what consumers want isn’t as effective as having them tell you first hand. And they will tell you. Listen attentively. Ask their opinions. Engage with them.

• Form REAL relationships. Remember that “fake” girl in high school who was really nice to everyone’s face – don’t be her. Everyone saw through her and they will see though you too. You need to have real, meaningful dialogue with your consumers. If they trust that you really care, they will openly share their thoughts and opinions with you, they will want to deepen their personal relationship with your brand and many will become your brand ambassadors.
• Prepare for a long-term commitment. You must develop your marketing and communication strategies around an ongoing effort to listen and engage. This is not a short term initiative; there is no “project completion” date for it. Your consumer’s lives, needs and wants are ever changing and the most successful brands will be those that pick up on those changes as they happen and adapt as need to support them.
• Know what you want to acquire and what you will do once you get it. Before you being creating your new relationships, make sure you have a plan for the information and insights you will receive. Determine the ways in which your consumers can a help to mold your brand. What information and feedback is most valuable to you? What will be your process for aggregating and passing along the information internally? How will your company actually use the information? These are just a few things you should consider in your strategic plan.
• Determine what you want to relay. You can’t control all of messaging around your brand, but you can certainly control some of it. Solidify the main messages you want to put out there. Make sure they are precise, easy to understand, easy to remember and easy to share.
• Create a custom execution strategy. There is not a one-size-fits-all strategy that you can follow. What works best for one brand, may not work at all for another. There are countless channels you can use to build and foster your relationships with your consumers, you just need to determine which of them to use. From LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, to industry blogs, custom online communities, feedback tools, live online support, profile based content delivery, sharable content, polling and surveying and so on, you have many options for customizing an execution strategy. In deciding which channels to use, consider the plan you’ve created for the type of information you want to acquire. Consider the resources (time and budget) you are able to allocate. Consider your primary and alternative target audiences – What are their current online habits? Where are they spending their time online? In what ways do you anticipate they will interact with you most? Are they already talking about your brand? If so, where? And consider what other marketing and communication tactics you will use to support these relationship building efforts.

If this is a completely new approach for you and your company, there is no doubt that it may take  time to make the shift. You will need to start with some discovery and planning before diving in, and as you begin the cycle of listening, discussing, learning and changing, your strategy will likely shift and improve along the way.

There are a lot of great reads out there on adapting your brand to this new landscape, a favorite of mine is “The Open Brand” by Kelly Mooney and Nita Rollins, Ph.D. (http://theopenbrand.resource.com/). I encourage you to do your own research, have your own conversations and do all you can to fully understand this new landscape. Don’t be overwhelmed by it. Embrace it, commit to what you can for now and grow from there.

On the mobile front, it’s really cool to see Portland develop this niche of mobile strategists, developers, and platforms. Jason Grigsby is leading the way among mobile thought leaders – tons of great mobile facts and insights in this presentation.

eROI: What do you do here?
Rich: I am the Product Manager for all eROI software products and services.

eROI: What did you do before?
Rich: Most recently I built a personalized children’s book company – a mash-up of a web-driven personalization interface, children’s picture books/content, and on-demand book publishing. Behind that I have a pretty varied (I like to call it “dynamic”) career, like: driving product development for a video-based e-learning company; creating a sales/marketing team for a medical device company while developing a medical device; sales engineering big streaming media deals with a little company called Enron; knowing way too much about optical microlithography and its implementation in a high-volume semiconductor manufacturing environment.

eROI: So far, what’s the coolest thing about working at eROI?
Rich: It’s an easy answer – the people. I think having smart, motivated people excited to create and deliver greatness is pretty cool.

eROI: What do you feel that you’ll bring to your team?
Rich: Having been on the customer side for these products and on the development side of other (reasonably similar) software products, I think I have a unique perspective and skill set that I hope can help make these products great.

eROI: What was your first job?
Rich: During a teachers’ strike in high school, I took a job as a bark spreader. I got in trouble for spreading the bark too quickly, which was a great lesson in “work environments to avoid.”

eROI: What was your worst job?
Rich: Fencing. I used to resurface tennis courts and one summer I had to do a bunch of fence work around some big high school’s courts. Never. Again.

eROI: What were you like in high school?
Rich: I lettered in football, basketball, and chess (yes, I won a few matches at State). Never a cool kid, never a nerd, but a little bit of both.

eROI: Do you have kids?
Rich: Yes. My wife Jessica and I have two kids: Jackson (8) and Addie (6).

eROI: Where are you from?
Rich: Though I was born in Michigan, most of my growing up was in a tiny town of 4,000 people in Kentucky.

eROI: What’s your favorite thing about Portland?
Rich: It’s just the right size and full of interesting people doing interesting things.

eROI: Where’s the coolest place you’ve traveled?
Rich: That’s a hard question – I love to travel and have lots of favorite places for different reasons.  Our family just went to Brazil in February and had an absolutely amazing time. I still dream about the food in South Korea. But I don’t think anything is prettier that being back country in Banff/Yoho/Jasper.

eROI: What do you like to do when you’re not at work?
Rich: I’m a family guy – my life revolves around friends and family. I coach several sports teams for my kids (baseball, t-ball, soccer) and play soccer and basketball too. I read a lot, am big into music, and rarely turn down a chance to play a ridiculous game (ping-pong, bowling, foosball, darts, ad nauseum) or to have a drink on the porch with friends.

eROI: If you could build a robot to do an everyday task for you, what would it be?
Rich: It would convince my daughter to get dressed in under 35 minutes. EVERY morning.

eROI: What’s something that may surprise us about you?
Rich: I learned to ski in Kentucky. Yes, snow ski.

I encourage you to check out the complete case study to see exactly how we accomplished this. It details each of the eleven emails, as well as the overall results of the holiday campaign.

When: May 5-6, 2010
Where: Oregon Convention Center
Cost: $129 member / $149 non member
Register Today >>
SAO MEMBERS: Use this discount code: EMS20AT

The two-day eMarketing Summit brings together marketers, business owners and internet professionals from throughout the Northwest. This summit focuses on the strategies and concepts of eMarketing while demonstrating the latest tools and techniques used by the Northwest’s top companies. Join us May 6th for a Keynote Luncheon hosted by AMA – Oregon featuring Christy Day, Online Spokesperson & Emerging Media Specialist, Southwest Airlines. Don’t miss the 2010 SoMe Awards/Innotech After Party at the Mac from 7-9.

Additionally, in today’s Portland Business Journal article on the momentum behind Oregon’s technology community, journalist Erik Siemers writes, “As the word continues to spread [about Oregon's technology success stories], that desert between Silicon Valley and Seattle is going to look a lot more like fertile ground with success stories popping off like fireworks. ‘Portland is going to start hearing these pops going off over time,’ Nees said.”

As an involved leader in the Software Association of Oregon, I couldn’t be happier about seeing the palpable momentum recognized by others. Experience the technology movement at Innotech next week!