Customer-centric Communication

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Customer-centric
Communications
Who are you? Who cares?

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Your Speaker
Amy Kenigsberg
Principal
Consultant
Bachelor of Journalism, magazine & newspaper journalism
MBA
20+ years in PR, marcom, and content marketing
Experience ranges from the first Internet agency to GE
industries from alumni relations to telecom, internal and external
comm
Co-founder, K2 Global Communications, international PR, social
media, marcom, and content marketing

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The Critical Who
Your Customer

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The Customer Isn’t Always Right
The customer
just IS

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What’s in
it for me?

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If you cannot answer that
question from your customer’s
perspective, you won’t be in
business very long.

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Customer-focused Messaging
• FIRST
• Needs
• Desires
• Role within the organization
• Role across industries
• THEN THE PRODUCT

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Building Internal
Consensus
Everyone must know “What’s in it for me”

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The Internal Audience
• Employees
• Every employee
• Every department
• Clerical to CEO

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Buy-in & Collaboration
• Every single stakeholder MUST be included
• Every member of senior management and department
heads
• Decisions MUST be made – What is the overall corporate
messaging?
• Decisions MUST be implemented – This is the hard part.
• Whoever manages the process must be ready for the blame

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Requirements
•Consistent messages
•Buy-in
•OPEN communication channels

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Delivery Channels

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Be Aware of “Telephone”

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You’re NOT DONE
• Need SYSTEMATIC, ongoing communications
• Daily/weekly newsletter
• NOTHING formal
• Two-three sentence status updates from each department, e.g.
• Sales lists potential customers
• Tech support lists issues for the sales engineer
• Marketing provides link to new version of product brochure
• Regular “Stand-up” meetings
• Ongoing communication to department heads regarding management
initiatives

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All customer-
facing team
members
need to be on
the same
page

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The Failed Sale
Inside sales rep has the customer ready to
buy – Based on information he received
from the product manager
The inside sales rep schedules a follow-up
call with the CTO. The CTO disputes every
spec made to the customer by the sales
rep

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Communicating with
Your Customer
Make that first impression over and over and over
and over and over and over again

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What Do You Want to Achieve?
• Drive more sales
• Too general
• Drive sales in markets A, B & C
• Too general
• Drives sales in markets A, B & C from C-level and
project managers

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You all know the cliché
You only get one chance
to make a first impression

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It’s a Lie!

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No one is going to notice your
first impression
• They just got a text
• They are in traffic
• They are using What’s Up

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Pay Attention! (Not!)
Statistic Verification
Source: National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of
Medicine, The Associated Press
Research Date: April 2nd, 2015
The average attention span in 2015 8.25 seconds
The average attention span in 2000 12 seconds
The average attention span of a gold
fish
9 seconds

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Customer Communications Channels
• Website
• Social media
• Blog
• Analyst report
• Analyst blog
• RSS
• Newsletter
• Print

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All Communications Should
Appeal to Clearly Defined
Audiences

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Reaching Your Targets
• You have your goal
• You know your audience
• Find out who is influencing them
• Journalists
• Bloggers
• Analysts
• Peers

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Multiple Audiences
• Clearly define the messages for each
• Separate efforts
• Separate materials
•Two landing pages/website sections, etc.

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Your Content Needs to Focus On
•News You Can Use
•Objective statistics that help the industry
•Content that adds to the conversation
•Controversial

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Social Media
• Friend-to-friend communications channels
• The medium is the message
• Social is political, commercial, promotional,
self-indulgent

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Content Marketing
• The Ultimate “What’s in it for me” focus
• What information can you pass along to your customers that will
• Make their jobs easier
• Reduce the hassles they face
• Improve their lives
• Increase their wealth
• Reduce their stress

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Newsletters
• Still the #1 means of communications, with highest ROI
• No more than two per month – don’t want to be spam
• Headlines are critical – Free, sale, etc. filtered out
• Google
• Separate email boxes
• Recycle

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Conferences
• Make appointments in advance
• The ONLY time to meet journalist and analysts in person
• Make your booth fun
• KISS
• Export Institute - MWC & others
• EXPENSIVE
• Targeted

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Public Relations, K2 Style
Building relationships with influencers
to create third-party endorsements,
attracting customers to buy and/or
repeat purchase

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Paid Opportunities
• Banner advertising
• Retargeting
• Newsletter sponsorship
• Video ads

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The Process
Getting it Done

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Retarget with your content, not
just your latest sale

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What’s in it
for me??

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Everything needs to follow…

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Reduce: Get Down to Tachlis
• What information do you possess that can
create objective reports for your
industry?
• Use cases
• Customer statistics

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Reuse Your Content
• “Sell” it as a blog to a targeted media outlet
• Promote their usage on social media
• Put a link to their site on yours
• Send the content in your newsletter – with an
“As seen in”

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Recycle
• December comes every year
• Predictions
• Holidays
• Back to school
• Are the same people reading
your blog?
• Do they even remember what
you wrote?

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The Real Secret: Don’t Be a One-Hit
Wonder
The Sales Channel Depends on
LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIPS:
Persistence, persistence,
persistence

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A Bit More on Content Distribution
• Exclusivity v. “the masses”
• Type of impact v. quantity
• Check with your SEO expert (un-indexing, etc.)
• Target, target, target
• If published: Always post their link your website

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Measurement
• Higher website traffic
• Consider quantity v. quality
• Six visits – One registration
• Thousands of visits – Nothing
• More downloads
• Increase in newsletter subscribers
• Growth of conversion rates
• Incoming media inquiries
PR trade
industry
associations
are still
debating
measurement
standards
after 30+
years

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What is News?
• Industry specific
• General
• Product news
• Corporate data
• Deals with major partners
• Company news
• Reputation building
• Expertise
• Analysis
• Opinion

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NOT News
• We’re going to a show (unless…)
• We met with a potential investor
• We’re taking it on the road
• We’re joining 20 other Israeli companies at…

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The Press Release
• Newsworthy only!
• Be clear about your key messages
• What’s in it for me? Journalist/reader
• Inverted pyramid – get to the point
• Who, what, when, where, why , how
• Compelling writing gets read
• Generate interest/tease, don’t bore or be overly granular
• Human-sounding quotes only
• Streamline the approval process

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“Local” Coverage
• Israel
• A LOT OF COMPETITION
• DO NOT expect local coverage
• Foreign media based in Israel
• Approach on a one-to-one basis
• Potential success only on a slow news day after much
persistence

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The Relationship with the Journalist
• She IS doing you a favor by speaking with you
• NEVER cancel unless a dire emergency
• Be prepared, especially for curves
• Most communication occurs by email
• NEVER attach anything
• Get to the point, keep it short
• Use bold/underlining

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You are an Israeli Company…Or Not?
• You ARE an Israeli company
• Politics
• NEUTRAL: “I don’t feel it would be fair or appropriate to use this as a
political forum. Our focus is on sharing our technology to everyone’s
benefit.”
• You AREN’T
• R&D is in Israel
• Stick to the story

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Present a Professional Face
• Have a professional, native English speaker review
your website
• While it may appear to be English, many Israeli sites
are in “Heblish”
• The cow brown that jumped over the moon.
• The brown cow jumped over the moon.
• He is getting into the place.
• He entered.

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amy@k2-gc.com
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Spelling Counts
• Any typo in a website or marketing
material significantly reduces your
credibility
• If you cannot be bothered to spell correctly or have
your materials proofread, you’re undermining
confidence in your company and products

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And Your Name Is?
• ‫רוני‬
• Ronny
• Ronnie
• Roni
• Ronni
• Ronie
• Ronney
NEVER misspell
anyone’s name
• Ask how his/her name is spelled
• Check LinkedIn, etc.

Customer-centric Communication

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