What they can’t do is meet you face to face and shake your hand. The internet has opened up and people are more ready to trust interactions that take place on it. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to try extra hard to develop a good relationship with your long distance customers.

There are three areas in particular that you need to have a plan for when you have customer relationships that span the distance. They are trust, connectedness, and attentiveness.

Trust

Trust is hard when you can’t meet someone face to face. Sure, there are some people who readily extend the hand of trust. But if you want people to pay for your product or service, you need to be able to prove to them its worth it. They need to trust it, and by extension, trust you.

So how do you get someone who lives on the other side of the country to trust you? You need to show them the complete package. This means that your web site needs to be more than a placeholder. Consider adding a blog to communicate regularly. It also means that you will benefit from positive online reviews, so tap some of your favorite customers to write reviews of your business on popular review sites, such as Yelp.com.

A great way to build trust is to include online videos of yourself talking about how your business can make a customer’s life better. If you are comfortable getting in front of a camera, you should be using online videos. People have an easier time trusting someone when they see them.

You can also build up trust by building your reputation. Get involved in online communities and make thoughtful contributions. The more you are thought of as a caring expert, the easier it will be to get people to trust you.

Of course, the first rule of garnering trust is the most important. Be worthy of trust.

Connectedness

People want to feel connected. You can’t sit down for a coffee with your customers if they don’t live nearby. So you need a plan for staying in touch. It is helpful if you think of it in terms of sitting down for coffee. Staying connected isn’t about keeping your marketing message in front of your customers faces. Its about always being there. Its about sharing with your customers.

One great way to do this is with an email newsletter. Use it to just talk to your customers. Write to them weekly in a friendly, conversational tone. Point out things that will be helpful. Answer questions. Tell them what’s new. Think of customers as friends, and communicate with them in like manner.

On the flip side, find ways to be available when your customer needs you. Provide ways for them to reach out to you with their questions. And, as I talk about next, get back to them quickly.

Attentiveness

The best relationships are the ones where if you call someone and get their voice mail you can leave a message and you know that they are going to call you back the first moment they get a chance. In life, you can measure the health of a relationship by how often you talk and how quickly you get back to one another.

To be personal with your long distance customers, you need to pay special attention to attentiveness. Be quick to answer questions and to solve problems. Follow up more than you would with a local customer. Send emails out of the blue to see how your customers are doing and how you can better serve them.

By paying attention to your online customers, you establish the fact that you value them. They are important to you, even if they are not near you.

One way this might play out is if your business has a bunch of customers in a different time zone. Wouldn’t it be nice if you put live customer service in place to help them in their own time zone? That would be really paying attention to and caring about your customers.

It is possible to be personal at the distance of the internet. You need to have a plan and work at it, but with a little extra effort, you can make each customer feel cared for.

photo credit: jurvetson

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Bradford Shimp teaches small businesses how to interact online. Learn more at BroadRiverCreative.com.

Except for the rare instance, commercials are painful and boring and an interruption of the engagement of our brains with the content. They break up good content. Even good commercials grow old really fast. Commercials are shouting at us. Listening to a talk show interrupted by commercials is like having a quite conversation with an old friend in a coffee shop when a bunch of really loud and obnoxious teenagers walk in.

If you don’t want your business to be perceived as loud and obnoxious, don’t employ interruption marketing techniques. Prospects are people too. So engage them like human beings, in conversation.

Does this mean that you can’t sell to people? Not at all. It just means that you have to sell yourself first, before you sell your product. People want to be able to trust you. They also want to feel connected.

You can not build trust and connectedness by talking at prospects. Instead, you must engage with them. Share something of yourself, show your humanity, and encourage feedback.

Share Something of Yourself

What this means, in this business sense, is that you should share your knowledge. As a small business owner, you have developed an expertise. Refine that expertise and provide content that speaks to the end users, your customers and prospects. This can take shape in the form of a blog, a newsletter, a series of videos, a Twitter account, or any other way of delivering content.

In order to start conversations with prospects, you need to provide some meat for the conversation. Don’t expect people to just call you up and start talking because of your static web presence. Instead, you need to have an active web presence, one that provides content and engages people.

Show Your Humanity

Prospects are not going to have conversations with you as a business. Instead, they will engage you as a person. So don’t be afraid to let your personality show through your conversation marketing efforts. In fact, by letting your personality hang out, you will attract people around you that you will enjoy, which will make doing business with them that much sweeter.

Encourage Feedback

In order for a real conversation to take place, there has to be back and forth between two parties. This is about you being accessible. Make it easy for prospects to join you in conversation. If you are blogging, encourage comments and respond to them. Also, establish a presence on a few social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter.

Don’t just wait for responses to your content. Search out people who fit within your area of interest and respond to what they are saying. Be willing to talk, just for the sake of it. Every conversation will not lead to a sale. But by being out there, you gain exposure and opportunity.

You also need to learn how to bring a conversation back to a sale. Don’t rush it, but don’t ignore it either. When you engage, look to be helpful. When you have conversations with the right kind of people, you will be able to recognize selling opportunities. Don’t be shy. Keep engaging in the same style. Be honest, provide value, and be yourself. Its okay to tell someone in conversation that you may have the answer to their need. You would do it in a normal conversation, and you need to do it online.

After all, conversation marketing is just talking if it doesn’t lead to sales. Just recognize that what does lead to sales is trust and connection. You can’t build that by talking at prospects. Instead, talk with them and provide the answers that they need.

photo credit: pterjan