Tag: Jay Baer

Jay Baer’s “Hug Your Haters” Book Launch Recap

If you are at all involved in social media and content marketing, you probably know who Jay Baer is – or have at least heard his name. After all, he is the world’s most retweeted person among digital marketers. As a prominent business strategist, keynote speaker and the New York Times best-selling author of five books, he has traveled the world helping businesspeople get and keep customers.

That’s why we were so excited to get him to headline our latest AZIMA event!

For AZIMA’s February event, Jay Baer came to Phoenix to share his knowledge with our marketing community. He led an afternoon workshop and delivered an evening presentation around his latest book, “Hug Your Haters: How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Customers.” Everyone at the event received a copy of the book, as well as participated in a discussion around its key themes. Highlights from our time with Jay are noted below. He shared some fantastic advice for those looking to up their marketing game and turn haters into brand advocates!

After extensive research, Jay uncovered the following insights:

  • 80 percent of organizations think they are doing customer service well, but only 8 percent of their customers agree
  • Answering one complaint online increases customer love up to 25 percent
  • By 2020, customer experience will be more important than price

If this is the case, businesses need to make sure they handle customer complaints carefully and strategically.

Types of Haters

Jay says that online customer service is a spectator sport, and there are two types of haters: offstage and onstage. The majority of a brand’s audience are offstage haters. This group is composed of those who complain in private, either by calling the company directly or writing a personal email. Onstage haters generally want an audience, so they make their complaints public.

How to deal with each group should be part of your marketing strategy.

  • Offstage response: Contact the person via the platform he or she contacted you through. If they called to speak with someone, don’t respond with an impersonal email. These people call to get answers.
  • Onstage response: First, find all mentions of the issue across the web so you can get a complete picture. Then, practice empathy and answer publicly. Jay recommends keeping responses to only two per channel for this group. Violating this rule could drag you into a vortex of negativity and hostility – it’s also a waste of time. These haters contact to get an audience.

Your haters only know what they can see.

Knowing who your haters are and what they are looking for is only half the battle. To truly improve customer experiences, you need to be able to understand the challenges of your audience.

Haters might not know that all of your management staff was sick the week they had poor service, or that there was an equipment failure that slowed things down. They are simply reacting to their service. So, before responding to haters, try to understand their perspective and where they are coming from based on the information they have available to them.

The moral of the story is, don’t ignore your haters and assume they will go away. In an age of easy access to information, form a strategy to handle less-than-positive experiences and use them as a beneficial marketing tactic.

Thank you to all of you who made it out to meet Jay and hear him speak! We were so lucky to have Jay Baer give us a rundown  of his new book and share his insights with us. A special thank you also goes out to SpyFu for sponsoring this incredible event!

*A special thanks to Jessica Ropolo for her expert help with writing this post. 

1st Annual AZIMA TIM Awards: Call for entries.

AZIMA 1st Annual Tim Awards
You can be the toast of your digital domain if you win one of the coveted TIMs—the Arizona Interactive Marketing Association’s award for excellence. Named after Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, acknowledged father of the World Wide Web, the TIMs showcase Arizona talent and work in the interactive realm for calendar year 2012.

Interactive luminary Jay Baer, author of The Now Revolution, will offer a keynote and MC the awards ceremony.

Categories:Enter in any of our 12 categories—a first place and runner up will be awarded in each. This competition is open to any Arizona-based agency or firm doing work on behalf of local, national or international companies. Please note that qualifying work must have been produced in the calendar year 2012; speculative work or personal projects are not eligible.

  • Best Website
  • Best Social Media Campaign
  • Best Integrated Interactive Campaign
  • Best Email Marketing Campaign
  • Best Display Ad (Single or Campaign)
  • Best Rich Media Execution
  • Best Mobile Marketing Campaign
  • Best App
  • Best Blog
  • Best Online Video
  • Brand of the Year
  • Interactive Person of the Year

Mark your calendars. The deadline for entries is March 7TH, 2013, with the awards presented during a ceremony on March 28TH.

Entry Fee
Each entry costs $50; you can enter one campaign multiple times (for example, you can enter your brilliant blog as part of the “Best Social Media Campaign” and under “Best Blog.” Please note that each entry requires a separate $50 fee.

Register Now! (Deadline is March 7)