Welcome to the second installment of the Business Blog Book Tour. The tour starts today right here. The book for this tour is Creating Customer Evangelists by Ben McConnel and Jackie Huba. They have their own weblog dedicated to their cause at Church of the Customer. Over the next nine days, the tour will stop at a different blog each day, where the authors and host will participate in various discussions, question and answer sessions, reviews, and anything else they can think of about the book. If you wonder whether or not should buy this book (you should!!) you can learn more about it during the tour. If you have read the book, get your comments and questions ready and be sure to participate. Here are the stops on the tour:
Tour Stops
- March 15th – Rob at Businesspundit
- March 16th – Paul and John at Brand Autopsy
- March 17th – Jeremy at Ensight
- March 18th – Jon at Business Evolutionist
- March 19th – Jennifer at What's Your Brand Mantra?
- March 22nd – Dana at Danavan.net
- March 23rd – Rich at StartupSkills.com
- March 24th – Doug at Small Business Blog
- March 25th – Todd at A Penny For…
To kick things off, I will now give you my short review of Creating Customer Evangelists.
This book has a very simple message – the best form of marketing is to have your existing customers singing your praises to everyone they know. Sounds easy right? Well it isn't, and this is why there aren't many companies that have "customer evangelists." Ben and Jackie have examined the companies that do, and found out what they have in common. They studied companies like Krispy Kreme, who does no advertising yet has people camp out the night before a new store opens. They looked at Southwest, an airline that had customers send them cash after 9-11 in hopes they would stay in business. From these studies, they pulled out the keys to creating customer evangelism for any company. Rather than go through all the findings, I'll save a few for the rest of the tour and focus on the one that surprised me the most.
Ben and Jackie claim that to create customer evangelists, you should "napsterize your knowledge." That's right – give away what you know. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but think about it for a minute. First of all, by showing people what you know, they understand and believe that you are an expert at what you do. Secondly, by showing people what you know, you foster openess that allows you to get valuable feeback that can improve that knowledge. And it builds a bond with customers who feel that you are honest and have nothing to hide. Finally, by giving out what you know, you are forced to stay on the cutting edge, develop new knowledge, and expand your knowledge base. In other words it fights complacency, which has been the downfall of many many companies. I'll be posting an interview with the authors later, and I hope they will log in and write a few things themselves. This stop on the tour will focus mainly on "napsterizing your knowledge." Feel free to post questions or comments about that topic, or the book in general, in the comments section, and maybe the authors or myself will stop by and answer them.
