Marketing Pro: Transform Your Business by Being Truly Useful
by Harvey Chipkin /Travel agents can transform customer relationships by learning to be truly helpful – in ways that go beyond the obvious.
Digital marketing expert Jay Baer urges agents to think beyond their own products and services to find new ways of being useful to clients, including via social media. Those who do so can transcend the transactional and revolutionize customer relations, he says.
Baer calls this “youtility,” and he has just published a book about it called Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is About Help Not Hype (Portfolio/Penguin; $24.95).
Travel Market Report asked Baer to expand on his ideas and explain how travel agents can apply them.
What exactly is ‘youtility’?
Baer: Youtility is marketing that is so useful that consumers would pay for it. That is the bar we should have to clear – especially in travel where so much information is available for free.
How can travel agents become useful?
Baer: The way to break through is to be inherently useful in ways that are non-obvious and that transcend the transactional. That is what will accrue attention, sales, loyalty and advocacy. Of course you still have do promotion and sales.
How should agents change their thinking?
Baer: Once you free your mind from thinking that you can only talk about yourself, the options become almost limitless.
I recently spoke at a conference of 3,000 car dealers who told me their customers now walk in with more information than they have. I told them they have to make their story bigger.
I know a locksmith who created an infographic on what to think about as far as security when buying a used car. One dealer came up with an infographic on what drivers can do if they’re locked out of their car. That’s making their story bigger, because everybody has been locked out of their car.
What’s the first step travel agents can take tomorrow?
Baer: Think about making your story bigger. How do your customers live their lives? What would make those lives better, easier and more fulfilling? Now what could you provide that would do that? It’s probably not your products and services per se, but something on a related, higher plane. That’s your youtility.
What’s another example of youtility?
Baer: One that is travel-related involves a cabdriver in Banff named Taxi Mike. Every quarter he creates a where-to-eat guide that he prints out on yellow paper and distributes to bars and restaurants in town. On the back he has a map of the city and a phone number, so at the end of the night, after you have used his recommendations, you will call him for a ride.
Any travel agent could steal that idea in their own way – on paper or online.
How does youtility work in social media?
Baer: Travel sellers would be much better off, over the short and long terms, if they spent more of their social media time being useful and less time saying how awesome they are.
For instance, Hilton hotels has an @HiltonSuggest program that tweets helpful local travel tips for anyone – Hilton guest or not.
You say businesses now compete with everyone. What do you mean?
Baer: Look at Facebook or email. You will have messages from people you actually know and love, as well as from companies you follow or subscribe to. So companies are literally competing against your family. That is extraordinary – and hard. How do you possibly compete against somebody’s wife or mother?
Some think the best approach is to be wacky in hopes of going viral. The other approach is to be massively useful, which is what I recommend. Clorox has a great app about stain removal that actual says Clorox is the worst thing for certain kinds of stains.
Who should be in charge of youtility at a company?
Baer: It’s everybody’s responsibility. You can’t just put Jim or Jane in charge. People will do this because they have an expertise and really want to share their knowledge.
Youtility works no matter the size of the company. Smaller companies often have an easier time at first because they are closer to customers and can better understand, anticipate and address their needs.