Wellington
Jamie Houston of Honk Marketing has been using hisown (sideline, but now about to turn profitable) business as a showcase of how others can use theweb to improve customer interaction.
This blog gives a few of the lessons the Wellingtonian has learned (and builds on a first storyabout him
As a lover of music in general and ukuleles in particular, Houston did a fair bit of research andfound it was a very popular niche, with groups of like-minded people.
Hence, he has set up his, ‘Love My Ukulele’ website ,which is intimately linked to a .
Now, at the time of interview, Houston had over 6500 likes on this page. He’s also spent a fewdollars on Facebook to specifically target/advertise to self-confessed Uke lovers.
And the Facebook Page is being constantly updated; but, rather than have to constantly find newmaterial, he uses content submitted by his ‘members’ which is displayed proudly on his LMUwebsite. When people Like his Facebook page, they’re asked if they wish to ‘join’ the LMUClub, a Self-Hosted Wordpress website, with a Pinterest-like plug in and Blog section showing photosof people with their Ukes and featuring articles from the ‘members’.
The signer-uppers also receive weekly newsletter emails about ukulele-related tips, products,stories, and goings on.
From those Facebook likes, Houston has had over 750 people join his LMU mailing list – alongwith a little bit of information (including where they live), and a disclaimer that LMU has thecopyright to re-user material posted on the site (including member-generated blogs and pictures).This is all done on a legal page.
Equally, this is all done automatically, and Houston can easily segment this ‘club’ thatpeople have joined through their own volition.
As he says too, Facebook can easily change its rules, and just as MySpace disappeared, couldbecome quickly unfashionable. For this reason, encouraging Uke-lovers to join his email list and usehis own website, over which he has control, is a key part of his marketing strategy.
But, by also posting photos and stories that appear on the LMU website, back to Facebook, thepossibility of fans liking and sharing the love is increased, and with it the word of mouthopportunities continue to grow.
“My objective is to build a mailing list off Facebook,” says Houston. “From there it is asoft-sell, that’s the strategy; the more-so because it is a heart-based one.”
One example is a community-voted-on T-shirt design. Using a crowd-funding platform, in whichthose wanting (and willing to pay NZ$40) a certain ukulele-inspired T-shirt, those signed-up knewthat 50 people would have to pre-pay via credit cards before the ‘go’ button would be pressed ata USA-based printer who made and posted the finished article. (Only then too would their money betransferred)
So far Houston’s made two different crowd sourced and funded T-shirts.
“The strategies we’re using are cutting edge,” says Houston. “It is about engagement andhaving fun. We’re also straight up, not hiding anything, though 99% of people don’t read thesmall print telling them that we will make money if they purchase anything we recommend.”
Houston says LMU is in-effect a scalable, duplicable (by himself and others) effort, that isautomated to a large extent.
Posting new material, at this stage anyway, is easy, and he’ll be looking at new ways to buildoff the mailing list – including affiliate sales of Uke-related products from the website.
He says that by understanding products that are freely, or relatively cheaply, available to allthrough the internet, people can build a separate business.
Of course too, he’s happy to act as an adviser to others wishing to automate customerengagement, and earn a reward for his own years of learning how all this works.
At the moment though, his LMU acts as an exemplar for those he sells his consultancy services to,and he’s got other potential niches up his sleeve.
For example, lots of people like cats enough to wish to be part of a group dedicated tomoggies.
Don’t be surprised to see something turn up on that one day!