Kristen Curtiss
When was the last time you were asked for your email address while purchasing a product or service?
What about your Twitter handle?
While it’s not uncommon for businesses to promote their own Twitter handle or other social media channels online or in-store, few businesses take the opportunity to ask customers to share their information in return.
Asking for a Twitter handle just takes a minute, but it could provide some big benefits for your business.
With over 284 million active users, Twitter could be the perfect platform for you to connect with your audience, get fresh leads, and gain key insights into your audience.
Here are six reasons you should consider asking for your customers’ Twitter information at check-out:
1. Get repeat customers
Your best customers are your returning customers. They’re the ones who are most loyal to you and they’re a cheaper source of business than acquiring new customers.
One of the best ways to get those customers back through your doors is to continue a relationship with them, even when they’re not buying from you.
By connecting with them on Twitter, you have the opportunity to reach out to those customers on an individual basis. Send them a tweet letting them know how thankful you are for them or reach out when a product similar to the one they purchased goes on sale.
The personalized relationships you can build with a customer, as a small business, is one of your largest advantages.
Use Twitter Lists to easily organize the current customers you’ve started following and reach out to them individually.
2. Find new customers by learning from current customers
Following your current customers can give you great insight into who your customers are and what they’re interested in, giving you valuable knowledge for finding other customers just like them!
Social media is a place where people express who they are and share the information they find valuable to them.
By learning more about your customers, you get valuable insight into what makes them tick. All this information can be useful for you when you’re marketing your goods and services.
3. Reinforce your brand
When you go to the grocery store and pick up a bottle of ketchup — what do you reach for?
More than likely, you reach for the same brand of ketchup you grew up with. That’s the ketchup you’re familiar with; therefore, that’s what you continually purchase for you and your family.
The same goes for the businesses we buy from. The more we know, like, and trust a business, the more willing we are to do business with them.
When you follow your customers on Twitter, a majority of them will follow you back. This allows you to stay top-of-mind with that customer and build loyalty.
If you are using Twitter on a daily basis, that customer will begin to recognize your business before recognizing your competitor. The next time that customer needs your product or service again, they’ll remember to come to you.
4. Advertising targeting
Twitter has a native advertising platform that offers multiple different targeting options.
One of the options allows you to target specific handles (in this case, your customers), which will help you reach Twitter users that have listed interests similar to any of the handles you include.
This is a great opportunity for you to reach people who are similar to your current customers, and let them know why they should be doing business with you.
Can you target without gathering Twitter handles? Sure, but your customers are handing you their interests by filling out their Twitter bio — why not use it to find other customers just like them?
5. Allow your customers to easily refer you
The cost of a new customer can be expensive depending on the medium you used to acquire them. Getting your current customers to refer you to new customers is one of the most affordable ways for you to get new business.
Following your customers on Twitter may not be something you think of as a good referral program, but remember — social media is a place for sharing.
Your customers are a lot more likely to refer you on social media if they know you have a presence and they know how to find you.
If you have become top-of-mind and have taken the time to reach out to your customers, you will begin to see the referrals coming in.
When I say referral I don’t just mean, “Hey Steve, go check out @ConstantContact’s newest product!” I’m also talking about the brand advocates.
Those are the customers who begin to mention your business, reply to your tweets, or retweet the posts you’re putting out on Twitter with their network.
The best way to achieve this is by sharing information your followers consider valuable. These people are in-turn referring you to their network and will hopefully send you some business.
6. Find your best customers
Without connecting with your customers on Twitter, you would never know if someone is out there talking about the product or service they just purchased from you. You wouldn’t know if they would be ecstatic to share the content you’re sharing because they value your business, your product, and what you have to say.
Use Twitter as a place to find your best customers and utilize them in other ways! Connect with them on other social networks, ask them to join your email list, or even invite them to guest blog for you.
Think of Twitter as a jumping-off point! Meet and greet your best customers on Twitter and then strengthen the relationships both online and offline to see the true value in that relationship.
Get started!
Giving customers the option to provide their Twitter handle is one of the easiest ways to connect with customers on Twitter.
Start today: create an optional field in your check-out flow and give your customers the option to provide their Twitter handle.
Then create a Twitter list with all the handles you receive and start putting these benefits into action.
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