Sonya Hamill from Blueapple Dental and Implant Team was telling me yesterday about the steady flow of new patients that are now arriving via their Facebook page.
They have doggedly worked at getting “likes” which stand (this morning) at 1,873 and, as predicted, once the number of pops over 1,000, there seems to be a “tipping point”.
Whether it is your web site, your blog, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+ et al – there are three components to building your digital lead generation:
- building the platforms – the technical business of site/page construction and content = science
- connection – getting those “likes” and “followers” = work
- engagement – holding a conversation (albeit sometimes one-way) with those with whom you have connected = art
You can always delegate science and work – hire external consultants for 1 and 2 above – web site builders and designers and social media managers.
I don’t believe you can ever delegate the art of “engagement”.
If you do so you create “plain vanilla” and nobody notices.
(That’s why I’m sat here on a Saturday morning, writing this post in my jammies with a cuppa)
The art of engagement allows your audience to build a relationship with you, before they ever pick up the phone or send an email.
An audience who can discover your core values, your habits (good and bad) and make their minds up whether they want your particular brand in their lives.
Engagement has to be regular, relevant and authentic – tell the truth about what is going on in your life and your business.
The right kind of clients and patients will find that attractive.
Engage frequently, transparently, very personally, in good humour – talk about what you do, who you do it with, when you do it – and the outcomes that you deliver.
Then, even in Fermanagh, new patients will engage with you – tell your THEIR stories (share their art) – and new lifetime relationships will be germinated.
