Yesterday I bitched about people moving on to the next big thing in digital before they get the current thing right.

So how do you get it right?

I’ll give you my top three tips

1. Get right with God (your consumer)
How do you treat your consumer/donor/audience offline?
If you have sucky customer service at your call center, in your restaurant or via mail—you probably shouldn’t open the floodgates. Get right with God as they say…God in this case being the target audience

2. Spike the punchbowl
Are you a wallflower or a disco dancer? If digital is like an online party, are you that nerd against the wall that no one wants to talk to or are you the one spiking the punch? Be the punch spiker! Give the folks a good time and they’ll keep coming back for more. Translation: no marketing speak, no stats and data unless it’s super valuable or they ask for it, ask them to dance and do a two-step making it about THEM and not just about you.  I mean seriously…f they wanted to look at a billboard they’d be pulling over on i95 instead of clicking a mouse.

3. Don’t bedazzle a piece of crap.
You know how people put expensive rims on a cheap car? You’ve seen those cars that have tons of custom fancy gadgets and accessories but it’s like a Yugo or something. You’re probably doing the same thing in digital–investing in all kinds of bells and whistles like apps and games when you probably haven’t invested in the right people and programs that really drive return.

Invest in a better vehicle: community managers and content that drive relationships-then loyalty-then increased sales. If games and apps were so great and making you money, they’d have pinball machines at cash registers instead of smiling friendly faces (sometimes).

Speaking of friendly faces, here’s a song that shows the ROI of having the right combination of the aforementioned tactics: