Customer marketing

Customer Marketing

It seems odd that we are often tempted to look beyond our boundaries before we have really discovered what lies around us. We have no idea what makes the oceans tick yet we are hurling ourselves at the moon and beyond.

Without wanting to sound a little bit Radio 4 Thought for The Day….marketing is a little like space exploration you know….

Huge sums are spent projecting brands into the market with all forms of advertising from TV to email to door drops. No expense is spared in creating brand awareness so that your product or service is top of mind with consumers.Huge teams of marketing professionals with titles to die for and  letters after their names that take up a page are hard at work to create campaigns and methods of delivery that keep the brand evolving and growing.

This is of course all part of the marketing mix and the sexy part of the equation.The less exciting part but as vital are the oceans of customers that reside back on planet brand and understanding what makes them tick.

The business would be nothing without these customers and it is vital to find out what sort of customers you have before embarking on finding new ones. Knowing what you already have should give you important information in what to look for in new customers.

Customer profiling enables you to keep a check on the balance between those customers that are actively promoting your brand and those that are not.

Customeyes have identified three broad categories.

Generators – Customers that are your best friends and tell their friends just how good you are. These will make sure that new customers get to try your brand and will be the first to embrace new products and be tremendously loyal. The accepted truth that it is cheaper to hold onto good customers than attract new ones rings true.Certainly new customers that can become Generators is where the attention should be placed.If marketing budgets could be optimised to deliver higher proportions of likely Generators then marketing costs would fall and marketing as a function would be less likely to be a casualty of downturns.

Upsetting the Generators is a costly exercise.No one should ever forget the Coke experience of not paying attention to your loyal followers and assuming that the company knows best.Companies make brands but customers own them…

Acceptors – these are your middle ground customers who just bounce along without any direct influence on the outside world.

They are in themselves hugely important as they represent the constant in your sales, the Steady Eddy’s who will bring in the revenue.Satisified as they might be is OK in the short term but long term a conversion excercise is needed.

This middle ground is subject to flux and potentially disruption.Acceptors are on the whole by their nature less likely to do anything dramatic but are increasingly susceptible to acting irrationally.

A new player in your market may temp these laid back spenders with cheaper alternatives.Slick marketing may turn their heads and before you know it they are off to join the middle ranks of another brand portfolio.

Acceptors are dangerous and need to be managed and enticed into the Generator camp for their own safety…. There is the chance of course that they join the last customer camp…

Resistors - Customers that you can rely on not to be helpful.These will not actively spread good news about your brand and will suck in resources that will be needed to defend against their negativity.

Bad news always seems to travel faster than goood news and if several negative issues are circulating at the same time then it can cause problems.This is not to say that this group is actively trying to de stabalise your positive marketing intentions.The reality is that they are fickle and will jump ship faster than Acceptors as they are generally more price sensisitive.

More resources are spent to keep these customers happy especially when they complain or engage in returning product that would be considered good.

Resistors  generally increase your cost to serve as they demand more attention both during a transaction and after.Trying to upgrade a Resistor to Acceptor and on to Generator may well be counter productive in terms of resource allocation and it may be  better to let them go rather than divert resource.

Chase the new customer but do so with a full understanding of what you want and long term keep checking…

Your customer service experience

We would love to hear about your good and bad customer experiences… spill the beans!

Persistence

Persistence will beat Resistance

Wales in their Six Nations victory over Scotland today showed that persistence is everything.Despite what seemed a certain win for Scotland the dogged determination to win prevailed for the Welsh.

The desire to succeed is a powerful driver and if you have the “expect it to get it” attitude then you will have a higher chance of success than some one who lacks that self belief.Once you have attained a winning attitude then achiever fever takes over and what once  seemed impossible becomes almost second nature.

Classic Marketing Mistake

It is nearly 25 years since Coca Cola decided to give the world New Coke and a text book example of how not to do marketing by ignoring loyal customers.

Background

In 1985 Coca Cola unveiled New Coke on the world. This was a new sweeter recipe that was to replace the “secret formula” that had been around for a mere 99 years.The words “the best just got better” were uttered during the unveiling. It was the start of something special for Coca Cola, unfortunately it was not a positive experience to begin with….

The reaction of consumers was a lesson in how companies meddle with their brands at their peril. Despite all the market research that had been undertaken the company had failed to engage with their customers directly. Research indicated that the sweeter formula was preferred to the existing flavour.

The company failed to grasp that brands should always be viewed through the eyes of customers. Companies may own their brands but they need permission to change or tinker with them.

Customer Reaction

Within 78 days after a barrage of letters and phone calls the original formula returned branded as Coke Classic.

Customers had reacted with such intensity of feeling that it had shocked Coca Cola. The brand was and is such an integral part of American culture that its removal caused almost panic amongst consumers.What took nearly a hundred years to build was almost lost in the blink of an eye.The closet example of such brand destruction in UK terms has to be the famous Ratner speech.Overnight a respected chain of jewelers had its reputation and stock value reduced to next to nothing. Continue reading » Classic Marketing Mistake

Business Builder - Our New Service

“Listen to your Customers before someone else does” is something that we are passionate about, it forms the basis of what we do. We provide a cost-effective research service that enable clients to do exactly that.

Business is about customers, getting them and then building profitable relationships with them. These customers could be from your competition so it is essential to listen to all customers, yours and rivals.

Intelligent business decisions should be based on sound business intelligence – your own customers and the feed back from your competitive environment. The current economic climate makes it even more important to keep getting feed back on how your brand is performing. Every business is a brand and every brand has to stay in tip-top condition to be able to respond to changing market conditions. By gathering feedback from your existing customers and from your competitive set you are giving your brand an effective market place work out.

Continue reading » Business Builder – Our New Service