1. Consider the Customer’s Point of View
Your marketing must reflect key benefits for consumers from THEIR point of view. Consumers aren’t interested in buying anything; they’re interested in buying solutions to meet their needs. For example, homeowners aren’t interested in buying Termidor; their only interest is safe and effective termite protection. Customer focused marketing has to start with a clear understanding of what the target consumer understands their need to be (freeing their home from termites), not what the business hopes their need is based on the product they develop (selling and marketing Termidor).
Unfortunately, sometimes the passion entrepreneurs have for their product or business can blind them to what their consumer’s point of view is about them. If their marketing does not translate the benefits to the consumer from THEIR point of view, the effectiveness of their marketing may be greatly diminished.
2. Everyone in the Company is in Marketing
It is important that every employee in the company has a clear understanding of the company’s mission, the brand’s “personality”, and most importantly, the consumer’s needs. Each member of the company should be able to communicate these to the consumers in an informative and effective manner. Having systems in place to constantly monitor and update changing customer expectations allows you to more clearly communicate the benefits from the consumer’s point of view to doing business with your company. Today’s consumers want the companies that they do business with to provide them with the answers to their concerns versus being pitched what the company wants to sell them.
3. Technology Should Enhance the Customer Experience
Technology that exists exclusively to reduce the company’s overhead can be a marketing disaster. Technology must benefit both the consumer AND the company. When setting up automatic call answering, online ordering, online appointment scheduling, and other consumer related technologies, you must make sure that the benefit is more than just cost savings to the company. Today’s consumers expect choices in the ways that they communicate with businesses and you must provide multiple channels for consumers to do business with you. However, you must maintain a focus on treating your customers as people and not data or things that can be handled by technology.
4. Customer Focused Marketing is a Conversation – Not a Lecture
In the past, companies have wanted to command and control, but today’s consumers want to be informed and appreciated. Today’s consumers don’t want to be led down a specific path by the company they do business with. They want to be informed and appreciated while traveling a path that they are choosing on their own. Today’s marketing cannot be a lecture- it must be a conversation. In the past, company’s marketing took an approach of command and control when providing information to consumers. Now, customer focused marketers inform them of all the benefits they provide and show them they are appreciated by the way they deliver their services/products.
