Tag Archives: marketing

January 30, 2014 · 11:44 am

The Devil You Know

The folks at Forrester issued a study on marketing and customer experience the other day and it makes a number of interesting points.

Image representing Forrester Research as depic...

Image via CrunchBase

Maybe “interesting” isn’t the right word; maybe it could be more like “disappointing” or “confusing.”  Entitled The Convergence Of Brand, Customer Experience And Marketing, the study deals with the intersection of brand, marketing, and customer experience.  One might expect those three areas to be operating in sync.  One would be wrong.

Forrester found that 63% of Chief Marketing Officers consider customer acquisition their number one priority, while only 22% give precedence to retention. Kind of a silly choice, because there is a lot of  evidence that shows that generating loyalty and holding onto existing customers is better for a brand financially  than spending resources to bring in new customers.  In fact, the 22% statistic represents a decline in the focus on retention.  In 2011, the number was 30%.

What’s a little strange is that many of the CMO‘s do believe that they are, in fact, highly customer-focused.  The research found, however, that they are highly transaction-focused and are trying to foster conversions, not conversations.  Lifetime value is only a concern to a little over a third of these folks while two-thirds focus on segmentation studies to pursue new customers.

It’s almost as if there are two completely different experiences – one for prospects and one for existing customers – while it seems obvious that those experiences should be united into a vision that derives from the brand itself.  Otherwise, as the study found, there is customer confusion, dissatisfaction and departure.

No one likes to be treated like royalty when they’re being wooed only to be given short shrift once the deal is sealed.  Even worse, if a brand is a promise to the customer, no one likes to be confused about what that promise is or how it is to be kept.  Heck, even accounting recognizes that and puts something called “goodwill” on the balance sheet.  The disconnect cited in this study is disturbing and the trends it recognizes are even more so.

I’m a believer in “the devil you know” and the value of doing everything I can for existing customers.  I’m a believer in making the brand the source of strategic thinking about customers, current and future and expressing that thinking in a cohesive way.  Are you?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under Consulting, Huh?

Tagged as , , , , , ,

January 9, 2014 · 11:50 am

Mom and Pops

Before we get too far into the new year I wanted to write about something I saw over the holiday.  We have several very good local news sites here and there was a piece on one of them about local merchants and how they’re having difficulty competing both the online retailers and the national chains.  What was interesting to me was how almost every one of the merchants quoted focused almost entirely on price competition.  Many also mentioned “showrooming” – looking at goods in a store but buying the online where they’re usually less expensive.

The same day I read a report on a paper issued by Silverpop.  As MediaPost wrote:

Apple, Lexus and Amazon.com have transcended prices and features to create compelling and fulfilling customer experiences, says the report. They’ve embraced the customer revolution and are raising customer expectations for every other business.  A recent study reported that 83% of consumers are willing to spend more on a product or service if they feel a personal connection to the company. And one fifth said they would pay 50% more if they felt the company put the customer first, points out the study.

The paper talks a lot about how retailers can integrate data with the in-store experience and how that can then move across from the real world into the digital world.  You can read the specific suggestions in the piece.  For example, I wonder how many of the local guys quoted routinely gather email addresses in store and communicate in a way that helps them understand and reflect the customer’s needs and preferences?  I’ve had retailers ask for my email (and physical) address but inevitably they end up sending me a catalog, not something tailored to my buying interests.

The end of the MediaPost article states it nicely:

In 2014, marketers will have two choices, says the report they can keep running marketing for marketers, delivering generic promotional messages when the company has an offer it wants to push out, and focusing solely on driving customer transactions. Or, they can start running marketing for customers, delivering content uniquely tailored to each individual’s needs and expectations.

That’s how marketing has evolved over the last decade.  The big guys are learning it and the Mom and Pop retailers must if they are to survive.  It must be for customers, not for marketers.  Do you agree?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under Helpful Hints

Tagged as , , , , ,

December 17, 2013 · 10:53 am

What’s That Sound?

For our TunesDay installment this week I want to write about a style of music rather than a particular song.  As with most musical styles, nearly any song can be rendered this way although I’m not completely sure why anyone would want to do so.  That style is what many of you would call “elevator music.”  Don’t confuse that with “easy listening.”  The folks who created the latter meant you to listen.  The former, also known by the main practitioner of the style commercially – Muzak – is meant to create a mood while staying in the background.

In the late 1930’s and 1940’s, the sound of Muzak was used as “stimulus progression” to improve productivity.  The music wasn’t meant to be listened to, just to set a mood.  The increasing pace of the music  was meant to keep workers energized and was popular through the 1960’s.  It was background music – the stuff you heard in elevators: comforting, unobtrusive, and inoffensive.  By the mid 1980’s, background music had gone out of fashion.  Besides on-going accusations of “brainwashing”, the fact was that musical tastes has changed.  Music was more a part of people’s lives and the stimulus part of the program died.

The music we hear today in malls, airports, restaurants and, yes, elevators is meant to be in the foreground.  The mood music we hear can often be anything but comforting, unobtrusive, and inoffensive.  It can be hard to ignore.  Maybe that’s what many people just opt out by plugging in to the ubiquitous ear buds and creating their own aural environment.  Which raises the business point.

If you’re trying to move your marketing from being “elevator music” that plays in the background to being front and center, you run the risk of people opting out altogether.  I’m not advocating staying in the background.  There is too much marketing noise, I know, but standing quietly in a corner hoping a potential customer will take pity and bring you a glass of punch won’t work either.  The real challenge is to attract attention the way a skilled teacher does in a noisy class: by continuing to do your thing at a volume that requires people to pay attention and delivering information that people find important when they do so.

Is your marketing going to be Muzak – forgettable background sound that attempts to alter people’s moods –  or is it going to be something people hum to themselves because it’s had an impact?  Which sound is yours?

Enhanced by Zemanta

1 Comment

Filed under Music, Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , , ,