Have you ever watched a TV commercial and wondered what product it was promoting? Maybe you couldn’t even identify the company until the very end. Don’t be fooled. The ad agency didn’t miss the mark. It was entirely intentional.
Selling an experience and making the consumer part of the experience is at the heart of customer-centric marketing. Maybe you’ve noticed how insurance companies do this so successfully. They don’t have to mention car insurance, life insurance, or homeowner’s insurance. They tell a story that promotes feelings of safety, security, and protection.
Maybe you’ve seen a TV commercial for an expensive fragrance that doesn’t even show the user actually using the perfume. Instead, the ad paints a picture of elegance, desire, and luxury with a beautifully dressed woman in a beautiful setting. Only at the end of the ad does the viewer see the image of the perfume bottle.
In the same way, Budweiser doesn’t have to show a can of beer to sell their product when they can depict a pastoral scene with Clydesdale horses to evoke feelings of nostalgia, trust, company history, and longevity.
Traditional advertising and marketing strategies attempt to connect the customer to the product being sold as quickly as possible. Traditional marketing focuses on what makes your brand unique and great. In essence, it makes your business the hero of the story. Consider this example: “We are the #1 dentist in the metro area.” That’s impressive and worthy of hero status, but it also creates a huge disconnect between you and your customers. Why? Because they want to be the hero in the story!
In today’s customer-centric environment, content and storytelling have replaced the importance of the product itself. The goal is to make it memorable to the customer or evoke an emotion to pull the customer into the story.
Customers now expect brands to cater to their needs and expectations of fast ordering, convenience, and knowledgeable service. Putting the customers’ expectations and the customers’ experience first is vital to your brand’s success and the good news is that customers are willing to pay for it. Consider these statistics:
74% of consumers are at least somewhat likely to buy based on experiences alone. ~ Forbes/Arm Treasure Data
Customers will pay a 16% price premium for great customer experience. ~PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
That’s the good news. Ready for the bad news?
32% of customers will cease doing business with a brand after only one bad experience. ~PricewaterhouseCoopers(PwC)
Answering a customer complaint on social media can increase customers’ advocacy of your brand by as much as 25%; not responding can decrease customers’ advocacy by 50%. ~Convince& Convert
These statistics make it abundantly clear that your marketing efforts must be focused on the customer and the customer experience has to be at the core of your marketing decisions.
What started as a cultural shift must now be a vital part of your marketing strategy. It means shifting from product-centered thinking and marketing efforts to customer-centered thinking.
It is commonly known that it is easier and less expensive to keep an existing customer than to acquire a new one. Being a customer-centric business means making a customer feel known and understood. Your customer will trust that they’ll get what they want and need from you. People buy from brands they trust. This results in brand loyalty and, of course, a positive impact on your bottom line.
Write Now Marketing, LLC, is a customer-centric marketing company certified in marketing techniques, strategies, and solutions to brand your company as a customer-centric business. We can help you initiate:
1. Listen. We can show you how to truly listen to your customers and potential customers to find out what they want so you can act on it.
2. Learn customer expectations. We guide you to create a great customer experience in your print, digital, and social interactions. You may think you are providing a great customer experience. However, the customer’s experience is only as good as their expectations, so it’s vital that a business learn what their customers expect.
3. Make the most of social interactions. We help you up your digital and social interactions with customers and potential customers. We’ll help you gain valuable insights into consumer behavior with the goal of making them loyal to your brand.
Let us show you how easy it is to get started on your customer-centric strategy! We are ready to get started.
Call Debra at 502-939-5882 or visit us at WriteNowMarketing.com
