Time to rethink marketing ?
Richard Meyer
The signs are everywhere
Americans Still Cutting Back on the Small Things to Save Money
(45%) say they are brown bagging lunch instead of purchasing it, with 8% having considered doing so;
Two in five (39%) are going to the hairdresser/barber/stylist less often and 8% have considered doing so;
One-third of Americans (34%) have switched to refillable water bottles instead of purchasing bottles of water while 10% have considered doing so;
33% of U.S. adults have cancelled one of more magazine subscriptions, one in five (19%) have cancelled a newspaper subscription and 22% have cancelled or cut back on cable television
One in five Americans say they have cut down on dry cleaning (22%) and stopped purchasing coffee in the morning (21%)
Retailers are eliminating brands
The world's biggest retailers are wrestling with having too many types of brand-name products. At the same time, shoppers are buying less and looking for bargains. Unless a particular brand is a top seller in its category, it's getting knocked off the
shelf -- and sometimes getting replaced by a cheaper store brand.
Market research firm ConsumerEdge Research, expects Wal-Mart and other sellers will trim several name-brands across categories in coming months, or negotiate deals to get better pricing.
Demand for simplicity is increasing
Consumers are seeking uncomplicated, user-friendly products and services that simplify their lives.
It’s a consumers world now
Easy access to information and friction- free purchasing is making consumers ever more agile—and less loyal.
Outraged by corporate malfeasance, people are punishing companies for unethical governance.
Even those who don’t need to economize are pursuing a more wholesome and less wasteful life.
Brand extension = consumer confusion
The feeling is that as these companies keep extending their [product] lines, it's only causing confusion for shoppers and not really driving them to buy more products.
And way too many brand choices
As a consumer, "Do I really need to decide between 15 different types of detergent when I go to a store?"
Marketers are stumped
Yet some brands are doing well
Because they focus on the customer
While others focus on price
But price leads to a spiral
If you keep lowering your price or offer more promotional allowances you’re losing brand equity and making it harder to
compete against store brands.
So what’s more important ?
Market Share Profitability
New Metrics of new marketing
OLD METRIC NEW METRIC
Product Profitability Customer Profitability
Current Sales Customer lifetime value
Brand Equity Customer equity
Market Share Customer equity
Mass Market Ultra target market
Segmentation Microsegmentation
Mass Message Personally relevant messages
Talking Listening
Gross Rating Points Brand Ambassadors via social media
Instead of product manager driven
Customer driven
Customer driven organization
Customer Service
Customer Service
Empower customer service people to solve customer problems on the spot.
Customer service is not an integral part of your brand & company.
Have your marketing people call customer service as a customer to ensure that the experience is representative of your brand.
Ensure that customer service people have a way to alert key decision makers as problems become prominent.
Quantify customer service complaints and solve bottlenecks quickly or else your marketing dollars could be wasted.
Market Research
Market Research
Don’t use market research to validate what you should already know.
Market research should provide insights not validation.
Social media can provide a wealth of valuable insights in real time.
Web analytics can actually show you how consumers are going through the decision making process when it comes to your product.
Ensure that when you do market research that the panel is representative of your best customers.
Market research online can save you lot’s of time and money.
Customer Relationship Management
CRM
Focus all your efforts on managing the customer relationship.
This means listening to what your customer wants and ensuring that the relationship is of value to your customers
Segment your audience by demographics and psychographics to ensure that CRM communication is personally relevant.
Measure and optimize CRM programs and evolve into more segments if necessary. This is essential in an era of microsegmention.
Research & Development
R&D
Is your R&D customer focused or do they do what’s best for your business and production costs?
If you have a hard time explaining what your product does to customers in prototype than you’re way off the mark.
Focus on making life easier for consumers.
If you improve the product but not the customer brand experience you’re farting in the wind.
And all this is bought together by
Chief customer officer
“An executive that provides the comprehensive and authoritative view of the customer and creates corporate and customer strategy at the highest levels of the company to maximize customer acquisition, retention, and profitability.” Responsibilities include;
Drive profitable customer behavior
Create a customer-centric culture:
Delivering and demonstrating value to the CEO, the Board, peers, and employees
Your decisions reveal who and what you
really value
Drive profitable customer behavior
To help customers spend more, and more often, the CCO must focus on initiatives such as;
profitability segmentation
customer retention customer loyalty, satisfaction
improving the customer experience.
CCOs should use in-depth customer insight to inform the sales and marketing efforts to acquire more of the “right.
Delivering and demonstrating value
CCO must strive to deliver demonstrable value to all stakeholders, such as the CEO, the Board, and peers.
CCOs must be very clear about their performance metrics to allay concerns about performance.
Create a customer-centric culture
Strong, customer-centric culture complete with accountability and ownership at all levels in the company.
CCOs must prioritize customer initiatives to drive the most profitable initiatives with the greatest customer impact.
They must put a face on customers and help employees (especially the non-customer-facing employees) remain focused on driving customer value.
Today your company is your brand
Outraged by corporate malfeasance, people are punishing companies for unethical governance.
In the end….
Your decisions on how you treat your customers reveal who and what you really value.
The best marketing in the world is not going to save your company or brand if you can’t execute and put the customer at the center of everything you do.
Peter Drucker was right “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself”
About me
Richard Meyer
My CV http://www.richardameyer.com
My marketing BLOG http://www.richsblog.com
MY DTC BLOG http://www.worldofdtcmarketing.com
Marketing linchpin who is an original thinker, provocateur, and passionate about branding and marketing. Leader who understands the challenge of of making human connections inside and outside the organization. Change maker who strives to bring new creative thinking to current business problems to provide solutions. The only way to stand out is to exert emotional labor and be seen as indispensable and to produce interactions that organizations and people care deeply about. Marketer who has a depth of knowledge combined with excellent judgment