Innovation Reactor

Go to and communicate where customers live

When I develop integrated marketing communications I frequently dream of a world where millions of customers flock to my site, sign-up for my product, and keep on coming back for more. But then the Silicon Valley Tech Fairy (think Tinkerbell with iPads for wings) slaps me and I wake up. 

In reality the vast majority of customers will not come to your site. Why? Because they discover products when connecting with friends on Facebook, reading a blog, checking their newsfeed, cleaning up their inbox, going to and from work, watching a favorite TV show, viewing a video clip, flipping through a magazine, or doing a product search. But many marketers still place the bulk of their investment and emphasis on their own site. 

If customers are visiting other places already how can you use these to your advantage?

Good integrated marketing communications target major touch points or influence opportunities with customers. In other words you need to go and communicate where your customers are. 

To do this I suggest a multi-pronged approach to your marketing strategy, using three major channels, with each channel having a specific purpose to either (1) scale, (2) expand, or (3) penetrate, the market. 

1. Scale: Choose a high visibility channel that will allow you to scale and attract new customers rapidly from your core target segment.
2. Expand: Find a channel that enables you to reach an adjacent pool of new users.
3. Penetrate: Segment your existing customers and promote features, functionality or special offers to increase product usage.

When developing integrated marketing communications remember to design a plan that is focused on engaging customers at the places where they frequent most.

 

Online Customer Experience Innovation: Creating Community

Nowadays your customers are more likely to trust a complete stranger’s product review, because they prefer to know what other people think rather than being shown “branded” marketing messages. By developing an online community where customers create the content, share information and interact, your company can deepen customer engagement and influence the purchase decision.

Online Customer Experience Innovation: Online Tools

Online tools are a great way for your customers to engage and interact with your brand.

Maki from Dosh Dosh suggests creating a powerful long-term social media marketing strategy by developing services, tools and free complementary services. These are not only a great way to enhance your customer experience online and to drive engagement, but you can get some real customer feedback to optimize your products and communications. Here are some ideas for online services and tools for your website.

Calculators ~ these days customers want more control and to make the most of their money. Calculators allow customers to interact, get more information, visualize savings or calculate shipping costs. They're a great way to connect emotionally and capture more sales.

Personal Online Dashboard ~ let’s customers track their purchase history with you, savings earned, payments made, special offers and to update their product preferences. Include other items like recent news, latest events or new product features, shopping tip of the day, product discounts, daily deals or the hottest items other customers are buying right now.

Customer Wishlist ~ let your customers create a list of products they would like from your store or suggest products that you don’t currently stock. You can include product reviews, video and shopping ideas to provide inspiration.

Customer Lists ~ create simple templates that allow your customers to make a family budget, shopping list or to create travel plans. Make it easy for them to add images, maps and then send, print, store or update.

Customer Alerts ~ allow customers to sign up for email alerts to receive information and the latest news on your products and services

Product or price comparison tools ~ customers want to select and easily compare products and prices so product or price comparison tools are excellent. To enhance sales multi-product landing pages work great and generate a lift in conversion by providing more customer information and product choice.

Related Posts:

Building Complementary Services: A Powerful Long-Term Social Media Marketing Strategy

Using customers passions to develop highly differentiated products

   

When developing new products or making improvements to existing ones many marketers struggle to determine the amount of customer value. To help you develop highly differentiated products or services I have created a new product development benefits model.

Stage 1: Add everyday benefits that put you on parity with the competition

You identify a target segment of the market, size up the competition and create product benefits based on your customer needs. However many companies offer the same value proposition and just change the packaging, design or branding. Product development limited to stage 1 creates commoditization and price-led competition. Since everyday benefits are easy to visualize and valuate but customers are often reluctant to pay extra for them. To differentiate your products you need to move further along the customer value curve to stage 2.

Stage 2: Develop special benefits centered on your customers' passion areas

Products in stage 2 engage with peoples passions by establishing an emotional connection and deeper relationship. By adding special benefits to your product - focused on a unique passion area that your customers value - you maximize differentiation of your product. Product benefits created around passion areas have powerful effects on the customer buying process because they offer significantly more value. Customers are also more emotional and less price-sensitive when it comes to their passions, so they will to pay more to access to quality benefits that enhance their experiences.

Research is critical to uncover unmet customer needs, deep emotional insights and the idiosyncrasies surrounding the passions in their lives. Any special benefits you develop and add to your products should offer real value and empower your customers to live their passions.

Example passion areas: Theater, Sports, Dining, Home, Garden, Travel, Entertainment, Motoring, Technology.

Stage 3: Create highly differentiated buzz-benefits

Great products end up as dinner party conversations because they have extraordinary benefits that create buzz and excitement. Stage 3 benefits are easy for your customers to visualize while also being difficult to quantify the value. These product benefits must be available to all customers, however are only attainable by a select few so they remain exclusive. Unique buzz-benefits create excitement, emotional appeal and generate viral PR, reducing marketing costs and making it hard for competitors to replicate your product. It’s really important for you to determine if your brand has permission to play in your customers’ passion areas before you start.

Example buzz-benefits: A day on the set with an Academy Award winning film director, automatic first class flight upgrades, cooking classes with a celebrity chef, a free test drive and lesson from a top race driver.

Summary

You need a mix of rational and emotional benefits to achieve true differentiation, so design product benefits that appeal to both sides of your customer psyche. When you move along the customer value curve and develop special benefits - focused on your customers passion areas - you create products that provide customers more value. Adding extraordinary benefits to your product creates buzz and excitement that will send your product viral.

The Essentials of Customer Marketing

 

The essentials of customer marketing are basic tools that every marketer today should use when developing integrated marketing communications. I have outlined these 8 essential toolbox items below.

1. Authenticity. Customer marketing must be authentic and direct to the point. Though for many businesses, personalized communications tailored to an individual are cost prohibitive. But marketing can engage segments of 200 customers rather than 200,000 using an authentic voice that is not presumptive and does not ingratiate itself with the audience.

2. Transparency. Customer marketing communications are transparent, straightforward and honest to deliver on promises. They're not disingenuous, with hidden conditions or caveats that are buried in the small print. So avoid complex language, excessive marketing ‘buzz’ words and tech-speak. If your product is technical then put the top 5 points in a call-out box using short bullets and avoid a laundry list of product features.

3. Simplicity. Customer marketing production should be simple and unvarnished rather than slick or glossy. Online, each page loads fast and is functional with informative-engaging content, practical customer information and tools. The website doesn’t need a ‘skip the intro’ button because it’s not flashy or pretentious plus it has an intuitive site-map and page layout designed for - and tested by - actual customers.

4. Insightful. Content reflects real personal or small business issues with an empathetic tone of voice. David Meerman Scott suggests that when you understand your customers’ unique problems you can then create buyer personas and tailor the communication content. This content should be straight-forward, non-complicated and does not over or under inflate the importance of issues. If content is not meaningful, informative, helpful or entertaining, or have genuine value, it’s just forgettable and a waste of your clients or company’s money.

5. Actionable. The communications have actionable content and any offers are relevant and tailored to the needs of the consumer or small business owner. It’s now time to ditch those highly promotional brochures filled with marketing fluff and sales hyperbole.

6. Organic. Any content is realistic and relevant to the customers visiting your website today. Your copy uses actual customer quotes or customer language and not something staged, highly polished and dreamed up by an office copywriter with no knowledge of the customer.

7. Personal. With the choice of channel from direct mail, email, online, radio, press, TV, direct sales and mobile, delivering unique content through the correct channel, at the best time is vital for effective customer marketing. Since the delivery channel is the first contact in the customer experience, personalize it by using registered mail, live stamps, clean outer envelopes, opt-in email addresses and phone numbers. Massed produced, non-personalized mail and promotional outer envelopes are cheap but ultimately drive low response rates, generate a poor brand experience and wasteful. Seth Godin talks about permission marketing and treating people with respect as the best way to earn their attention. If the customer has not ‘opted-in’ then any contact is just spam or cold-calling.

8. Intelligent. Of course selectively use humor in your communications but avoid child-like fun, slapstick comedy and puns. Humor should use an intelligent wit, with deep truths rooted in the customer experience. Try getting your best customers to share their experiences to inform and educate others. Gather relevant industry experts in panels or forums to discuss the latest trends and post relevant topics or white-papers on your website to provide inside information to help your audience.