Time to rethink marketing ?

Richard Meyer

Bad signs are everywhere

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.

Too many brands & too many line extensions

  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 for consumers

  As a consumer, "Do I really need to decide between 15 different types of detergent when I go to a store?"

Consumers are saying “enough is enough”

  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.

In an era when consumer demand for simplicity is increasing

Consumers are seeking uncomplicated, user-friendly products and services that simplify their lives.

The new consumer buzzwords “functional+simple”

  Captures the phenomenon of simple, small and/or cheap products and services;   Smaller and/or limited number of

features, to keep prices low.

  Simpler, or easier to use, for inexperienced consumers.

  Energy efficient (or not using any traditional energies at all) and/or easy to repair and/or waste-reducing.

  Robust, as some of them are used in rugged conditions.

  Well-designed .

Marketers are wondering

What do we do now ?

Yet some brands are doing very well

Because they focus on the customer

While others only focus on price

Which in turn decreases the value of the brand

But as marketers continue to focus on value to lure consumers away from private label, or retail store brands, some analysts

questioned if food makers will have a tough time getting consumers to trade up again.

So today, what’s more important ?

Market Share Profitability

Old metrics are being replaced

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 brands

It’s now Customer driven brands

And the 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 spearheaded by the

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

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