As 2019 inches closer, the time to re-evaluate your various marketing and advertising strategies and campaigns in a way that will stand out in the over-saturated world of a Google search is now.
December 10, 2018
Businesses around the world are having to constantly shift and adapt to the changing tides of consumerism. This is no different for the retail industry, considering it could cease to exist without customer demand. As 2019 inches closer, the time to re-evaluate your various marketing and advertising strategies and campaigns in a way that will stand out in the over-saturated world of a Google search is now.
Enter customer-driven marketing; a strategy that can transcend any campaign for any industry if done correctly. To instill a customer-driven marketing approach to your store, you’ll need to first ensure there is consistency for your customers in the form of processes, that you’re curating content specifically for your target market and customer-base, and that you’re gathering data through customer feedback.
Together, you’ll be able to implement these tactics your various approaches on gaining new customers, maintaining the level of satisfaction for current customers, and winning over those who are still a bit unsure of the experience your store offers.
Customer > Product
Consider this: what is your product worth if it’s not in tune with your target market of customers? In retail specifically, ensuring your product is something your customers will be inclined to invest in is dire. However, there is a need for balance when it comes to the product and brand versus the customer.
You must have merchandise that consumers are drawn to, and a message that speaks to them; not at them. In July, Forbes released an article detailing the transition taking place in every realm of business. As the tech word expands and allows for continuous growth in connectivity, customers are growing increasingly demanding as the hours strike off the clock.
While ensuring your products are up-to-par with your niche’s interests is an aspect of customer satisfaction; in order to entirely win over your customer-base, you’ll need to start developing a plan. To effectively assess the current experience your customers are living when shopping in your store, on your website or even your Instagram, you’ll need to take a step away from the product-world, and dive into that of the customer. Utilize your various social media channels to engage in social listening, and engage where you organically can.
By adding elements to increase customer satisfaction and assist in positively defining the customer experience for potential and current customers, your marketing and advertising campaigns will be more effective; bringing more, promising customers through your doors.
Content Curation and Management
In 2015, Gartner, a top research and advisory company, released their yearly Marketing Spending Survey which estimated that by 2016, 89% of companies would move their grounds to focus on customer experience.
Three years later, Olive Huang, the research vice president at Gartner, stated in a press release that, “cX is a people issue”. Meaning, the customer experience cannot be positively affected if you don’t know the people your store is attracting. How can you create a branded message for customers if you don’t know your base and how they communicate?
Enter content curation. While you’re dissecting your target market, how they talk, what makes them tick, what engages them and what it takes to convert them; you can see what articles they are sharing, the hashtags they’re using, and various sites they’re interested in.
By gathering this data and creating social and buyer personas, you can start to gather the kind of content and tone of voice used that your target clientele responds to. This enables you to create curated pieces of content that include various elements your customers find engaging, and have engaged with, online.
Providing the answers to the questions customers have before they have to ask it allows your retail store to stand out against the masses. Showing effort, understanding and engagement with your base is a successful and cost-effective way to partake in additional elements of customer-driven marketing.
Collecting Data Through Feedback
One of the most overlooked elements in marketing is the power that gathering customer feedback has, and the many doors it can open with little to no damage done on your business bank account.
Collecting feedback via reviews, surveys or recommendations allows insight and perspective you’d otherwise miss out on. This is crucial to discovering and correcting any actions that aren’t enabling a pristine experience for the customer. Whether you’re serving customers from a brick-and-mortar location or a digital one is irrelevant, here.
The data shown through various forms of consumer feedback can highlight your strengths while also shedding light on your weaknesses. Thanks to the rise of the impeccably honest consumer, when something goes awry, you’ll likely hear just how from the customer themselves in the form of feedback. With such insights, you can show gratification to employees rising to the challenge, pinpoint areas that need attention and alteration. Best of all, you’ll be able to use this public feedback as a form of marketing through a social share graphic.
When it comes to customer-driven marketing, your options are plentiful and are sure to give you the in-house and digital results each business in any industry strives for.
