Increase Marketing Effectiveness by Focus on Customer’s Perspective

When we think about marketing, we most often look at it from the perspective of the company doing the marketing. This traditional view starts with companies identifying a target market based upon the demographics and psychographics of those they believe are best suited for its products or services. It is not too difficult to identify the target market. The challenge comes in trying to reach them.

Unfortunately for companies, the people in their target market are not easily reached. They are hidden within a much larger consumer base, most of whom are not ideal customers the company.

So what do marketers do? Companies have traditionally gotten out their bull horns and broadcasted their marketing messages. These messages are more often than not centered on the company’s products, your services. “My whistles are louder, my bells are shinier.” Essentially you say, “My stuff is better than the other stuff out there and you really should give me your money”. You send out the message in hopes that of all of the people that hear it, some of them will be those who want or need your product or service and they will choose to purchase.

Now, let’s change our perspective and look at it from what the customer is experiencing. When the marketer pulls out a bull horn and tries to send that message, from the customer’s perspective, things are very different. Instead of the customer viewing themselves as being part of a large crowd of consumers that marketers are trying to reach, they actually see the companies as being part of a large crowd of marketers that are throwing very similar messages at them, “My whistles are louder, my bells are shinier, my stuff is better.” So it is not just one set of messages they hear, but hundreds, if not thousands.

Understanding that the objectives of the companies – to get customers to buy their stuff – is not always in alignment with those of the customer – to purchase things that are of value to me as an individual – consumers are taking steps to manage the marketing message overload. The first step is to put up shields to protect themselves from the barrage of messages they are confronted with daily, hourly, and by the minute. These shields come in the form of things like TiVo that allow us to fast forward through commercials, the Do Not Call List, junk mail management, and skepticism that leads to just flat out ignoring the noise.

Today, in order to find things they want, consumers are taking control of the marketing they consume. They are taking the concept of word-of-mouth input and feedback from friends and trusted sources a step further. They are doing the same thing with the internet.

Now consumers get on the web an initiate searches their own searches. They search

- topics they are interested in
- from sources they trust
- in formats they like.

After filtering out the rest of the noise, they are left with a set of content to focus on that is related only to the things they might want to buy.

So what’s the implication of this to a marketer? When you are crafting your marketing messages and designing your marketing campaign, the focus should not be on you. To be effective, the focus should really be on the consumer. In other words, it’s really not about you. So you can take either the bull horn approach, where you’re broadcasting what you want to communicate, or you can focus on helping consumers find the information they are looking for.

From the consumer’s perspective, it is always about them. With the bull horn approach, this is what they hear, “My products are really good. You really should buy my product. I’ve invested a lot of time and money into my product. I need you to buy it so I can get a return on my investment.” In other words, “Please just give me your money because that is what is in my best interest”. That’s not very appealing to the consumer when you think about it that way.

If you flipped the script around and focus more on the consumer, you’ll establish ways of interacting and craft messages that answer questions such as:

- What is it that you, the consumer, are really interested in?
- How can I use my products, my services and my resources to help you solve a problem that you have?
- What types of content do you want to access?
- Where do you go to get your information and how can I make that a better place with the content I can provide?

With this approach, you are much more likely to establish a trusted relationship with people in your target market. This is important because, even in this day and age, with all of the technology we use on a constant basis, people still prefer to buy from people and they buy more from people they trust.

Article Source from Cecilia_Edwards

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