Marketing Job One: Focus On the Customer
Customers are what keep us all in business. Not metrics, not a CRM system, not lead scoring. Customers. In fact, Peter Drucker, the father of business consulting, said “The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.” So who is our customer? What do they value? And how can we differentiate ourselves in their eyes?
In Peter Drucker’s day, knowing your customers happened in the course of meeting with them and speaking face to face. In today’s world where 70% of the buying process occurs prior to a customer engaging with a salesperson (SiriusDecisions, 2012), it is no longer feasible to conduct a one-on-one conversation to understand what the customer wants and deliver it to them. Instead, a whole new set of tools and techniques are used to understand the wants, needs, and buying decisions of customers and respond to those needs. Success requires understanding the customer, creating great content that speaks to their needs, then communicating in a personalized way.
Understand Your Customers with Buyers Personas
Buyer personas are research-based representations of our customers: who buyers are, what they are trying to accomplish, what drives their behavior, how they think, how they buy, and why they make buying decisions. A buyer persona is a model of a specific type of customer who is involved in the buying process. A suite of buyer personas provides insight into the drivers of the various team members involved in the buying decision. By developing buyer personas, we gain a deeper, richer understanding of our customers, what interests them, and their buying behaviors.
Differentiate Your Brand with Great Content
Great content attracts customers because it shows them how a problem can be solved. Great content “speaks” to the customer. It is developed specifically for their persona, buying cycle, and business needs.
Content is how we differentiate ourselves in the eye of the customer, both for thought leadership and brand value. The extent to which the organization is highlighted in the content depends on the persona’s location in the buying cycle. As customers become more adept at online research, and more players have influence in the buying decision, content is playing a key role in determining whether a customer purchases a product or service.
Communicating In a Personalized Manner
Thousands of emails hit our inbox every year. The messages explain how great a product is or ask us to join a webinar. Searching the Internet provides answers to questions but also results in a barrage of banner ads. Most customers have tuned out at this point because there is far too much noise.
Personalized communication that speaks directly to the customer breaks through the noise. A strong WIFM (Whats In it For Me) message that delivers value is imperative. Communication happens through programs such as nurture campaigns. Their purpose is not to sell but to educate and inform. By collecting and responding to the customer’s digital body language, communication can be personalized to the customer’s persona, buying cycle, and business needs. Digital body language should drive the WIFM message.
In the age of digital marketing, when marketing is responsible for revenue and business growth, it is the organization’s job to understand the customer, differentiate the organization, and communicate in a personal manner. Metrics, pipeline management, and lead scoring are used to validate the effectiveness of communication and differentiation. Scott Dorsey CEO of ExactTarget Marketing Cloud says it best, “Marketers are closest to the customer.” They have the technology, tools, team and content to connect with the customer. So regardless of function within the marketing organization, for a company to be successful all must be accomplished with a laser focus on the customer.
