Advances in technology and communication, combined with explosive growth in data and information, have given rise to a more empowered global consumer. During the past decade, consumer needs have changed significantly, with technology growing at an exponential rate, influencing consumer behavior and marketing strategies. Nearly three-quarters of the world will use just their smartphones to access the internet by 2025. By 2025, 85% of the global population will have access to mobile telephony and more than 75% of the customers will have low-cost tablets or smartphones. It is anticipated that almost 75 Billion devices would be connected globally with mobile-based internet being the primary method of connectivity. Social media and unprecedented access to information such as peer-to-peer product and service reviews are giving greater power to consumers, creating more demanding and informed consumers. These experiences are shaping consumer expectations across all sectors. Amongst all of this, personal interaction is still highly considered and will remain an important component of the overall strategy.
Every day, hundreds of marketing strategies are published,
each with its own set of thoughts and studies, but nothing else counts if your
customers do not connect with your brand. Any strategy is good if it keeps the
customer’s interest. To build value and increase sales over time, understanding
your customers is crucial for a predictable result from marketing activities.
Customer centricity is a corporate strategy that prioritizes
customers and places them at the center of operations in order to provide a
positive experience and build long-term relationships. Understanding how to
create leads based on your ideal customer and developing an overall marketing
strategy that focuses on the greatest results for your customers are both parts
of customer-centric marketing planning.
When a customer becomes engaged with a brand, they are 70
percent more inclined to spend than a first-time customer is. All of this is
the outcome of long-term customer trust in the brand. A loyal customer base cuts
down on the time, money, and effort it takes to generate additional revenue.
The most common way of creating an effective strategy,
especially for marketing is to start by conducting a customer behavior study,
which may assist split customers into distinct categories and personas’ as well
as covering the most basic phase of constructing a customer profile, is a good
place to start when developing a plan. This aids businesses in defining and
focusing on their target market.
One can create original content that is relevant to one’s audience
by focusing on a specific market, as a vast majority of consumers prefer
relevant and personalized content. It is critical to align content not only to
different stages of the buying process but also to specific buyer personas, as
the type of content that will engage and incentivize them will differ depending
on their characteristics and preferences.
With the proper content in hand, one can begin implementing
it using an Omnichannel strategy, with special emphasis on social media. Social
media and internet-based customer conversations – both good and bad – are
federated, dynamic, contagious, and opinion making about products and services.
As social media is about real-time and people-centric interactions, external
social initiatives will have limited success if not backed by a similar focus
on agent engagement. The way forward is to build internal collaboration
capabilities that help deliver a superior external customer experience. The key
here is to concentrate one’s efforts in the areas where one’s target audience
exists, engages, learns and spends time. Share the content in these places and
collaborate with the audience to create memorable experiences. This will help in
increasing the likelihood of customer advocacy, which can foster a sense of
community within loyalty the loyal customer base.
Along with content, other factors that can contribute to
customer-centric strategies include training the talent that is aligned with
customer-centric thinking and understands the value of customer experience delivered
by the organization. Here the role of Contact center representatives who are
the first and most front-facing workforce is extremely important. They will
shape many of the first customer interactions. This must be coupled with
relevant and timely information. Successful organizations break down silos of
information and use an enterprise-wide approach to customer information and
insight. A single, accurate, accessible enterprise customer view is essential
to the success of any organization that wants to differentiate on customer-centricity.
Measuring the performance of one’s strategies is equally
important, so having customer success metrics to measure customer-centricity
becomes critical. Calculating churn rates can assist you in keeping track of
customer satisfaction. Similarly, Net Promoter Score and customer lifetime
value are two metrics that can assist you in determining the success of your
customer-centric marketing strategy.
95% of senior business leaders believe that the next
competitive differentiator is customer experience. The irony is that 80%
of companies believe they deliver a superior customer experience. But only 8%
of their customers agree!
A customer-centric marketing approach is the most effective
way to stay competitive, onboard ideal consumers, and increase the lifetime
value of your customers. The modern consumer is acutely aware of their
requirements and the myriad options and choices available to them. The
transition to becoming a truly customer-centric organization is difficult and
time-consuming, but even minor policy and procedure improvements can have a big
impact on both employees and customers. Every part of your business should be
focused on providing the best possible customer experience, resulting in your
customers becoming your reason for success.
The scenario is similar in almost most of the B2C
organizations like Manufacturing, Automotive, Retail, FMCG, Telcos, BFSI, etc. However,
the investments in marketing technology or process and people development areas
to service their customers do not commensurate to this ratio currently. Moreover,
organizations are driving efficiency and extending the cost play within the
ecosystem and are not as much focussed on effectiveness.
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