Why Customer-Centric Marketing Matters [Video]

Traditional marketing often overlooks the desires and preferences of customers, instead focusing solely on showcasing the company's latest products or services. This outdated approach highlights the features and advantages of the new offering, promoting its superiority over competitors.

However, this product-centric strategy is no longer effective in today's market. Modern consumers are less responsive to aggressive sales tactics and value the opinions and experiences of their peers over company claims.

The rise of social media has created a demand for immediate responses and 24/7 service availability. As a result, customer-centric marketing, service, and support have become essential in meeting customer expectations and building lasting relationships.

Successful marketers understand the harsh reality of their craft. They acknowledge that no matter how meticulously they craft a marketing strategy, external factors will inevitably influence consumer behavior. This influence speaks volumes, surpassing the impact of any blog post, ad, or expertly produced video, resonating with individuals on a deeper level.

We're talking about the voice of your customers.

The New Marketing Reality

The entire inbound marketing space has gotten crowded. As a result, people filter out more content aimed at them than they filter out ads. They rely on friends or personalized search and social algorithms to surface the best content for them.

Similar trends are happening in email. The more you send, the less interested the customers are in looking at it. Their attention is limited, and their inbox is crowded. Each message just adds to the noise. Important information gets lost in the shuffle. Your prospects and customers are overwhelmed by too many messages daily. 

Maybe you've also noticed social media isn't leveraging growth like it used to. While you used just to be able to have a social media presence and share content, now the platforms have gotten more complex and favor content from friends and family over that from publishers and businesses. The use of social media has skyrocketed, but it's increasingly more challenging to break through.

Likewise, customer acquisition cost has risen by 50% over the past five years. 

That all sounds pretty bleak, doesn't it? How do you score marketing wins?

Navigating the New Marketing Scene

To successfully market in today's day and age, you have to amplify the best of what's already being said about you and your product. Nothing you ever write or create will be as trusted or influential to potential customers as your current customers say about you.

So, as a marketer, you can encourage more customers to become promoters, and once they're active promoters, turn them into content creators.

Invest in customer service. Take the long view. Remember, acquiring each new customer costs 5 to 25 times more than retaining an existing one. 

These days, a customer's default is to be skeptical and impatient. They can afford to be like that because they have limitless options and unprecedented clarity into how businesses treat their customers. This has produced a power shift from business to customer, with expectations higher than ever.

No marketing effort can override the negative impact of poor customer service. Achieving sustainable business growth in the new customer-centric world demands personalized and predictive customer experiences. 

Customer centricity means offering a great experience from the awareness stage through purchasing and post-purchase process. The strategy is based on putting your customer first, at the core of your business. The entire organization must understand this basic focus. It's not just a marketing stance, it's the company's core.

During the last recession, the power shifted from brand to customer. Customers got more selective in what brand they spent money on, and the winning brands were the ones who treated them with respect, provided great service, and built a relationship with them.

At the same time as this was going on, we saw the aforementioned rise in social media use, which led to marketers marketing and selling their widgets directly through these social spaces, where customers were already spending their time.

Likewise, mobile has become a major player in the customer experience. Customers have—at their fingertips—the ability to cross-check and compare products and services. This has presented a huge challenge for a fair number of brands.

4 Ways to Become a Customer-Centric Company

To compete effectively and survive in this customer-focused marketplace, you have to fulfill the customers' needs with your product or service...maybe before they've even realized they need it. But they will fall in love when they see them.

The customer-centric brand creates products, processes, policies, and a culture that supports customers with a great experience as they work towards their goals.

Four of the best practices for establishing customer-centricity include:

• Making it universal. Across the board, your entire organization needs to know and buy into the fact that the customer comes first. Research has shown the biggest challenge for companies struggling with the shift in focus from brand to customer is that they do not share relevant information across departments.

• Seeing the world through the customer's eyes. You know you cannot succeed without the customer, so you want to see the world through the customer's eyes. Everyone in your organization understands what the customers want and uses their data to capture insights, then shares it.

• Researching and identifying customer wants. The focus of the brand is on what the customers want and need. Products are developed around that.

• Building relationships. Brands committed to being customer-centric build relationships designed to maximize the customers' product and service experience.

• Focusing on customer retention. As a committed customer-centric company, you analyze, plan, and implement a carefully formulated marketing strategy to create and keep every profitable and loyal customer.

There is a single tenet under all the advice about making your company customer-centric. As a marketer, your job is to start with your customers.

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