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Marketing has changed dramatically during
the past decade with the advent of the
Internet and Search Engines such as Google
and Yahoo. In simpler times, the approach of
creating aggressive strategies to propel
sales, was very Pavlovian – Stimulus –
Response, you placed the ad, generated the
demand and the sales happened, not much
focus was given to the customer. The new
style focuses on developing a
service-oriented business and marketing plan
dedicated to solving customers' problems.
Too often businesses only focus on providing
customer service, but customer loyalty is
the one we want to engender with our
clients, the difference between the two is:
CUSTOMER SERVICE IS AN ATITUDE, CUSTOMER
LOYALTY IS A BEHAVIOR.
And customers vote with their wallets!
When we define "customer-centric" marketing,
it requires providing Customers with real
solutions and a good deal of research and
insight into the motivational marketing and
customer issues that they are facing. Many
businesses too often adopt a quick-fix
marketing and customer service response
convenient for them and call it
“customer-centric”. For example, 24-hour
service lines are easily set up and seem
customer-focused, but research indicates
that what a firm's customers actually need
is a toll-free number, one that is not
outsourced to substandard, underpaid,
unmotivated representatives, but highly
responsive, well-trained professional
technicians who can solve the customers’
problems. In short, paying mere lip service
to customer support is not enough.
Organizations must look beyond their
internal challenges to focus the true needs
of the customer.
The other challenge in “customer-centric”
marketing and customer service is that it
must also be competition-centered. The
reason, say Al Ries and Jack Trout in
Bottom-Up Marketing, is that the only way to
"pry customers loose" away from your
competitors is to offer better
solutions than they do - and explore new
market niches and new
opportunities your competitors haven't
thought of. This means
being constantly aware of what the
competition is doing.
The Riches in Niches – Try Niche
Marketing
Most successful companies have stopped
broadcast marketing, taking out a full page
ad in a national newspaper to advertise
their product and hoping the product flies
off the shelf. Instead they reach out to
narrowly-focused groups, using a strategy
called "niche marketing."
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Niche marketing gained wide
popularity through Donald K.
Clifford, Jr. and Richard E.
Cavanaugh's The Winning
Performance, which studied 6,117
small companies that had grown
four times faster than the
Fortune 250. Ninety percent of
these firms, the Authors found,
competed in small market niches.
All were customer- rather than
sales-driven. All developed new
products with the end-user in
mind. And all concentrated on
advertising to - and
generating repeat sales from -
not just any customer, but
a small, credit-worthy,
qualified group. |
Clifford and Cavanaugh present a series of
steps companies can take to adopt niche
marketing for themselves:
Compile a comprehensive list of your
prospects and customers.
Narrow the list to a profitable group you
believe you can serve betterthan the
competition.
Create a profile of the traits common to
these customers, such as sales volume or
location.
Use this profile to tailor products,
services and advertising to your niche
market and qualify new prospects.
Be prepared to experiment with several
niches before finding the one that fits your
company best.
If you follow these tried and true
suggestions to improve motivational
marketing and customer service you will see
a dramatic improvement in your company’s
bottom line and in the satisfaction levels
of your customers.
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