New brand marketing model!

Currently, almost all companies have guidance on customer status such as "customer-centric" and "customer first" in their business philosophy. In the Internet age, customers are also one of the beneficiaries, but the marketing model has changed. Let’s take a look at the changes in new brand marketing .

Almost all companies have "customer-centric", "customer success", "customer first" in their business philosophy and values...

This is certainly correct, and the customer (or consumer) is undoubtedly the ultimate payer.

However, this seemingly extremely simple truth has taken many years of development to gradually move from "just talk" to "slowly doing".

Early marketing was product-centric, meaning you had to have the product first and then decide who to sell it to.

As competition becomes increasingly fierce, businesses have discovered that even good wine needs to be marketed well. So they used creativity and communication to let more people know and understand, and eventually resonate with it and make repeat purchases. Brands are therefore becoming increasingly important.

But in the digital age, one-way brand communication has encountered new challenges. Customers are the beneficiaries of the Internet, they value experience and interaction, and are willing to participate in product design and actively spread the word.

Marketing has entered a customer-centric stage.

But the real transformation is not just about words, but actively embracing changes in marketing models, such as the following:

1. Insights vs VS Research

Many years ago, when a reporter asked Jobs about market research for the iPad, he gave a famous answer: "No."

This sentence was interpreted as brands not needing to understand customer needs. In fact, many reports omit the important sentence at the end: "It's not the client's job to know what they want."

Yes, simple market research, asking customers what they want through traditional questionnaires is indeed futile. On the contrary, it is necessary to get into the minds of consumers and understand their mental demands, that is, what really motivates them.

For example, cool, confident, smart, successful... and happy.

Jobs knew this, so instead of getting bogged down in market data or analysis, he spent a lot of time thinking about customers. The focus is on "the customer's heart" rather than "the customer's words".

In fact, the same is true for B2B decision makers.

• Pursuing price may seem rational, but this person is not motivated by price but by the sense of confidence, competence, and control that he or she is getting the best deal.
• The pursuit of service motivates him to have less trouble and feel relaxed.
• Pursuing well-known brands may be a feeling of success.
• The pursuit of technological content may be a reflection of one's identity and forward-looking thinking.

This information was also important in the past, but it was difficult to obtain through traditional market research and focus groups.

The development of digital technology has provided ways and methods to understand customers. Not through questionnaires, let alone interviews (traditional research companies such as Nielsen have encountered bottlenecks). Instead, we listen and interact, paying attention to the needs of every customer (every type of profile).

The insight at this time does not mean to have a clear understanding before product development, but to get feedback from customers (users) in various links such as testing, trial, use, and after-sales service.

Therefore, we need both rational analysis through data and empathy and careful experience.

2. Customer Experience CXVS VS Integrated Marketing IMC

Integrated Marketing (IMC) was very popular in recent years, and its key words are integration and communication.

For example, for a high-end mobile phone, we hope that customers can hear the radio advertisement while riding in a taxi, see the billboard at the airport, read the introduction in a magazine while on the plane, and see the advertisement on TV when they get home.

Through "all-round bombing", customers will eventually remember it.

This method is proactive promotion by the brand, and it does not take into account who the customers are, whether they read or listen, whether they are annoyed or not, which channels actually bring in customers, etc. It knows nothing at all.

Now, target customers can be defined and their experience can be tracked. Therefore, it becomes possible to achieve CX (customer experience).

The two new keywords are Customer Journey and Buyer Persona.

Compared with integration and communication, it truly ushered in an era of customer-centricity.

Of course, a combination of approaches is still used in today’s customer journey, but this time the integrated marketing is more precise, measurable, and traceable.

3. Inbound Marketing vs Outbound Marketing

Relying on information asymmetry to make profits has long ceased to work in the Internet age.

Customers prefer to do their own research rather than just follow what the merchant says, so the content at each touchpoint is very important.

Almost every company nowadays says that "content is king", but not many actually do it, and all kinds of self-congratulations are very common.

Just open a few websites and you will see descriptions like "flagship product", "outstanding performance", and "domestic leading XXX".

Customers were completely unimpressed after watching it, so what’s so good about it? What is the leading advantage?

For example, if we want to introduce China's Long March series of rockets. If it's super super fast. “Yeah, but how fast?” To add a little more detail, the lift-off speed is 6000 meters per second. I believe that 99% of people are still confused.

If you want to give people a sense of what is going on, you can compare the following data:

The speed of a Boeing aircraft can reach 300 meters per second, the fastest speed of Usain Bolt is 10.3 meters per second, and the speed of a sports car can reach 100 meters per second.

So even an elementary school student can understand how fast a rocket is.

Such a comparison is definitely more troublesome and time-consuming than directly writing out 6000 meters per second. In other words, if you want to put yourself in someone else's shoes, you have to put in more thought.

In psychology, there is a concept called self-anchoring, which means that when we make decisions about people we don’t know very well, we tend to engage in a self-centered inference process.

In order to reach a consensus, we tend to speculate about others from our own perspective, "If it were me, I would..." This is called "false consensus", which means assuming that everyone thinks the same way as we do.

In other words, people are inherently lazy and don’t think from their own perspective. Standing in the customer’s perspective is definitely not an easy thing, but it is the right thing to do.

There is no point in daydreaming about this matter sitting in a cubicle. You can only go to the front line and communicate with customers. Of course, if customers can also participate in the co-creation of content, the effect of inbound marketing will be much better.

4. Social Marketing vs. Advertising

It is an indisputable fact that today's customers attach more importance to interaction on social channels and are increasingly disgusted with "brainwashing repetitive advertising."

The younger generation increasingly values ​​self-selection and diversified culture, and traditional one-way advertising and stereotyped promotion methods are becoming less and less effective.

Nike’s foray into skateboarding is a great example. At the beginning, we followed the tried and tested method of hiring a spokesperson and bombarding the market with advertisements in all directions. Consumers don’t buy it, so we can’t enter this market.

Later, Nike really took the time to understand skateboarding culture, restored Nike classic models, allowed skateboarders to participate in the design of shoes, and promised to create good products. It took at least five years to build an audience.

Sponsoring street competitions and collaborating with artists and skateboard superstars, everything originated from this group and led to this group, and finally successfully integrated into the skateboarding circle.

Eventually, Nike shoes became synonymous with skateboarding shoes, and thus captured the hearts of more and more young people. It is not easy to integrate into the community, and it is even more difficult to build a corporate community, which often requires a long period of sedimentation and accumulation. Establishing connections is only the first step. The "private domain traffic" that everyone often talks about now is still in the "traffic" stage. It is too naive to mistake "add WeChat and get free skin care pads" or "get coupons when you join" as social marketing.

5. Mind share vs VS Market share

Let’s also talk about measuring effectiveness. In the past, businesses were product-centric and emphasized market share, or wallet share, the share of a particular customer’s wallet.

The customer-centric marketing goal also requires occupying mind share.

When customers sincerely recognize a company's technology, ideas, and values, they are more willing to listen, understand, and try, and the company eventually becomes a trustworthy partner.

Knowing is easy, but doing is difficult.

It is by no means an easy task for enterprises to achieve this goal through precision marketing, sales and services. It requires years of continuous exploration and efforts.

The most critical first step is to change your mindset and step beyond your company’s own perspective. Understand customer needs, listen and interact, focus on customer experience, provide the information, products and services they need, and ultimately occupy a place in the minds of customers.

The mission of marketers is to constantly try and explore new methods from the customer's perspective.

To achieve this, it is definitely not something that can be thought of by “If I were the customer, I would…”, but rather it is about actively engaging in communication with customers and gaining a deep understanding of the reasons behind the decision.

As the customer's "spokesperson" and "communication bridge" within the company, we provide timely feedback on needs to the R&D, product, sales, and service departments, and ultimately become a partner that customers trust.

It didn’t all happen overnight, but it was definitely worth it.

Key points and essence of the article:

• Customer insights are not equal to market research
• Integrated marketing is from the perspective of the enterprise itself
• Creating good content is “difficult but right”
• Social marketing is not equal to private domain traffic operation
• Only when you have a place in the hearts of customers can you talk about branding

Author: Hanni

Source: Time Notebook