Tag Archives: smarter

Customers expect a smarter business nowadays

smarter business words

“We want to create value for you by sharing marketing tips and timesavers” – O’C&K.

Small to medium sized businesses, in denial, need help.

What’s influencing the customer? Well, other than a growing distrust of authority, brands included, connectivity is facilitating massive changes in how people shop. As a result of technology, customers are more connected, agile, and discerning. Unfortunately, many marketers and small businesses aren’t adapting their marketing practice to this new environment. In fact, because the shape, size and impact of traditional, segmented audiences are changing so rapidly, there appears to be a sense of denial amongst business owners that the customer’s perspective has altered at all. Accordingly, many treat the new scenario as a somewhat temporary blip!

SMEs are slowly starting to realise that, how they build relationships with customers and prospects needs to be re-thought and implemented from a completely different viewpoint – that of the customer. Not radical stuff, I know but those same SMEs need to adapt smarter business models and some may well need outside help to make this adjustment.  Beware though, there are some gurus out there that appear to be taking the shiny new tools available and applying them in the old ways. That will not work in the long term.

Tips and Timesavers.

It won’t work because it’s not about new tools (although technology does play a part), or buzzwords or fashionable terms, it is about customer expectations. It is about the customer expecting someone to solve a problem for them quickly, easily and decisively. They don’t mind who does this by the way. My own teenage daughter reminds me that,

  • she only sees advertising if she agrees with it
  • she gets her information mainly from mobile devices
  • she only accepts information if it’s relevant and/or funny
  • she’s not marketing adverse if it is relevant and authentic
  • she only gives brands a once off chance to build a relationship with her
  • she’s much more ‘community’ focused than previous generations

I’m sure that you’ll agree that  those who adopt smarter business models more quickly will be those that will survive into the future.

Of course, there is a limit as to what people value from a brand. Really, it depends on the context of the relationship and what the public wants from it.

Therefore, if relationships are the foundation of business, the role of business is to have something of value to share and thereby build those relationships. Thereafter, it is the role of communication to reinforce relevancy and authenticity.

If you have any other tips or timesavers please leave a reply below. If you’d like to receive similar content, just subscribe by clicking through the pink button, on this page.  Of course if you want to get in touch, leave your details and perhaps we might meet for a chat, cheers.   Jim – O’C&K

 

Being smart about your customer relationships

measure love

If you want me to love you, treat me as a person not as a consumer.

I want to chat about something that’s been on my mind for a while now. In truth, people have probably always felt this way but I’ve worked in ‘marketing’ so, I would have segmented and targeted audiences – mea culpa.

We are human beings – not consumers.

I am writing this, not as a confession but as a rationale as to why all of us in business need to be smarter about marketing.

The societal change that’s underway right now will affect much more than the traditional marketing we practitioners knew and loved so well. You know what I’m talking about – the MadMen thingy. The funnels of love, big campaigns, slick TV ads telling the customer why they’d be better off with your product / service. It was all about agreeing a message with the client, broadcasting it to a target audience and promoting it ‘through-the-line’. Sure a lot of it worked – (nowadays that impact is lessening), but it wasn’t really about building any real relationship with the consumer, if we’re to be honest.

Authentic relationships.

As I mentioned, the change that’s happening right now is affecting much more than marketing but it may have serious implications for it and thereby clients, if not addressed. Look at what’s happened to the music industry, what’s happening in traditional media and even what’s happening to TV viewership.  After decades of broadcasting messages at people, we need to take off our blinkers and realise that society’s attitude, to almost everything, is different. Not only from a geopolitical or economic point of view (which they are) but the individuals that we so badly want to ‘sell’ to, are changing, big time. They don’t want to be sold to anymore – they want relationships. This is important for business because it is through relationships that purchase decisions are now been guided and made. So if business can develop the kind of authentic relationships that last, we have a chance of survival. Today, the public wants what they want; business can adjust to the new reality or fool ourselves into oblivion.

So if the essence of business has not changed and is still all about relationships with people – what do we need to change? Our attitude, that’s what. There are loads of new and better tools available to enable businesses to be smarter about their relationships. Let’s use them properly and everybody will be a winner.

This is our very first blog. It is our intention to provide readers with marketing tips and timesavers in future blogs. If you liked our content, by all means subscribe by clicking through the pink button to receive our regular updates.  Of course if you want to get in touch, leave your details and perhaps we might meet for a chat, cheers.      Jim – O’C&K