MY MONOLOGUE
Imagine I bump into you at a party. With little more than a hello I launch into a passionate monologue, the subject being ME
My job
My car
My pets
My friends
My favourite TV shows
My likes
My dislikes
You’d probably edge away at the first opportunity.
NOW WHAT ABOUT YOU?
But imagine I said hello, then maybe asked how you’d travelled to the party, agreeing that the train was a nightmare. And that I wish I’d driven too even though this wine is really good, and how mad, we drive the same car…
We’d get on far better and there’d be less chance of you considering a restraining order. We might even go on to be friends.
BRANDS WHO BROADCAST
I may have dialled things up for dramatic effect but the principle is still the same. Brands are most often in broadcast mode and rarely in listen mode.
With so much to SAY (offers! menu! garden! sunshine! winter! valentine’s! Xmas! etc etc) marketing output tends to be a one way street.
And this is a huge problem, because if your marketing is in broadcast mode, you cannot be alert to the nuance of response, and YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY BE PUTTING YOUR CUSTOMERS FIRST!
SO WHAT TO DO?
Move from customer MONOLOGUE to customer DIALOGUE.
But Vic, how??
1. Use your data to get to know your customers in intimate detail – their behaviours, likes, preferences and motivations
2. Take your messaging and decide who should get what. As a general rule of thumb, anything which goes to your whole base is a BRAND message, so needs to be something you are happy for your brand to be universally known for. For eg, value may be brand, kids eat free is usually not. Anything other than brand is MARKETING and marketing should always be segmented
3. Build out an omnichannel comms plan which delivers the right message to the right people at the right time – and closely monitor and respond to the results
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
It’s called Customer Relationship Management for a reason.
No one wants to be the bore at a party, luckily you have the data and tools to absolutely make sure you’re NOT.
If you’d like to know how to use your data to drive frequency and reduce customer churn, putting your customers first, drop me a line.
