If you have dabbled in any marketing position, you know how cut-throat the competition is for a brand to stand out. Today’s customers have unlimited access to information about products or services and are bombarded daily with unending options.
To stay relevant, many companies and brands try to reach out to a vast demographic hoping they can be relatable and sales will skyrocket. This, however, tends to fail miserably.
The one-size-fits-all approach hardly lands well, even if the idea sounds great during a business pitch. People are complex and vary in many ways, so focusing on a product or service on catering to a specific audience has always been the ‘tried and true’ way of success. This is exactly what is meant by customer marketing.
Customer marketing is laser-focused on a specific demographic of people, i.e., a brand’s current list of customers, rather than wasting efforts on people unfamiliar with the brand. It includes campaigns advocating loyalty, customer retention policies, and strategies for customer retention.
Want to know more about customer marketing? Then this blog is for you. Here, we will explain in detail what customer marketing is, why it is important, and what are some of the best customer-driven marketing strategies you must know!
What is Customer Marketing? (Definition)
Customer marketing is a strategy that focuses on building and maintaining relationships with existing customers. It involves identifying the target audience, understanding their behavior and needs, and creating personalized marketing campaigns that resonate with them.
Customer marketing aims to create a loyal customer base, retain existing customers, and increase customer satisfaction and retention.
A strong customer marketing strategy starts with identifying your target audience and understanding their behavior. This includes their buying patterns, what they’re looking for in a product or service, and how they interact with your brand.
With this information, you can create personalized marketing campaigns that will resonate with your customers and keep them engaged. You can use tools like email marketing, social media, and customer feedback to continue building that relationship and ensuring your customers are satisfied.
Customer marketing is all about putting the customer first and creating a positive, lasting impression. And now that you know a little about what customer marketing means, let’s review some of its benefits.
What are the Benefits of Customer Marketing?
1. Customer Retention
If your customers feel like they are not being listened to, chances are that you will lose them. This is why customer marketing is so important. Focusing on your current list of customers includes listening to them, which provides you with valuable insight into what they want. Customer Retention will help any company or brand to act accordingly, and in turn, more customers will be retained.
Read More: Retention Marketing: Benefits,Channels & Strategies!
2. Overall Brand Improvement
With customer marketing, you listen to your customers and get valuable feedback. This feedback generates data that can help steer brands and companies in the right direction and lead to overall brand improvement.
3. More Referrals
A satisfied customer will do half the work that your marketing team does. Implementing customer marketing helps you understand what customers want, and customer satisfaction rates will increase. A satisfied customer means more word-of-mouth praise, referrals, and positive attention for the brand or company.
4. Increased Revenue
Customer Marketing leads to increased revenue per customer as well as the lifetime value of that customer. This is made possible because customer marketing leads to increased customer retention rates. A satisfied customer will always contribute to sales, loyalty, and advocacy for the brand or company.
5. Brand Resilience
Customer Marketing results in loyal customers, and brand resilience can be established. Even big-name companies commit missteps and make mistakes from time to time. The reason why they stay relevant is that they have managed to build strong customer loyalty. You will be surprised by how consumers can forgive certain mistakes if they feel a genuine connection and are loyal to a brand. So, customer marketing is crucial for brand resilience.
6. Customer Acquisition
Although customer marketing means focusing on existing customers, an added benefit is that it leads to customer acquisition. If a brand or company does a great job satisfying existing customers, it will result in referrals, which ultimately help you acquire new customers.
Read On: 9 Customer Acquisition Strategies Your Boss Wishes You Knew!
7. Improves Collaboration
Implementing customer marketing can help different departments to work together more efficiently. For example, departments such as sales, marketing, and customer service all do their respective jobs. With customer marketing, such departments can collaborate, leading to productivity improvement within the company.
Now that you know the benefits of customer marketing, here’s a list of strategies most widely used across different platforms and have been known to be efficient.
Customer-Driven Marketing Strategies You Should Know
1. Focus on First Impressions
First impressions can make or break a deal. It sets the tone of how a customer will perceive your brand henceforth. Whether it is an email or a message, put extra effort into the content, wording, and visuals before you send it out.
Whether providing exclusive offers or highlighting welcoming discounts, the main intention should be to stress the value of being associated with your brand or company. You can do this by ensuring that your content (emails, messages, or social media posts) creates a sense of community. This will make the recipient feel a sense of belonging and not just a regular customer of a brand.
2. Nurture Brand Loyalty
You may send a stellar email or message, but this will still have less impact than User Generated Content (UGC). User-generated content is made by people who have purchased a product or service from your brand. Content such as these is not within your control because they are made by the people who have experienced what your product or service is like.
This is why nurturing brand loyalty is so crucial. Loyal and satisfied customers will give out the best reviews for your company, which will always have more credibility and impact than any content your company/brand can put out.
3. Customer Success Stories
We’ve highlighted above that your loyal customers are your best marketing powerhouses. Now the smart move would be to invest in this further. By investing, we mean using positive customer feedback and incorporating it into the marketing strategy.
Instead of just referrals and word-of-mouth by loyal customers, providing a platform for customers to share their success stories is a great strategy. You can dedicate in-depth blogs and interviews about how their customers have utilized the resources and succeeded in their respective fields. By doing so, you gain credibility, and customers will be more inclined to purchase your services rather than from an unfamiliar brand.
4. Proactive Responses
A potential customer will no doubt have many questions before purchasing. Whether it is an email or a comment on social media, a swift and timely response can make a world of difference. Customers want to feel important, and a big part of establishing a brand-customer relationship is ensuring your customers know they are being heard and listened to.
Statistics show that 54% of customers wanted some form of acknowledgement through a simple response or an email. This shows how much prioritizing proactive responses hold weight regarding successful marketing.
5. Incentives and Rewards
Everybody loves freebies – that’s just the way it is. Rewards and incentives will always attract people, whether in person or digitally. It’s a no-brainer that offering special rewards or discounts will boost customer engagement. But the question is, what would be the best way to go about it?
Today, a staple customer marketing strategy is hosting giveaways. Giveaways do the dual job of renewing customer interest while simultaneously positioning a company or brand as a helping hand. Referral and welcome discount codes are also common strategies utilized by many brands. The key is personalising incentives and rewards as much as possible so customers feel important and appreciated.
6. Data Never Lies
As a company or brand, it’s normal to feel like you are at a loss for what to do in certain circumstances. No matter what you do, it can be a steady decline in sales or a gradual plunge in customer engagement rates. At times like these, it’s best to look back at the data acquired because data never lies.
A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) should be in place to not only manage your brand’s relationship and interactions with customers but to also gather valuable data that can be studied later on to find out the areas and fields where your company is lacking, to identify possible mishaps and the right steps to take to improve.
7. Consistency is Key
In customer marketing, the key is to stay relevant. The only way to stay relevant is to keep showing up. Consistency is crucial when marketing a specific product or service; you can’t just pop up and disappear.
As a brand, you have to constantly brainstorm and come up with better incentives and better content. The attention of potential customers is so valuable. To maintain this attention, you must consistently send out relevant content, whether in emails, messages, or social media posts.
8. Element of Inspiration
We get that the end goal of customer marketing is an increase in sales, customer acquisition, and brand growth. However, for marketing to truly succeed, it needs a human touch. As a brand, your customers should not feel like they are constantly bombarded with offers all in the name of capitalism. This will make them feel like just another puppet playing into consumerism.
Your brand should have a purpose, and your products and services should be aligned with the values of that purpose. Always include a ‘feel-good’ element occasionally to inspire your customers.
Wrap Up
If you’ve made it to the end of this blog, you’ll know that no matter how you look at it, brands today need customer marketing to have long-term customers.
Although attaining positive business results is at the heart of the business, if a brand truly wants success and longevity, it needs to build a foundation of trust to retain customers’ loyalty and advocacy.
Customer marketing done right will leave a lasting impact on customers, which will stand the test of time even if the marketing tides change. Good luck, folks!
Further Reads:
Customer Journey Map: Definition, Importance, and Process!
What is Product Branding? 8 Product Branding Examples!
11 Types of Buying Motives Every Business Should Consider & Identify!
Social Proof: 8 Ways to Use it to Get More Sales!
8 Different Types of Branding Strategies (With Examples)
Customer Journey vs Buyer Journey: The Key Differences!
