Headway Marketing implements a ‘Customer-Centric’ approach to the marketing it undertakes on behalf of its clients.
But what does ‘Customer-Centric Marketing’ mean?
If you go to a business expo you will come across rows of businesses that will develop your website, transform your SEO or send out emails, among many standard marketing requirements. And they might do it brilliantly well. But their approach is one that begins with the product. Their engagement with you is around a skill or service that they have that aligns with a need that you might have to improve your ranking within a search engine listing.
This post is not to say that what these companies offer is wrong, misleading or not valuable. In fact, it is to say that using these services within a ‘Customer-Centric Marketing’ strategy can improve their effectiveness.
But what does ‘Customer-Centric Marketing’ actually mean?
In another post I have expressed the need to ‘know your customer‘, adhering to this as a principle begins to support a customer-centric approach to marketing. When you know your customer, who you best sell to, your efforts will focus on attracting more of the same – good, profitable, valuable customers. It is when you are putting your customer at the heart of your decision making processes that you achieve a Customer-Centric approach to marketing.
Come on, what does it really mean?
Not every business needs a website. Most do, but not all. The hand-wash and valet car cleaning service near the railway station doesn’t have a website. And one of the pubs nearby doesn’t either. Yet they survive. What they have are services that customers like and come back to time and time again – their marketing activities focus on the physical not the digital.
What this suggests is that some businesses need some marketing tools while other businesses will need different ones – the Marketing Mix as studious ones will say. Sometimes a website is needed, however sometimes you just need to display a hard-working team and a sign with a price on it because your target customers are the ones driving past.
Who are your customers and where are they?
“A Customer-Centric approach understands customer behaviour so that you can increase effectiveness of marketing.”
One of the purposes of Marketing is to identify your customer and to facilitate the successful acquisition of more. If you know your customer and know how they think, how they find suppliers and where they reside, you will know which tools to include in your marketing mix.
Having a Customer-Centric approach to marketing means understanding the behaviour of your customers so that you can position your advertising where it is most effective in order to attract your desired target customers.
So, for the last time, what does ‘Customer-Centric Marketing’ mean?
Here goes: Delivering a Customer-Centric approach to Marketing that requires you to put together a marketing plan focused on what you know about your customers and using this knowledge to identify which tools are needed in order to deliver an effective marketing mix – one that achieves your desired objectives.
When you do this, you look differently at the services shouting at you from the business expo and seek to find those services that work together to satisfy your need for new customers and your customers’ need to find a supplier that they can trust.
This is what Headway Marketing does – helps businesses understand who their customers are and implements strategies to achieve more. If your business could benefit from a fresh approach to its marketing, please get in touch.
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