Know Thy Customer
How do you win customers' attention and loyalty? Know them and be relevant.
That was the straightforward advice Acxiom's Chris Marriott gave earlier this week during its Global Marketing Performance Series event on social media marketing. "Leverage the information you have about customers to personalize communications," he said.
Marriott, vice president and general manager for Acxiom's Digital Marketing Services' Eastern Region, also advised attendees to:
- Build strategies around customers (not just products or services)
- Find more people who look/act like current best customers
- Know where customers spend their time, especially online
- Recognize customers and treat them like an old friend
In other words, create learning relationships and use the information gleaned over time to convert customers/prospects or encourage them to take to such desired actions as making recommendations. Marriott used the movie Groundhog Day as an example of this, citing the movie as the best one that's accidentally about marketing out there.
In the movie Bill Murray is trying to win the affections of Andie MacDowell. He's also stuck reliving the same day (Groundhog Day) over and over. In one scene Murray and MacDowell are having drinks. Murray orders first; MacDowell then orders sweet vermouth. Fast forward to the same moment the next day (which is still the same day played over again for Murray), and Murray orders first: sweet vermouth. MacDowell is pleasantly surprised that they share a taste for the same drink. That day they toast, as well. Murray goes first; MacDowell follows with a toast to world peace. The next day: Murray orders sweet vermouth and toasts to world peace. Each day he learns something new about MacDowell and then uses that information to win her affections.
Marriott's point was that marketers should do the same: Learn about customers from their behaviors, actions, preferences, feedback, and the like, and then use that information to win them over--whether winning them over means closing a sale, getting a referral, generating word of mouth, etc.
What are you learning from your customers? Are you acting on that insight?
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