The Secret to Winning Customers’ Hearts
When developing marketing strategies some companies try to involve their customers. Others strive to come up with ideas to boost sales by pushing and selling their products. However, as social media has changed the marketing environment, the strategies to capture customers need to be changed accordingly. Some companies use marketing strategies that leave customers with a bad impression and unsatisfied customers may write unfavorable online reviews. Information flows more freely on the Internet, and, as a result, those reviews tend to spread quickly and widely and hurt sales.
Change strategies
If the old strategies potentially do harm, how should businesses change marketing tactics in order to acquire good reputations and positions in this environment? Now that customers have a powerful influence on the Internet community and can sway your company’s reputation and success, building closer and stronger relationships with them is crucial. In that market environment, a better strategy is the reverse of involving customers – getting involved with them. By attracting them and getting pulled by them instead of pushing, your business can generate more demand from customers.
When creating a customer-driven marketing strategy, listening to customers’ voices is necessary since your company’s future lies in their hands more than ever. While social media can easily spread unfavorable information, it also enables many businesses to interact with customers and acquire valuable hints for further business development. In other words, more than ever, it is easier to gain and spread popularity if you catch the right wave.
Examples of using social media
Here are some examples of utilizing social media from Japan where customer-driven marketing is the mainstream approach.
A Japanese restaurant called Butagumi gained popularity by interacting with twitter users. The restaurant created a twitter account not only to do promotions but also to listen to customers and understand their needs. The owner of Butagumi read his customers’ requests on the restaurant’s facility and installed free Wi-Fi and projectors. Because of the improved facility, the restaurant became well-known in the IT industry in Tokyo and now it is a popular location for holding events.
Another example of using social media is a promotion campaign of a beverage company called Suntory. The company invited interested bloggers to its brewery and gave them a free tour and a seminar on its whisky. The bloggers also learned how to make delicious cocktails with the brand’s whisky, and they wrote about the event and spread the word online. The company gained popularity among bloggers and the whisky became a hit and is now carried in more bars and restaurants.
Long before its product’s popularity, Suntory had been interacting with bloggers. The company started its own blog three years before the products’ success, and it gradually built a community on the Internet. Its attitude toward listening to customers’ voices and providing the experience and information they wanted lead to the success of Suntory’s products.
By providing customers with what they are looking for and fulfilling their needs, businesses can strengthen their ties with customers. After going through that process, the relationships between a company and its customers are no longer forced or fragile, but become strong and reciprocal.
Sources:
http://web-tan.forum.impressrd.jp/e/2011/02/04/9511
http://web-tan.forum.impressrd.jp/e/2011/03/01/9516
http://web-tan.forum.impressrd.jp/e/2011/02/23/9515
Credit to image:
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=2741