Should CMOs Concentrate on Brand Building or Business Growth?

Do you remember when Coca-Cola did away with their CMO in favour of a Chief Growth Officer? Then two years later they brought back the position. At the time, I asked if they were wise or foolhardy to make such a change, but they answered the question themselves!

In an interview with Marketing Week, their global vice-president of creative claimed that it had “broadened” the company’s approach to marketing. Obviously, this didn’t live up to their optimistic expectations. I think that other companies who followed suit, also realised that they need a CMO after all. However, their role has changed significantly. 

 

HOW MARKETING HAS CHANGED

Marketing is an old profession. It’s been around for hundreds of years in one form or another. If you’re like me and are fascinated by how change happens, then I’m sure this complete history of marketing Infographic by Hubspot will be of interest.

With the arrival of digital marketing in the early 80’s, many companies began to take a serious look at their marketing. They realised that their primarily outbound strategy had to change. Their consumers didn’t appreciate being interrupted in their daily lives. However, with the creation of inbound marketing, they still irritated their consumers with spammy emails, popups and “subtle” cookies for following their every move. No wonder the EU felt inclined to develop its GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).

What has changed over the past five years is marketing’s deeper awareness of, if not complete adherence to, what customers like and dislike. The major trends that we have seen and their impact on marketing, include:

  1. Chatbots, especially through Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, to catch consumers on the go with highly personalised messaging.
  2. The use of voice. With the battle between Amazon, Microsoft and Google in the voice search and commands domain, customers can get answers just by asking. This is a huge challenge for businesses because being on the first page of search results is no longer enough; you have to be first!
  3. Video is taking over social media, with its rapid rise on YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter and Facebook.
  4. Influencer marketing is giving way to customer journey mapping with the increased detail that IoT can provide. Many organisations have moved their marketing plans to mirror their customers’ path to purchase. Or rather paths, as personalisation continues to trump mass engagement.
  5. Zero-party data. As social media platforms have seriously reduced the collection of their subscribers’ data, brands are increasing their direct engagements with their consumers. Through polls, quizzes and competitions, they openly ask for consumers’ details, bypassing the need for cookies.

Have you taken these megatrends on board and adapted your marketing accordingly? If not, why not? 

In order to survive many CMOs have adapted to such megatrends as chatbots, voice, video and zer-party data collection. Have you? #Brand #Marketing #Trends Click To Tweet

 

BRAND BUILDING

In the past decade or so, many large CPG companies such as P&G  and Nestle renamed their Marketing departments as Brand Builders, in the hope of adapting to this new world. They failed, miserably.

I believe the reason they failed is that despite this name change, they continued to run their marketing in the same old way. With very few exceptions, their communications are still all about them & their brands and very little to do with their consumers.

Luckily, some more progressive consumer goods companies realised that to satisfy today’s consumer they had to do things differently. They were the ones that moved to consumer centricity. Or to be precise, they started on their journey towards putting the consumer at the heart of their business.

You see, consumer centricity is a journey, not a destination because consumers are constantly changing and their satisfaction never lasts for long. Therefore the aim for satisfaction and delight is continuous and never-ending.

Consumers are constantly changing & their satisfaction never lasts for long, so the aim for satisfaction & delight is continuous and never-ending. #brand #Marketing #CEX #CRM Click To Tweet

 

WE HAVE TAUGHT OUR CUSTOMERS (TOO) WELL

People understand a lot more about “marketing” than we give them credit for. And certainly, a lot more than they did just a few years ago.

  • They know that companies have marketing plans and regular promotions, so they wait for the price offs.
  • They realise that in today’s world, products have become more and more similar. Their format, colour or perfume may be different, but their performances are pretty comparable. So the competition manufacturers see is not reflected in consumer habits. Loyalty has become a rare commodity!
  • They are far more likely to have a portfolio of brands from which they choose in many categories. And they are far less likely to be loyal to only one brand.
  • They have come to expect constant innovation, quickly adopt and adapt to the once novel idea, and then start searching for the next improvement.

According to Accenture’s Customer 2020: Are You Future-Ready or Reliving the Past?” almost a half of consumers believe that they are more likely to switch brands today compared to just ten years ago.

Consumers believe that they are more likely to switch brands today compared to just ten years ago. @Accenture #CEX #CRM #Consumers #Marketing Click To Tweet

 

COVID AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOURS

As brands were adapting to the new savvy consumer, along came covid and consumer habits and behaviours changed dramatically.

According to a McKinsey report on “Reimagining marketing in the next normal” they observed six potentially important changes in consumer behaviour as a result of the pandemic. Some are just an acceleration of already existing trends, while others are new and only now emerging. Specifically, they mention:

1. Shopping: Catching up to the great digital migration to expand digital borders.

2. E-services: New “service platforms” to help consumers take care of business.

3. Home: Finding a spot in the new “command central” for all activities.

4. Community: Localizing the experiences.

5. Trust: Creating a space for health and affordability.

6. Purpose: Holding brands to higher standards.

To summarise, it appears that people have come to the realisation that they have more control of their lives than they ever did before. Customers now demand far more of companies than just the delivery of products and services.

They want clear proof that organisations can be trusted to deliver on their promises and that they care about their employees and the communities in which they operate, as well as their customers of course. Customer centricity becomes the only viable strategy to adopt and marketing needs to adapt to it.

 

Companies that place the customer at the heart of their business are easy to recognise.

  • Their websites are filled with useful information, entertaining videos and games, and their contact pages provide the customer with all possible ways to communicate with them.
  • Their advertising is clearly customer centric and emotional, with the customer and not the brand as the hero.
  • They involve and seek advice from their customers in many aspects of their business. (see  “The exceptionally easy and profitable uses of co-creation” for more on this topic.)
  • Their packaging is user-friendly and their products and services are easy to find and buy.

In every aspect of a customer centric organisation, the customer is clearly what drives each and every decision.


If you’re not sure how good your customer centricity is, just take a look at your own website, especially the contact page. Or why not complete the mini C3C Evaluator? It’s free!


MOVING TO A NEW MARKETING

Whether you are still doing marketing or have already moved to brand building, here are a few of the essential first steps that you need to urgently take, to adopt a customer-first strategy:

#1. Customer visibility. Place pictures of your customers everywhere, so people start to naturally think about them. This can be at the beginning and end of presentations, in your office reception, on the lift doors or anywhere employees spend time.

#2. Customer validation. Whenever a decision is taken, ask

“What would our customers think about the decision we have just taken?” 

This will avoid such practices as hiding price increases by reducing pack content without telling the customers. Or asking credit card details for the use of a “free” trial, in the hope that the customers will forget and be automatically charged for a service they may not want. For more examples of such bad practices to avoid read “How to cheat the customer – or not!”

What would our customers think about the decision we have just taken? If they wouldn't like it, it is wrong. #CEX #CRM #Customer #Business #Decision Click To Tweet

#3. Your website. Review the language of your website. If there are more “we’s” than “you’s” then you know what to do.

And while you’re there, check out your contact page for possible improvement opportunities, as detailed above.

Ensure that there is a customer reason for everything on your website; WIIFM (what’s in it for me) is the new customer mantra.

Should CMOs Concentrate on Brand Building or Business Growth? Click To Tweet

#4. Customer persona. Take a look at your target customer description or persona/avatar. When was it last updated? As previously mentioned, customers have changed dramatically in the last year, so your document needs to be upgraded with the addition of the major changes. In fact it should be a living document to which new information is added on a regular basis.

If you don’t even have a standard form that clearly describes them, then use C³Centricity’s 4W™ template until you develop your own. (you can download it for free here)

#5. Advertising. Examine your campaigns. Who is the hero? Consider developing concepts that are more customer centric, by making use of your understanding of them and their emotional triggers.

#6. Customer connection. Spend time with your front-line staff and customers. Make use of call centres, in-store promotions and merchandisers to talk to your customers, as well as to the employees who connect with them. These people will almost certainly be able to tell you a lot more about your customers than you yourself know.

#7. Employee focus. Share your latest knowledge about your customers with everyone in the company. Help each employee understand the role they play in satisfying your customers. Make them fans of your customers and you will never have to worry about such questionable practices as those mentioned in #2 above.

These are your starter tasks for moving from marketing and brand building to adopting a customer-first strategy.

So to answer the question I asked in the title, marketers should concentrate not only on brand building for business growth but most importantly of all, on their ever-changing customers. 

If you’d like more ideas and a clear roadmap for moving to a future-oriented marketing approach, then DOWNLOAD a free sample of my book “Winning Customer Centricity”. 

This post is based upon and is a regularly updated version of an article first published on C3Centricity in 2016.

How to Update Your Marketing with a Customer First Strategy

All marketers know their marketing 5Ps, but how do you update your marketing when you adopt a customer first strategy? Here are some tips and ideas for you to adopt – or adapt.

 

People

This is the easiest of the marketing 5Ps for a customer centric organisation to adapt because a customer first strategy is all about your customers. However, in recent years, there has been a lot of talk about the importance of employees, some even suggesting that they are more important than customers!

I discussed this in detail in a post a couple of months ago, called ” Customers Care About Products & Value, Not Employees.” Click the title link to read my perspective on this topic.

The 4W template is useful for the new marketing 5Ps.

Personally, I believe that customers are your biggest asset, as they are the ones who pay your wages and make your business thrive. It, therefore, makes sense to know them intimately. If you have a different perspective I’d love to hear it; just add a comment below.

In C3Centricity we use the 4W™ Template to record and describe the customer personas of our clients’ brands.

If you still haven’t downloaded our FREE persona template, CLICK HERE to get your free copy and instructions.

In addition to knowing and describing your target customers in detail, the other tip I give when you want to update your marketing when you adopt a customer first strategy. is to start and end every meeting by asking the “magic question.” What is it? It is this: “what would your customers think about the decision you have just taken?”

This one simple idea is incredibly powerful in identifying actions which are not customer centric. I will give examples of these in the remaining 4Ps below.

So a customer-centric approach to your customers is both thinking about them in every action you take, as well as knowing them as deeply as you can and keeping this knowledge constantly updated.   

 

Product

This is often seen as the most important to address when you decide to update your marketing. After all it is what you are selling. It is also the one thing you think about day in and day out. But it’s not the most important in a customer centric organisation. Surprised?

Think about it for a second. Without knowing the P for people in great detail, you won’t be able to optimise your offer in terms of the other four Ps. That’s why it’s a customer first strategy that works better than any other.

Without knowing the customer in great detail, you won't be able to optimise your offer of the other Marketing 5Ps #Marketing #Brand #CMO Click To Tweet

Here are some examples of how companies realised they get their product wrong when adopting a customer first strategy and a couple of right actions for inspiration: 

  • WRONG! Any business that reduces pack content without informing its customers of it and the effective price increase. Read JD Roth’s “Hidden price increases at the grocery store” for more on this.
  • WRONG! Exaggerated claims or twisting the numbers of contained calories by having unnatural serving sizes – seven potato chips anyone? Or saying a product is 95% fat-free, but it refers to the weight, not the calories! I once heard that everything written on the front of a pack is a lie!
Everything written on the front of a pack is a lie! #brand #marketing #packaging Click To Tweet

Check this out with any pack and you’ll see what I mean; there’s sure to be something not strictly correct on it. Please share any funny or annoying examples you find in the comments below.

  • WRONG! Making variant identification difficult for customers. Have you ever bought the wrong product because packs were the same colour and just the names changed? I know I have. Or tried to understand the differences between variants that have five or seven descriptors?
  • WRONG! Running frequent product tests only comparing to the latest version. Although this is standard procedure, if you make regular tests for small changes which go unnoticed in the short term, they can amount to a big, noticeable change over the long term. Better to compare results also to past best ones than only using the current benchmark.
  • WRONG! Any company that makes it difficult for its customers to use their product. Think large bags of pet food or kitchen rolls without easy-carry handles; salad sauce or shampoo bottles which are impossible to open with damp hands; sealed bags which split when opened and need to be stored in a different container.Tropican pack change
  • WRONG! Making pack or logo changes without finding what your customers like or dislike in the current one. Think about the much-publicised Tropicana disaster back in 2009, or the Gap logo change.

Coke holiday edition white canOr more recently the Coke holiday edition white can that consumers confused with the diet version, and were understandably disappointed when they realised they had bought the wrong variant.

 

 

 

  • RIGHT! Taking the customers’ perspective when designing your packaging. Think deeply about how your customers will purchase, open and use your product. Don’t make them struggle in any way, whether to carry, open, close or store it.
  • RIGHT! Working with your customers to perfect current and develop new products. This is by far the best way to guarantee that you stay connected to changing preferences.
  • RIGHT! Be transparent, in your operations, your actions and your plans. If you aren’t, whatever you try to hide will eventually be uncovered and then made public on social media, probably with an accusation of unethical behaviour. United have discovered this many times.
Working with your customers to perfect current & develop new products is by far the best way to guarantee that you stay connected to changing preferences. #NPD #Customer #Marketing Click To Tweet

A customer-centric approach to the product when you want to update your marketing is therefore once again thinking about your customers when developing it. And ideally actually involving them in your decision-making whenever possible.

 

Price

Pricing in my opinion is the most difficult of the marketing 5Ps to get right, especially when updating your marketing when adopting a customer first strategy. You may think that a customer-first price is the lowest possible. It’s actually not! People estimate the value of products and services they purchase, based only in part upon its price.

For example, how many “cheap” products have you bought, perhaps on sale, only to wonder why you ever bought it when you were home? You’d bought on price alone, excited by what appeared to be a “good deal” and then realised your purchase didn’t meet your needs or desires when you contemplated it more rationally at home.

Research shows that customers value a better experience above price and it is expected to surpass both price and product by 2020.

Customers value a better experience above price and it is expected to surpass both price and product by 2020 Click To Tweet

Retailers like Aldi and Lidl have used their pricing strategies to position themselves against more traditional competitors. In these new super-discounters, consumers accept limited choice for the sake of rock bottom prices. However, as they expand their offering to include more well-known brands, they have positioned themselves to appeal to a growing target of purchasers.

However, many manufacturers lose out as their margins are stripped to almost zero. This is why we are now seeing a slow realisation that there is a better way to do business than mere price cutting. Both retailers and manufacturers are adapting to new consumer demands of value and not just low prices.

Consumer goods companies, in particular, have for too long relied primarily on price promotions to meet their sales targets. Amazon has forced pricing down in most other categories because people now check online before buying in many categories. However, as Amazon starts trialling their Fresh online groceries and their bricks and mortar stores the whole world of retail is about to change forever.

As if lowered prices is not challenging enough, people expect to receive something for free in exchange for their personal information online. Data has become the trading currency between consumers and product or service providers. This has resulted in many companies even changing their business models. Just one example of this is telecom that has become geolocalization data providers to many other industries.

Data has become the trading currency between consumers and product or service providers. #Data #Marketing #SMX #CEX Click To Tweet

A customer centric pricing strategy will enable businesses to continue to grow, by understanding how to fix pricing levels more carefully. Knowing the value of what you offer and the importance of brand or service will enable retailers and manufacturers alike to continue to thrive.

 

Place

This is a major difficulty for every brand, especially if they have a lot of variants. The answer to improving your distribution is your customers – of course!

The more variants you have the more difficult it usually is to gain a wide distribution. If you know your customers as deeply as you should, then you will be able to identify their differences by region. You can then use these to make decisions about what to sell where.

Since most retailers provide limited shelf space to each manufacturer, it is best used by showcasing your top selling variants in that area, plus eventual new offers to test their acceptance.

Another “place” that it is important to understand today is social media. The Pew Research Center provides a 2016  US analysis of the major channels by demographics which is a great starting point. Ideally, you should know both where your customers are and when. That way you can be present when they are open to messaging. But more about that in the next topic.

This P is relatively easy for a brand to be customer centric. You just have to offer what your customers need, where and when they need it.

To have customer-centric distribution, you just have to offer what your customers need, where & when they need it Click To Tweet

I know it’s easier said than done when you don’t have full control over your distribution. This is one reason why many manufacturers are now offering their products directly to their customers through online shops.

The change will certainly have a significant impact on retailers and it is only a question of time before they increase the prices of making goods available in physical stores. In so many categories today, outlets are mere showrooms for people to see before they buy – online.

 

Promotion

As with place, knowing what messages your customers are interested in receiving from you and even more importantly where and when are one of the keys to successful communications.

Whether it is advertising, price promotions, social media sharing or other advertising activities, understanding your customers deeply is the other foundation of success.

An organisation which makes it difficult for customers to connect using their preferred channel is not customer-centric.

An organisation which makes it difficult for customers to connect using their preferred channel is not customer-centric Click To Tweet

Take a look at your own website contact page. Does it include email, postal and street addresses? Does it have a telephone number or live chat option? It should.

But if not, then I bet it has a contact form with possibly a drop-down menu from which a customer chooses their reason for reaching out. You probably also ask them for all their details, while not providing them with yours. Definitely not fair play is it?

Another related area of promoting your brands is PR. Quickly owning up when you’ve made a mistake, rather than trying to hide it. This builds trust and customers will even forgive companies that do this. Honesty is definitely the best policy when it comes to your customers.

A customer-centric organisation provides their customers with valuable information where and when they need it. They also communicate in ways which enhance their relationship and shows they value their business. If things go wrong they own up quickly, inform the public, say how and why it happened and what they are doing to put things right. They then go on to do just that by taking the appropriate actions, all the while informing their customers of their progress. 


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Interested in updating your own Marketing 5Ps? 

Check out our 1-Day Training courses and download the brochure for more details on each of them.


 

What Do You Think About Adopting a Customer First Strategy?

Did you notice that the new way of thinking about each of the Marketing 5Ps that I am suggesting involves the customer? Thinking and above all following a customer first strategy is the new marketing objective that gets results.

Thinking and above all following a customer first strategy is the new marketing objective Click To Tweet

I believe that both manufacturers and customers will benefit from a customer-first strategy. In fact, research from both Forrester and Gartner has now proven this; customer-centric organisations grow seven times faster and are 60% more profitable. Makes you wonder why companies are not rushing to change, doesn’t it?

Marketers have been working with the marketing 5Ps (and 7Ps) for decades, so perhaps it’s time for an update. What do you think? Should they be translated into a more customer centric approach? What do you see are the major challenges in doing this? Why are some businesses still hesitating about moving to a customer-first strategy? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic.

 

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I hope you enjoy reading this blog post.

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