Customer Driven Marketing

Marketing

Customer Driven Marketing
by Linda Talley



Customers today are better, smarter purchasers. They also have more purchasing requirements. They won't accept seconds and they're not going to stay with a supplier who isn't meeting their needs. Customers are willing to take the time to find new suppliers and try new products in order to get what they want. And, more and more, they're eliminating risk by using credit cards to protect the integrity of their purchase.

In other words, customers are voting more and more with their wallets. You'll rarely notice when these folks eliminate you from their supplier list because they have better things to do than to teach you lessons you should have already learned.

So, what's the best way to market these folks? Marketing in the 80s and 90s was a process of trying to get people to buy. Today, marketing is about forming long-term relationships—ones that will last 10 to 20 years. When you have this type of relationship with your customer, you have an ongoing income stream. The best way of accomplishing this is to focus and package what will sell. It requires getting out of the "expert" role and instead being prompted by the needs and wants of your customers, rather than by your own great ideas.

You do this by listening for everything when talking with your customer. When you simply listen, you hear the voice, you hear the problem, but you don't hear what's really going on with your customer. When you can really listen for what your customers are and are not saying when they talk about the results and benefits they receive from using your product or service, you're cutting to the essence of your customer's needs and wants.

The result is what specifically happens to the customer when the product or service is used. The benefit is the help and/or feeling the customer derives from the product or service.

If your customers aren't consistently talking about results and benefits for them and their business, you have some work to do. Your internal folks may think the product or service is terrific, but in reality it's the customer's perception that determines its profit potential.

Start asking your customers about the results they achieve and the benefits they get from using your product or service. If they can't do that, help them! Ask questions, such as "What problems are solved? Do they have more time, more money, more friends? How exactly do they feel when using the product or service? What happens for them?" Give them words, if necessary: A better night's sleep? Saving for the future?

The key to remember is that customers don't want a product or service; they want what it can do for them—the benefit. Customers don't buy cars, they buy transportation or good feelings. I tell people that I recently bought a new computer for higher speed, tripled memory, and 12 software applications that I don't have to install. The benefit to me? More time, more power (computer and personal), and more confidence. That's what people want when they purchase something.

After they can articulate the benefits, ask your customers how their future will be permanently better. Ask them what they will always have more of and what else they can get now because they have this. Ask who or what they can now attract or how their life will feel and be better because of this. By getting this information from your customers, you will lay the first brick in your path to a long-term income stream, as well as a long-term relationship.

In the 21st century, customers expect you to offer more. Do it by helping them see and articulate the depth of your product or services. When they can tell you, their friends and peers about the results and benefits they receive from your product or service, you'll have a satisfied customer on your hands because they have a foreseeable future. That's the result for you.

The benefit? You answer that.


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Linda Talley is a Houston-based executive coach, speaker and author of Business Finesse: Dealing With Sticky Situations in the Workplace for Managers and The Daily Win-Building Success One Step at a Time. 800-856-6607 linda@lindatalley.com www.lindatalley