Last week I was fortunate enough to be invited as a guest speaker to the Drucker School of Management. What a great place that is. Anyhow, I was gifted a couple of different Peter Drucker books which I have been reading over the past few days. One of the things that Peter Drucker frequently mentions is the need to recognize trends that already happened. Don't worry about predicting the future (nobody can do that anyways) but rather analyze and benefit from the future that already happened. Here are three consumer trends, which affect marketing in a big way, that are happening right now and definitely cannot be stopped.
1. Consumers are in control
I hope every marketer has realized by now that they can't spoon feed consumers with information any longer. Consumers will seek out information about your products and services when they want and how they want. While you as a marketer can spend some money on advertising to hopefully inspire that process, you also have to make sure that your website can be found through Google, looks good on a smartphone and probably soon on TV.
2. Consumers are skeptical
So they should be. For years, they've been bombarded with overly biased commercial messages. And now they're running across all sorts of "honest" information about your products on forums, via search engines and now on Twitter. There is nowhere to hide for bad customer service or lackluster product performance. We're finally moving to a time where the best products become popular and not the ones with the biggest advertising budget. Until then, consumers will be very skeptical of all your commercial messages and double-check everything. As a marketers, you need to be transparent and make it easy for consumers to find the information they're looking for - not just the information that you want them to find.
3. Consumers expect value
That is certainly true from a product level. Consumers want to buy a quality product at a fair price. If your product is overpriced, they will find that out through forums and online reviews such as on Amazon.com. More importantly, consumers expect your marketing to deliver some value as well. That means if you do a TV commercial, you better make it very informative (tell me something that I don't know) or entertaining (Apple is a great example). If you want me to visit your website, please offer content that delivers meaningful value. If you want me to subscribe to your email newsletter, what are you going to give me in return?
These consumer trends are forcing companies to be more transparent and deliver actual value across many different levels. So while marketing has certainly become a lot more challenging over the years, it also should be lot more rewarding. These times provide a huge opportunity for marketers to really contribute - not just sell, sell, sell. Contribute first, then sell, sell, sell.
Mario,
I think this is correct. As you say you have to be transparent and make it easy for consumers to find the information they are looking for about your products or service. However, I think businesses are going to have to take it one step further though and find ways to actively manage the image they are trying to convey in the blogosphere and online.
To me, marketing has always been a passive concept. A company prepares information to distribute and then hope that customers come back with money. But as you say consumers are skeptical and expect value and are going to be online blogging, discussing and getting reviews from "neutral" parties before they make a decision. In this type of situation you cannot afford to remain passive and simply deliver information in a traditional sense, you have to be out there actively managing the information that is being spread about your product or business from other people. I don't think the point should be to control what is being said, per se, but you should want to help shape and craft the image you are going for or other people are going to determine the image of your product or service for you.
As always good to hear your thoughts. I may actually need some advice from you pretty soon about this type of stuff.
Rogan
Rogan, well said. I agree with you. The other thing is that companies are likely to make a lot of mistakes as they approach this new consumer reality. That's ok. What's important is that they try, and then improve based upon what they learned.
Let's talk soon.
-M
Mario,
I just read the article you posted a few weeks ago about customer service and social media. I suppose that is a good example of companies making mistakes dealing with the new consumer reality. At the heart of any customer interaction there needs to be purpose. Simply tweeting back to someone telling them you care and will help them misses the whole point. Consumers don't want some new fad social media response just because. Consumers want service that is transparent, honest, speedy and, most importantly, answers the question or solves the problem.
As you can tell I'm a bit bored today at work and getting in a lot of Scrappymarketing.com reading!
Rogan