Buyers now spend most of their research time online, checking review sites and having back-channel conversations. This means brands must focus more than ever on customer relationships and advocacy.
Earlier this year, I had the privilege of presenting at the ON24 Checkpoint Summit with Hayden Clelland, Senior Manager of Customer Marketing at ON24. We explored some disruptive strategies on how brands can drive growth in today’s customer-first world through impactful customer marketing.
In this article, I’ll share the key takeaways that resonated most strongly with me and my own experiences here at Influitive.
Marketing Has Become Fundamentally Broken
For too long, we’ve tolerated poor conversion rates hovering in the 1-5% range across tactics like email, advertising and demand generation. Response rates remain dismally low as well.
This persistent ineffectiveness stems from marketing losing the human touch. In a digital world where remote work prevails, it’s challenging to form real connections with customers and grasp their needs.
Relying on broad campaigns and generalized content, marketers are essentially operating in an echo chamber. Customers see these tactics as impersonal and are simply ignoring them.
Customer Marketing Repairs Broken Models Through Relationships
This is where customer marketing comes powerfully into play. It succeeds where other approaches fail by tightening bonds between brands and customers.
Customer marketing lives in the post-purchase stage, focused on creating amazing experiences that earn satisfaction, loyalty, word-of-mouth and retention.
By orchestrating different marketing disciplines and liaising across the organization, customer marketing brings back the human element to interactions. Research affirms its importance, with 98% of executives saying it’s critical moving forward.
Spotlight Differentiation Through Customer Communities
A brand community lets customers engage not just with the company, but with each other and employees across the organization. They participate to access insider knowledge, make connections, and share insights.
I see smart brands like Adobe embracing their communities as true business investments rather than cost centers. Community ownership is shifting to marketing teams who align experiences to the customer journey.
A thriving customer community is a brand differentiator that cannot be replicated by your competitors. Yes, products and features can be replicated, but your competitors cannot replicate the human network and relationships built through community. When renewal time comes around, community experience will be a factor your customers give serious consideration to.
Thriving communities also generate huge marketing leverage. Enthusiastic members share stories, create content and refer others willingly from the value they derive.
Champion Authentic Customer Stories
Speaking of stories, customer voices need to be spotlighted, not scripted brand propaganda. As marketers, we must flip the script.
In my past life writing case studies, legal and editorial reviews squeezed out authenticity. The customer’s perspective got diluted away into a stale, formulaic result.
Today, we must do the opposite – let customers speak openly in their own words. This raw candor connects with audiences, unlike robotic promotional material.
With AI-generated content proliferating, unfiltered customer stories will become even more crucial. AI lacks the ability to convey genuine human emotion that resonates.
Arm Your Advocates for Active Promotion
Even delighted customers rarely actively promote your brand without proper motivation. With busy lives pulling them in many directions, they need tactical support to effectively advocate.
Formal advocacy programs provide that missing link. They educate and reward members for activities like referrals, social posts and reviews. Recognizing their time is key, not taking it for granted.
Advocacy takes nurturing. Trusting relationships must solidify before you can make advocacy asks. Once armed, advocates reinforce your brand across the entire buyer’s journey.
Invest to Reflect Where Revenue Comes From
Optimizing customer marketing also takes the proper investment of money, staff and technology proportional to its revenue impact.
Despite the fact that most of a company’s revenue comes from existing customers, acquisition efforts still soak up too many resources. Resources should be reallocated to reflect the current revenue waterfall.
Technology like Influitive helps scale advocacy and communities through engagement mechanics. But budget commitment must align with rhetoric about customer obsession.
Marketing leaders need to better balance their budget between acquisition, growth and retention.
Start with Simple, Candid Customer Conversations
For any brand getting started, I suggest having open conversations with customers first. Ask for honest feedback, without hidden agendas or expectations. Listen intently.
These talks cost nothing but build engagement and insights that lay the groundwork for customer marketing. You can’t expect advocacy without first understanding customer perspectives and establishing mutual trust.
Patience and dialogue are required before customers open up. Gradually strengthening these relationships will pay tremendous dividends.
Prioritize Customers to Win in the Buyer’s Market
Ultimately, the buyer now holds the power, so experiences must align with their preferences across channels.
Marketers can lead here by relentlessly focusing on customer relationships and amplifying their voices internally and externally. This may require changes across budgets, strategies and resource allocation.
While challenging, brands choosing this customer-first path will separate you from the pack. Let delighted customer stories and experiences become your most convincing marketing. By understanding and serving their needs, they’ll eagerly promote you to others seeking the same.
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Strengthening genuine customer bonds represents the new imperative for marketing leaders. We’ve packaged these strategies in our latest eBook, 5 Ways Marketing Leaders Can Recession-Proof Their Teams and Programs, and coupled them with tangible customer examples from world-class brands like Cisco, Jamf and Adobe. Let their wisdom chart your course.
