The key issue when it comes to any type of marketing is one word…TRUST. The more customers (and others) who completely trust you is worth gold…they become loyal and they become advocates and spread word-of-mouth about you. Both end up with lower cost of marketing and higher revenue per customer…a highly desired combination for any business. But there are varying degrees of trust…think about the degree of trust you get from different sources.
To keep this simple, think in terms of 4 main degrees of trust you usually have inside your business.
- COMPANY ADVERTISING…When it comes to advertising (just about any type) only 10% – 12% of customers believe or trust the advertising from the company…not a very high number. Unfortunately, this is still the major source of marketing spending for most companies today…someone didn’t get the memo this doesn’t really work today and is incredibly ineffective. This is a very low level of trust for most companies and the number has been going down over the years. As more and more customers have access to additional information outside what is being put out from the company, this level of trust goes down.
- REVIEWS… Another source of input is from different sources…such as Yelp or many others in the market. Are they trusted? Yelp, for example, has taken serious body blows from people saying they can manipulate the reviews and ratings they get on Yelp (and other review sources). While this still gives you more trust than an advertisement, it’s going down over time. If we are being generous, we might say this is 4 times higher in the area of trust than an advertisement…estimating 50% of the customers trust this source. Still not a great number, but better than an advertisement.
- INFLUENCE MARKETING…where we identify key “influencers” who are respected in our market or related markets. Their primary role is to say great things about your company to their networks so the others see feedback from a more reputable source. The positive of this type of marketing is that these influencers are more credible than advertising or reviews. The negative is that the audience either knows (or has to be disclosed by influencer) that these are usually paid for in some way…they usually aren’t offered for free. The company is paying these influencers something or giving them something in return for their positive discussion about your company. In the early years, there was a huge push on “backlinking” to reward each other with links back to their sites. This takes it much further because they are usually blogging or writing about your company and sharing it with their specialized and big audience.
- CUSTOMER MARKETING…this is the highest level of trust you can get. When people want to hear the most honest and trustworthy feedback you can get is when your customer says something incredibly positive about you and says it because they care, not because they were paid. For example, when a company delivers a totally awesome customer experience and the customer shares this with their audience, it carries tremendous credibility. The reason…because the audience of the customer trusts this person, it is accepted in the most credible feedback a company can get. When feedback isn’t compensated and it comes from someone who has experienced your company first hand, the credibility is massive and accepted.
Given the differences in trust from the different sources, you might be asking why everyone wouldn’t want to move to Customer Marketing. While it is highly desirable, there are two primary reasons why everyone doesn’t move there immediately…
- EFFORT to execute
- INVESTMENT of time and resources
There is no question just spending money on advertising is easy…it’s something you can do quite quickly and with a relatively small marketing department. If you want to build a Customer Marketing system, there is no question it takes more EFFORT and there is a much larger INVESTMENT in time to make it happen and people (inside and out) to put it in place. The advantages are significantly greater with Customer Marketing if you can commit to a strategy and plan to make it a part of your DNA and the way you do business. It becomes who you are in everything you do.
Leadership just needs to decide if the investment and effort is worth it…the benefits are very clear…lower cost of marketing and increased revenues/profitability. And it carries a much “longer tail” and lasts well into the future. The other options tend to be more of a “short tail” and have a limited life span. Decision and challenge time…
