The key to successful marketing strategies

Aggregating your segments, demographic and psychographic mapping, hammering the CX (customer experience to you and me) – there are many ways to describe it but the value of knowing, understanding and targeting customers is not a new concept. But it is an important one because when you know them, you may have a fighting chance of being able to think like them. And thinking like your customers is just about the most basic, most often forgotten but probably most important rule of marketing and the basis for all successful marketing strategies.

Sell the sizzle – not the steak

It’s usually mistaken for targeting or segmentation, which are essentially tactics derived from it, but generally and more accurately most marketers know of it as market orientation – making that conscious effort to think and see the world as your customers see it. Why is it so important? Because the good marketers can use this approach to work out how to link what they do with what their clients want, much more effectively.

And the way to do it is by interacting with them as much as you can. Don’t be a pain, but don’t be a stranger either. Because the better informed you are of what they actually think, need and care about, the quicker you can find what is relevant and good in what you do and the more valuable you can be to them.

Not Amazon again

Amazon for instance, yes I know, but they are bloody good at it. They’re vision statement challenges them “to become Earth’s most customer centric company”, a challenge they seem to be meeting quite well thank you very much. From their use of technology and product curation to innovations like the Kindle, and the fact that every manager, every year has to spend a day on a customer service desk Amazon leave no stone unturned in their quest to bring value and meaning to their customers by understanding their customers.

The call it Giraffe Bread

But lets bring this back from the big world of Amazon, to the story of three-year-old Lily Robinson and the tiger. Sainsbury customer Lily was confused by one of Sainsbury’s products called tiger bread, so she wrote a letter to their customer service department. The letter exclaimed that the bread didn’t resemble a tiger at all, and in fact looked like a giraffe.