How to create value for your customers through market research
When marketing experts think about what lies ahead it tends to be involve technology in some way. We all get excited by the shiny new toys, it is understandable. Marketing, like many areas within business, is under a constant state of transformation in large part due to some of the major technological advances of our time. It therefore makes sense for marketing professionals to be thinking about these advances and how they are shaping how we practice and think about marketing in the future.
That’s all very well, but businesses don’t really care about the shiny new toys and how exciting they very well may be. They can, in fact, be a distraction from our efforts to ensure that our marketing strategies, programs and campaigns are aligned with some purpose.
The purpose of technology in marketing is ultimately to create value for the customers.
Much has been said and written about the importance of being “customer centric” or putting the customer first. But what does that actually mean? It is one thing to say you are “customer centric” but that does not necessarily mean you are actually customer centric when it comes to how your products and services are designed and delivered. In fact, being customer centric – i.e. putting the customer’s perspectives and needs at the heart of everything you do – might not be possible 100% of the time. It might not even make sense to always listen to your customers and act on their every whim and fancy. Sometimes the business knows better. Instead of talking the talk about being customer centric, marketers should think more specifically about how their actions – and all actions throughout their businesses – help to create real value for customers. Value can come in many forms, and need not always be measured in purely economic terms. It must be clearly defined, however, and, ideally, measured in some way and tracked over time.
Ultimately, without customers there is no business. But without customers who perceive there to be superior value in what you offer, there’s no business growth and long-run success. In today’s age of technology-driven marketing and always on, constantly connected customers it is very easy to become swept up in the latest and shiniest new toys as marketing professionals. And that’s all very well. However, it pays to remind ourselves of something simpler and more foundational – customer value creation is at the heart of every successful marketing plan. Whether you call it “customer centricity” or something else is up to you.