campaigns . Every customer touch point , be it digital or physical , will have more customer attachment success if the experience meted is personalized and memorable .
What customers want is to feel that their brand of choice cares . Personalized communication and service generates fond remembrance . This makes for spontaneous word of mouth marketing , and closes the divide between what has traditionally been seen to be plain ‘ marketing ’ and customer focused marketing .
Marketing communication is ultimately customer communication and needs to be crafted in a way that leaves customers and potential customers feeling complete . To generate this feeling that is in itself quite ‘ intangible ’ the golden rule of customer experience excellence – Know Your Customer – can only be ignored at the marketer ’ s peril .
In the creative brief to be used to design marketing communication that targets the precious customer who is the trophy in the end game , the emotional engagement of the customer with the messaging needs forethought . And what better way to think through a customer ’ s reaction and to strategize on the desired effect , than to look through the customer ’ s eyes and walk in the customers shoes ?
The dictates of excellent customer experience determine that to deliver with excellence , one must anticipate , meet and exceed customer expectations , on paper first and then in reality . And so it shall be for marketing engagements … the entirety of the customer experience that is well planned and executed is what determines marketing success .
Brand and marketing materials , promotional arsenal , advertising
‘‘ The dictates of excellent customer experience determine that to deliver with excellence , one must anticipate , meet and exceed customer expectations , on paper first and then in reality . And so it shall be for marketing engagements … the entirety of the customer experience that is well planned and executed is what determines marketing success . ’’
campaigns and PR action plans must essentially ‘ speak ’ to customers with a view to either wooing them in , courting them if already in , or keeping them continuously in . Gone are the days when the buying decision was influenced by brand messaging . Brand experience has become the new purchase determining factor .
Wael Ghonim the famous Internet activist and computer engineer responsible for the energized pro-democracy demonstrations in Egypt that rocked the world , very strongly put forward that “ The power of the people is much stronger than the people in power .” Traditionally , brands and their marketers alike have been the wielders of immense power . Customers in the past have been at the mercy of information and updates from marketers , where the sales person was the know it all , be all and end all of the product cycle . This too has come to pass and the power is indeed with the people . The power to make or break brands has been that much more revolutionized by the digital space , that brands are bowing to customer demands and yielding to sensitivities not hitherto addressed . Any forward thinking marketer thus needs to be ahead of customer communication and not only strategize for marketing success , but also for customer experience breakthroughs .
A futuristic outlook is important in so much as it is good corporate practice to project , anticipate and plan for change ; but a focus on the past is equally as vital with regard to assessment of customer experience performance , eliminating the losses and enhancing the wins whilst reaching out to customers .
Content marketing being the current buzzword with all its associated focus areas of mobile enablement , social orientation and big data , are still not worth the while if not aimed at improving the customer experience .
The internal customer is said to be the biggest marketer and that brands that design and execute internally facing marketing campaigns with as much care and precision as externally directed ones , have significantly higher success .
Internal marketers carry with them the authority of the brand by virtue of working there and are seen to be credible sources of information . An employee that discredits a brand that they work for is more likely to be believed than an outsider , owing to the perception that they have classified ‘ insider ’ information .
Any marketer worth their salt
46 MAL 16 / 17 ISSUE