Shifting From Purchaser To User.
Imagine there’s no purchaser. It’s easy if you try….
Try to think of your customer as someone you care about (brother, mother, friend) in the act of using your product or service. Rather than a faceless data point you’re trying to get to purchase.
And here’s the bonus: When you focus on User over Purchaser, purchase happens. And another bonus: you can do this effectively and efficiently because you’re doing it digitally. A couple of findings to support this:
“Digital brands can engage customers more as users than as buyers, shifting investments
from pre-purchase promotion and sales to post-purchase renewal and advocacy.”“Where traditional-legacy brands focus on positioning their brands in the minds of customers, digital-newcomer brands focus on positioning their brands in the lives of customers.”
Decide if and how you focus on being a Purchase Brand or Usage Brand.
And consider that the word, “focus” doesn’t mean exclusively of everything else.
If you’re a Purchase Brand, you focus on
a. Creating demand to buy the product
b. Promotion
c. Influencing what people think on the path to purchase
If you’re a Usage Brand, you focus on
a. Creating demand, after the purchase, for the use of the product
b. Creating advocacy after the purchase: what customers say to each other
c. Influencing how people experience the brand at every touchpoint
My money is on being a Usage Brand, because it’s how the digital world works…and it’s how human beings work. If you make the user experience, the customer experience, extraordinary, they will reward you extraordinarily. By digitally sharing, by purchasing again, by advocating, by forgiving you when you screw up, by helping you make the experience even better the next time.
Reference: SAP, Siegel+Gale, and Shift Thinking, published in Harvard Business Review, Survey of 5,000 U.S. consumers, 50 brands, on brand perception, usage, preference, and advocacy, with brand rankings, Net Promoter Scores (NPS).
See Relevance over Loyalty and Market Like Water.
The Study ( it’s worth getting your hands on)
1. Online survey of more than 5,000 U.S. consumers covering 50 different brands, both digital and traditional.
2. Questions focused on brand perception, usage, preference, and advocacy.
3. Suvey was supplemented with brand rankings, Net Promoter Scores (NPS), and an analysis of marketing expenditures and strategies.
Jan, you nailed it! It’s not about Company A offering the lowest price, the most rebates; rather it’s about providing the best value. The shift from purchaser to user is why inbound marketing campaigns are so successful because they rely on customer/client driven content, where the focus is on using digital channels (blogs, newsletters, discussion boards, YouTube videos) to develop a relationship with prospects and clients. Ideal customer research is key to discovering the client’s biggest problems or challenges and finding ways to make life easier, so the client or customer will then eagerly reach out to your client’s firm for guidance and answers. I’d guess we need to do a better job educating marketing clients that websites are more than digital billboards—a tough sell for small business owners. Any advice?
Thanks, Lynda.
Looks like you are doing right by those coming to womenwhodaretodream.blog
Re:any advice on “educating marketing clients that websites are more than digital billboards—a tough sell for small business owners,” I might offer this:
Ask/Discuss/Deeply Listen re:
1. What dream, what vision in their head, what point in life, inspired them to start their businesses?
2. … Who are their core customers, the zealots who will be their greatest (social sharing) and forgiving brand advocates?
3. What drives them to succeed in their lives?
4. What might be missing from other brands that these potential advocates are looking for…(even though they might not even quite know or have ever talked about it to someone like you who is truly listening and feeling their concerns and joys).
5. What specific steps are they taking to reach their their specific business objectives are to:
a. Own a distinctive “brand position”
b. Tell their story
c. Serve customer like they have never been authentically, un-annoyingly, meaningfully served before
d. Conceive, create, manage customer experiences that meet the high standards of their brand and customer.
e. Build the brand and customers for the long-term… without compromising to meet short-term financial objectives. (Warren Buffet is an advocate for doing away with quarterly reports. Find out why)
F. Hire me or someone like me to build or rebuild the brand and put a marketing plan in place toward your dream and the financial goals that keep that dream alive and on path.
🙂 Hope this helps.