Customer-driven. Customer-centric. Customer-first. It’s the most popular theme you hear and read about for growing a business, innovating a product, or creating a marketing plan.
It’s no mystery that Amazon’s entire business model revolves around such concepts, yet most companies run a big deficit when it comes to effectively leveraging their customers to grow.
The result is a massive loss of time, money, and opportunity: from the way products and services are developed, to the way they are represented and positioned to sell.
This loss isn’t due to a lack of intelligence or will. Most organizations simply don’t know the extent to which they can use the knowledge of their customers.
Why? For starters, research firms and consultancies that specialize in customer insights are almost never qualified to teach companies how best to apply them. It’s not their focus. That means a typical investment in customer knowledge delivers half of what you actually want (the insights), with no direction for using them.
You might get top-level suggestions or some light scenario modeling if you’re fortunate enough to work with the right analysts. Or, you might be so happy with the insights, it feels inappropriate to ask for more.
But more is exactly what you need if you want to grow. The excitement that accompanies the delivery of a great customer insights deck can fade fast in 30 days. Wait more than 90 days, and any value it once had has exponentially dwindled.
If you’re thinking that connecting the dots between insights and actions is something you don’t need help with, then consider how the following four elements are directly impacted (potentially with game-changing improvements) from deeply understanding your customers:
This refers to the best use of your existing content, as well as identifying and prioritizing the development of future content (copy/audio/video) that connects brand, marketing, and sales efforts.
This refers to how you are planning and delivering content across multiple channels (paid/earned/owned/social), including calls to action that drive customer engagement before and after the sale.
This is about the technology and automation you’re using to achieve efficiencies in marketing processes, customer relationship management, and follow-up communications with prospective customers and current ones who express interest.
This refers to processes for maintaining accountability and learning - including your use of data to test and improve upon the marketing and sales activities that drive the highest growth.
When it comes to making changes that result from understanding customers, it’s no wonder help is usually needed. In twenty years of working with hundreds of companies, from funded startups to Global 20, we’ve seen very few get it right with customer insights.
Like fly fishing, you can’t just invest in bait and think you’ll get the catch. You still have to get it in the water, at the right time, with the right method.
If the most successful companies on the planet concur that customers hold the key to growth, then we all best invest in getting to them sooner than later.
If the most successful companies on the planet concur that customers hold the key to growth, then we all best invest in getting to them sooner than later. Room 214’s Coherence Method ensures that customer insights aren’t just unearthed, but leveraged to the hilt across an organization’s brand, marketing, and sales efforts.
Yes, it can be a big investment. The good news is you can now dip your toe in the shallow end with a Coherence Accelerator. This is a low-risk/high-reward, guaranteed assessment that we’ve heard provides more value than any other of its kind. Get in touch with us today to learn more.