How to Successfully Create a Customer-Driven Marketing Strategy

Building a business that focuses on the needs of your customers can give you the upper hand over your competition. Satisfied customers are likely to be repeating ones. This article will explain how you can build a consumer eccentric company by developing a customer-driven marketing strategy.

It should come as no surprise that customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than the ones that aren’t.

Pushing products without a value proposition will not generate desirable results. That’s why a customer-driven marketing strategy is crucial.

When I first started my servicing business, I offered two services — interior painting and cleaning. But as I learned more about my customers, I began to offer a solution instead of offering a service. That’s when everything changed.

What is the Customer-Driven Marketing Strategy

The principle of customer-driven marketing strategy is to focus on your customer instead of your product or service. Your main goal is to satisfy your customers and deliver what they want.

Shifting your focus away from the brand into your customers will ensure that you are meeting their needs. This strategy, over time, nurtures your relationship with your client.

Without a successful customer driven-marketing strategy, your business may fail to acquire potential customers. Arguably, finding the right customers is the key to a successful business.

Using this strategy, you will go beyond marketing when you consider your customers’ motivations, desires, and challenges. You will be creating products or services that people want and need.

Target Market

When developing your customer-driven marketing strategy, keep in mind that not everyone will be your customers. Your product or service will not please everyone. Thus, the first step to developing a successful strategy is to identify your target market.

Depending on your brand, you should start by targeting one small segment. You possibly already have an idea of who your potential clients are, but let’s not make any assumptions. In this step, you should concentrate on finding more about the people who are likely to purchase from you.

One way to do that is to create a buyer persona.

Buyer Persona

A buyer persona is a semi-fictional that represents your ideal customer. The idea is to help you focus your time on qualified prospects.

They are not difficult to create, and there is no right or wrong way to do this. Any business can use a persona regardless of the industry in which it operates.

The determining factor for a successful persona is the amount of research you put into it.

You can go very deep or simply go with a basic setting. Keep in mind that maintaining a very detailed persona will take time and resources. For more details, you can check this post.

Conversely, you can opt to use something much simpler and easy to keep up.

The information added to your buyer persona has to derive from the research you conducted.

Meet Your Customer’s Needs

Your ticket to a successful customer-driven marketing strategy is to listen and act on customer’s feedback.

The best way to get insights into your target market is by asking them. Whenever you interact with your clients ask them what they think about the product or service.

Another method that provides results is by sending questionaries. In fact, I have implemented that into my services and achieved great success by doing so.

In one of the first survey I sent, I discovered a shortage of bathtub refinisher in the area I serviced. It didn’t take long till I got two of my guys trained and started to take care of my client’s needs.

Additionally, you can do keyword research. It allows you to see what people are searching for in your area or related keywords to your product or service.

Build Loyalty

The key to loyalty is customer service. It doesn’t take very much to upset a customer. And they will tell their family and friends about their bad experience, or they will go online to post a review.

Companies in the United States alone loose billions of dollars due to customers switching due to poor customer service. You probably have switch because of it. Thus, it is crucial for you to provide the utmost customer service to everyone. If your customer is not delighted, you should restrategize.

Your customer-driven marketing strategy should focus on the consumer’s experience. The customer experience is not about what you think is important, but it is based on your customer’s opinion. A well-designed strategy should address such issues.

A loyal customer is 61% more likely to go out of their way to purchase from a preferred company.

Maintain Your Customer-Driven Marketing Strategy

Evaluate your customer-driven marketing strategy and continue to monitor is crucial for your success. Make yourself available to the customer, and communicate with them via their preferred channel — email, text message, online chat, etc.

One way to measure your success is by looking at your numbers. Check if sales are increasing, and customers are happy, then you are in the right track.

However, your strategy will not work forever. You have to listen to feedback and act on it continually. You should monitor customer satisfaction regularly, and it should drop to no less than 75%.

Increase Word of Mouth Marketing

Another important element of a customer-driven marketing strategy is word of mouth. When clients are loyal to a company, they are likely to tell family and friends.

Additionally, word of mouth marketing is 5 times more likely to generate a sale than paid advertising.

There are a few ways to increase your chances of building a community where people want to spread the word. You can implement a referral program offering discounts, cash rewards, or a free premium subscription.

Moreover, you can create an affiliate program to give a certain percentage for every deal they bring to you.

Conclusion

Building a business that is customer-centric can be much more profitable. The ultimate goal is to build a long last relationship with your customer. A customer-driven marketing strategy includes identifying target market and discovering and meeting the client’s needs.

Moreover, a successful strategy will help you retain more customers while creating a following. In the long run, your business wants to deliver a gratifying experience through your products or services.