Building Customer-Centric Campaigns

According to Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Co., a 5% increase in customer retention correlates with a 25% increase in profits. We also know that new customer acquisition is 5 to 25 times costlier than retaining a customer. Then why aren’t companies acting on it? Companies are acting on it, although their campaigns don’t always seem to be working. Let’s understand how to strategize a campaign that works with the customers.

First, who is a retained customer?

A customer who comes again to buy for the second time is a return customer. This customer had some notions in their head and has come to clear them. S/he might or might not return after this purchase and is therefore not a retained customer. However, if s/he returns for another purchase, the classification is repeat/retained customer.

A retained customer does not quickly switch to a competitor based on discounts or offers. There is a level of customer trust which reaps you benefits from a customer at this stage. Some benefits include consistent revenue, more robust relationship, word-of-mouth marketing, and increased customer lifetime value.

Second, what is customer-centricity?

It is the consideration of what a customer wants and the job to be done at the centre of all decision making. It helps involve fundamental beliefs about customer service, customer relationship management, and customer lifetime value. The end goal is to collect a wealth of data, enabling a 360-degree customer view to enhance their experience.

According to a report by Dellotie and Touche, companies that focus on customer centricity are 60% more profitable than companies not focused on the customer. In continuation, a McKinsey & Co. report states that companies with a customer-centric approach, data-driven marketing and sales platforms improve marketing ROI by 15%-20% or more. So our end goal from a customer-centric approach is straightforward, the bottom-line.

Third, how to prioritize the customer?

To keep the customer at the centre of your decision-making, focus on the following three priorities while planning your strategies and campaigns:

1.     Customer Success: empower your customer to help them become their best self

2.     Customer Advocacy: explore what the customer wants from the relationship with your company, enable the information in decision-making

3.     Long-term organizational strategy: what is your organization looking to gain in 5-10 years other than the profits

But, how do you build a customer-centric campaign?

The changes will, in principle, lead to changes in the marketing strategy of your company. You will be acting on purpose to drive the difference, and here’s how you can approach it:

1.     Involve the senior management to have a more significant influence on the employees. It will focus on internal change in the organizational qualities, which will reflect in the employees at work.

2.     Understand your customers through interviews, monitoring, shadowing, and other techniques. Involve yourself in the customer decision-making journey and explore all touch-points. In the present day, one of the cheapest ways to understand customer needs is social media listening. Knowing what your customers like and dislike is not enough. Figure out the customer’s experience expectations and focus on continuously improving the practices.

3.     Invest in customer infrastructure, which will enable scaling personalized experience in the systems and workflows. Hyper-personalization best enables customer-centric marketing. Start by building customer personas based on proper customer segmentation. Build tools for customer goals.

4.     Use content to educate,  to fulfil what your customer wants and needs to read. The content should not focus on promoting or selling your products, instead only educate the customer. Identify the problems in their lives and how your brand can work on solving those.

5.     Collect feedback and iterate how your processes can be more aligned with the customer expectations. The mantra is ‘Listen, adapt, respond, repeat’.

In the beginning, becoming customer-centric might be a strange feeling. However, the changes will reflect quickly with a faster filling funnel of qualified leads to meeting the needs of the first target customer. Change is an intentional effort, and it is easy to start or end, but it needs perseverance to enable dynamic and continuous changes.