BE CUSTOMER FOCUS-SOME RULES

                     BE CUSTOMER FOCUS-SOME RULES

The concept of customer centricity is moribund .In the past , companies have gotten better at tracking customer information, incorporating customer input into product design, and identifying customer needs in their sales and marketing messages. Despite these advances, the most frequent complaint by decision makers involved in complex purchases is that vendors don't listen, don't understand their problems, and don't convincingly articulate value. Something is obviously missing from all that customer-centric activity. What's missing is context. Most definitions of customer focus center on understanding "customer needs." In practice, that leads to corporate tunnel vision. Marketers zero in on the needs and "pain points" of key audiences, but not on the context within which those needs represent high-value sales opportunities. That may sound like a subtle difference. It's not. That's because the context, not the need, determines value for both the buyer and the seller. Your relevance to customers starts from understanding needs in context, and your ability to deliver tangible, unique value comes from meeting those needs in a way that fits the context of the customer's business.

Customer relevance is at the core of any successful growth strategy.

Growth in new markets hinges on targeting the segments in which your product or solution really matters. Expanding in existing markets, whether through deeper account penetration, sales channels diversification, or focusing in on specific industries or audiences, also requires that you prove why you matter. This focus on relevance ensures that customers will value and reward your investments in new growth initiatives.

 Being relevant demands cross-functional execution.

These concern initiatives that succeed most spectacularly through cross-functional action and collaboration. Relevance in an enterprise-wide scope encompasses more than product design and marketing message. It includes services and support, channels, sales processes, pricing and packaging—any aspect of business that matters to customers. Marketing can create brilliant programs, deliver well-qualified leads, and produce outstanding "air cover" in the press. Unless that success is accompanied by complementary efforts throughout the organization, the company as a whole cannot reap full benefits.

Stop Marketing, Start Collaborating

You don't need to dive into an ocean of social media and networking tools in order to have conversations. There are now so many channels for communication, it seems customers should be more engaged than ever. Are yours? If not, or if not enough, take a look at how much time your marketing people spend on outbound messages, and how much on creating and participating in conversations with customers. Your customers are participating in social networking and contributing to social media. MyBlogLog.com, a site that attempts to consolidate data across multiple communities lists 55 social media services. LinkedIn, Twitter, Technorati, Digg, Plaxo, a sea of blogging platforms…new ones pop up almost daily. Find out which your customers frequent, and design a process for participating in those. The good news is you don't need to dive into an ocean of social media and networking tools in order to have conversations. Here are some ideas for making some traditional marketing methods more interactive.

Collateral and White Papers - Create a Wiki instead of static product data sheets, brochures, and white papers. Provide a framework and some base content, then give your customers the ability to contribute. You can moderate to ensure accuracy, of course. You'll have more complete information, on topics that are relevant to your audience. Best of all, the information will be more trusted, and customers will feel ownership for what's there.

Websites - Don't hide customer feedback and support in a corner of your site. Place feature request and comment links right on product pages, so that customers can respond immediately to the content they see. Asking a question gets the customer more engaged than down-loading a white paper. Involve product management and engineering in responding to the queries. It's a great way to for them to touch the customers they otherwise rarely or never see. Post the most interesting questions and answers or turn them into additional content.

Press Releases - What if your PR people became your customers' and partners' PR people? Lots of stories would best be told by someone other than a vendor. Having customers as narrator would also make the stories more likely to get picked up for coverage. Give your PR group the assignment to build relationships with customers' and partners' PR staffs, in addition to the press and analysts. Rather than writing every story, your PR staff can then assist partners and customers with replying to PR opportunities.

Webinars - By now, webinars are a "traditional" marketing tool. Many companies tend to make webinars broadcasts rather than conversations. Be sure to use interactive tools. Select the webinar hosting services that offer polls, chat, and Q&A. Use surveys both before and after your webinars. And don't limit the surveys to "Did you find this useful?" Ask questions that help you understand customers. Ask questions that customers will be interested in too, and then share the results either during the webinar, or as a value-added follow-up.

 In-person Events - These are expensive, so why spend the entire time lecturing on information that's already in your collateral? Third-party presenters can be more interesting, but any lecture can get dreary fast. Give attendees lots of time to interact with you and with each other, while you listen and take notes. Consider a workshop rather than a pre-sentation format so that the entire event is interactive. If opening a conversation with customers seems too fraught with risk, try letting a small group of customers you know well contribute, then open further when you're comfortable managing a broader conversation.

 Customers Are People, not Segments

 Inform stakeholders about how the purchase will affect their day-to-day jobs. Go to a modern animated children's movie, and you're sure to find lots of jokes, symbols, and even entire subplots that are completely incom-prehensible to the preschoolers. They're there for the adults, who are the financial decision makers and end-users of the movie. The film-makers are acting on a concept that many B2B vendors underutilize: There are multiple constituencies involved in the purchase and consumption of a product, and you have to cater to all of them. You've carefully segmented your target market, and identified the kinds of companies most likely to buy from you. That's an important step in focusing resources and defining go-to-market strategy. But segments, industries, and geogra-phies don't make purchase decisions. Neither do companies. People use products, contact support, and recommend vendors. People make purchase decisions. They do all this with both company objectives and their own personal interests in mind. Erik Frieberg, a seasoned Silicon Valley marketing executive, described a corner-turning experience at Escalate—one of the first online e-commerce companies. Escalate was pursuing a big opportunity with a big-name customer, Williams-Sonoma. At the first, hard-won customer meeting, the rep discovered a surprisingly large variety of people in the room. There were sales and marketing people with lead generation objectives, and the Director of Customer Service wondering how to simplify customer support. There were merchandise managers concerned about how to showcase products, and web developers evaluating the technology. The pitch that had been prepared by marketing didn't begin to address such diverse priorities. Instead the rep focused on each individual in turn. It worked, and Escalate adopted what is now called "audience marketing." The change helped Escalate break into new accounts and shorten sales cycles. Nothing beats face-to-face interaction with real customers and real users to build awareness of customers as individuals rather than segments or accounts. Override sales' desire to "protect" their accounts, and insist that engineers, support personnel, and marketing staff visit customers. Ask them to observe what happens day-to-day, and to interact freely with the people they are observing. This first-hand exposure will reveal both the business and personal interests of the people who influence whether and how your products and services are used. The currently popular term "audience marketing" is unfortunate. It implies that the focus on individual needs stops at messaging. Consider how product design, the sales process, financial terms, and after-sales services or support meet individual needs of various stakeholders. Help buyers and end-users understand how they, specifically, will interact with the product and with your company. Inform stakeholders about how the purchase will affect their day-to-day jobs.