With the rise of the Internet, came the exponential rise in the amount of information we have access to. This has been a tremendous boom for humanity and has completely flipped countless traditional ideas, paradigms, and thought processes. In particular, this age of information freedom has circumvented traditional buying methodology by taking it out of the hands of the seller and into the hands of the buyer.
57% of the buying process is already complete before the buyer even attempts to contact a sales person. They are able to interact with a company and their products on many different channels, compare with their known competitors, investigate success and failure stories via forums, and ultimately answer many of their own questions before ever reaching out to a company directly.
Image via Executive Board
It is no surprise then that marketing, at any level, has had to transform with this process to stay relevant and successful. Marketing now has the responsibility to teach, tailor, and challenge their audience to not just bring in leads, but bring in the right leads that will have a successful, value-focused, lifecycle with their company.
It is in this new paradigm that successful marketing organizations are able to start a successful customer experience relationship with a prospect well before they actually become a customer. Marketing influences customer champions, as they are the potential customer’s first touch point and a part of the retention program.
1. Attracting in the right customer
So you’re at a department store and you see a group of people surrounding a saleswoman who is showing off the next best thing in basket-weaving technology. Her enthusiasm, excitement, and aura has the audience “ahhing” at every point in her demonstration. After being emotionally overwhelmed and caught in the moment, you’re now the proud owner of the woman’s basket-weaving tech . . . only to get home and realize that you don’t even like baskets. Do you think you’ll be sharing that purchase with friends or going back for more?
In a similar sense, a successful marketing organization is a company’s first line of attraction against attracting basket-weaving purchasing customers. With inbound marketing methods, this is also the first step for filtering out customers who would not drive much value from your product and attracting those who would.
It’s no surprise then that companies who make an effort to standardize the lead lifecycle management process across both sales and marketing report 107% better lead conversion rate than those that don’t. Before the whole process begins, marketers hold the keys to attracting leads that have the ability to become repeat buyers and ultimately, customer champions.
Remember, it’s not about forcing a sale, it’s about facilitating the buying process.
2. Introducing your brand to the customer
Marketers hold the keys to bringing in the right leads and serve as one of the first introductions a customer will get with your brand. As the saying goes, first impressions are everything and successful marketing organizations use this to their advantage by building a distinct and purposeful brand image. This image resonates in each channel a brand uses to communicate with the outside world and gives future customers insight into the culture they will be working with during their lifecycle.
Image via Just Creative
The logo, persona, and voice your marketing team creates for your brand shows prospects who you are as a company and tips them off to what they should expect as they begin working with you. Consistency in your brands image is the starting point for prospects to establish that your company is oriented around quality service and products from top to bottom. It is through this repeated course of exceeding expectations that prospects will begin transitioning into customer champions.
3. Teaching, Challenging, and Sharing
Thanks to the CEB’s immense research, we now know that the challenger sales profile is the most successful and that the sales experience accounts for 53% of the contribution to customer loyalty. Challenger reps are able to build that foundation by teaching, tailoring, and controlling the process with the prospect towards their success with their company. Marketers also have the ability to start teaching and challenging even before the sales process begins.
Image via Business2Community
This idea is related to aligning your sales organization with your marketing organization to begin building that consistency customers will expect. To do this, marketers are able to offer more than just a product. By creating, sharing, and publishing content that will ultimately help a prospect no matter what, a brand is able to build themselves as a thought leader, and as a company who knows the needs of their audience.
For example, our superstar marketer, Sabel, has created templates for competitive analysis, shared content from other professionals, while continuing to teach and challenge traditional marketing wisdom. This process is at the core of creating customer champions because it begins prospect relationships with a focus on their success not just a focus on selling a product.
Have any other ideas of how marketing helps to create customer champions? Interested in learning more about basket-weaving? Care to share your own examples of customer success related to your company’s marketing organization? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below, on twitter @TrevorMills13, or give Maven a Ruff @TrackMaven.