Tag Archives: loyalty

Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of April 2023

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Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of April 2023Drum roll please…

At the beginning of each month, we will profile the ten articles from the previous month that generated the most traffic to Human-Centered Change & Innovation. Did your favorite make the cut?

But enough delay, here are April’s ten most popular innovation posts:

  1. Rethinking Customer Journeys — by Geoffrey A. Moore
  2. What Have We Learned About Digital Transformation Thus Far? — by Geoffrey A. Moore
  3. Design Thinking Facilitator Guide — by Douglas Ferguson
  4. Building A Positive Team Culture — by David Burkus
  5. Questions Are More Powerful Than We Think — by Greg Satell
  6. 3 Examples of Why Innovation is a Leadership Problem — by Robyn Bolton
  7. How Has Innovation Changed Since the Pandemic? — by Robyn Bolton
  8. 5 Questions to Answer Before Spending $1 on Innovation — by Robyn Bolton
  9. Customers Care About the Destination Not the Journey — by Shep Hyken
  10. Get Ready for the Age of Acceleration — by Robert B. Tucker

BONUS – Here are five more strong articles published in March that continue to resonate with people:

If you’re not familiar with Human-Centered Change & Innovation, we publish 4-7 new articles every week built around innovation and transformation insights from our roster of contributing authors and ad hoc submissions from community members. Get the articles right in your Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin feeds too!

Have something to contribute?

Human-Centered Change & Innovation is open to contributions from any and all innovation and transformation professionals out there (practitioners, professors, researchers, consultants, authors, etc.) who have valuable human-centered change and innovation insights to share with everyone for the greater good. If you’d like to contribute, please contact me.

P.S. Here are our Top 40 Innovation Bloggers lists from the last three years:

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The Loyalty Gap

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The Difference Between Repeat Customers and Loyal Customers

The Loyalty Gap

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

In a recent Shepard Letter, I discussed the Trust Gap, which is the difference between an organization’s belief that their customers trust them and the percentage of customers who actually do. I’ve covered different gap concepts in the past, and it’s time to add yet another to the list, and that is the Loyalty Gap.

By the way, this is a perfect time to mention International Customer Loyalty Month, which happens every year in April. It is a time to focus some extra care and attention on your loyal customers. You can learn more at www.CustomerLoyaltyMonth.com.

So, back to the Loyalty Gap. This is the gap between the percentage of customers you think are loyal and customers who actually are loyal. If you’ve been following my work, you may remember that I preach there is a big difference between a repeat customer and a loyal customer. A customer that comes back again and again could be mistakenly labeled as a loyal customer. Before we can call someone a loyal customer, we must find out why they keep coming back and buying from us. And there are many reasons why customers might return that have nothing to do with being loyal. For example:

1. The Price Is Lowest: Customers who buy based on low price aren’t loyal to you. They are loyal to the price. The moment a competitor has a lower price, the customer disappears. And you thought they were loyal!

2. The Location Is More Convenient: Does the customer buy from you because you are closer than your competition? You don’t know if you don’t ask. As soon as a competitor moves into the area, if their location happens to be more convenient, the customer moves on. Again, you thought they were loyal!

3. The Customer Is Satisfied: This one is super important. There’s a big difference between a satisfied customer and a loyal customer. Satisfied customers are just … satisfied. The experience is good, but not great. It’s enough to get them to come back until they find another brand or organization that satisfies them just a bit more.

A loyal customer not only comes back but also spends more than a typical customer and evangelizes your brand by sharing word-of-mouth referrals. This is because there is an emotional connection. Maybe it’s the way the customer is treated. Or maybe there is an employee the customer loves to work with. Maybe it’s the confidence that’s created when a customer interacts with the brand. There are many reasons, but they all evoke an emotional connection.

So, what’s the Loyalty Gap in your business?

Do you understand your customers’ buying patterns?

Do you know why they come back?

In a perfect world, there shouldn’t be a gap. But that’s not reality. There will always be customers who don’t have the emotional connection needed to drive loyalty. There’s nothing you can do but keep trying. For the rest of your repeat customers, understand why they return, then keep delivering the experience that makes them want to return.

Image Credit: Pexels

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How to Turn Customers into Superfans

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How to Turn Customers into Superfans

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

What do Apple, Zappos, and Chick-fil-A have in common? They are considered “rockstar” brands. Their loyal customers—and they have many—keep coming back and evangelizing these brands, singing their praises to the world. The customers are also willing to defend their favorite brand should someone say something negative about it.

There is a word to describe these types of customers. They are fans, and more specifically, they are superfans. Brittany Hodak may be the foremost expert on the concept of creating superfans in business. In her recently published book, Creating Superfans: How to Turn Your Customers Into Lifelong Advocates, she defines a superfan as “a customer or stakeholder who is so delighted by their experience with a brand, product or service that they become an enthusiastic advocate.”

Hodak’s mantra is:

If your customers aren’t telling their friends about you, you’re in trouble.

So, how do you get your customers to come back, defend your reputation, and spread compliments about you? Follow Hodak’s SUPER model. The word SUPER is an acronym. To whet your appetite for this important literary contribution to the world of customer experience, I’ll share what each letter of the acronym means, followed by my commentary. Some of this is my own interpretation of Hodak’s model, but you will get the idea. So, here is Brittany Hodak’s SUPER model:

  • S – Start With Your Story: Sharing your “story” is powerful. Just make sure it’s the story that will get your customer excited about doing business with you. How should it start? Ask yourself, “Why does a customer want to do business with us (instead of our competition)?” Responses that are truly different will be important to the story. Hodak says, “Your story is your superpower.”

  • U – Understand Your Customer’s Story: Why do customers need you? The answer is their story, and when their story intersects with yours, you have the opportunity to do business, grow the relationship and create a superfan.

  • P – Personalize: The concept of personalizing the experience is a hot topic. Using data about the customer (in the right way) will create a connection. Abuse the data, and the customer will disassociate from you. Hodak uses Chewy, the online pet food, and supply retailer. The company not only know its customers’ buying habits but also often knows their pets’ names—and they use that information to create a better relationship and emotional connection with the customers. This is an excellent example of personalization.

  • E – Exceed Expectations: People often think exceeding expectations is difficult. The reason is because they confuse exceeding expectations with going above and beyond. There are opportunities to do that in special situations, but most of the time, you just need to be a little better than expected. Even the slightest bit better. When you’re at a restaurant, and you are told the wait will be ten minutes, but your name is called in eight minutes, that’s an example of exceeding expectations by being slightly better than expected. The key is to do this consistently. You want your customers to use the word always followed by something positive, such as, “They are always helpful,” to describe their experience with you.

  • R – Repeat: I love the idea of repeat. Create the system with an outcome that drives a positive customer experience every time. The key word here is system. A system can be scaled and is repeatable. It is consistent, and customers love consistency. If the initial experience was good, the next time they come back, they want more of the same. When it happens again and again, the customer “owns” the experience. They can count on it happening. Their confidence about the experience is so high they not only come back, but they also tell others. Creating superfans is an everyday, never-ending effort. Do what works again and again.

Okay, I admit it. I’m a Brittany Hodak superfan. I fall under the category of evangelizing her brand, and recommending her to clients, and now I’m writing about her book. I’m a perfect example of one of the ways Hodak describes a superfan, which is a great way to wrap up this article:

Superfans are customers who create more customers!

This article was originally published on Forbes.com.

Image Credit: Shep Hyken

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Trader Joe’s Loyalty Program Has No Points or Perks

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Trader Joe's Loyalty Program Has No Points or Perks

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

If you’ve shopped at a Trader Joe’s grocery store, you are familiar with their combination of high-quality products and a great customer experience delivered by friendly, helpful, knowledgeable employees, also known as teammates. The retailer has an incredibly loyal base of customers. Its loyalty program, if you want to call it that, has nothing to do with points or perks. There’s no loyalty card to punch. Its loyalty program is simply about creating enough value to turn a one-time customer into a loyal customer.

This type of loyalty is the envy of many retailers—and any other business with a formal “loyalty program.” It’s been my position that most loyalty programs aren’t really based on loyalty. They are marketing programs that drive repeat business. Often there are incentives such as points that accrue for free merchandise and discounts. Take the airlines, for example. Almost all have a frequent flier program that offers points/miles and perks to returning passengers. The more you fly, the closer you get to a free trip or a complimentary first-class upgrade. But what happens if the points and perks go away? Would the passenger still choose that airline? Or would they go with an airline that offers a lower price or a more convenient schedule?

True loyalty is about an emotional connection. The customer enjoys the experience, the products and the employees so much that they wouldn’t think of doing business elsewhere. And as a bonus, this level of loyalty makes price less relevant.

This is precisely what Trader Joe’s has done. Without the typical customer loyalty program, it has created an experience that drives repeat and loyal business. In a sense, it is a throwback to an era of simply taking care of the customer with a good, old-fashioned customer experience and product quality. Furthermore, they don’t participate in e-commerce and other shopping options that you might find at other grocery stores and retail outlets.

Is this type of loyalty sustainable? It’s worked in the past. It’s Trader Joe’s brand reputation. Will it take them into the future?

In a recent RetailWire article, experts weighed in on the question, “Will the lack of e-commerce, a loyalty program or discounts found at other grocers become bigger liabilities for the chain down the road?”

Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData says, “The lack of e-commerce at Trader Joe’s may not be everyone’s preference. However, the proposition is so strong across so many attributes—value, quality, taste, uniqueness of offer—that most consumers are willing to overlook this and visit stores. This shows up in Trader Joe’s strong trading numbers over the past few years: it has gained market and shopper share.”

Bob Amster, principal at Retail Technology Group, says, “The store experience is the brand at Trader Joe’s. They are unequaled in their segment.”

George Anderson, editor-in-chief at RetailWire, weighs in with his comment, “Trader Joe’s rationale has been that it offers the lowest price possible to customers on a day-in and day-out basis and that added expenses such as loyalty programs will only drive prices up. The company counts on developing true loyalty with its customers, in the human sense, by offering products they value and backing them up with a no questions asked and no receipt required guarantee. It also excels at hiring people who are true brand ambassadors who customers value for their knowledge and willingness to help. If there was ever a retailer that didn’t need a loyalty program—Trader Joe’s is it.”

There are many more comments, and most of them reflect the views of the experts above.

Trader Joe’s is a benchmark of value that other retailers (not just grocers) should aspire to reach. They have good products, competitive pricing and incredible service. That keeps them in the game—and at the top of the game. And as for a loyalty program, Trader Joe’s already has one. It’s their customer experience. That’s what gets customers to say, “I’ll be back!”

This article originally appeared on Forbes

Image Credit: Pixabay

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Black Friday Shows No Loyalty

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Black Friday Shows No Loyalty

Marketers love to hold up points-based loyalty programs as proof of their contribution to their company’s financial success through repeat purchase behavior.

But traditional loyalty programs are nothing more than complicated, and expensive to manage, discount programs.

Black Friday is a faux holiday devoted to the religion of discounting.

This begs the question…

Do Black Friday deals do anything to create loyalty of any kind?

The idea behind Black Friday deals is almost as old marketing – the loss leader.

By offering one or more items at a substantial discount, the company and its marketers hope that a larger than normal group of potential customers will flood the shop (physical or virtual) and buy the loss leader (aka Black Friday deal) AND many other items they may (or may not) have been intending to buy.

Whether this is how it plays out in practice is a closely-guarded secret and debatable at best. Complicating the situation is the fact that Black Friday has become a virtual arms race that companies of all shapes and sizes are almost forced to participate in.

This means that nearly every retailer is offering some sort of Black Friday deal today, resulting in consumers:

  1. Best Case — Your existing customers start at your shop (online or virtual) and make a transactional purchase of one of your Black Friday deals (usually unprofitable for the company) and hopefully many other products or services to make your existing customer’s overall purchase profitable, plus they tell their friends and families to shop with you

  2. Worst Case — Your existing customers buy nothing or only your Black Friday deals, tell none of their friends and family, and you spend a lot of money on advertisements to attract non-customers to your shop that only buy your Black Friday deals

One of my marketing professors at London Business School – Mark Ritson – recently published a very funny video on the relationship between marketers and consumers:

Bridging the Gap Between Black Friday Deals and NextGen Loyalty

Marketers have an overly optimistic perspective on customer loyalty and their implementations of customer loyalty programs.

The reality is that very few customers are loyal and much of what we speak of as customer loyalty is no more than repeat transaction behavior.

In my article Next Generation Loyalty – Part One I look at how to excavate sources of NextGen Loyalty using Loyalty Archaeology™.

True loyalty (customer or otherwise) is when someone engages in a behavior that is not in their most obvious best interest because of a higher commitment.

Very few customers will ever behave against their best interests, but engaging in Loyalty Archaeology™ you can better understand where the value comes from in your products & services and work backwards to identify potential sources of customer loyalty.

Continue reading Next Generation Loyalty – Part One here.

Image credit: Pixabay

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The Role of Design Thinking in Enhancing Customer Experience and Loyalty

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The Role of Design Thinking in Enhancing Customer Experience and Loyalty

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

In today’s highly competitive business landscape, customer experience has become a crucial differentiator for companies looking to stand out and attract and retain loyal customers. Design thinking, a user-centered approach to innovation, has emerged as a powerful tool for enhancing customer experience and building customer loyalty.

Design thinking is a human-centered methodology grounded in empathy and creativity. By putting the customer at the center of the design process, companies can gain a deeper understanding of their needs, preferences, and pain points, which in turn allows them to create products and services that truly meet their customers’ expectations.

Case Study 1: Apple

One company that has successfully leveraged design thinking to enhance customer experience is Apple. Apple’s commitment to design excellence and user-centric innovation has helped the company build a loyal customer base that is willing to pay a premium for its products. Apple’s focus on simplicity, intuitive design, and seamless integration across its product ecosystem has set it apart from competitors and made it a leader in customer experience.

Case Study 2: Airbnb

Another company that has embraced design thinking to drive customer loyalty is Airbnb. By taking a human-centered approach to service design, Airbnb has created a platform that not only meets customers’ needs for affordable and unique accommodation but also fosters a sense of community and connection among users. Airbnb’s focus on personalization, transparency, and trust has helped the company build a devoted customer base that returns to the platform again and again.

Conclusion

Design thinking can be a powerful tool for companies looking to enhance customer experience and build customer loyalty. By putting the customer at the center of the design process, companies can gain valuable insights into their needs and preferences, leading to the creation of products and services that truly resonate with customers. Companies like Apple and Airbnb have demonstrated the impact of design thinking on customer experience and loyalty, setting a powerful example for businesses looking to differentiate themselves in the market. As competition continues to intensify, companies that prioritize design thinking will be well-positioned to thrive in an increasingly customer-centric world.

SPECIAL BONUS: The very best change planners use a visual, collaborative approach to create their deliverables. A methodology and tools like those in Change Planning Toolkit™ can empower anyone to become great change planners themselves.

Image credit: Unsplash

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Next Generation Loyalty – Part One

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Next Generation Loyalty - Part One

Loyalty Archaeology™

Excavating Sources of Next Generation Loyalty

Marketers have an overly optimistic perspective on customer loyalty and their implementations of customer loyalty programs.

The reality is that very few customers are loyal and much of what we speak of as customer loyalty is no more than repeat transaction behavior.

Customer Loyalty Programs Are Really Just Discount Programs

If we are honest as marketers, today’s typical customer loyalty program is no more than an a way of automatically gathering purchase data and distributing discounts. Today’s traditional points-based customer loyalty program is actually just a fancy and often costly discounting program because smart marketers only use discounting to capture sales that would not otherwise have occurred. As soon as you begin distributing discounts to people that would have purchased anyways, then you are cannibalizing your own profit margins.

If you want to dispute that a points-based loyalty program is nothing more than a discounting program, you have to look no further than web sites that quantify the value of points given for airline miles, hotel stays, etc.

So what is customer loyalty?

According to the Oxford Dictionaries, loyalty is a strong feeling of support or allegiance.

In a business sense, most people look at customer loyalty as a measure of how likely a customer is to do repeat business with a company or brand.

But this way of looking at customer loyalty is too easy to “achieve” and is more related to repeat purchase behavior than true loyalty. The definition of loyalty in Oxford Dictionaries is too weak as well.

True loyalty (customer or otherwise) is when someone engages in a behavior that is not in their most obvious best interest because of a higher commitment.

A United States Marine putting himself or herself in harm’s way to recover a wounded comrade from the battlefield is a demonstration of true loyalty.

A customer paying a higher price for an identical product could be a demonstration of loyalty, but could also be an example of brand value or linked to other intangible, often emotional sources of value not directly linked to the product itself (desire to support a company’s social purpose, affinity for cartoon characters used to promote the product, etc.)

A customer paying a lower price for an identical product because you’re giving them a “loyalty program” discount is not a sign of loyalty.

Focusing on the interfaces and experiences related to your products, services and solutions and their surrounding emotional components are more likely to engender loyalty than building a points-based program.

I’m not saying points-based programs are bad, but let’s be clear – they’re not loyalty programs, they’re great for gathering customer purchase data and helping to drive repeat purchase behavior. But, if your competitor offers a better points program you’re likely to lose your supposedly loyal customers.

What does a Next Generation Loyalty program look like?

A Next Generation (aka NextGen) Loyalty program has very little to do with points and promotions, but instead focuses on identifying and leveraging the variables that represent opportunities to create actual loyalty for your brands and their associated products, services and solutions.

Next Generation Loyalty programs can only be created if you understand where the value comes from for each of your products, services and solutions.

Innovation Resonance Venn Diagram

In my popular article “Innovation is All About Value” I highlighted the fact that there are three key value considerations in the pursuit of innovation:

  1. Value Creation is pretty self-explanatory. Your innovation investment must create incremental or completely new value large enough to overcome the switching costs of moving to your new solution from the old solution (including the ‘Do Nothing Solution’). New value can be created by making something more efficient, more effective, possible that wasn’t possible before, or create new psychological or emotional benefits.

  2. Value Access could also be thought of as friction reduction. How easy do you make it for customers and consumers to access the value you’ve created. How well has the product or service been designed to allow people to access the value easily? How easy is it for the solution to be created? How easy is it for people to do business with you?

  3. Value Translation is all about helping people understand the value you’ve created and how it fits into their lives. Value translation is also about understanding where on a continuum between the need for explanation and education that your solution falls. Incremental innovations can usually just be explained to people because they anchor to something they already understand, but radical or disruptive innovations inevitably require some level of education (often far in advance of the launch).

All three are defined in the article on the link above and were created in an innovation context, but there is no reason they couldn’t also be used in a marketing context to identify potential sources of customer loyalty to be leveraged or enhanced.

Another great way to work backwards to identify potential sources of customer loyalty is to leverage A Practical Model for Jobs to be Done (JTBD) from Jim Kalbach. The six components laid out in his graphic below being:

  1. Situation
  2. Motivation
  3. Desired Outcome
  4. Functional Jobs
  5. Emotional Jobs
  6. Social Jobs

Practical Model for Understanding Jobs to be Done from Jim Kalbach

Using Loyalty Archaeology™ to Uncover Sources of NextGen Loyalty

These two simple frameworks give you a great place to start your quest for Next Generation Loyalty. Using Loyalty Archaeology™ to understand potential sources of loyalty will provide the foundation for building a potential program of loyalty enhancements.

You might be sensing that there is no one size fits all when it comes to NextGen Loyalty, and you’d be right.

What insights about the sources of your customers’ loyalty do you think these frameworks can provide?

What other tools do you think would be useful in excavating sources of potential customer loyalty?

In the next article in this series we’ll look at how to take the insights on customer loyalty sources and build a program of initiatives to enhance and accelerate your sources of unique customer loyalty. We’ll also look at how to go beyond points and redemption to leverage different parameters in your program of initiatives to build Next Generation Loyalty!

Image credits: Pixabay, Braden Kelley and Jim Kalbach

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Building Customer Loyalty through Exceptional Service

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Building Customer Loyalty through Exceptional Service

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

In today’s highly competitive business landscape, acquiring new customers is becoming increasingly challenging. To maintain a competitive edge, businesses need to focus on building customer loyalty. Customer loyalty is not just about offering a great product or competitive pricing; it is also about providing exceptional service. This article will delve into the importance of exceptional service and provide two case studies that illustrate how companies have successfully built customer loyalty through this approach.

Case Study 1: Zappos – Delivering Happiness

Zappos, the online shoe and clothing retailer, has become synonymous with exceptional customer service. Their commitment to providing the best service possible has become their unique selling proposition. They believe that happier customers lead to more loyal customers, and in turn, increased business success.

Zappos demonstrates this philosophy through their exceptional returns policy. They offer a 365-day return period, allowing customers to try on their purchases and return them hassle-free if they’re not satisfied. Their customer service representatives are available 24/7 and are empowered to solve problems creatively, going above and beyond to exceed customer expectations.

By prioritizing customer satisfaction over short-term gains, Zappos has cultivated a loyal customer base. These customers not only return for repeat purchases but also become brand ambassadors, spreading positive word-of-mouth and recommending Zappos to their friends and family.

Case Study 2: Ritz-Carlton – Personalized Experiences

Ritz-Carlton, a luxury hotel chain, understands that exceptional service is crucial in the hospitality industry. They have built a reputation for providing personalized experiences that leave a lasting impression on their guests.

One remarkable example of their commitment to exceptional service is the “Cleo’s Lemonade Stand” story, which has become legendary in the customer service world. A family staying at the Ritz-Carlton’s Amelia Island location had a child with severe food allergies. The family had forgotten to pack the child’s special lemonade, which they desperately needed to prevent a potentially life-threatening allergic reaction.

Recognizing the urgency, a Ritz-Carlton employee went above and beyond to procure the specific lemonade, driving to six different local stores until he found it. The employee ensured that the child’s stay at the hotel was not only safe but also filled with joy.

This personalized and empathetic approach to customer service has earned Ritz-Carlton a level of loyalty that extends beyond mere satisfaction. Guests not only continue to return to their hotels but also become lifelong advocates, sharing their exceptional experiences with others.

Conclusion

Exceptional service is the key to building customer loyalty, and these case studies underscore the significance of going above and beyond to exceed customer expectations. Zappos and Ritz-Carlton have demonstrated that by prioritizing customer satisfaction and delivering exceptional experiences, businesses can cultivate loyal customers who become organic brand ambassadors. In today’s competitive marketplace, exceptional service should be a top priority for businesses striving to build meaningful connections with their customers and thrive in the long run.

SPECIAL BONUS: Braden Kelley’s Problem Finding Canvas can be a super useful starting point for doing design thinking or human-centered design.

“The Problem Finding Canvas should help you investigate a handful of areas to explore, choose the one most important to you, extract all of the potential challenges and opportunities and choose one to prioritize.”

Image credit: Pexels

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Genius of Rewarding Customers for Eating Other People’s Pizza

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Genius of Rewarding Customers for Eating Other People's Pizza

Dominos is riding the creativity train yet again, with their latest creative marketing idea.

Following on the heels of Dominos Hotspots and Dominos Zero Click Ordering, they now have come up with a great idea for getting people to download their app onto their phones and to ultimately order their pizza.

When it comes to ordering pizza, the phone is on its way to being replaced by the app. But which app?

When ordering pizza by phone at least you could still use the same phone, but just dial a different number if you wanted to order a different pizza.

But if you want to order a different pizza using an app you have to download and install and configure a completely different app. NOT as easy switching to a different pizza place when ordering by phone. So, if an app helps to lock people into reordering pizza from you instead of trying the pizza from some other pie place, what do you have to do?

You HAVE to get people to not only download your app and install it, but you’ve got to get them to start using it.

A lot of places try to overcome this inertia by offering a discount on the first order made using the app, but this isn’t always a strong enough incentive.

Domino’s solution to this problem?

What if we rewarded people just for eating pizza, even if it’s not ours?

Sounds crazy, right?

Well, that’s exactly what they’ve done with their latest Points for Pies promotion. Now, if you download the Dominos Pizza app onto your phone AND join their rewards program AND take a picture of any pizza once a week for six weeks using the app you’ll earn enough points to get a free medium two-topping pizza. But, to add a sense of urgency, you must earn your 60 points before the 100 million points run out, which probably works out to about 2-3 million people participating before the points run out.

Supposedly the app uses artificial intelligence to detect pizza in the photo, but I have a sneaking suspicion it will give you points for taking a picture of just about anything. I don’t eat Dominos Pizza, so let me if you can take a picture of anything funny and still get your points. 😉

So, what do you think? Will this promotion drive app downloads, and more importantly, rewards program signups and app usage and pizza purchases?


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People-Centric Marketing

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People-Centric MarketingWe live in an increasingly complex world where both the volume of change and the pace of change are accelerating. But it is not just change that is accelerating, choice is proliferating as well.

Witness the example of General Mills’ Cheerios. Introduced in 1941, there are now 13 varieties of Cheerios on the market, not including snack mixes introduced in 2008.

In its 70+ year history, General Mills introduced no variations in the first 35 years; all of the new varieties have been introduced during the second half of Cheerios’ lifespan, with eight of 13 new varieties being introduced in the last decade. The 13 current varieties of Cheerios (with launch dates) according to Wikipedia are:

  1. Cheerios (1941)
  2. Honey Nut Cheerios (1979) (see above)
  3. Apple Cinnamon Cheerios (1988)
  4. MultiGrain Cheerios (Original in the UK) (released 1992, relaunched 2009)
  5. Frosted Cheerios (1995)
  6. Yogurt Burst Cheerios (2005)
  7. Fruity Cheerios (2006) (Cheerios sweetened with fruit juice)
  8. Oat Cluster Crunch Cheerios (2007) (sweetened Cheerios with oat clusters)
  9. Banana Nut Cheerios (2009) (sweetened Cheerios made with banana puree)
  10. Chocolate Cheerios (2010) (Cheerios made with cocoa)
  11. Cinnamon Burst Cheerios (2011) (Cheerios made with cinnamon)
  12. Dulce de Leche Cheerios (2012) (sweetened Cheerios made with caramel)
  13. MultiGrain Peanut Butter Cheerios (2012) (Multigrain Cheerios with sorghum, not wheat, and peanut butter)

We have an overwhelming amount of choice in the supermarket, but we also have an ever growing roster of entertainment options as well:

  • Terrestrial, cable, satellite, and on demand television
  • Internet television (NBC.com, Comcast.com, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus)
  • Television on DVD or DVR
  • Over the air, satellite, and internet radio
  • YouTube, Vimeo, Vine and streaming music
  • Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google+
  • Console, PC, Tablet, and Smartphone gaming
  • Snapchat and Wechat
  • Live events and recordings of live events
  • and on and on

Advertising is proliferating:

  • TV and radio advertising
  • Out of Home advertising (Billboards, buildings, airplanes, buses, trucks, etc.)
  • Print advertising (Magazines, newspapers, etc.)
  • Movie and TV product placements
  • Movie theater advertising
  • Airborne advertising
  • In game product placements
  • Digital advertising (banners, videos, etc.)
  • Mobile advertising
  • Naming rights (stadiums, etc.)

Marketing is proliferating too:

  • Direct marketing (direct mail, email, telemarketing, etc.)
  • Partner marketing
  • Search Engine Optimization (aka SEO)
  • Search Engine Marketing (aka SEM)
  • Social Media marketing
  • Inbound marketing
  • Content marketing
  • Viral marketing
  • Loyalty and retention marketing
  • Spam
  • and my least favorite (contact form marketing – aka spam)

With this deluge of choice and competition for our attention, people are in fact more annoyed and less affected by advertising and marketing than ever before.

Growing Customers in a Deluge

So in today’s world, how do most effectively cultivate future customers, strengthen the relationship with existing customers, and maintain connections and grow commitment over time?

There is no single answer of course, but effective marketing in today’s world of endless choice and competition for people’s attention requires the appropriate mix of push and pull and recognizes that the ROI from marketing efforts should not all be attributed to the last click but instead is attributed to the overall customer journey and uses technology that allows you to connect together the different customer touchpoints and impressions over time to help you better understand how your holistic revenue generation system is working. Because effective marketing is not about converting leads, but instead about building relationships.

When your marketing efforts focus on building a relationship, trust, and even partnership with your customers, your organization stands to benefit more than by just seeking the quick scale. Even non-customers can be referrers and recommenders, and as companies grow, a single individual can have a customer, partner, and a competitor relationship with the same organization.

Are you living in marketing’s past?

So if marketing today is more about the customer journey, building relationships and even co-creation, then it becomes even more important to build understanding and trust. The power of the story, the power of experience, and the role of content in this new world become increasingly important in capturing and holding people’s attention. You’ll notice that I said people not customers or prospects, and their is an important reason underlying it.

Because of our increasingly interconnected and always on world, where Yelp has grown to become a more powerful engine of influence than neighbors and co-workers, it’s getting harder to tell who is an influencer and must tell a consistent story not just to prospects, but to all people. And in a world where algorithms determine whether you even appear in the places your potential customers trust, having the right content in the right places, at the right time, so that people (not just prospects) can find it at the various stops along the often long, meandering non-customer to prospective customer evolutionary path.

Embracing an expanded marketing focus on non-customers may be hard for some marketers, but others will see the importance of it in growing and maintaining the long-term health of the organization’s sales pipeline and brand equity.

How do you grow new customers?

Well, by growing the level of comfort and trust that people have in your organization and its employees. There are many ways to do this, but they require a strategy that first seeks to understand the typical paths that people take from non-customer to customer. A lot of people talk about trying to loyalize customers, or turning customers into advocates, and while that may sound logical, there is a flaw in that thinking. The flaw is that people can be influencers and advocates for your products and services before they become a customer (or who may never become a customer) if you’re doing a good job with your people-centric marketing.

When you better understand the journeys people take from non-customer to customer you can better understand what parts of the story to tell when and where. And often as you shift from a lead-generation, prospect-driven marketing focus to a people-centric one, you will start to see that in order to build the comfort and the trust and the excitement, that it will be more about barriers than benefits, more about problems than solutions.

As marketers we love to talk about benefits and solutions, but where we really need to focus is problems and barriers. Where is the friction? Where is the confusion? What are the chasms to be crossed? What are the pitfalls to be avoided?

When we start to understand these things, we will start to understand the stories and the content that need to be told and created in order to provide the jet pack to accelerate an individual from one level of comfort, trust, and purchase readiness to the next. The better we grasp what people are seeking to understand in order to evolve their level of comfort and trust, the better we can do at shaping our messages and our strategy to meet people where they are.

Who’s your thought leader?

This is where having a thought leader on staff comes into play, and why you might want to hire one or convert an existing employee or two into one. The job of the thought leader is to be a storyteller, a brand advocate, and ultimately to be the person that builds those bridges across the chasms and guides non-customers along their journey of understanding by demonstrating understanding of the problems, barriers, and pitfalls that non-customers and customers face, and helping to educate them on some of the ways that progress can be made and success created.

There is nothing wrong with trying to lead the thoughts of others. Someone has to lead, or at least to provoke. Just keep your ego at bay and focus on being a discussion leader and a facilitator within the topic area you are focusing on and key in on the transitions that you are trying to encourage. Ultimately what you are doing is growing customers, but there is no set timetable for when a non-customer might become a customer, and we’re not focused on speed as much as we are on acceleration. The closer we can draw non-customers to us, the more likely they are to want to become employees, partners, co-creators, advocates, or even aid in creating post-purchase rationalization instead of buyers remorse.

But the sad part is that most companies don’t recognize the importance of thought leaders, and the unique skillset that some people in understanding the journey and the problems, pitfalls, barriers, chasms, and transitions that matter to non-customers. Most consultancies want their consultants on the road billing every possible hour, and don’t allow anyone to focus on this important area of growing future customers. They dabble, and maybe they publish a white paper here or there that looks just like the white paper their five other competitors just put out, but they don’t commit to any marketing activities that result in immediate lead generation. There are a few consumer product companies that are doing surprisingly well in this area, but the two areas of greatest opportunity probably lie in the business-to-business (B2B) and service industries (consulting, legal services, etc.).

I’ve done a bit of work in these areas helping companies like Innocentive, Planview, Imaginatik, and Crowd Computing create single content input, multiple content output strategies to help evolve their ranks of non-customers along their journey with some informational pieces.

Thought leaders can and should play a large role in your innovation efforts as Evangelists (see my Nine Innovation Roles) and in helping your organization do a better job of value translation and value access (see my article on Innovation is All About Value). As you launch innovations into the marketplace, a people-centric marketing approach can make a huge difference in translating the potential value better for customers and non-customers alike and identifying areas of opportunity for improved value access (based on the thought leaders’ understanding of the non-customer’s journey) that can be communicated within the organization and new value access offerings that complete the core value creation of the innovation.

I hope by now you see the importance of focusing more on people-centric marketing and in understanding non-customers as well (or better) as we currently understand our customers.

But, of course in order to become a thought leader, someone must inevitably find what you have to say worth following.

So identify the thought leaders in your organization, or hire one, and start building your people-centric marketing strategy today!

Image source: bashfoo.com


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