People Listen To You When Customer Speaks For You

Fans of Kogi BBQ Food Trucks expressing their love for the brand

Much of the brand marketing landscape today centers around consumer perception. Gone are the days when blatant advertising alone did the trick and people flocked to buy the latest novelty to please themselves. Actually, there is very little novelty factor left in products and services. Competition is both severe and simultaneous. The core aspect of successful brand marketing remains in the ability to differentiate but even with a strong and unique positioning, it has become hard to maintain the advantage. It all boils down to the customer confidence.

Recently I was interacting with some B-school students over brand management. It was amusing to see many students confused between brand perception with positioning. It is understandable that to a student they might seem synonymous since the difference is only evident when you practically manage a brand. In-fact, there is a huge difference between the two. The positioning of your brand is a fictional thing. For the most part, brand marketers conjure up a brand’s positioning by placing a few character traits of the brands against the market needs and competition. SWOT analysis, BCG matrix, Maslow’s need hierarchy, all of it is fine. However, when it comes to actual brand’s perception, it matters a lot how the positioning is being applied. There, the theoretical realm breaks down.

Perceptions are built by public consensus. Yet, many businesses pay little attention on this fact. Rather than building spokes persons among the customers, brand try to shove their positioning down the throats of the customers by bombarding them with communication. Even in the social media age, there is very little two way conversations. Brand that encourages people to speak for it always stay ahead no matter what the positioning is. In fact, there are many good examples of socially active and conversational brands like NASA, Toyota Lifts Minnesota, Chelsea Football Club, Taco Bell and Old Spice. What these brands have is the confidence to face public perceptions because they believe in their product. They know that despite their best efforts, they may have to deal with a lot of flak from people on a slightest mistake and yet they know how to fight fire. They let people talk to them and about them.

Everyone knows how important customer reviews and ratings are for businesses. Feedback management is key to understanding public perception. We may be wrong sometimes to assess the sentiments by simply going up to a customer and asking upfront but if you let people talk about you online, you’ll definitely know better. Incentivizing people to speak on your behalf is good but don’t make it a bribe to get people to talk only good about you. Good or bad, every review counts. Here are a few things that will help you to draw conversations to your brand:

Give importance to customers and treat them fair.
Create conversation points in your business process. For example, place specific instructions for customers to leave comments or ratings on social media.
Don’t hesitate, reciprocate
Be funny but not creepy. Adopt a neutral language and use pop culture references but don’t go over the top.
Like other’s pages, follow other’s accounts.
Share a lot of other’s stuff, comment on other’s posts.
Take reviews seriously, like your life depends on it.
Don’t ever show your back but apologize for mistakes.
Give rewards for the good and the bad. Remember, haters may not always remain haters.

Turning customers into your spokespersons is tough but if you get your first benevolent customer then don’t let the relationship die down due to neglect. He or she is your commandant and can fight battles for you. You have to be a leader. You need to have a plan to engage your customers. I’ll hope to hear your stories of successes and failures in your quest to engage customers. Do send me your case studies if you like. I’ll try to cover more on customer engagement in my next post.

By the way, did you come to know about our brand promotion program for small and local brands? It’s a holistic advertising and content management package that will make you a marketing pro one step at a time. Basic package is offered free to registered users. Just check it out.

Bio
Latest Posts

TLB bureau

The articles published under TLB Bureau are either written by our staff writers or are selected works from contributors who are featured by our publication and are published with permission of authors.