So much of marketing today is hit or miss. Imagine an archery target with tons of holes all over the surface along each of the rings. A few hit the bullseye, but most don’t. This is often the “going viral” strategy—try a whole bunch of stuff and hope something clicks.
Have you ever had an executive come to you and say, “Can’t you just make us a viral video?” If only it were that easy.
Businesses are competing against innumerable pieces of content bombarding their prospects and customers every single day. Consider these stats, courtesy of internetlivestats.com:
- 6 million blog posts are written every day, which equates to about 2.2 billion each year.
- 500 million tweets are sent every day, equating to 182.6 billion each year.
- 2.9 million emails are sent every second, equating to 91.5 trillion each year.
In other words, it is awfully difficult to stand out with content.
According to HubSpot, 75 percent of people “don’t accept advertisements as truth,” yet 90 percent “believe brand recommendations from friends.”
The answer, then, is not to throw more money at marketing or advertising. That comes from someone with over 20 years leading marketing at three Fortune 300 and two B2B companies.
Let’s consider just some of the most popular marketing channels today:
- Email: Almost everyone’s inbox is stuffed with emails from friends, family, and brands, so it is difficult to stand out among the sheer quantity of messages. Marketers mistakenly look at email as a “free” channel because often there is no direct incremental cost to sending emails, but getting consumers’ attention is becoming harder and harder.
- Television: Other than during the Super Bowl, does anyone watch TV commercials anymore? Digital video recorders (DVRs) allow consumers to bypass commercials with the touch of a button and, not surprisingly, many do.
- Social Media: I often reminded my social media teams at Discover and Humana that no one wakes up wanting to hear from their credit card company or insurer. Social media is even tougher, as marketers must interrupt people scrolling past baby pictures and cat videos. Does any consumer want that interruption? Of course not, which is why the companies who use this channel as another “megaphone” to shout their brand message rather than actually engage with customers are losing more customers than they are gaining.
- Search: This is a great channel to invest in because consumers are showing purchase intent with their Google searches. Marketers that commit to becoming the best educators in their industry, as my friend Marcus Sheridan suggests in his outstanding book They Ask, You Answer, can quickly differentiate themselves from the competition and win more customers by being a great online resource.
- Direct Mail: Surprisingly, direct mail still works well for industries like credit card and health insurance companies. With less mail than before, people are more likely to read what they receive. That said, the term “junk mail” wasn’t invented for nothing.
- Telemarketing: Please, just don’t. This channel is intrusive, annoying, and generally a horrible customer experience.
- Word of Mouth: The “Holy Grail” of marketing, yet the most elusive. It is most easily achieved by creating remarkable customer experiences—literally worthy of conversation.
There is a better way than spending more on marketing, and that is to focus on your existing customers. Listen to your customers, engage with them, and they will become your best marketers. That’s right, your existing customers will help you acquire new customers.
Stop saddling your sales teams with ever-increasing goals and address your “leaky bucket” instead.
Almost every business has a leaky bucket. Most companies chase new sales and customers while neglecting existing ones who fund the business. Why invest so much in new customer goals and so little in current customers?
Retaining an existing customer is easier and cheaper than acquiring a new one, but the net effect is the same.
Excerpts taken from The Experience Maker: How To Create Remarkable Experiences That Your Customers Can’t Wait To Share by Dan Gingiss (Morgan James Publishing), available on Amazon. Dan Gingiss is a customer experience keynote speaker and consultant.
