The shifting characteristics of a Go to Market strategy.
As media consumption splinters and shifts creating new consumer behaviors, brands need a fresh approach to their go to market strategies - one that moves from a campaign mindset to being always on.
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The job of marketers isn’t getting any easier. As new channels come to life, technologies come online and consumer behaviors shift, marketers have to continually expand their go to market strategies to be successful. Go to market strategies seem to be transforming as quickly as the market, but the key characteristics remain the same. The role, focus and perception of these characteristics is what is changing.
“It costs five times as much to attract a new customer, than to keep an existing one.”
Always On Mindset
With the splintering of media consumption, consumers have quickly shifted away from a campaign mindset and towards an “always on” lifestyle - jumping in and out of research, shopping, purchasing and support interactions with brands throughout the day. This shift is forcing brands to do the same - leveraging data and technology to create and serve the right content at the right time. A far cry from the days of a TV lead campaign. This approach provides companies with the foundation to be at the moment of interaction with the right engagement tools to add value to the consumer.
Acquisition
Acquisition comes in many forms in today’s marketplace. Sure, mass advertising still creates a pathway for consumers to notice a brand and maybe even take action. But the evolution of tribe or influence based marketing is proving extremely effective. While needs-based communications at key moments of truth become a way to capture the right attention. Word of mouth is as powerful, if not more, than ever before. The rise and connectivity of social networking creates an ease of share that has never been seen before. This makes acquisition a strategic approach to getting the right people to take notice, while expanding outward from there. Companies need to be able to classify their audiences in segments of most beneficial for their brand and value propositions. Then craft the right strategic mix of actions to generate their action.
Retention
After working with many larger organizations, I feel that retention really isn’t a key priority for their business growth. It all seems focused on the acquisition of new audiences into the company. This is flat wrong. The first ingredient in any business growth strategy is finding a way to get your current customers to buy again and buy more. That’s where retention comes into play. In an always on world connected with data and powered by technology, we can get extremely scientific in how we capture and engage customers who have opted into our conversation. This data allows us to create personalized experiences, content and even products to continue to reengage and add value to each customer. This type of experience roots the customer in the daily life of the brand, fully extending the lifetime value of that customer to the business.
Personalization
Hinted at above, the power of personalization is coming into its own in today’s marketplace. Not only are we able to get extremely scientific about a consumer both in the acquisition and the retention phase, but we are seeing shifts in consumer behavior as it relates to personalization. More and more consumers are wanting personalized experiences from the brands they purchase from. As they are going through the shopping process, they expect companies to remember their preferences, what they’ve purchased before and what they’ve liked. They are also expecting an cohesive relationship once they purchase and are getting support or service from a company. As we refresh our go to market mindset and approach, we must put the consumer at the center and understand how we can personalize the experience for them as an individual.
Optimization
As we act on our new go to market strategy and implement into the wild, we have an amazing opportunity to learn, optimize and act. Today’s data driven and connected communications experience, we have a tremendous amount of data on our audiences and how they are interacting with our company. That data should be leveraged to get smarter - testing user journeys, optimizing user experience, message testing, calls to action, personalization to name a few. In an always on world, our job as marketers is never done. There will always be something to learn and optimize.
Ready to chat more, feel free to reach out.