Reach The People Your Marketing Team Can’t
TeleworkPH
Published: January 2, 2022
92% of your potential customers are unaffected by your marketing! Find out why.
Marketing and brand awareness campaigns are the most effective way to find potential customers during the crucial startup phase. This is the time when marketing and brand awareness budgets are generous. Almost to a fault. They have to be. When you’re starting from scratch these campaigns will need a hefty budget in order to be successful. But what happens afterwards? Once the customers start signing up and revenue starts generating?
The biggest temptation is to get addicted to what is perceived to be “working”. We want to continue on and even double or triple down on the efforts to see the more and more customers signing up, or products being shipped out. We’ll call this the running start.
At this point it is imperative to analyze the data, as much as possible, to see exactly where these customers are coming from. Again, that is where the efforts will be doubled and perhaps even tripled. Eventually, though, sales and new customers are going to plateau. Or even worse yet, the marketing and brand awareness budget starts to run a little thin and become a burden on rising operations costs due to an increase in new customer demands.
Is Your Marketing Effective Enough?
What about the customers that your marketing cannot reach? And then an even deeper question is once you do sign up the customers you do reach, what kind of experience are you giving them? Because if you’re bringing in trusting, amazing customers from your target audience and then giving them automation and chatbots or if you’re cutting costs in other aspects of the customer experience in order to make up for the customer acquisition burden, I’m here to tell you that you are on a straight line for failure. Then every penny you spend on marketing is wasted.
Does that sound a little harsh? Perhaps. However there is an easier way, a more cost effective way, a simpler way to reach those customers that your marketing and your brand awareness is not going to get to. Or, if it does get to them, there’s a way to make them pay better attention and at absolutely zero cost to you other than to do what you’re already doing.
Does Your Rising Marketing Costs Affect The Customer Experience?
As the pulse of marketing budgets starts to become weaker due to countless non-productive campaigns, the seemingly most logical next step is to find ways to cut costs in order to funnel more of the budget into marketing. After all, no company can grow without climbing margins. Which means the need for more customers, right?
So then are you willing to allow those staggering customer acquisition costs to affect the experience your current, loyal customer base is going to have?
When you make the decision to find ways to cut costs in places like support, customer service and other frontline areas just to divert more cash to marketing it’s like slicing your Achilles tendon. It can be almost unrepairable. Once the reviews start piling up, the negative reviews, it’s a long hard road to try and get out from underneath it. Pretty soon the only comments you’ll start getting on your company social media posts will be angry ones from dissatisfied customers.
How To Reach The Customers You Can’t Get To With Marketing
The fact is this: not everyone is going to pay attention to your advertisements. No matter how many you put out there, no matter how much cash you sink into brand awareness. There are just some tough nuts to crack out there that just won’t be taken in by any of it. Even if they are your absolute perfect potential customers.
And it really isn’t a matter of if you are in the right place on Facebook or if you’re actually reaching the audience you want. It doesn’t even matter how catchy your phrases are or how stunning your graphics are. Marketing agencies will make all the promises in the world, and in many cases when you have the right marketing strategy, it works. Yet, it’s still expensive.
Don’t think that your target customers are not seeing your ad and social media posts. If they’re in the market, they are seeing them. They’re probably reading more than you think they are. So why aren’t they clicking over to the website and signing up? Why aren’t they scheduling a demo or ordering at that very minute? What about your marketing doesn’t resonate with them?
Let me put your mind at ease. It’s not you. Or anything you have done (with marketing, at least!). Today’s customers are aware that there is a lot of competition out there. Choosing between brands can take time and is an emotional decision.
But there is one thing you have to keep in mind…
Marketing Won’t Make Them Trust You
It all comes down to trust. There are people out there, a lot of people out there, who will not trust you no matter what you say. Customers are more aware now, they are more informed. And keeping in mind that the buying journey is an emotional one, it should be recognized that any purchase, big or small, is not just an investment of their money, but of their time and also their pride.
So who do people trust when it comes to making a purchasing decision? Have a look at this study done by Nielsen. They discovered that out of 28,000 respondents in 56 countries, a whopping 92% will trust a friend or family member’s recommendation (earned media) over any advertising or branding. Furthermore, a staggering 70% will trust online reviews from strangers over your very own marketing campaigns.
If I’m having a snack and I tell my wife, “Wow, this really tastes good!” She will want to have some. But when we are in the store and I ask her to put something in the cart to try, she’ll be hesitant.
When your customers talk about the great experiences they had — they are involving not just their opinion of your company, but also their emotions. They feel good. Sometimes they feel great! Since other people like to feel great too, it makes them pay more attention.
And of course this can work in the opposite. And that’s not something anyone wants.
So what if I told you there was a way to reach that 92% and at the same time reduce marketing costs?
How To Make Your Customers Do Your Marketing
..and reach people you never will. It’s simple. By providing them with an amazing experience.. Blow them away.
It’s a strategic move. Especially if you see customers falling off. Inquiries fizzling out. You need to find out what’s going on and fast. Now as I said, the first response is always going to be — need to spend more on Marketing and Branding. Re-do everything. Analyze the campaigns, etc.
That’s not a bad idea, but before you do all of that, have a look at your online reviews. Without an exceptional customer experience that brings in more from word of mouth, you are basically wasting every penny you spend on marketing. Nothing in the world can replace word of mouth advertising. And it’s free.
Talk to your support staff and get a real feel for what’s going on with the front lines. Maybe they need a boost to add more value to the customer experience. If you start to notice some gaps or lapses, or even more frustrated and angry customers than you had anticipated, immediately start to map out the entire customer experience again. Then see what can be done to supercharge it.
…And there is a way to save a little or a lot and still give an exceptional customer experience.
Over the next few months with this blog and the podcast, Telecast PH we have mapped out a journey for you. We’ll show you more ways any support and service department can totally up their game and start locking on giving a superior level customer experience.
In return, your customers will happily repay you by bringing in more customers that can’t be reached by your marketing department.
If you’re ready to bring some expert experience into your customer support department, contact us now and let’s hop in a 30 minute strategy call.
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