Your customers want value. So let’ serve it up. One of the best ways to provide value for your customers is to understand and meet their needs. Effective relationship marketing will give you an understanding of their needs.
The best way to meet those needs? Business legend Peter Drucker proposes that marketing is to know and understand the customer so well, the product or service fits him and sells itself. Leveraging relationship marketing to develop a valuable co-creation strategy enables businesses to improve areas such as productivity, efficiency, and profitability.
It’s all about your customers
Readers of my Social Strategies blog will be familiar with the principle made famous by Seth Godin: Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers. Also, relationship marketing and co-creation will help to develop your product or service offering to best meet the markets needs.
In this article you will learn about:
- How relationship marketing can improve your business
- Examples of successful co-creation strategies
- Four ways small businesses and brands can utilise co-creation
- Ideas to help get your team ready for co-creation
What is relationship marketing?
In ‘Relationship Marketing ~ A Consumer Experience Approach’, it suggests that the primary objective of relationship marketing (RM) is to develop and maintain a customer base that is committed to the brand and profitable for the business. RM focuses on not just attracting, but also retaining customers with the development of a long-term and profitable relationship. Philip Kotler, the author of Marketing Management, summarizes the concept perfectly by stating that the operating principle of RM is to build a good network of relationships with key stakeholders, where profits will follow.
Relationship marketing and co-creation is shaping businesses
Customer perceived value and how we create that value is evolving from a product or company-centric to a customer experience-focused method. Interactions between businesses and their key stakeholders are increasingly helping to shape businesses and their respective value propositions.
A great example of co-creation driving innovation is Proctor & Gamble’s 100% Open project. They describe it as an efficient method for generating insight. It’s a portal used to: listen, ideate, create, validate, evaluate and then ultimately develop products specifically for their target market. Just the economic saving in research and development alone makes this a viable concept.
Another company using co-creation to innovate their brand is Reckitt Benckiser. They have actually created a game to help develop customer centric marketing initiatives. The game doesn’t only serve as a marketing innovation strategy, but is structured so that it will also help to recruit outstanding marketing talent.
How to utilise co-creation for your business
Although big brands and enterprises are demonstrating compelling examples of co-creation and effective relationship marketing, small to medium sized businesses can use relationship marketing to develop a valuable co-creation strategy as well. Here are four ideas to help get you started:
1. Social Media Competitions
Social media can be a great starting point for relationship marketing and your co-creation strategy. Brand advocates and fans that are following your brand on social media are ready to engage with your business. By running strategic social media competitions to develop new ideas, products and services, businesses can identify opportunities, strengthen customer relationships and capture new market share.
2. Host a web page for ideas and requests
Similar to the examples above, businesses can direct website visitors to a dedicated webpage on the company website where customers, prospects, suppliers and other key stakeholders can submit ideas and requests. Specific fields can be set up to guide users and contributors through the process and to allow your business to capture targeted ideas and concepts for specific outcomes. An important part of the process is rewarding and recognizing the contributors (especially if their idea is developed). When designing the page be sure to consider this to ensure that the co-creation process is mutually beneficial.
3. Leverage existing customer data
Big data is everywhere and businesses can use data insights to connect with their market and develop their product or service offering. Sources of valuable customer data include:
- Customer loyalty programs
- Google Analytics
- CRM (Customer Relationship Management) database
- Social media insights and analytics
IBM’s Institute for Business Value Global Consumer Study recently found that many customers are becoming more inclined to share their data with brands. However it also found that in return they expect that the process will help to shape their customer experience. By making the most of the data being collected businesses can adapt their customer experience to improve efficiency, give customers what they want, improve brand loyalty and increase market share.
4. Social media listening
Even brands with no established social media marketing strategy can gain important customer feedback and even profitable business development ideas from social media. The conversation about your brand (or at least your market) is happening on social media as you read this. If a brand advocate, customer, or even a potential prospect is suggesting something that could help advance your business, you’d want to know about that and make the most of it wouldn’t you? Why not respond to it, or even thank them for the feedback? It could be the start of a whole new customer engagement process and a co-creative relationship.
Preparing for co-creation
Technology is on your side. Start-ups like EziSay are developing platforms to provide real-time customer feedback and direct access to ideas and customer needs. Making it easy for your customers to connect with your brand has never been more important or valuable.
Customer added value is more important than many businesses realise. Engaging and interacting with customers to help meet their specific needs is an excellent way to develop a deeper relationship with them. It also represents a previously unidentified opportunity to shape businesses and develop marketing strategies for economic growth based on a new level of customer loyalty and intimacy.
Connecting with your customers and serving their needs is essential in today’s marketplace. By using relationship marketing to develop a valuable co-creation strategy, businesses can serve there customers needs while encouraging them take ownership of the brand. The Infographic below from Demand Force has been designed to demonstrate the importance of relationship marketing to your business’ success. Please consider sharing this article to help brands with the co-creation process and to develop long lasting customer relationships. Thanks for reading and sharing.
photo credit: Just Ard via photopin cc
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