Seth Godin, the author of ‘this is marketing’ said:
“Don’t find customers for your product, find a product for your customer”
— Seth Godin
A good company does not start with a product, but rather a problem. They find a problem that people are facing and build a product that solves it. When the product is ready, they already have a whole consumer base ready to give it a try.
“It takes months to find a customer and seconds to lose one.”
— Vince Lombardi
To build a successful product, a company must connect with its consumers beyond attributes like features or price. A satisfied consumer is more likely to promote your brand and hesitant in jumping ship. Even if they do, they’re very likely to return. However, to create a loyal customer, there are certain things that your brand must do.
Conduct Competitor and Customer Research
Have you ever heard the phrase, “keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”. This phrase is at the center of every great marketing strategy. To develop a great marketing strategy, it’s important to research both your customers and competitors.
Customer Research
In the introduction stage, marketing is based on customer behavior, and in the growth stage, marketing is based on data from customer experiences.
For an effective marketing strategy, combine quantitative data and qualitative data related to the customer experience. Qualitative research can be used to obtain facts regarding the user’s experience with your website, brand, or product features. Qualitative research gives you the why behind the what. For example, quantitative research data tells you whether a user will recommend you, whereas qualitative research data tells you why they would or wouldn’t.
You can conduct qualitative research via:
- Usability testing
- Individual customer interview
- Customer surveys
The next step is to fine-tune the user personas that you created in the introduction stage and make data-driven UX.
Competitor Research
Competitor research is central to all marketing strategies. ‘Keeping up with the competitor helps you stay ahead of the game and you’re not caught by surprise.
“The presence of competitors both dictates and limits what can easily be tried—such as, for example, testing what is the best price level or the best channel of distribution.”
The best way to conduct competitor research is by carrying out a competitor analysis. Here’s how to conduct a competitor analysis:
- Identify your competitors
- Determine the products or services your competitor offers
- Research the competitor’s sales tactics
- Determine the competitor’s market positioning
- Evaluate competitor’s website and customer experience
- Analyze your competitor’s content strategy
- Learn about the technology your competitor is using
- Analyze your competitor’s social media strategy
Create a Compelling Value Proposition
A value proposition is a statement that states why a customer should choose your product or service. An effective value proposition is clear and relevant to your target consumer’s problem or experience. The idea of a value proposition is to work as a differentiation tool.
According to Harvard Business School, (3) you need to answer three questions to define a value proposition:
- Who are your customers?
- Which needs of your customers will you meet?
- What relative price is acceptable for both customers and the business?
A compelling value proposition can include anything, but it typically includes:
- A catchy headline or summary of your offerings.
- Supporting copy explaining your offerings and their benefits.
- The hero shot — a product image (or video) to reinforce your message.
- Boosters — a little something to instill confidence in the reader.
A good value proposition is
- Clear and easy to read, follow, and understand
- Communicates hard results
- Offers reassurances
- Avoids the hyperbole (exaggerated statements)
Steps to Create a Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
Creating a compelling UVP requires brainstorming and experimentation. You need to come up with options, test each of them, and find the best one.
Here’s how you can create a unique value proposition in seven simple steps:
- List the key features of your product
- Pinpoint unique key features
- List the customer pain points associated with each feature
- Define the desired outcome of each pain
- List pains or outcomes by severity or frequency
- Use the top pain outcomes as UVPs
- Score each UVP and select the best one
Testing the Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
Once you have found a UVP, the next step is to test it. You can test your UVPs via:
- A/B testing, also known as split testing where you can test the top candidates by measuring sales conversions, lead counts, click-through, etc.
- Pay-per-click advertising where you split tests various ads at the same customer to measure the click-through rate and landing page conversions.
Tailor Your Marketing Experience to the User
Case studies have shown that the fastest route to growth is through customer happiness. Big companies like Slack and Dropbox have used this approach time and again to grow into what they are today. For example,
- Word-of-mouth reviews from its users helped Slack grow from 8,000 users to 500,000 users
- With great community building and user experience, Canva grew to 15 million users in just seven years.
- In just one year, Dropbox went from 100,000 users to over 4 million users thanks to its referral program.
Use Social Media to Stay Close to the Customer
Social media is an excellent tool that brands can use to stay close to their customers. There are two ways you can use social media to break down the barriers between your company and your customers.
Social Media Customer Service
Over the last few years, people have been actively using social media to voice their opinions. When a customer says something about your brand, they generally expect a response within a day. Meeting this expectation has been shown to increase brand loyalty.
Statistics show that 59% of the brands reply to user Tweets within 15 minutes. For a competitive advantage, use a social listening service to monitor your brand’s mentions and overall sentiment so that you can respond accordingly.
Build Community
Building a community on social networking sites is another great way for brands to interact with their customers online. This community can be:
- Discord
- Facebook groups
- Branded hashtags
- Slack channels
- Youtube channels
Research shows that building a community can increase brand trust. Not only do companies gain invaluable insights from their customers, but they also feel valued. To understand the interests and problems of your customers, conduct a survey and ask questions to understand what they want.
Personalize the Customer Experience
Not every company has Netflix’s personalization algorithm, but there are multiple ways that you can deliver a tailored experience to your customers. Start by using personalization to show the customer that you know them. Leverage the data you’ve attained over time to send tailored offers, remind them of their progress, deliver special discounts, celebrate special occasions, and show location-based content.
Currently, many companies offer a personalized customer experience including:
- Netflix shows personalized recommendations based on content that you’ve previously watched.
- Grammarly sends weekly personalized updates that show how the user has improved this week.
- Starbucks sends a discount notification to users (note: with this feature enabled).
- Snapchat uses geo-filters.
Reaching out to your consumers with creatively tailored content is becoming unavoidable. Various software can help you personalize the customer experience like:
- VWO
- Optimizely
- OneSpot
- Convert
- Singular
- Personyze
You can use any software from the list to personalize your customer experience. Here's how you can do it in three easy steps:
Step 1: Choose the Right Variables
Step 2: Configure Rules to Create Segmented Content
Step 3: Launch the Personalized Content
Use Incentives to Drive Customer Loyalty
Incentives, much like personalization, are a way to show customers that you care. Personalized content promotes customer satisfaction, incentives motivate repetition and advocacy. You can use gamification to optimize customer retention and promote advocacy.
