In this new article, our CEO Santiago Edo reflects on the new role of marketing in the era of customer experience. Today, customers choose businesses and products based on shared experiences, not just on advertisements and brand rhetoric.
This is a key point that changes everything.
How can experiential marketing improve the customer experience, increase brand trust, and transform this process into your primary strategy for acquiring new customers?
Enjoy your reading!
Experiential marketing: when consumers choose brands based on shared experiences between them
Everyone already knows that the consumer has changed. Now they are fully connected, much more demanding, and have an endless number of offers available to them, all the time.
But there's one point that I consider to be the main one: now the consumer is in control of the conversation. What we, as consumers, say and share about brands is infinitely more relevant to us than what the brands say about themselves.
Now consumers choose businesses and products based on shared experiences among themselves , and no longer based on advertisements from the brands themselves. And that's a key point that changes everything. Before, brands held the power of communication; now they don't. Now that power has passed into the hands of consumers.
Brands have become supporting actors; they are at the mercy of consumers who can decide, very quickly and efficiently, whether or not a brand deserves their loyalty.
Research indicates that 75% of consumers do not trust what companies advertise. On the other hand, more than 80% of consumers trust what other consumers say about brands.
I have over 30 years of experience as a marketing professional, 25 of which were as a marketing executive in agencies, retail companies, and media outlets, before venturing into the technology field. I mention this simply to emphasize that I experienced this transformation firsthand.
The curious thing is that, from the beginning of my career, I've always strongly believed in the power of customer service. When I was an agency, I always challenged my clients about the importance of providing good customer service at the counter, that it would be pointless to invest thousands of reais in advertising if the customer received poor service, especially when they were in the store, ready to buy.
But before the internet, customers didn't have much recourse when they received poor service. At most, they would call customer service or the ombudsman, which rarely resolved the issue, or they would tell a few close friends and family about the bad experience.
Now, my friends, customers share bad experiences online, publicly. Word of mouth is now digital and limitless. Research indicates that a single negative review on Google My Business, for example, can drive away up to 30 potential customers from your store, whether it's physical or online.
However, there's the other side of the coin. Customers are also sharing their positive experiences extensively. In fact, despite what you might think, they tend to share good experiences more than bad ones (over 80% of online reviews are positive). And that's the main point of this article.
How should your company's marketing strategy encourage more customers to publicly recommend your brand?
My question is: how is your company's marketing performing? Are you investing more resources in actions where the brand talks about itself through ads, videos, posts, etc., or are you investing more in actions that encourage your customers to recommend your brand publicly?
What are you doing to improve the customer experience, increase brand trust, and transform this process into your primary strategy for acquiring new customers?
Hey! Have you seen our webinar? Experiential Marketing: How to transform feedback into a customer loyalty and acquisition strategy.
Consumers are choosing to do business based on experience. Are you prepared for this new reality?
Marketing strategies need to keep pace with this shift in the power of influence, which has definitively moved from brands to consumers.
It is now the role of marketing professionals to measure, control, create, and promote excellent experiences, increasing brand trust to the point of encouraging customers to recommend the brand publicly.
Including involving the entire company in this challenge! After all, all areas of a company have contact with its customers all the time.
The new fundamental role of marketing in customer experience
To do this, it is essential to create an experiential marketing machine that actively listens to customers , interacts with them, analyzes metrics and data, and allows the company to act focused on customer needs throughout the entire journey.
"Marketing" has never been and will never be just advertising. Marketing is much more than that; it's a process of constantly creating value for the customer (Philip Kotler) that involves the entire company.
It's worth emphasizing that advertising will always have its value, as it awakens desire for the brand. But then, for a consumer to be loyal to a brand, it needs to invest in experience and in the relationship with its customers.
And today, with the customer holding the power to influence desire and trust in your brand, the machine will only truly work if you put them at the center of your decisions.
Invest more in the experience, create happier relationships with your customers, and you can be sure they will promote your brand for you 🙂
So, did you enjoy this article? Share the knowledge with your network! Until next time! 😃