CAPTURE AND LOYALTY (THAT'S ALL FOLKS)
When we talk about strategy in terms of marketing and customers, we must consider the two operating scenarios of the company. Recruitment and loyalty. If we are able to generate analytical scenarios for both options we will have the 100% of the strategy with its internalized OKRs and KPIs.
Some notes that I like to comment on are:
- The Customer Centric strategy is key, but understanding it from the conception of actionable segments. Forget about pure sociodemography, it doesn't work, it's useless and it's outdated. Generate motivational segments. Ask yourself what would motivate them to buy your product or hire your service. That's the key. What motivates that person to buy your brand and not the competition?
- Do not spend or waste money on projects or studies about generations, they are useless. It looks very nice in the powerpoint but talking about generation is like talking about audience. Not all Generation Z are the same, neither are the Boomers, nor the X, nor the Millennials. Any generation study is a fun make-up, but it is still a make-up.
- Your audience is not your segment. Don't target “upper-middle class women ages 18 to 45” because your competition is doing it too. Generate a competitive advantage with a segmentation that is yours, but a real segmentation, operational, actionable and that speaks about your business.
- To attract and retain loyalty, don't think about the next few months but in a 3-year strategy.
- A purchase penetration in 12 months is not useful since it is too simplistic. Ask yourself different scenarios depending on the maturation period of your product and service. 12 months may be nothing, but 3 or 6 months is.
- Investigate in the negative, ask why your “non-customers” have not bought from you and why your “ex-customers” have abandoned you.
- Play with communication, but always having clear messages to the different segments.
- Don't trust everything to digital communicationWe already know the pitfalls of advertising on social networks, for example, be careful with the ratios of impressions to acquisition.
- One to one marketing is a myth and personalization is a trap. Of course it is important to access more personalized information about your current and potential client, it is fantastic to be able to define segments through attitudes, motivations, personality and lifestyle. But don't get obsessed with a perfect one to one or a customization to the 99% because it is neither economically viable nor effective in practice.
- And above all, build loyalty, build loyalty, build loyalty. Recruitment makes us grow but loyalty is what gives us the ROI necessary to gain more margin. And that is the key to the success of a business. Eliminate your churn level as much as possible and you will see how your profit grows exponentially.
Jordi Crespo
Partner Director at Hamilton Global Intelligence
December, 2023
