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Taking Location-Based Services To A Micro-Level

March 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Last Wednesday, I visited a Geomarketing congress organized by my alma mater and Geodan. In this post, I’ll discuss how geomarketing on both a macro-level and a micro-level gives you more pieces to the customer puzzle.

Geomarketing focuses on the relationship between spatial awareness and marketing. Here are some of the real-life cases that were presented:

  • Understanding customer motives for visiting certain car dealerships
  • Determining the location of a new store
  • Plotting and targeting households for effective direct mail campaigns

These are all very good and relevant examples of how location affects the marketing process and how proper geomarketing can improve the rate of success. However, they’re all examples of how to perform geomarketing on a macro-level.

Even modern mobile applications like Foursquare operate mostly on a macro-level. People check into a drug store, a restaurant, a train station, et cetera. It can be good information for your business, but it doesn’t tell you how they move about while they’re at your store for example. This is where geomarketing on a micro-level comes in.

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Social Media’s Impact On Marketing – Part 1: The Shift To Experiences

February 16, 2010 By 1 Comment

The Fundamentals series continues this week with a look at how social media has impacted marketing. This will be a three-part series that looks at marketing in general, public relations and advertising. At the end, I’ll present what I see as the “Online Value Framework”.

For marketers, the fundamental power shift from organizations to individuals has also been noticeable. With individuals being able to talk back, one-directional mass marketing has lost its edge as a way to get a message across.

However, social media is not there to emphasize polarization. It is there to promote relationships. Just like any relationship, the business relationship between marketers and consumers is a game of give and take. Marketers will need to give (attention, value, quality et cetera) in order to take (money, positive brand perception et cetera).

When a marketer does not give enough, the consumer will lose interest and the marketer is unable to take from the consumer. The opposite holds true as well, a marketer who gives something relevant consistently builds a relationship where consumers have higher levels of brand perception and trust.

Marketers still need to remember that taking is also part of the relationship. Exchanges like a value proposition and a call to action for giving a product or service with real benefits and value keep the relationship real. Remember that relationship marketing is not solely about relationships, it is about marketing as well.

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Dear Customer

July 28, 2009 By

Customers are an investment. Time, money and resources have been spent on reeling them in to buy your product or service. Once they’re in, your cost to get them to re-purchase will be much lower than the initial cost. Therefore, their return on your investment increases over time.

I encountered a great example of this the other day. My business partners and I needed new business cards and we had already established contact with a printer. There was, however, a miscalculation/misunderstanding that led to a price that was much higher than was originally quoted/estimated. Instead of pressing the issue, we settled on a compromise. The printer might break even or make a minor loss now, but they know that we would come back for more when needed. There’s also the additional business of letterheads, envelopes, brochures, et cetera. They understood that making this investment/sacrifice would benefit them over time.

Understand that your customer is an investment. Take the long-term return on your investment into consideration.

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Social Media And Your Customer Contact Cycle

October 19, 2008 By

With every product/service you’re marketing, selling and servicing, you’ll have a customer contact cycle. The customer contact cycle consists of touch points that represent moments of interaction (contact) with your consumer. There are roughly four stages:

  • Awareness: When a consumer is first exposed to your product. Examples are reading a review or seeing an ad.
  • Interest: When a consumer becomes interested in purchasing your product/service. Examples are visiting the shop or trying out the product.
  • Purchase: When a consumer buys your product/service.
  • Service / Re-Purchase / Renewal: When a consumer comes back with a problem or with an intention to re-purchase/renew.

Social media provides new opportunities to enhance the customer contact cycle with new customer touch points. Using tools like Facebook and Twitter, it’s possible to have a continuously open channel with customers. Leverage social media as customer touch points to increase interaction with current and prospective customers, create an open brand image and enable cross-selling and up-selling.

Take advantage of social media to enhance your customer contact cycle.

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The Fly On The Wall

March 16, 2008 By

In reference to last month’s post about apathy, I’d like to extend some more thoughts about consumer feedback. While negative comments might be actionable, they’re only actionable if you listen.

Have you set up listening tools, such as Google Alerts, or are your agencies/partners listening to the feedback that is given in your consumer community? Are you actively searching for mentions of your brand/product/service or even actively reaching out to the community to provide feedback to you?

Your community of consumers has a lot to say and has a lot of platforms to say it on. Stay on top of the content related to you and take what’s being said into consideration.

Listen. Validate. Act.

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