Kick the tyres! How to turn customers into a marketing machine
Chris Thompson
Inbound Marketing - helping professionals raise their profiles and develop effective relationships
For several years I've been writing marketing thought leadership pieces for an internal newsletter. I've realised that they could be quite useful to people outside of that audience. On this occasion, how customers can do your best marketing for you.
To the disruptors, the spoils!
This is the thinking given how technology has evolved over the last 20, or so, years. It's easy to focus on all the functionality big tech has brought to empowering our lives. But was it purely functionality and technological advancement that revolutionised markets, or was there something more subtle at play?
There is an alternative view on this, another school of thinking. The disruptors didn't necessarily start with functionality in mind. Instead they saw a means by which to improve customer experiences, radically, through the use of new technology.
Uber for example, did away with waiting to hail a taxi in the street on a wet and windy day. Apple's iTunes got rid of CDs and storage space by accessing music at the touch of a button. Netflix did away with trips to the video rental store and late return charges.
They, and many others, led to vast improvements in how people purchase and consume things.
Trust, or the lack of it.
We live in a time of very little trust. There is a lack of trust of leaders, politicians and big brands.
An Ipsos Mori poll in 2020 revealed advertising executives, politicians, and government ministers are the least trusted professions in the UK. Only 16% trusted politicians in general, that reduced to 15% for government ministers, and concerning for many organisations, just 13% trust ad execs.
Given how big a role advertising has played in brand awareness and communication, this perhaps highlights the huge challenge of overcoming purchaser scepticism.
Learning from an investor from the 1980's
There was once a very successful investor called Peter Lynch who ran a fund in the 1980’s. He formulated a particular strategy for his investments in businesses based on common sense observations to inform his decision making.
In fact Lynch wrote a book about this, One Up on Wall Street, in which he stated that, “There isn’t anything useful to know that the amateur investor can’t find out. All the pertinent facts are just waiting to be picked up!”
Lynch explained that what couldn’t be gleaned from an organisation’s annual accounts could easily be assessed by:
·????????Reading trade journals
·????????Visiting the organisation as a potential customer
·????????Performing grassroots research aka “kicking the tyres”
Kicking the tyres
The phrase dates from the early days of motoring when tyres were made of thin rubber that could be punctured quite easily. People literally kicked them to check their quality.
In the same vein, Lynch spent time in restaurants and shops sampling the merchandise. He even famously bought the firm that made his wife’s stockings and is said to have made some handsome profits from that trade.
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He would analyse the car industry in churches and public bowling alleys, approaching owners of new cars to ask if they’d recommend them!
That was all pre-internet. Today, it’s even easier to research brands online and there is a wealth of information about them just a click away.?
Every business is under review 24/7
The internet means businesses can be reviewed on a host of sites, so opinions that form a significant part of our reputation are more widely available than ever before. Just consider the following, some of which apply to us:
The most effective form of marketing
Today, more than ever, the most effective means of promotion doesn’t come from an organisation’s marketing and sales team. Yes, you read that right, direct from the horse’s mouth.
Clever words, beautiful design, and shrewd journeys of content discovery aren’t the real deal breaker. Sure they help a lot, especially when they resonate with a compelling need. However, it’s the opinions of other customers, referrer networks, friends, and family that are trusted far above the words of any vendor, web content, or corporate social media posts.
Your customers are your greatest marketing tool by far! What they digitally and verbally share provides other potential purchasers with real insight as to what the experience of buying from you is really like. They provide the acid test as to what it is that your business does for customers and how you make them feel in providing it.
People can now assess very quickly what your business really looks like, whether it’s just fancy words, or whether you actually empathise with the needs of your audience?
Think about it, you probably do this everyday in your own purchasing decisions. It’s fascinating what you can learn about the practical flaws in a product from some reviews on Amazon, for example.
Action points for you and your team
Food for thought
If a hypothetical investor, such as Peter Lynch, were to kick the tyres at your business, what do you think they’d find?
Would they invest, or is your business susceptible to disruption?
Put it another way, would they invest in your customer relationships?
After all isn't business all about relationships?
And if that's the case then perhaps there is no competition, only the end user. If you're doing a great job looking after your customers then in theory the actions of your competitors are irrelevant, customers vote with their feet. So as a final take away, ask yourself, how are you going to improve the customer experience?