Generally speaking, in the world of selling products and services, any form of marketing communication shares a common and somewhat inevitable feature – it’s always positive. It’s so inevitable that you can’t blame ‘the outside world’ for not actually believing, or at least not paying too much attention to these messages.
It’s not so much that people think marketers are a big bunch of liars – there are numerous regulations to prevent that – it’s just that whilst they’re inevitably told something is good for them, it’s also inevitable that it can’t always be true to their specific needs and nuances.
Producers of fast-moving consumer goods have long been adept at dealing with this marketing problem. When launching a new product, they’ll very often let you try it first with a free trial, or supermarket sampling point. For all the advertising they can do, the sure-fire sale will come from the customer with satisfactory insight into the product.
Whilst free trials are clearly not applicable to everything, I believe that the concept of providing insight to make the deal could be universal. It’s all very well TELLING people that what you offer is good, you’ve got to find a way to SHOW them too. Insight can come in many forms, from those free samples, to expert or consumer reviews, or perhaps by going beyond the marketing billboard and sharing more information about who you are and what you do.
Unfortunately, ’consumer insight’ often just seems to refer to a one-way process, whereby marketers learn about their market. However, possibly numbed by marketing’s “it’s all good” communication, people are turning the tables and wanting to learn more about the products, services and organisations that they’re dealing with. They’re armed with a ‘killer’ tool too, a veritable goldmine of insight about product, service and organisational performance – the Internet!
My own route to final purchase can certainly now relegate ‘official’ marketing communication materials behind other more insightful factors – and sometimes avoids them altogether. When buying say a digital camera, I’d head straight for the Internet to see what’s available from a selection of retailers, before seeking editorial and user reviews of cameras that might meet my requirements. I’ll probably only visit manufacturer websites to confirm specification details, since they’ll inevitably tell me everything is wonderful.
Who has the most influence on my decision-making? The people trying to sell me something, the people paid to review something, or the member of the public who has purchased the product with their own money? Whilst ‘the public’ can’t be wholly relied upon, since there’s always that tendency to only speak up when something is bad, not good, people who’ve already been through the purchasing process carry a lot of influence. They’ve no vested interest in selling me something and have tested the product from a consumer’s eye-view.
If lots of people say a product is poor, or lots of people suggest the service from a retailer is poor, it would seem wise to consider looking elsewhere. You do however have to weed out the people who didn’t bother to read the instructions, or properly research what they were buying in the first place!
Many internet retailers have sought to capitalise on this phenomenon. Amazon and Expedia have provided user reviews on their sites for some time. The price comparison site, Moneysupermarket.com, actively promotes user reviews as key selling point of their service. I’m sure some of the more negative comments will have slowed some product/service sales, but the benefit must surely be that more people purchase the product/service to best satisfy their needs and expectations. Happy customers might then provide happy insight for others.
There’s obviously still a need to ‘tell’ people things, arguably in the digital camera example, many years of straightforward marketing communication had planted the idea in my head that particular manufacturers/retailers made or sold digital cameras. However, that wasn’t the deal-maker for me – it was from other peers satisfied with both the product and the service from the retailer. Marketing in this instance isn’t just about what you’ve got to say – it’s as much about what everyone else is saying too.
However, many companies and organisations still haven’t grasped the power of insight over what they write. There is much high-level, often inward-looking, marketing fanfare, “We’re doing this and you should take note” – but this isn’t good enough to close a deal or make a sale. People want to know more and if you don’t supply it, or ‘cultivate’ and signpost it from your wider stakeholders, they might just go digging on Google and who knows what they’ll find!
There are numerous examples to highlight, but one was particularly of interest in a previous professional life. Many (most/all?!) universities have grasped the need to provide insight into the overall student experience of life at their institution, but they tend to stop at that high level. When it comes down to the course you want to study, there’s often just a page of dry text, telling you how great the course is.
Where are the lecturer’s blogs to give you a flavour of their expertise and ideas? Where are the examples of student’s work – which would be particularly insightful for creative courses? Where are the real students studying the course, in their words, not blatantly manufactured case studies? Where’s the real insight into the course?! People will start digging around the internet long before the ‘open day’. In fact, by digging around myself, it’s clear that there’s one institution in Birmingham who receive glowing endorsements from their students all around the internet – they’re so missing a New-trick-man!
I therefore think that the key things to bear in mind are:
1) People will dig for insight – so open up and don’t hide behind a billboard of marketing speak. In this new environment of increased consumer scrutiny, ‘marketing’ becomes, more than ever, a task fulfilled by every part of the organisation.
2) Deliver on your promises, meet and exceed expectations. Happy customers provide happy insight for others.
Indeed, I distinctly remember a quality management book saying that “a good manager does not market their organisation – a good manager facilitates their organisation to market itself”. Combine that philosophy with a more open approach to marketing communications and you’ve got to be on to a good thing?
