Streetwise Marketing

You would think a $100,000 MBA provides you with the best tools to have a marketing strategy. But, what if I tell you recently I got schooled in customer centricity by a person who merely made out of a high school.

Welcome to the world of Streetwise Marketing!

I wanted to change my cell phone, instead of availing attractive discounts on online websites, I preferred to buy it from the local market due to the urgency and reluctance to spend a large amount over the web.

I researched for the models, prices and their functionalities in the local market and finally decided to buy the phone from a seller who was charging little more than the others. The reasons which aided me to choose the seller was not only reliability but satisfaction and on-time delivery of the product.

In such a highly competitive environment, every seller is providing on-time delivery with best prices what they can offer but I was not convinced. There is less deviation in prices of the brand product in the market and all other add-on services are same like as warranty, provision of screen guards, mobile cases etc. I still opted for the seller who was making a little more profit by charging extra.

I was questioned by my family about the willingness of paying extra when I can get the same thing at a lesser price. I explained to them my perspective on the factors: understanding what exactly I want (my requirements), the means of communication, reliability and explaining me the pros and cons of each model with objective reasons. The differentiating factor for me was the communication style the seller adopted, in-store experience, engagement with the customer during wait time by making the customer at ease and to have a firsthand feel of the end product.

Nowadays, a lot of information is available over the internet and we already make our mind about which product to go for rarely getting a chance to interact with the seller, discuss the customer experiences he had with the product and on many other aspects.

Local sellers don’t get the opportunity to do MBA and DEFINE the marketing strategies for building up their customer base. Nonetheless, they have a real-time customer experience which enables them to understand the need of the customer and decide their own strategies.

If we try to fit this theory into the bigger picture, we realize that communication is the key to any project success. Understanding the customer communication requirements and defining the right strategy will lead to the project success. Communication means may vary depending upon organizational culture, stakeholders’ requirements, regulatory requirements etc. There are multiple means of communication styles which can be adopted like Presentations, Memos, Emails, One-On-One communication, Portals etc.

There are other factors too which leads to the success of the project like understanding the requirements, delivering the quality product etc. but communication is the utmost important part!