“How About I Do Your Marketing For You”
As I pondered over this weeks readings, especially Chapter 4 of “The New Rules of Marketing and PR”, I realized how increasingly important and convenient its becoming for customers and potential customers to do part of the marketing for your company.
This whole idea of generating customer engagement with the brand by allowing them to be a part of the creation of a product took me back to when I was younger and social media presence was almost non-existent. I vividly remember begging my father to take me to a restaurant called “The Grill House” every time we visited our relatives in Michigan. This steakhouse allowed for customers to choose, season, cook, and serve their own meats. That basically cuts most of the steakhouses´s effort, does´t it? I wanted to go to a restaurant, pay a substantially higher price for a product that I would traditionally do at a grocery store, and then do all the work myself. At first glance it seems a little ridiculous, but in itself, the restaurant had a brilliant concept that could be a very powerful tool for companies today — customer generated marketing.
I was especially struck by Adagio Teas modified use of this basic “cook your own steak concept”. For starters, the brand´s uses social media platforms to respond and acknowledge their customers at a more personalized level. The brand also creates a sense that the customers are having an impact on the brand through the “Create a Blend” widget, a tool which allows customers to create and then name tea combinations based their personal preferences. Then, customers are prompted to “share” their blend in order to get points that can be used as discounts on future tea purchases. I consider this specific tool to be extremely powerful. First, you blatantly ask customers what their product preferences are without making customers go through tedious, and often boring surveys. The information obtained through this tool can serve as a mean to create new future blends that you know will be popular amongts your customers. This interaction creates the idea that by allowing the customer to take control and design the product that he/she wants, Adagio gets what they want, information at a comparatively smaller cost than traditional research methods.
Adagio also brilliantly makes use of the power of word of mouth. We live in a world were worth of mouth produces is considered substantially more reliable than traditional forms of advertising. According to BusinessNewsDaily, 92 percent of people trust recommendations from family and friends above all other forms of advertising when making a purchase. The “Create Your Blend” tool encourages social shares various many social media platforms, additionally, the company pays susbstantial attention to customer service by engaging with customers through all these platforms. This has helped the get positive customers reviews and “shares”.
So, going back to the “cook your own steak” concept I mentioned previously — customers like to be involved in processes, especially when it includes their products, and as the social being humans are, we like for this creations to be seen by other people. In my case, I wanted my family to try my steak and even bickered with my brother about who was a better cook. This very concept can be used in our ever growing and increasingly fluid world of social media marketing. Let your customers tell you what they want by giving them the tools to do so, prompt them to share their excitement with their social networks, and follow up with outstanding customer service. Boom, cheaper than doing all your marketing.
