Ever since the great recession, the new consumer that rose from the ash has changed how we market to consumers even today. We (consumers) are more demanding and hold accountable the brand promises made by companies. Transparency & integrity are no longer just buzz words everyone says… we need to do what we say, or people move on.
Unfortunately, sometimes we still see businesses today operating as if they can ignore what consumers need/want today… and it usually doesn’t go well for long. The biggest mistake I still see… and the easiest to fix, really, is to demonstrate you really are listening to your consumers.
One of my favorite stories was from an HVAC company we worked with in NY.
We consistently had their gross 60% higher year over year & one of the simplest things we did was listen to their consumers. We responded to all their google reviews and once we began doing this… it organically generated enormous quantities of more reviews… and over 95% were positive reviews! All we did was listen & respond genuinely. We appreciated the positive reviews & immediately dealt with the negative reviews (in most cases flipping them to a positive review) … we just listened.
This company, family owned, competed against large box-store companies that bought out most of the smaller HVAC companies… yet they were able to go head-to-head because as it turned out, their true strength was their exceptional customer service & responsive nature. They wanted to provide the best service they humanly could & treated their customer the way they would want to be treated… and it worked.
Advertising efforts can tend to talk at the consumer yet ever sent social media really became a marketing tool, consumers want to be spoken to/with. And not at. Your content marketing efforts needs to find ways to engage & speak to your consumer… and that messaging needs to let them know you hear them & understand what they want & need.
Sometimes it just makes sense to keep it simple because at the end of the day…
People just want to be heard.
Happy Marketing!
