Ic3 Letter-3 Marketing Turn

Marketing Technology Letter

March 2002 – NO.3

Marketing Turn It’s marketing’s turn to start a quest for QUALITY instead of worsening the information avalanche that buries us. This quest has to be focused on the customer to improve all forms of communication with him or her.

Marketing is on course for a complete shambles. At the top, many companies pay only lip service to customer focus and fail to integrate marketing in their corporate strategy. Without a clear direction, they engage in sterile price wars or commit worse marketing blunders. In the ranks, marketers have fallen in love with the Internet and use related technologies to swamp customers with an increasing quantity and frequency of irrelevant information and irritating communication. We can’t keep doing more of the same, increasing the quantity of ads, press releases, mail shots, electronic messages and so on because this is raising the noise level in which the whole communication is drowning. After manufacturing, administration and other business components, it’s marketing’s turn to start a quest for quality.

Marketing has to increase the quality & pertinence – not the quantity & frequency – of customer information and interaction

Technology has helped manufacturing to evolve from the mass production inflexibility of the Ford Model T to the mass customisation of Dell computers. Parallel efforts have significantly increased the quality of most products. The focus on quality has improved several business functions, including general administration. The Enron fiasco will probably force improvements in the standards for auditing and for the ‘creative’ aspects of accounting. So far, marketing has missed the turn towards quality. When mass production methods generated an increasing number and variety of products, marketing came to the rescue with the creation of brands that allowed reputable firms to stand out. Then marketing seems to have jumped directly into customisation, one-to-one relationship and all that jazz without consideration for the quality of the music. Although we are moving from areas where objective measurements leave room for subjective evaluations, we have to enhance the quality of the information we publish on atom-based and bit-based media. In a domain where the customer is now the king, we have to improve the communication with him or her. And, through better interaction, we have to cultivate relevant one-to-one relationship. Less is more. This quest for quality has to be focused outwards at the customer. This requires new ways for defining quality because most quality improvement methods such as six sigma focus inwards at organisational effectiveness, process performance and other corporate obsessions. Take direct mail. A company will be satisfied if a programme reaches the expected response rate, say 2%. But this doesn’t measure what happens with the 98% of people who have not responded. How many of them are totally indifferent? How many got a good impression of the company but didn’t respond because it wasn’t obvious how to do so? And how many are lost for ever because they thought the mail piece was irrelevant, irritating or irresponsible?

Companies that improve customer satisfaction end up increasing their profits as well.

CONTACT US :

IC3 Limited

Marketing quality is more about content of the message and its pertinence than about the container and aesthetical factors. Customer-focused quality factors also differ substantially depending on the point of view. From a customer angle, key factors include relevance of the message, convenience relative to possible actions and respect of privacy, identity and intelligence. On another angle, corporations have to make sure that their message is differentiated, attractive and memorable. The main challenge is to maintain the right balance between somewhat contradictory requirements. For example the relentless repetition of mailings or TV ads can make a company’s message more memorable but it will irritate people who have to put up with the bombardment. On the other hand, a clearly differentiated alternative offer is more relevant than a me-too message imitating the competition. Successful marketers will be the ones who meet customers’ expectations as a priority because, as a consequence, they also make their companies successful. Studies show that companies focusing on quality of service to customers are more profitable than others. This is reassuring. Otherwise the whole customer focus movement would be pointless, wouldn’t it?

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