And you are one of those people too.
You, a person making buying decisions for your company, choosing from an ever expanding number of brands. You, who won't cop poor service anymore, who is sceptical of claims made in sales pitches and brochures, and who has put in place all sorts of strategies to keep unsolicited email, snail mail and telephone calls out of your life. Does this sound like you?
So what do you do to adapt to this new age of marketing? Let's have a closer look what is driving this change.
More demanding
We have never had as much choice of products and services. While the world is getting smaller, the options we have for almost every conceivable product or service continues to grow.
Finding competing offers for a particular service or product is now no more than a few clicks away. So if we don't like what we see, we won't accept it. We simply go elsewhere.
More power
Sellers used to "own" the knowledge of their products and markets; we had to rely on what they (and their competitors) would tell us.
Not anymore. The internet has put information about products and services at our fingertips; prices, features, feedback, you name it. We can find out how others rate the products, where the experts think the trends are heading, and how they review a product or service. You can do all of this without leaving your office - within five minutes.
Less trust
Fifty years of abuse by arrogant interruption advertising and sales pressure has eroded trust. We are wary of brand promises, of "sales" messages. Promises of "the best", "leading", "the most successful" are almost guaranteed to be ignored. We are sick of being constantly interrupted by an avalanche of messages that are mostly irrelevant to us.
Can't hear you!
With more and more products and services there are also more and more marketing messages. The estimates are that we are now exposed to as many as 3,000 marketing messages a day vying for our attention. There is more communications "noise" than ever before from marketers all over the world; mail, email, telephone, banner ads, billboards, radio, television and on and on and on...
After all that, what do we need to do to get through to this in-control, critical and over-stimulated person?
A new approach to marketing
Clearly, if customers are changing their behaviour, marketers are wise to follow suit. Here are some of the key principles we believe marketers should consider in this new marketing age.
Market "on their terms"
Seth Godin, a US based marketer and publisher, wrote a book called Permission Marketing which basically claimed that the marketing problems we face (as outlined above) require different approaches if we want to succeed.
The essence of his story is that time is the one commodity left in the world that is equally scarce for everyone, and becoming increasingly so. So the marketer who can get the attention of a person is gaining something exceptionally powerful. And they won't get it by annoying, pestering or badgering.
They will get it by marketing "on their terms"; by obtaining the permission of a select group of people to communicate rather than vying for the one-time attention of thousands.
So how do you get permission to market to people? Well, like any relationship, gaining trust takes some time and effort. It's a process that is carefully managed over time. It relies on being relevant to your prospects, on understanding who they are, what their interests are and when they want to hear from you.
Prospective customers want to evaluate, review, compare. On their terms. But once you have this permission, you have the beginning of a relationship, their attention, and the opportunity to create sales.
Effective customer database systems and a well-designed website are key tools that allow you to create and manage these one-to-one relationships more effectively and efficiently.
"Increase your focus" - More relevant, more frequent, more value
To break through the clutter and be heard is much easier if you understand your audience really well. The more focused you can be on the demands and needs of a select group of people, the more relevant you can be.
By determining and targeting selected, smaller groups of very specific companies or people, you can be significantly more relevant and get a much greater ROI on your marketing budget.
Clearly, the low cost of distribution, ease of access and customer preference makes the internet an important part of a marketing strategy. However, direct mail, customer events and speaking occasions are very much part of the mix.
Some key tools are: customer database, direct marketing, e-mail marketing, online advertising, webinars, and target events.
Programs, rather than stop-start
Building trust, turning strangers into friends, and friends into customers is a process, not an activity. Even a low-budget program that is carefully tuned to a specific group to be relevant and personal is going to provide greater return than some incidental "big bang" activities.
This process looks something like this:
Source: Mokum Marketing
As you can see, at the heart of managing your relationships is a database system that will allow you to learn from your customers, communicate more effectively, service more effectively.
There are no "silver bullets"
The promotional mix that is right for you may involve some on-line and some off-line tools and activities; the fact that the Internet is important doesn't mean that the other tools are no longer valid. Smart marketers use whatever tools are most effective to achieve their particular goal in reaching and engaging people.
Finally...
Being successful in today's marketing environment is not as easy as it was twenty years ago. Yes, it does take more effort to develop a targeted permission program than simply hiring a mailing list and sending 10,000 direct mail pieces, or creating an ad. But for those who can recognise the opportunity when everyone else is still doing the same old thing, there is a great opportunity. In the end, people will reward those organisations that have taken the effort to earn their trust and respect without asking something in return. Just like you would.