Customer Driven Marketing Strategies
Traditionally, companies try to get the most customers by using the mass-market approach. Using this method, a business would seeks to get its message out to as many people as possible in hopes of turning some of them into customers. Customer-driven marketing is different in that it attempts to market to a specific target customer.
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Targeting
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No company can be all things to all people. That's obvious. With customer-driven marketing, the company finds out which target audience it wants to develop a relationship with and markets itself accordingly. For example, if a company wants to bring in a blue-collar customer base, it wouldn't do an upscale commercial designed for professionals.
Customer Satisfaction
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One marketing strategy is to use your current customer base to attract new customers. By offering new customers a special rate and also offering that special rate to the current customer who referred the new prospect, you provide value to both groups. Too often, new customers get a great deal while the loyal customer finds himself left in the cold. By creating a win-win scenario, both loyal and prospective customers benefit.
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Loyalty
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Another customer-driven marketing strategy is to deliberately court your target audience. One company that does this well is Apple. Apple has created an environment of customer loyalty that is astonishing. In fact, the term "Cult of Mac" denotes those people who are almost fanatical in their loyalty to Apple and the Macintosh personal computer. When Apple was struggling, the customers who kept it going where those known as "macolytes," notes Philip Kotler in his book "Principles of Marketing." These customers would buy only Apple products and would not use Windows products. When Apple did its marketing for "Mac versus Windows," it was a deliberate (and successful) attempt to make sure that the Apple followers felt special and superior to the more prevalent Windows users.
Niche Marketing
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Customer-driven marketing strategies can work for companies without huge resources. When a business finds that it has limited resources to use in attracting a customer base, rather than trying to cast a large net and sell many products to the consumer, it can focus all attention on a smaller segment of the buying public. An example of this can be seen with a company called Tetra, which manufactures fish food. Rather than try to spread into all areas of freshwater and saltwater aquariums, Tetra kept its main focus constantly on simply manufacturing and selling fish food. By using this strategy, Kotler reports, Tetra sells 80 percent of the tropical fish food hobbyists use.
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References
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