We’ve all experienced what it’s like to be a customer. Think about your past interactions with vendors and shops, you may not have realized how big of an impact customer experience is on whether you decided to return or not. A memorable experience is not just about the product you offer, but how you fit your brand into a customer’s needs and personal identity.  In fact, Forbes has recently pointed out the importance of “increased focus on customer experience” in the marketing industry, as they placed it as the number one trend for marketing in 2017.

While the customer has always been (and always should be) the center of a company’s business plan, there are innovative ways to transform your marketing plan and adapt to this consumer-centric trend.

1) Take Advantage of Tech

Almost everything is moving into the online and digital arena. Words like Big Data, SEO, and QR codes are often thrown around . If you don’t know what these words mean, it might be beneficial for your business to start learning now.

There is a growing multitude of tools available not only to find out who your customers are but also what they like, what they buy, how they buy…the list can go on. Take it a step further, and utilize Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to ensure that the right people can find you online. And now capabilities like tracking and reporting give you access to data that helps indicate what marketing strategies work for consumers and which ones are just eating up your budget.

2) Social Media can Be Both a Good and Bad Thing

Alongside the tech boom, we’ve seen an increased potential for social media marketing. By simply starting off with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts you can enter into a new space of relationship building for your customers. Building an online community, boosting brand awareness, and being reachable after hours are just a few benefits of creating an online presence.

With that, it’s also important to keep in mind the effects of a wrong move. Make sure to monitor all company related posts. Negative, inappropriate or misleading posts can lead to a PR headache and knock down a brand faster than it took to build it.

3) Walk Through Your Offerings With the Mind of a Consumer

At Media Monkey we make sure that our client’s marketing strategies are constructed with the end consumer in mind by stepping into their shoes. End consumers are essentially the customers of our clients.

Is the content engaging? Will it be visible? How convenient can we make a company’s promotions for the customer? Are the websites and mobile apps seamless and user-friendly? These are just some of the questions we keep in mind to churn out the best marketing strategy for our clients.

Sometimes a new idea can seem extraordinary, but if you find it difficult to get others in your workplace to understand it, it might be even harder for your consumer. A part of successful marketing is capturing the customer’s interests and making it easily available to them. Just make sure you know who your customers are in the first place.

4) Let the Customer Lead the Way

Interests change as consumers grow up,  and so should your marketing strategies. Remember back then when you’d have to call in to order items off of a catalog, or you’d have to go in store to see what’s in stock? Now, all that can be done with just a few clicks and swipes on your smartphone. Currently, there are mobile apps for just about anything, and companies are making the move to put their products online. It’s also important to realize that eventually needs will change, so make sure your team allows for flexibility.

We see ads on just about every web page because that is where a lot of consumers are. Rather than loyalty cards, you can create mobile boarding passes to make it more convenient for the consumer by having everything in one place. You may have even noticed that now companies can buy ad space and post promotional content on social media sites like Instagram.

This generation of consumers is looking for fast, reliable and easy. Does your marketing plan account for that?

Need help with your marketing plan? Media Monkey offers marketing consulting. Give us a call at (630)- 773-4402 or send us an email at [email protected]! Best of luck!