As marketers, we’ve seen many businesses fail from not recognizing the need for a change in organizational culture or a serious rebranding. Often, they are not taking advantage of tools that competitors may be already using.
Who isn’t worn out from complaints about how bad the economy is and how tough it is to make a profit? Aren’t we all working harder than we ever have? Until you realize that everything needs to change, you’ll miss the mark, and fall far behind. Consider current business conditions, a laser-targeted wakeup call, requiring sweeping superhero moves. It’s time to don a fresh new mask.
Organizational Culture Change
We agree it is a harsher world right now. But in this new world, change must come from the very root of a company. As a leader, you cannot afford to continue running business by betting on building a product or service, then selling it. Your company must build a team responsible for the long-term success of clients, customers, subscribers, members, donors, etc.
This success team needs to ride trends, listen to and answer customer responses and think ahead about what people will want or need next. As one CEO said to us, “So it’s about being on pulse of things, right?” The answer is, “No, it’s about being the pulse.” In the first case one observes. In the latter case, one is actively involved.
Culture affects growth and all of your customer relationships. Long gone are the days of sales hunters being all-important. The initial sale is just the kick starter or blossoming of a new relationship. Think of a plant that instead of getting watered once or twice, needs to be constantly tended to, communicated with, shown appreciation and inspired. If strategically applied, you’ll soon grow a garden.
Whole Organization and Customer Focus
Customers must be resold. They must see your brand consistently and often. Those beyond the marketing and salespeople in your organization need to be equally involved. They are those who answer your phones and chats, those engaging in online media, those packing your boxes and the employees who are thinking of better ways to improve your products, services and communications. Each moment beyond the sale is important. In fact, the branding programs we develop always start with training from inside of the company, before ever going public.
Utilization of Metrics
You can also no longer get by just measuring new sales. Measuring customer retention and lifetime value is essential, especially in this subscription-based, pay-as-you-go pricing world. There are more opportunities than ever for managing metrics, building matrix-based analytics and conquest strategies and using a myriad of methods to engage with customers. From email capture, landing page optimization, retargeting, social media, blog outreach, search engine optimization to many other techniques, the world abounds with more opportunities to connect than ever.
To wrap up, thought leading successful companies generally employ: sweeping cultural change; whole organization customer focus; and utilization of metrics.
About:
Los Angeles based Sagon-Phior, a full service marketing and branding agency, utilizing emotional branding to build better relationships between a brand and an audience. Emotional branding enables more effective ways to increase brand awareness, loyalty and sales while revealing insights to better understand important, often unseen, patterns of consumer behavior.
Sagon-Phior has successfully applied this unique practice to many national and global brands in technology, healthcare, banking and lifestyle industries. For more information, go to Sagon-Phior.com
