Customer communities: improve your marketing!
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Not all customers form communities, but it is possible to connect communities from your customers and increase your marketing. Sanjay d’Humières explained this to me correctly when he visited our premises. RTCX (Real-Time Community Experience) founder Sanjay told us about his project on customer communities. He reminded us, in case you forgot, how important it is to work with your customers to achieve the best marketing strategy. In doing so, Sanjay rightly reminds us, as does Jonah Berger (Contagious), that social media is only a small part of social media. word of mouthReferrals, word of mouth marketing and social networking are important..
Improve your marketing with customer communities
Brands must showcase engaged consumers
No offense to some, the process of creating a new marketing strategy necessarily goes through the customer, reminds Sanjay. Often we question it, this is a very important step in the process of creating new offers, new services.
“The brand doesn’t just think for them, it asks their opinion, then adapts the data to make strategic decisions with a convincing ROI for them,” explains Sanjay d’Humières.
Involve consumers in the marketing process
The consumer should be involved in the entire marketing process, explains Sanjay.
Asking her opinion allows her to embrace the brand
It is very important to create a connection between the customers and the people behind the signs. This is how the client takes ownership of the discussion and the process. Often he shows pride in having contributed to the creation of a product or service.
“Getting the customer involved in the marketing approach is a key part of this discipline, but many brands fear their customers because they fear the firebrand.“, notes Sanjay.
However, these refractory customers also have important considerations to consider.
Customer reviews are often analyzed on social networks, through hot letters. But these are only 20% of the iceberg.
80% of customer reviews remain confidential. These are people who want to express their opinion, but do not know how to do it.
Social media isn’t all buzz and word of mouth
“Many companies rely only on the semantic analysis of social interactions and forget that there are many people who do not know how to use social networks,” notes Sanjay.
Thus, marketers get an idea about the scarcity of users and customers. It is important to stay away from these things.
If we do not communicate with the consumer, he will not understand and will spread his displeasure on the networks without necessarily having the elements of understanding.
[Jonah Berger, comme Sanjay, est convaincu que les médias sociaux ne constituent pas la totalité du bouche-à-oreille et il le démontre]
How to build a community of customers?
“The first thing to do is figure out what we want to do with this community,” Sanjay explains.
The methodology for building your online community involves recruiting people through social networks using very specific keywords related to your brand and service.
This community can then be animated in closed or open Facebook groups as needed. This allows them to be collected and analyzed without words.
Recruitment for face-to-face communities, customer clubs, is also done on social networks, then brands bring participants together and explain to them the purpose of the exercise.
It refers to activities that have a fixed theme, a fixed goal. Participants provide negative, positive or neutral comments. After that, they are the power of suggestion.
After that, the brand decides whether to implement the proposed ideas.
If the brand does not implement the ideas of the society, it will have to justify itself
If he puts them in place, he should give a deadline and then contact the participants. Here comes the obligation.
Isn’t working with these communities risky?
“Companies operating without these communities will be missing out on rich and valuable consumer data,” insists Sanjay.
Consumers are increasingly demanding brands they trust.
This miss is a strategic mistake
We talk more and more about the goal, sustainable development. Consumers are aware of this and all stakeholders should be involved in the marketing process for a retailer or brand.
What does community marketing bring?
Developing your reputation and brand image can be very expensive and time-consuming to develop.
Communities allow you to build your reputation at a lower cost.
A pool of ambassadors will speak positively about your brand without investing huge marketing budgets
Word of mouth is the best way of marketing.
It also allows new members to gain access.
Participants who like to come to co-creation workshops will pass the message on to others. This will allow the integration of new participants.
Why don’t more companies build customer communities?
The main reason is that the ROI of word-of-mouth marketing is not immediate.
The French are very Cartesian and love numbers. But what matters is the quality of the exchanges, the quality of the content.
“We are still in the culture phase of investing in quality and communities. The trend is changing, but it takes time,” says Sanjay.
Do less, but do better
Covid has changed things, it continues. In terms of marketing and consumer goods, many surprises await us in 2023.
The energy crisis and inflation will also affect the way consumers buy and express themselves. You have to catch them all.
Marketers need to understand that maybe you have to do a little less, but do better.
Yann Gourvennec founded visionarymarketing.com in 1996. He is a speaker and author of 6 books. In 2014, he went from intrapreneur to entrepreneur when he started a digital marketing agency.
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Yann Gourvennec founded visionarymarketing.com in 1996. He is a speaker and author of 6 books. In 2014, he transitioned from intrapreneur to entrepreneur, creating a digital marketing agency.
