Customer-centricity: How understanding and solving the specific problems of your customers will gradually turn you into a market leader

By Patrick Mayoh

You should stop thinking about your company in terms of the product or service you sell. Rather your company serves specific customers' needs or problems. I think company that are customer centric rather than product-centric have more competitive edge. You don't want to be perceived as an organization that tries to get people to buy your stuffs but as a problem solver or a place where people's problems are truly understood and solved. 

I have thought about a matrix that you can use as a starting point to develop, improve or bring new products to your market. It is applicable to all business settings and all types of customers. It helps you:

• Define a problem (what are your customers facing: how, when, where)
• Identify current solutions to the problem (who is helping them or what are they doing themselves already)
• And bring in your solutions (what is not right with what they are doing and how are you helping them)

 I have been working as a chief strategy officer for Auracameroon a water-solutions company in Cameroon. Developping and using this framework has been very instrumental for the job I have to do.

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Building Brand Loyalty: Authenticity Marketing!

By Patrick Mayoh

I watched a fascinating ted talk a couple of days ago by Joseph Pine, author of the Experience Economy and Authenticity: what consumers really want. The economy according to him has gone through three stages. Starting as a commodity-based system, the world with the industrial revolution moved to a goods-based economy and later on to a service-based economy. What we are now going through is the age of authenticity. An age of mass-customization where consumers want to be treated uniquely.

Companies that want to sell in the 21st century have to be true to themselves and true to customers. This has always seemed to be the case, but I feel this is even truer today than never before in history. As Jeff Bezos famously said: 

“If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.”

In an age of global digitalisation, customers everywhere want more, expect more and look for more honest companies...more authentic ones.

Being true to yourself

This is all about what you stand for. You don't want your business to be out there just to make sales,  but you want to be identifiable, to be associated with certain values and principles. Think "connectedness" and facebook comes to mind or "innovation" and all you think of is Apple or "fantasy" for Disney. All your products and services are built around your identity, your customers relate to your identity and expect you to stay true to what you proclaim to be as an organization. So in case you still find yourself floundering not actually sure why you are in market, think again!

Being true to customers

I came across this article about companies that engage in predatory marketing activities to stop mothers from breastfeeding their children in order to buy their formula. The World Health Organization strongly recommends mothers breastfeed new infants for 6 months, arguing this is beneficial for the I.Q and the brain development of a new born; that some companies would have none of this, and invest tons of money in marketing to persuade mothers to buy their baby formular is a case of companies not being true to customers. What happens when the mothers actually find out? 

Or think about this campaign launched by one skin care company with offices in Cameroon and Gabon, marketing a lotion that can turn dark skin into a fairer type as if to stay dark African skin is not attractive.  Those are just a few examples of companies that are out to sell products and services. 

But this is not enough today. Companies that want to sell today will have to be honest and mindful of what consumers truly want to experience and how they can fulfill that need without having to lie about what they can do.

Be it in Africa or elsewhere, I think it is time to tailor our offerings, products and services to the identities of our respective organisations and the aspirations of our consumer-segments all in an honest and authentic brand strategy. 

Patrick Mayoh is a chief strategy officer at Aura Cameroon 

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Content is everything nowadays

 By Patrick Mayoh

Slideshare is a great tool for learning about trendy subjects, be it marketing, business or economics to name just a few of these. I happened to have gone through a series of presentations on content marketing. Traditional ways of advertising products and services are fading out and creating engaging and relevant content for your target audience is the new way of generating leads and eventually getting people really interested in what you sell. 

As it is the case with technology, the effects are pervasive, affecting companies all over the world. Whether you are a marketing manager in a developed or emerging economy there are statistics you can't just afford to overlook. In this post I am going to share three things (although there are many more things to say on the topic) I have learned so far from reading about content marketing and how it will change the way we advertise and market our products in the coming years.

9 out of 10 Organisations market with content

This is a data from the content marketing institute, and I am not sure the study is representative of marketing strategies worldwide. Still, what the data tells is, more and more Marketing managers are increasingly rejecting old marketing tactics to focus on content marketing instead. The content marketing institute define content marketing as:

"Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action."

It is in a nutshell the art of selling without giving that impression. Traditional marketing techniques including tv and magazine ads and billboards or Internet pop-ups pitch information about products and most of the times this is annoying for you and me. Who does not switch between channels to avoid sitting through commercials? With content marketing your aim is to create a video, write a blogpost or share a link that inform your customers and help them make clever decisions about their purchases or the kind of producs or services they should buy. 

Blogs are 63% more likely to influence purchase decisions

Your company should have a blog. Blogposts about your products or services indicate you know about your area of expertise. Blogposts tell your customers you want to make them more intelligent and blogposts tell your clients you are interested not so much about selling but about truly helping your customers understand how your company as a whole makes a difference. Blogposts finally are an indication you are a customer-centric organisation (you should better be) rather than a product-centric one, because you write about how your product or service help customers improve their lives

Customers who receive email marketing spend 83% more when shopping

It is time for your marketing department to formulate an email marketing strategy. Make it a goal to send an email to customers about an issue your organisation cares about or a problem you are solving. If you are a health care company send an email about the need to exercise and to remain fit for example. Let your customers know you know your stuff and interact with them on a regular basis to showcase your expertise and knowledge of your business sector.

Again as I said in the beginning, new analytics emerge everyday about content marketing and marketers are only beginning to realise the key to effectively using content marketing. For more information on the topic I recommend these two slideshare presentations:

1. http://fr.slideshare.net/BlogGrowth/18-useful-internet-marketing-statistics-that-you-cant-ignore

2. http://fr.slideshare.net/NewsCred/50-best-stats-presentation

Patrick Mayoh is a chief strategy officer at Aura Cameroon

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La nouvelle application "graph search" vue du Cameroun: Révolution marketing?

By Patrick Mayoh and Mikael Luntchap

Trouver des informations précises sur vos contacts Facebook semble pour le moment fournir des résultats intéressants mais pas aussi fascinants que la nouvelle application «graph search ». Celle-ci est progressivement en train d’être déployée pour les utilisateurs parlant ou utilisant le réseau social en anglais. 

Nul doute que la fonctionnalité sera bientôt accessible en d’autres langues. Avant que cela ne soit le cas, nous avons voulu dans ce papier nous intéresser à « graph search » mais surtout aux implications de cette nouvelle fonctionnalité pour la segmentation des clients et l’optimisation des données dans le cadre de l’inbound ou de l’outbound marketing.

Graph Search c’est quoi ?

Vous vous demandez lesquels de vos amis vivent à Yaoundé, aiment la page de la boisson « fanta »?  Vous voulez savoir qui de vos ami(e)s vivant au Cameroun aiment une page dédiée au Mbongo Tchobi ? Ou encore vous voulez retrouver toutes les photos que vos ami(e)s ont postées sur Facebook pour votre dernier anniversaire ? Graph Search devraient vous permettre d’obtenir des informations de cette nature, et ceci n’est peut-être que la partie immergée de l’iceberg.

 En gros au travers de Graph Search, Facebook met à la disposition de ses utilisateurs un outil inédit d’agrégation de données selon les requêtes envoyées par ces derniers. Les implications pour la vie privée sont réelles pour les utilisateurs qui ne prennent pas la peine de protéger leurs informations ; mais pour les départements marketing, Graph Search est peut être une grosse aubaine.

Des implications pour le Marketing ?

La plupart des réseaux sociaux ne propose qu’une interface de statistiques permettant de récupérer un niveau très agrégé de l’information.

Il convient de rappeler que Graph Search permet de faire des recherches croisées sur l'ensemble des données renseignées par les utilisateurs de Facebook (les pages "aimées", les lieux "visités", les entreprises dans lesquelles ils ont travaillé...).[1] Ainsi,  le croisement de toutes ces données fait désormais de Facebook un formidable outil de compilation, qui peut être utilisé à des fins très diverses en fonction des motivations des personnes employant ce nouveau moteur de recherche.

Les réseaux sociaux sont devenus des axes incontournables de développement pour les entreprises  au Cameroun car ils offrent des avantages importants : présence et visibilité, notoriété et popularité, ventes et profits.  58% des Camerounais déclarent être présents sur les réseaux sociaux, le plus populaire d’entre eux étant Facebook. 

Celui-ci comptabilise près de 11 millions d’utilisateurs actifs rien qu’au Cameroun, soit plus de 33% de la population.[2] Bien exploités, les réseaux sociaux contribueront à valoriser votre image de marque et à accroître votre trafic et vos ventes. La présence et surtout la popularité d’une marque sur les réseaux sociaux est également un critère de classement pour les moteurs de recherche, en particulier Google, utilisé par plus de 70 % des internautes Camerounais.

Enfin, il est aujourd’hui possible pour une entreprise camerounaise  d’avoir une boutique en ligne et de vendre ses produits directement sur sa page Facebook, via certaines applications gratuites et proposer une offre adaptée pour un groupe précis de «  likeurs ».  Ceci implique de   segmenter, hiérarchiser leur clientèle et concentrer leurs efforts sur les clients les plus fidèles. Il faut construire une relation durable entre l’entreprise et le client identifié individuellement. 

Ce nouvel outil permettra aux entreprises camerounaises d’identifier  les clients, de proposer à ceux-ci des services et valeurs différentes, d’obtenir plus d’interactivité avec leurs  clients, en dépensant moins,   et de répondre précisément aux demandes de ces clients.  Exemple : quels sont les lieux  que vos amis aiment à Yaoundé ? Le moteur affiche alors une liste de lieux que vos amis ont "aimés", depuis qu'ils sont inscrits sur Facebook... s'ils n'ont pas précisé que ces résultats devraient rester privés.

S’il s’est toujours avéré  difficile de segmenter sur les réseaux sociaux, les entreprises pourront  désormais  s’approprier les informations relatives à leurs fans pour toucher un maximum de gens intéressés.  Définir des profils parmi vos amis : ce qu’ils aiment, les lieux qu’ils fréquentent etc. Dans ce contexte le ciblage deviendra très aisé sur ce réseau social.

Visez juste !!!

Luntchap Mikael is Chief Communications and Marketing Officer at Aura Cameroon where Patrick Mayoh is Chief Strategy Officer

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[1] http://rezonances.blog.lemonde.fr/2013/02/09/nous-avons-teste-graph-search-le-nouveau-moteur-de-recherche-sur-facebook/

[2] http://www.clinkast.com/v2/Reseaux-sociaux.html

 

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The Branding era or how your branding strategy can attract and retain faithfuls

Patrick Mayoh

It is a reasoning I recently read in a book that prompted me to write something about branding this week (after a long break). The book itself is about youth culture and its ramifications within the field of business in general and marketing in particular[1]. The author made an observation which got me thinking about the whole idea of branding and how it was affecting our choices or even emotions today. Jason Gardner (that is the author of the book) hypothesised that today’s generation are the first to “have grown up within a brand culture”. Adding that “promoting brand isn’t a new idea, but the heavy emphasis on selling the image of a company, as opposed to promoting the quality of goods they sell is new”. In addition he reckons that “companies realised they could create a cheap product but sell it at a high price if the image of the company was right”. Although this needs may be to be substantially proved and empirically demonstrated, you cannot help but feel this series of statement is very reflective of what is going on today. Traditional marketing which consists of promoting goods and services is not as relevant as it was before for three keys reasons:

· Product/service lifecycles are shorter

· There are too many offerings (products and services) out there nowadays

· Product/service information are widely and easily available these days

Shorter lifecycles

Well think of it honestly, new Ipads come up every year, blackberries are released virtually every 3 or 6 months, phone apps every seconds and new car models every year as well and this is not just about the technology and automotive industries; all sectors in our current economy are constantly reinventing products and services be it in retail, groceries, fashion and sport industries to name just these. The product lifecycle model as we know it (birth- maturity- growth- decline) is outdated and irrelevant to the 21^st century business environment. The way it is today, is products and services are born and mature virtually within the same time while growth and decline occur so quickly that you do not have time to see when they actually happen—think of the last time you thought you needed a new phone after you had bought one just 3 weeks before—clearly the idea of positioning a product in a particular niche market is as complex as it has ever been for many years.

So many offerings

The reason why we have shorter lifecycles comes down to the fact that we seem to have more of the same everywhere. Just about 10 years ago Nokia was the leader of the mobile phone industry with just a few competitors like Motorola, Sony Ericsson and in a certain measure Samsung and LG. Today the picture is totally different. This is the same with the automotive industry, there used to be a time where only Volkswagen, BMW, Toyota and Ford were the only choices available when you thought of purchasing a car. Well you know this is totally different today. It even sounds ludicrous to observe that new products and services are produced virtually every second today, overshadowing the current ones, and conveying the feeling that what we have just bought from the store or over the Internet is so outdated we need to get something new. This is probably what Belden Menkus referred to when he talked about the age of discontinuity (his article is published on this blog) where everything that happens now seems to be so disconnected from what went on before.

Information overload

Information overload is just a consequence from the previous two. It is actually a term I read about the first time in a MC Kinsey article about coping with the vast amount of information available to CEOs and individuals nowadays. Traditional marketing methods with popular models like the 4Ps (product, price, promotion and place) aims to ensure that customers get the best information available about products. It is based on the premise that a customer that possesses all the good information will surely make the best choice when deciding which product or service to choose. Nowadays such information is widely available, not only that, but it is available in such a big amount that it becomes confusing to make a good decision. From websites, to consumer reports and blogs it is so easy to lose your head over what to believe when it comes to making the right decision about a product or service you wish to purchase.

Why branding

And this is where my point for branding comes into play. Because traditional marketing alone is no more necessary to attract and retain customers, your business will need to capitalize on branding to make a difference. I preferred to use the term faithfuls rather than customers because I reckon that nowadays you really want to retain people that will not only buy what you sell but will tell or keep telling others and spread the gospel (getting a bit religious here!) about your products/services and its various attributes. I believe branding in this sense has a big role to play for three reasons:

· Your identity

· What you stand for

· Why people can and should relate to your company

First of all branding “is the complete set of signals that surround a product, service or a company” according to Van Assen et al (2009) regarding the definition of a brand and how it affects a company’s image and reputation.

Your Identity

This is not just about your name or logo. It has to do with how you make sure you distinguish yourself from others in your sector or industry. It is a combination of the products/services you offer and what your organization understands/believes itself to be within the wider society and why. And this is the reason why you need to agree as an organization what you want to be passionate about especially in terms of improving and changing your environment(the wider society). There are actually so many causes and issues your organization could be passionate about. These will have to be incorporated within your identity statement.

Your values

What you stand for in your organization should not be secretive; rather you need to make sure your customers know about your values and those things that add flavour to your identity. This is the only way you start to connect to customers and their deepest needs. What people get/buy from your business, they can easily get from elsewhere, and not just that, chances are what you offer is available in many other locations and businesses. Your values will ensure customers connect to your organizations and will eventually make them want to stay and continue doing business with you. Integrity, honesty, customer-first, innovation, reinvention and agility are just some of the values out there you might want to emulate to make sure people stay with you and do not go elsewhere.

Create connections

I recently watched Comic Relief, a programme on the red nose day in Britain designed to attract funding from the public through a TV show hosted by popular comedians. The thing which most struck me about the programme was the level of support from the business sector. You would expect a TV show designed to attract financial aid for Africa to be supported by major charity organizations. However the level of support from the profit sector was even more than from the non-profit sector. Ernst and young (many people do not know about) as well as retail stores like Asda (Wal-mart), Tesco and Sainsbury featured in the TV programme.

The idea I believe is for those companies to connect with customers; something like “we are the good guys, we do not just sell the good products and services”. Increasingly customers will not just buy the best products and services, customers will equally put their favourite brands under scrutiny to understand whether those actually contribute to the common good of society. That sounds very utilitarian but it is a true picture of how things stand in the UK and the world over. Recent protests in Central London about cuts are a prime example of that. Big corporations were accused of tax evasion and therefore responsible for the current economic climate. I will not go into much detail about that, but think of those companies like Nike which recently came under the spotlight for allowing children in Asia to work under inhumane conditions in their factories.

If your branding strategy needs to be successful you need to make sure people can relate not only to your products or services but also to your actions and initiatives within your environment especially in terms of how they contribute to make a happier society.

Good...hope that makes sense for you and your business...see you next week with an article on phone apps

References

Jason Gardner (2010) Mend the Gap Inter Varsity Press

Baker, M. And Hart, S. (1999) Product Strategy and Management. Harlow: Pearson Education.

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[1] Mend the Gap by Jason Gardner

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Why your marketing department should seriously be thinking about mobile advertising!

By Patrick Mayoh

Apologies

I was going to conclude my series on the need to have more corporate female leaders in organizations when I was distracted (I believe for the good reason) by interesting and edifying reports about the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas last week end and a very fascinating article I read in the last edition of the Reader’s Digest by management guru Belden Menkus on the “age of discontinuity”.

As a result, I am sorry to say that those of you guys that have been following with keen interest my reasoning on the need for more corporate female leaders will be disappointed as I have chosen to discuss in my post this week, the need for marketing departments or consultancies to seriously consider the possibility of introducing mobile advertising to their portfolio of promotion activities.

The main reason why I have chosen to discuss about this topic is to highlight the ever-fast growing influence of technology especially how it affects the promotion and distribution of product and services. The Consumer Electronics Show reinforced this fact with hundred of futuristic new gadgets that will change the way we do business in the future and mobile advertising our topic for this week is just one of the many ways in which technology continuously revolutionize our business processes and activities.

Now about Mobile Advertising

Reading about the Consumer Electronics Show in my copy of the CITY A.M last Monday I was quite struck by what marketing and advertising guru Martin Sorell C.E.O of WPP declared about traditional advertising strategy processes. In his words he revealed “we used to perform three fundamental tasks: work with our clients to develop strategy, execute the strategy and distribute it. While we still perform these functions we are now far more focused on the application of technology and how we can use to interact with clients and their customers”. Sorell then went on to declare that mobile advertising had become the most important trend in the industry minimizing the traditional roles played by TV advertising and Internet advertising via personal computers. I fully agree with Martin Sorell for the following reasons:

• · The fast growing number of mobile phone users on the planet
• · Cheap internet access on mobile
• · Smarter mobiles

Fast growing number of mobile users

Approximately 4 in 6 people use a phone today on planet earth that is about 4 billion people around the world according to data by the Mc Kinsey Global institute. Sorell estimate that 600 million mobile users have access to internet in china while half a billion can access online contents in India. Those figures are just reflective of the dizzying figures that pertain to mobile phone usage across the market. Actually reaching customers through their mobile phone seems to be even more effective than other traditional means of advertising. Advertisers should take notice!

Cheaper Internet access on mobile

Most major network operators today, usually offer some form of internet access usually through packages that include free minutes, sms and free internet. Virtually all phones are built with the possibility for users to access all major social networks and the cost of going online via a mobile phone is cheaper than other traditional methods. The UK for example contains 2 million free Wi-Fi locations which means many Iphone users for example can directly connect to the Internet without any special subscription. Therefore it is even more likely that a growing proportion of individuals will likely access the internet from their mobile phones than their personal computers or laptop.

Super Mobiles

I was quite amused by the term used in the Economist this week to describe the new generation of phones about to enter the market. One of the sections in the report about the Consumer Electronics Show was actually entitled “from smart phones to super phones”. I believe the last thing you want to do with a phone nowadays is just to make, receive a call or send a text. New phones allow so many more possibilities that laptop or computers are increasingly appearing to be obsolete in. As I earlier said, the challenge of reaching out to people for any advertising message will have to consider the assumption that people spend more time using their mobiles than any other gadgets they possess. I will actually be curious to know the amount of time people spend utilizing their mobile phones as compared to other items. The reason why people actually spend more time with their mobile resides in the fact that those have become smarter and provide the possibility of doing what you would normally do with other gadgets. You can network, play games, work, email process your banking transactions, organize your diary and so much more on your mobile and therefore having other gadgets are not as necessary. The Economist actually noted “Jen-Hsun Huan, the boss of Nvidia which makes chips for smart phones and other devices, claims these will have enough capabilities to make them plausible alternatives to some kind of computers and the first ones could make their debut at next year’s show”; food for thought.

So what

If I was heading a marketing department I would seriously consider the following:

• · Obtaining data about mobile phone users from major mobile network operators
• · Analysing them to identify emerging patterns and
• · Delivering relevant contents to specific mobile phone users

The first move would be to approach major mobile network operators to obtain specific figures about your target groups. Say you are targeting teenager boys for your new video game, the first step would be to contact say Vodafone and possibly obtain figures about mobile phone use (about male teenagers) from their network.

Then you can analyse those data for example to differentiate between those who access Internet through their mobiles from those who do not. Possibly you could look at the website they are most likely to visit when they use their mobiles and possibly contact those companies to discuss the possibility of advertising your products on their webpage say on Facebook for example or YouTube.

You could then finally design your advert to be visually appealing and attractive on mobiles and therefore draw attention from users. You can then monitor the whole process and evaluate for improvement. I hope to do a more detailed article on that.

For now, see you next week, with this time my conclusion on female corporate leadership.

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Customer service banking! HSBC the best!

By Patrick Mayoh

I am so proud to say I made up this title (well I hope I am right). Alright most people have heard of investment banking, retail banking or consumer banking. But then looking at the UK banking industry coming up with such a term as customer service banking is not so strange. On the contrary I would say it is trendy. Hitherto it was common practice and it might be still the case to offer the best products or services to customers. Competition according to Michael Porter (1979) cost, leadership, differentiation and focus are usually the main strategic options deployed by organizations depending on the size of the market, the importance of the industry and the market shares by an organization. so let us say up to now the big banks have played on leadership; something like " we want to be the best in terms of the way we manage customers'accounts as well how fast and how well we can make cash available to customers when they need to get a mortgage and etc..." But then today differentiation seems to be the order of the day. Alright let us say HSBC might be one of the best financial establishment around (just hypothetically) but then it does not just want to offer products or benefits Natwest, Barclays, Santander and the rest already offer. HSBC might also want to be known for the way it treats its customers which is the main point made by this article. Where leadership in terms of offering the best services to customers used to be the main strategic options, today differentiation in customer care appears to be the new strategic option.

Take for example the article published by love money.com last week about the worst banks for customer service and then think of this new customer charter released by RBS and Natwest just a couple of months ago or even take for example the Halifax reward scheme which stipulates that the bank rewards one of its most loyal customer on a monthly basis with £5 and you have a pretty big overview of what is happening today within the industry.

Lovemoney. com actually reveals that the Bank of scotland just has an overall score of 43% in terms of customer service, well more than half of the customers are unhappy, very bad.

And then interestingly Halifax part of the Lloyds group got an overall 53% in terms of customer satisfaction.

So time for the winner, in third position the Co-Op emphasis on fairness and integrity coupled with a strong sense of ethics seems to be quite appealing to Britons; so let us go to the runner up One Account funded by Virgin and acquired by RBS with an overall 81% of customer satisfaction. And to the winner...........HSBC (what else?) with an overall 82% in terms of customer satisfaction. The figures in themselves are eloquent about the strong competition within the UK industry so I believe a couple of lessons can be drawn from all those figures. I will boil them down to three.

The first lesson is those banks that have from the beginning engineered and implemented customer care will more likely succeed and compete better in the market place than those banks who do not. In fact it does not come as a surprise that over the year HSBC --with its a very smiling and helpful customer reps--has collected numerous awards for its strong banking performance and customer care.

Secondly those banks that rapidly take measures to correct their images in the eyes of both customers and the public at large stand a good chance of catching up and possibly claiming a top position among the elites. In this sense I think RBS and Natwest's customer charter is very instructive and illustrative of my point. It might just be a couple of statements designed to project an excessive emphasis on the bank's renewed determination to win customers' support and approval but it will eventually go a long way if properly executed and reviewed and iterated towards changing the bank image.

Thirdly UK banks should be wary of globalisation as it becomes increasingly easier for foreign banking institutions to move operations in the city of London. Santander might not yet occupy a good position in terms of a top banks as it does in Spain but provided the right strategic change and focus it might a big player to reckon with in the future. Easier entry into the banking industry in the UK will just weaken competitors and therefore innovative means to attract and retain customers will be crucial as the same products and services will become available throughout all agencies.

Conclusively Kim and Mauborgne (1997) in their book value innovation came up with the concept of blue ocean strategy which is simply put the action which consists for an organization within a particular industry to make the competitions or competitors irrelevant through innovation. Customer service banking might probably be in the future the subject of much more research and innovation in the banking industry.

See you next week hopefully

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