05/11/09
The new world of Pre-Customer Relationship Management
In this quickly-changing day and age, it is difficult to navigate the shifting world and its new rules. It used to be a fairly straightforward model of either 1) someone is interested in your product or service based on an ad or referral and contacts you directly. Or 2) based on direct cold calling, nagging, and/or visits, you finally get through. It was a fairly straightforward “do you want to dance?” followed by an abrupt “yes” or “no”.
Today, this model is very different. Through various means, the customer can now find everything out about you first. They can visit your website countless times. They can instantly find out what activities you are involved in. They can follow you on the various social networking sites. In other words, you need to prove to them that you are legitimate, smart, relevant, and offer something beyond your product or service. You must develop leadership and show results on a consistent basis. It’s “Pre-Customer Relationship Management.”
This development is a positive one for people who are competent, results-oriented, and have excellent reputations. Your brand is no longer your own. You can create and nurture it, build a look and feel, arm people with talking points, etc. But ultimately, you cannot put a brand façade around a broken company anymore. You must create a brand that showcases the very best a company has to offer.
To further the dance analogy, if you ask a customer to dance, they no longer say yes or no right away. They say “show me what you’ve got” and watch you dance for a while. They go around the room and ask if you’re a good dancer based on other people’s experience. They look and see if you’ve won any dance competitions in the past. They attend a dance seminar in which you are the teacher. Finally, after all that, they may say “yes”.
The bad news in this new world is that if you are a bad dancer, you will remain a lonely wallflower. But if you are good, present yourself well, follow up, and are exceptional at what you do, you will be able to dance until you drop.
I took that analogy way too far, but you get the point. Marketing today is about being extremely active – and backing up what you say every day with actions.
Phire Blog