‘I like what you are selling, but not how you are selling it. It’s ok, I will probably just drop by your competitor’s store by tapping my phone a couple of times. BYE!’ Yowza! You lose a customer- discouraging word of mouth- and probably no referral leads at all, that’s bad for business. So all this happened despite your product being deemed good? I mean, when was product based marketing just not enough?
Well we can at least tell you the answer of your last question- product centric myopic marketing died about a half century ago.
The Fact
Truth be told, it cannot be argued that we exist in a world which lives over the internet. All the interactions that we make online are much more significant than those we make offline. The argument given is, we are receptively much more active when we are online, that is, we pay more attention to what we read and see. It happens because we see and read whatever we intend to learn and know about. The interaction structure and landscape is such that it gives us a lot of freedom as to what we want to see, hence we are programmed in a fashion where in we involve more in online content and automatically imbibe content that engage us and gives us some value.
Return On Experience
Now internet has given consumers the power to voice their own demands and opinion. This ability to interact is coveted by a consumer as it lets them express their desire from the brand. A consumer now does not care anymore for a brand centric story, but rather want to engage in a story that they can be a part of. The consumer is banking upon the experience that a brand can give them. The experience that not only defines a purchase journey, but which goes beyond that and enchants a consumer.
In the evolving nature of customer interaction, brands are constantly trying to analyze and evaluate what gives them the best return. We understand now that the urge to evaluate the Return on Investment comes from a commercial entity’s need to quantify its existence.
Enchanting your way forward
Moving above and beyond the conventional model of return in Investment, brands now look toward Return on Experience, at least some do. The way forward is to not just provide your consumer a satisfactory experience, but an enchanting one. Consider for a moment, that you send a personalized handwritten card to one of your customer on their birthday and maybe a small gift, it does not take much from your side, but to a customer it is very touching, it shows you care. You engage in an emotional bond which brings you a raving brand evangelist and a lifetime word of mouth generator, both online and offline.
Your Brand is their story
Every brand strives to achieve an association that ties them to their consumers at a primordial level. If you can give your target consumers an experience that is aligned with your brand positioning and your consumer’s desire, you are effectively making your brand story, your consumer’s story.
The whole point is, that you should be able to provide an experience to the consumer that they creates a positive impression on them. Such a positive impact can only generate a positive market presence and opinion. Return on Experience is the next analytics model that would quantify a more experienced based returns and with brands like Nike already having adopted it, it is safe to say it does has a lot of traction.