MAIN INSIGHT 41
Rachel Hughes
DIRECTOR OF MARKETING
How did the global pandemic affect customer-centric businesses?
Putting the customer first has always been one of the keys to business success. The global pandemic challenged businesses to find new ways to interact with their customers as physically meeting became completely off the cards. Creating virtual and digital sales experiences came naturally to some, but presented obvious challenges to those who sold physical products that a buyer traditionally may have needed to touch and feel before committing to a purchase. Those who successfully pivoted found success through offering their customers a choice of ways to engage with them. This could be through digital channels such as video calls or webinars, that helped to maintain personal relationships and allow businesses to still demonstrate their expertise within their industry. Although physical sales encounters are now an option again, the need to put your customers first and offer them a choice of ways to engage with you remains crucial to building successful relationships.
What makes a great marketing team and how can marketing teams reach this level?
In its simplest form, a great marketing team should understand the pain points of their customers and highlight solutions to those problems. But in reality, the role of a modern marketing team is far more nuanced. The customer understanding needs to go beyond the traditional understanding of their pain points, looking additionally at how each customer prefers to work and have the ability to serve that customer in a way that is meaningful and relevant to them. Whilst one customer may prefer to receive an email, others may prefer to receive a telephone call. To put it simply again, a great marketing team knows how to deliver the right message at the right time in the right place.
To achieve this, it is crucial that marketers track their customers' interaction data and create personas based around their different types of buying preferences. Different types of customer will need different experiences from your website and are also likely to find it in different ways too. Tracking customer behaviour helps you to understand what is working well within the marketing mix, and therefore you should do more of, along with what is not working so well and therefore you need to change or remove. This tracking and constant review is not just about the different marketing channels, but also the content you serve. Find what content your customers find most valuable and use A/B testing to ultimately make sure it reaches them in a timely, appropriate manner.
The customer understanding needs to go beyond the traditional understanding of their pain points, looking additionally at how each customer prefers to work and have the ability to serve that customer in a way that is meaningful and relevant to them.
Proper data recording over time will allow you to build a powerful picture of what your customer looks like and where you should focus your future sales and marketing efforts.
How can businesses align their sales and marketing teams, and what benefits does this bring?
For sales and marketing teams to be aligned, they need to ensure that they are both recording customer information in a useful and consistent way. Automate data recording as much as possible to help make life easier for both departments and allow them to focus their efforts on customer interactions. A robust CRM system is crucial here. Before calling up a potential customer, a salesperson can refer to the CRM and see what interaction has come previously - did they open an email? Have they downloaded a case study recently? This insight gives the salesperson an easy, warm opener to use on the call. Proper data recording over time will allow you to build a powerful picture of what your customer looks like and where you should focus your future sales and marketing efforts, helping you to ‘work smart’ rather than simply working hard and hoping for the best.
Wienerberger UK & Ireland supports and enables the construction industry to create a better future for the built environment. We do this by providing outstanding, sustainable building solutions, long-lasting partnerships and exceptional, enduring careers. We are one of the leading providers of brick, block, roof, landscaping and facade solutions, employing over 1600 people across 14 sites.
