"Smart marketing enables us to measure and optimize resources", Eduardo Correa
30 de October de 2018
30 de October de 2018
A specialist consultant for the Institute of Pedagogical Quality in Management for the IPC Central Delegation IPC and a Partner and Director at Ephemeral Life, Eduardo Correa ran the session at EAE's Joaquín Costa campus to analyse the changes experienced in terms of customers and the new ways of relating to brands.
In Eduardo's opinion, relational marketing is based on the conversations held between the company and the customer. "The objective is to persuade the customer to buy and stay with us". To achieve this, the EAE lecturer recommends holding conversations with customers based on long-lasting, stable relationships, as well as offering segmented differentiation. "Simplifying decision-making and communicating a value proposition simply and quickly".
With respect to the objectives of relational marketing, Eduardo Correa highlighted one above all the others: selling, followed by attracting, keeping and increasing current customers by achieving their satisfaction. "The best way to keep a customer is ensuring their satisfaction". To do so, "we have to find mechanisms to attract them and build their loyalty, thereby achieving profitability.
During his presentation the lecturer on Marketing at EAE conducted an analysis of the evolution of persuasion strategies from the 1950s right up to the present day, with a much more complex model based on hyper-segmentation and the battle for customer share. In Eduardo's opinion, the current context is characterized by aspects such as an increase in visits to the point of sale (although customers spend less at them), comparative statistics, changes in the communication between the company and the customer, growing opportunism and a rise in the health culture and the cult of the body.
Within this context, brands become key elements that play a decisive role, creating simple and increasingly basic products. The message has also been simplified and the way of relating to the target market, with simple communications in accordance with the AIDA concept (Attention, Interest, Desire and Action). As a result, "there are precise marketing strategies adapted to each customer, striving to achieve solutions that set us apart from the rest and creating experience-based services for people" explained Eduardo.
New times call for new strategies, such as those developed by companies like Starbucks, which has shifted from the coffee business to offering services to people and e-commerce through Amazon. In Eduardo's opinion, customers move faster than companies. "This is not an era of changes, it is a change of era". As such, companies have to hyper-segment and hand over more power in their customer relations. The new relational marketing model "must convert the company's relations with the customer into a long-term competitive advantage" because, as the EAE lecturer emphasized, "the most successful companies in the world are those that the customers know best".
Within this new framework, we have to talk about concepts such as technology, globalization, CRM, Big Data and predictable behaviour patterns. "We have to shift from transactional marketing (where we see consumers as a whole and view things from a long-term perspective) to a relational marketing, one-to-one strategy, because communication between the customer and the company has changed. It is no longer two-way". Eduardo explained that "as the value of the company grows and expands, so does the value of the customer". Data analysis reveals interesting indicators that enable us to identify customer behaviour, which is essential. "Smart marketing enables us to measure and therefore optimize the company's resources".
As far as Eduardo is concerned, it is important to understand the model of satisfaction as an exit barrier and focus satisfaction towards achieving profitability: "The best approach to building customer loyalty is based on customer satisfaction, even though it reduces profitability". This eventually leads us to service customization. "Loyalty is the key element for achieving profitability."
Managing customer relations with customer journey maps and defining the interactions in which the company is involved enables us to enhance the customer's experience and, therefore, their satisfaction. The foundation of a long-term relationship is based on conquering the customer, as well as optimization and retention, because "the greater the loyalty, the happier the customer and the greater the capacity for retention".
Identifying the customer's expectations, offering differential value, determining its value and creating the strategy for building customer loyalty were the key aspects analysed as the session of EAE's Focused Program came to an end. "Making customers loyal, making them happy and satisfying them are key factors because the greater their satisfaction, the more their brand loyalty increases".