Whom are we speaking to?

Scene- My desk, on Phone

Me: Hello, I am Vikas Sachdeva, I am in Marketing Team, Can you please help me with the sub categories of awards for the entry - Advertising, Events, Print ads, TV ads,Communication collaterals, any research insights, concept innovation etc?  I have sent all the entries for the awards.

Other side: Yes, I will mail you all the details.

Scene 2, A glass cabin mixed with few walls 

Me: Sir, I will be getting the details of sub categories of awards

Other side: whom did you speak to?

Me: Some representative from awards, but i don't know the name.

Other side: Its always good to know who is the person we are speaking to, at least the name.

Though this conversation has become the pretext of the thought , I have been thinking for last 6-7 months about

Whom brands/marketers speak to promoting their products/services/brands/companies/offerings.


I read somewhere "Marketing for prospective customers needs to be different than Marketing for already acquired customers"

So whom are we speaking to?

Only communication perspective

Prospect 

Brands speak very nicely to him/her, he/she is the most pampered person on this earth, he is approached/influenced on everything, Which car he should buy, which phone is best for his/her needs etc , Brands make him believe that they are the only best choice available to him if he wants to redeem himself.

If we are speaking to prospect, In our communication, We should be

• Giving him knowledge about the product/service than pushing it 
• Giving him experience of our brand/product service first than telling him its advantages over others
• Lucrative incentives to try  

As a prospect, i may not know what to buy, it is the trials with the different brands which will help me choose. Better is the experience , better are the chances of getting picked.

Through deal sites like Snap-deal/group on, what they do is, they discount the full time service/product to trial mode, customer pays say Rs 599 for a spa treatment where he/she experiences services and then choose full time packages.

 If a toothpaste or a cream continuously speak about how it is better than others, beyond a point people start mistrusting the same.

Customer

It is the most misunderstood word, There is a distinct difference between customer and a user. I may be a customer of a hypermarket when i buy detergent but i am not the end user. The requirements of end user may be different than a customer. While I may choose X brand based on availability/location of the hypermarket/convenience while end user may think of price/quality of the product.

If we are speaking to a end user

• Focusing on targeting/communication based on quality of the product/durability/tangible aspects. He/she always looks for functional aspects first
• Comparisons with other brands/services, challenging his rational mind to think, giving him reasons to choose your product/service rather than you pushing it
• Offers/discounting

In the end , I should be proud of my decision in choosing the brand/product/service. If i as a end user have not got kick of purchase, if my rational mind is not happy, all in vain.

If we are speaking to a customer

• Focusing on targeting his triggers of choosing the products/service, We need to involve the customer into our journey, how this product/service is made, how it started, engaging him more through story telling.
• Giving him more reasons to be loyal, family outings in the plant where we manufacture the products, making him feel special, making him feel important and valued
• Involvement of his friends/family in your business
• Involvement of his in new product/service design
• Understand his/her emotional needs

Today thanks to tight budgets over variety of media options available, same communication is released for all types ( prospects/customer/end user), then we wait and wait for the results. 

We need to craft tailor made programs for each type we are targeting and administer each program effectively.  

At the end, i would like all of us to think " Communication/Marketing for Prospect/Customer/End user is distinctively different from each other, we need to think differently for each set" 

By the way, Just 20 days left , we will have new government at the center.

Keep smiling!

Vikas Sachdeva

Connect- The Vital driver

For Last 2 weeks , I have been thinking that why women love tele- serials so much? .They leave everything ( food, rest etc. ) to know what Anandi is doing, what is happening between Mr Ram Kapoor and Priya? How DV will save Saanchi?

 Amazing connect!!

Hats off to the people who keep on generating content for these serials which have been successful in creating and maintaining the connect with all these women 6 days a week, 4-5 hours a day ,all 365 days in  a year!

A thought came into my mind!

Connect!

Is it that important? Why it is important? How we can create connect? Who all can connect? Why is that you connect with certain people and you co - create something of your liking?

Connect can be between people, people & brands/brands & people.Why we buy certain brands
 ( considering price, value etc to be constant), because we connect with those brands.

For e.g.Why buying dettol makes us think that this soap will really help in removing all the bacteria and other xyz brand will not. Why buying iphone gives us a feeling of satisfaction while same features are available at a much lesser price.

It is all about connect! for sometime,forget what you have learned uptill now about brands & just imagine brands as people working in your office.So we have Mr Harley davidson who seems to have his own big cabin and sitting in the corner & people rushing to him and interacting with him      ( Only selective people who connect with him), then there is Mr Bajaj who has small cabin wanting to connect with set of people who value power more than milage.

Miss fair and lovely is busy in making all the women beautiful which are fairly large in number.  Olay total effects is speaking to her group about benefits of its use and hence charging more money.

Kids connected more with Oreo Biscuits.

Every brand has its own set of customers, it is how that brands connect with its base matters. There are people who do not want to buy Maruti Cars because they do not connect with it despite its best mileage and number of  service centers, also there are people who connect only with Maruti Cars and will buy only Maruti.

What matters is customer connect.

Gone are the days when companies survived only on push marketing shouting about themselves in the market, offers, discounts, communication in print, radio, outdoor etc. They were everywhere !. but now times are changing. What customer seeks is more connect with the brand, how brand is helping him, how the brand is interacting with him, understanding him, growing with him like a friend, its no more a one sided relationship but two way and more demanding.

People don't buy products, people buy brands.

Why people connect with Lord Shiva and not Bramha ? Bramha is creator of the univerise, the mastermind, why less people connect with him? has he done less? no way!

Just like you want to be with people you connect with, brands also like to be with people who associate with them, who connect with them. On Social Media, The reason a post garners more response from the friend list is because they connected with the thought you posted. 

Yes, the world is rational, if the basic core of the business are not met, then whatever you do will be a failure. What if the food of a restaurant is not good despite of having great ambiance and service and vice versa.How it will affect your decision to go to that restaurant next time?

Connect helps people to be with you for that 'Next time' ( Yes there is always a first time). Connect decides whether after experimenting you will choose Y over X. ( Given all other factors as constant).

Since life is all about people management ( From B2B to B2C to H2H- Human to Human, I found the term i was searching to express the essence of this blog) , brands also think that way. They think whom they have to manage. Brands are becoming close groups which are trying to connect its base in smaller ways going beyond the traditional way of pushing.

It is the Brand pull & connect which will matter more than the Brand Push in future.

So, did you connect with me somewhere in the blog?

Stay tuned

Vikas sachdeva