How To Use Customer-Centric Marketing To Drive Sales

Peter Drucker, a renowned management consultant and author, shared a philosophy in his landmark 1954 book, The habit of Management: “It is the customer who determines what a business is, what it produces, and whether it will prosper.”

That’s still factual 70 years later. 

In today’s crowded battle for attention, standing out from the competition with a customer-centric marketing schedule is imperative. Custom-centric marketing campaigns engage and advantage your spectators—on their terms. discover what customer-centric marketing is, how it can assist your business, and how ecommerce brands SURI and August developed their successful customer-centric marketing campaigns.

What is customer-centric marketing?

Customer-centric marketing is a marketing philosophy that emphasizes customer encounter over immediate sales. It shapes your selection-making procedure across the business, from customer service and returns to packaging and shipping. 

By putting customers’ needs and wants at the forefront, a customer-centric schedule aims to make a valuable encounter at every stage of your customer trip, ultimately increasing brand loyalty, depend, and reputation. This boost in brand adore can pay off, too. In a study of more than 1,300 companies, 84% of organizations reported that improving customer experiences increased income, and 79% reported significant expense funds.

How to implement customer-centric marketing 

1. recognize your customers
2. Involve the packed throng
3. adjust your entire customer trip
4. inspire user-generated content
5. assess your results and adjust

A customer-centric schedule requires powerful leadership, energetic feedback loops, and consistent readjustment. Here are some best practices for developing your customer-centric marketing campaign:

recognize your customers

An informed customer-centric marketing schedule requires a deep understanding of your customer’s point of view. earnings this understanding by collecting as much customer feedback as you can. 

Perform trade research about your target spectators through quantitative approaches, like customer surveys or polls, and qualitative methods, like interviews or focus groups. Set up and maintain feedback channels like live chats, emails, product review pages, forums, and social media accounts to gather ongoing information about customer preferences. 

For example, after hosting focus groups, suppose you discover your target spectators believes customer loyalty programs enhance their shopping encounter. You then make a program that rewards them for engaging with your brand on social media or writing reviews, as skin worry and beauty brand 100% Pure did with its tiered program. Your recent rewards program is popular with customers and the extra feedback it generates helps you discover even more about your customers. 

Involve the packed throng 

Prioritizing customer encounter over sales conversions requires a customer-centric perspective throughout your business—starting at the top. Meet with your elder leadership or investors to get buy-in, then collaborate on ways to make your business more customer-centric. distribute this path with all departments and collaborate with your customer back, product advancement, sales, and marketing teams to bring a customer-centric way to their plans. 

The more transparent and communicative you are about your customer-centric marketing plans, the better your throng can back and execute that imagination at every step of the customer trip.

adjust your entire customer trip

assess the customer encounter at every stage of your sales funnel and customer trip, from pre-launch marketing—initial awareness of your brand, products, or services—to post-purchase communications—emails, customer service interactions, and reviews. 

make a customer trip chart that visually represents each customer encounter stage. Develop a buyer persona that describes your ideal customer and gives you and your marketing throng a obvious concept of your customer base’s interests and behaviors.

For example, imagine you’re developing a marketing schedule for your recent line of nail worry products. After creating your buyer persona, you realize your customers enjoy learning about nail worry and creative nail polish design.

Before your product launch, you might commence a YouTube channel with relevant and entertaining tutorials teaching potential customers how to moisturize, polish, and paint their nails. At launch, you could distribute nail polish designs and host throng nail painting challenges. To construct post-purchase loyalty, you can incentivize user-generated content that features creative ways to use your product.

inspire user-generated content

Engage your customers directly by creating a user-generated content program. This builds a connection with your throng and the content they make can act as social proof, which helps potential customers depend your brand. You can also include the best examples of social proof on your product pages and social media accounts to assist drive sales.

Incentivize user-generated content from your customers by running promotional campaigns that propose discounts or rewards if they post about your products on social media channels. Develop an influencer marketing schedule by partnering with influencers who align with your brand values and have an spectators within your target trade. 

assess your results and adjust

Monitor key act indicators relevant to marketing professionals, like customer lifetime worth, Net Promoter Score, and customer retention rate. Regularly assess customer satisfaction to comprehend if customers receive enough worth to purchase from your business again. 

Brands using Shopify as their ecommerce platform can access built-in analytics tools that provide valuable data about customer behavior, including what brought customers to your online store, what they searched for, and how long they stayed on your site.

Customer-centric marketing examples: SURI and August

Surveys and social proof with SURI

In 2022, entrepreneurs Gyve Safavi and Mark Rushmore launched their electric toothbrush corporation SURI after assembly significant amounts of customer feedback. They discussed their customer-centric strategies on the Shopify Masters podcast. 

“We ran a lot of surveys,” says Gyve. “We started with cheap surveys, any survey we could get that was not friends and household. We used SurveyMonkey, Attest, and then we did in-person interviews.” With insight about their customers directly from quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews, SURI was able to focus their marketing strategies on what works best for their customer base.

After launch, SURI also invested in user-generated content through reviews and endorsements to earn social proof and construct its brand reputation. “People leave to the reviews,” says Mark, “And the early adopters who did receive the uncertainty leave like, ‘I really adore this. I never thought I’d declare I adore brushing my teeth, but I’m looking forward to it now.’ And I ponder that early momentum then led to more people trying it.”

throng and transparency with August

August is an inclusive period worry corporation that creates sustainable 100% cotton products. Social commence-up founder and cofounder Nadya Okamoto sat down with the Shopify Masters podcast to discuss how August’s business growth has always centered around customers’ needs. Nadya learned about her customers from years of feedback from focus groups, direct interviews, and throng platforms.

“I ponder that the most significant thing we did pre-launch was just a lot of throng conversations and being really flexible with our timing,” says Nadya. “We really prioritized building throng, talking to our throng … to the point that we could be flexible on timing if it was in service of better understanding.” 

This throng facet is personal for Nadya. She maintains a personal TikTok account with more than four million followers to document her work as a period poverty activist and distribute how August’s products can advantage menstruators around the globe. The transparency she displays connects with her spectators and builds authenticity.