Is Your Digital Marketing Customer-Focused?

The focus of your digital marketing strategy is everything. Regardless of your brand’s biggest selling point, your strategy as a whole should be built around the customer. That means everything from your website to your social media to your brand itself should resonate with your target audience. What is a customer-focused digital marketing strategy and why does it matter?

What Does It Mean To Be Customer-Focused?

First and foremost, a customer-focused digital marketing strategy puts the needs and wants of the customer first. That means your point of differentiation may not be what you think it is, but what the customer needs it to be! In other words, say your brand is able to offer a low price. If your target customer isn’t afraid of paying a premium, a cut-price strategy won’t appeal to them. Therefore, before you start advertising the benefits of your product or service, make sure they align with what your customers are looking for. 

However, a customer-focused digital marketing strategy involves more than choosing how to advertise. It means prioritizing customers-not only at every customer-facing facet of the operation, but every piece of the organization overall. Don’t think it matters? A Deloitte study found customer-focused businesses were 60% more profitable than their counterparts. So what does that mean for your business?

Social Media: A Customer-Focused Marketing Tool-But Not The Only One

Social media is just one of the many tools at the disposal of a customer-focused marketing strategy. In addition to completely changing the way customers interact with the brands they love, social media them to research and even purchase. That also means the forefront of a good customer-focused digital marketing strategy is an engaging social media presence. 

If you can drive your customers to leave more feedback and get more involved in brand conversations, you’ll foster more word-of-mouth advertising and build up an important digital reputation. In other words, when customers see other folks liking your product or service, they’ll be more likely to give your brand a chance!

The Challenges of Developing a Customer-Focused Digital Marketing Strategy

A customer-focused digital marketing strategy involves leveraging your current and past customer data to deliver a more engaging, rewarding customer experience. That can mean analyzing when, where, how, and why your customers are buying, as well as tracking how your campaigns impact your KPIs like impressions, bounce rate, and churn. 

That means one of the primary problems faced by businesses is being able to properly collect and analyze all that data. While collecting and making sense of customer buying data presents its own set of challenges, figuring out what moves your customers is a whole other problem. Assessing your customers’ behaviors and habits should be a primary focus of developing a good customer-focused strategy. The best bet is to pay attention, do some research, and don’t be afraid to ask questions!

Best Practices and How to Measure Success

Implementing a customer-focused digital marketing strategy doesn’t happen overnight. Part of the framework involves putting a priority on your interpersonal relationships. Again, to better understand what your customers care about, you have to understand who your customers are. Customers are so much more than pieces of data, so it’s instrumental to figure out how you can benefit together!

Be sure your brand is employing the right people to represent your company. You want your customers to share common values. Similarly, you want everyone who represents the brand to espouse those same values. If your entire workforce is comprised of customer-centric thinking folks, your team will have a common goal. You’ll also have a fundamental understanding of how to improve the customer experience. 

To assess whether or not your customer-focused strategy is working, take a look at your most important KPIs, like churn rate and net promoter score. Shoot to make your customer base is both loyal and passionate about recommending your brand to friends and family. If you can do that, it’s safe to say your customer-focused strategy is well on its way to full optimization! If not, it’s time to look at ways to improve the customer experience!