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As Nicolás Casariego, co-director of IE University's Customer Analytics Farm, said, "It's the era of the customer and nothing is going to be the same as before". He went on to say that "the Internet, smartphones, social networks, together with the consumer's growing distrust of brands and their advertising messages, and the happiness with which they can replace one product with another, have meant that companies now have to serve a customer". And he was absolutely right. In today's marketing the focus is on the customer and not on the product.
Change can always be for the better. Let's check it out!
Let's talk about today's marketing
More than marketing, perhaps we should talk about Inbound Marketing. You know, that direct way to attract prospects with content designed for them. Some time ago things started to change. Focus is a way of illuminating or valuing a certain thing, and that is what we are doing with customers in the world of marketing. Changing the direction that has been for decades on the product towards the customer establishes, probably, the great difference between digital marketing and traditional marketing .
As the academic Pedro Hidalgo states, "marketing is defined as all the activities that are done to satisfy the wants and needs of consumers, therefore the focus has always had to be on them". Today, it is easy to say this, but a few years ago, nobody was aware of this fact. It took someone to become deeply aware of what was happening to start designing a solution.
First it was marketing 1.0. It focused on the product, so all strategies were directed at the product. Brands used television, radio and printed newspapers to spread the word. We are talking about one-way marketing. Then it was marketing 2.0 that opened the range towards the consumer and their needs, so we were dealing with two-way marketing. Later, marketing 3.0 arrived , which was no longer so much interested in the consumer but in their values, in their way of thinking and acting.
we are all evolving!
why does marketing now focus on values?
We owe it to the creators of the Inbound methodology. Darmesh Shah and Brian Halligan, founders of HubSpot, realised that there were some limitations in traditional marketing. The lack of agility of browsers and poor integration, among other things, led them to look for an alternative: to take another path, which involved coining a new term: Inbound Marketing.
This methodology is based on four phases corresponding to the purchase cycle: attraction, conversion, education and closing/loyalty. Every day, millions of people interact with each other on the web. Their habits are changing, but their behaviour and interests are changing too. Perhaps today's methods are no longer useful for projecting tomorrow.
The challenge for businesses today is to focus on values, to empathise with users and potential customers, to provide content that provides the value they need. We know that finding the link between the spirit of your business and the interests of your audience is not easy, but it is possible. So why not seize the opportunity to be interesting, entertaining, informative and educational for your customers?
Think about it for a moment.
The digital whirlwind
A whirlwind seems to be moving unchecked towards user behaviour. The digital disruption facing businesses is no coincidence, as technological innovation, the change in the value chain of organisations, and the needs and expectations of customers, among other things, have triggered the need to reinvent business.
Customers are no longer satisfied with just anything, they expect an easy, fast, simple and informed shopping experience. They are looking for value. Marketing has a lot to do with this, as adapting to new ways, such as Inbound Marketing, is a first step to face the process of disruption and to attract and retain new customers.
Companies must continue to evolve constantly to seek and adapt to new ecosystems. And you, do you have anything to say?
