Marketing has no power over remarkability. Why do so many organizations fall victim to the new competitor who, through their remarkability, delivered a better experience? And why do so many organizations spend more on marketing than their remarkability? Or why do all organizations have marketing departments and hardly any have remarkability departments? Today, too many organizations are buying marketing campaigns; instead, they should be investing to increase their remarkability.
A simple answer is most of these organizations believed that great marketing would sell anything to their great relationships. Today, however, the new unknown competitor hunts for these organizations. They listen for those who cheer the loudest: “We have the greatest relationship with our customers.” Then they attack with a weapon called “A remarkable experience.” Well, it is 2017, and great relationships might get you invited to lunch, but it won’t guarantee a continuing business relationship. Today, customers will trade in a relationship for a better experience like one would dump an old car. Customers today want a remarkable experience, they do not care about your slogans and marketing propaganda. And if you are in fact remarkable, your customers can tell the world in seconds.
Every business must agree that their remarkability must come before their marketing. So every business must ask this: Does this marketing expense make me more remarkable, or just tell people how remarkable I am?
For many, marketing is telling their story as they believe it. Many organizations look at their marketing as merit badges that they award themselves. Why do businesses not understand that their customers should be their marketing departments? Especially with today’s technologies for communicating.
A slick marketing campaign might temporarily fool someone regarding your value. However, sooner or later your remarkability is what determines a continuation or a referral of your services. No business buys a beautiful (but broken) brochure twice. Today, customers want an experience which they define as remarkable. Therefore, companies that focus on their remarkability will always invest toward its constant improvement, and companies who don’t focus on their remarkability will continue turning over their check books to marketers. Remarkable businesses get the reward of customers buying them; unremarkable businesses will always be buying customers.
“Today, businesses must remember, your customers will always be your and your competitors’ prospects, so businesses must always treat their customers as prospects and continuously deliver them a remarkable experience.”
Organizations must understand that customers are not for life because your marketing says so. Customers are only for the life of your remarket-ability, which is always threatened by someone else more remarkable. Those who yell from their roof top how great they are should silence their noise and listen for the cheers from their customers yelling “we want more.” Those organizations marketing to their external customers with sayings like “customers for life,” must educate their internal customers that this translates to “prospects for life.” Thinking our customers’ relationships will last forever confuses the importance of customer experience over customer relationship.
“Your marketing is about you cheering you; your remarkability is about your customers cheering you.”
