Real marketing is about people. So any marketing tactics should be about connecting with people.
Sounds simple (and yes, a little cliched). But think about how hard this is to actually do?
So much of marketing is tactics driven - essentially “what are we going to say” and “how are we going to say it”. Both of these have little to do with people - other than coercing them to buy your product.
People-centric marketing (feel free to provide a better term for this!) takes a fresh approach to marketing tactics. Some examples:
- Extensive use of sampling. Get your product in the hands of the people!
- Connect your people with The People. This means allowing your employees to use social media (blogs, Twitter, et al). It means creating situations for your customers to meet each other. If you are in B2B, it means connecting (and profiling) your customers with like-minded people in your audience.
- Encourage your customers to participate in your business beyond just surveys. Ideally, they will be motivated to create their own videos about you or pro-actively provide a testimonial. If not, it is ok to ask - or do some sort of contest.
- Create a customer advisory panel. Provide them with free products/services. Get their feedback on EVERYTHING - marketing, operations, customer experience, et al.
- Always market new products and new pricing plans (are you listening cell phone companies and health clubs??) to your existing customers first. Being a loyal customer should always feel more privileged than being a new customer.
There are many other people-centric concepts, but this is a start. I would emphasize that these don’t replace traditional outbound marketing efforts. That said, I do strongly suggest you do the above first. Not only will you then be able to get customer feedback on outbound tactics, you will also get fresh ideas - and will very likely save some money.
Bottom-line: we need to re-think every marketing tactic. Instead of obsessing over what our brochure will say, we should be asking this question about every decision - “What will this do to CONNECT me with people?”
