Today's Customer Will Not Be Tomorrow's Customer

There is a market conceit and leadership blind spot we hear about in various forms. It is the mindset that search and the digital revolution isn't impacting a particular market the way it is impacting the rest of the world.

We hear it in statements like these from business leaders about their companies and products:

1. No one would trust search results to help make these decisions for our products.
2. Buyers will not decide until they see the product.
3. No one is talking about us on social media.
4. Buyers need to talk to a salesperson or engineer to understand the technology.
5. Information online is all self-serving marketing stuff and no one trusts it.
6. Our customers know us, so they are going to just call our channel/sales/support people.
7. Our brand is strong enough so we attract buyers through our reputation.

The challenge of today's organization is to create and keep a customer in light of ever-increasing competition. The whole organization. Not the marketing department. Not the sales department. Everyone in the organization.

The inbound philosophy is not just a marketing and sales idea, but a worldview change that guides the entire organization.

As buying behavior changes, the entire organization from product development to IT, to accounting, to leadership, to sales and marketing, to service must change as well. Many companies recognize the need to change marketing tactics, use content, develop a digital marketing presence, and adapt to the ability of buyers to control the process. Few see it as fundamental to the operation, structure, and strategy of the entire organization.

An organization's relationships and customer experience will increasingly determine the winners and losers in a market. Organizations that best personalize interactions and match the expectations of the customer starting with the buying journey and continuing through the entire lifecycle will win.

Are you adapting to the changes in your marketplace brought about by these disruptions or are you just reacting to them and feel like you are playing catch up all the time?

It is not products but the processes that create products that bring companies long-term success. Good products don't make winners; winners make good products.²

In inbound organization terms, it is not just good marketing and sales people, but good customer-focused processes that help companies align with the new buying realities and drive long-term success. The best organizations will develop processes that personalize their interactions with prospects and customers and match their position/reality/stage throughout the entire cycle from beginning to end and then repeat the process with that customer over and over.

Adapting to the new buyer reality requires organizations to rethink their customer engagement process from beginning to end and make the entire organization part of that process. Tinkering around the edges will not work. When fundamental shifts occur, new structures must be built.

1. An inbound organization is built—or restructured—from the ground up to understand, focus on, solve for, and react to the customer's new demands and expectations.
2. An inbound organization figures out who their ideal customer is and then relentlessly establishes resources to attract them first, educate them second, start the relationship third, add value at every step in the process, and then ensure their success so they can initiate a series of loops helping the buyer solve more problems.
3. An inbound organization makes decisions starting with the customer and works backward.
4. An inbound organization has leadership that knows their industry, their customer personas, spends lots of time assessing various stages of customer needs, values the process of developing a customer, and empowers everyone in the organization to make a good-fit, long-term customer happy by helping them achieve their goals.

For buyers, what matters most is their experience with your company and how well your organization solves problems for them. Business leaders can no longer delegate customer interactions to the marketing, sales, and service teams.

Traditional Industries Are Not Immune to the Challenge

Tube Form Solutions, in Elkhart, Indiana, manufactures and distributes capital equipment for the tube fabrication industry. Recently they held an open house with customers from all over the country. The new laser cutting line was the main attraction, and the sales team was excited to be able to show it off to existing customers.

The president of a large existing customer of Tube Form Solutions walked up to the owner and said, “We've researched a bunch of laser manufacturers online and have narrowed it down to two companies, you and another. We eliminated three others based on features, price, and reputation. Can we talk about a proposal to purchase?”

This existing customer of Tube Form Solutions did not talk to a salesperson prior to narrowing his choices down for this $500,000-plus purchase.

He eliminated other vendors using online searches and other available digital information.

The buyer proactively reached out to Tube Form Solutions when he was ready to finalize the details, specify a machine, negotiate the contract, and take ownership of the laser system.

Was the buying process 70% complete before the buyer reached out to Tube Form Solutions? At least, maybe more.

Luckily for Tube Form Solutions, they had adopted an inbound marketing approach and were making the transition to an inbound organization. This buyer conducted his own research, evaluated potential suppliers, understood available options, and narrowed down the list of possible vendors without ever leaving his office or talking to a salesperson.

This process is reflective of the challenge facing businesses today.

Why the Inbound Organization Philosophy Is the Right Approach

According to Mary Shea, PhD, a principal analyst with Forrester Research, the sales department is no longer the sole provider of information to the buyer. As a result, sales forces in the United States will contract in size by a million positions by 2020.

To drive business growth beyond the economy's rate of growth, you need to innovate around customer experience and use data to produce deeper customer relationships. Product innovation and technology are no longer enough.

These changes necessitate new ways of facilitating better engagement with people, using technology the way buyers want us to use it, and a commitment to being helpful first.

At their core, inbound organizations must build conversations and relationships with their audiences by giving them value before extracting value, which may be years before they make a purchase—helping them when they need and want to be helped.

Marcus Sheridan, author of They Ask, You Answer and long-time inbound practitioner and marketing consultant, puts it this way: “I really think inbound should be a way of doing business. To me the core philosophy of inbound is simply bringing so much value to the marketplace that the market can't help but trust you. And because of that trust, ultimately many buyers will give you their business. That's the essence of inbound, they come to you because you're so attractive, so valuable, to the marketplace. But unfortunately, most companies don't see it that way.”

Fewer and fewer people read print ads, watch commercials, tolerate spam email, or accept being interrupted. For most companies, your website and social media is where your brand lives. Your brand is defined anywhere customers experience your organization. More than the content you post, it is the customer reviews, comments, shares, and user-generated content—none of which you can control, some of it on third party websites—that defines it. Customers care about the experience more than your marketing materials. It is not what you say your brand is, but what others say their experience with your brand was.

Delighted customers share their stories. They interact with others who may be considering buying from you. Any gap between the experience buyers expect and the one they receive will be publicized online.

The problem for companies is the growing disconnect between the buyer's behavior and their organizational mindset and corporate structure. The clear majority of businesses still allow their organizations to treat their customers in ways they would never want to be treated. Think of all the spam email, unwanted phone calls, poor service practices, annoying voice mail systems that keep buyers from talking to an actual person, wasted junk mail campaigns, buyer-repelling company policies, and the many more types of out-of-date strategies and processes you experience on a daily basis.

You need to establish a new foundation for your organization that reflects the reality of the new buyer. The only way to build competitive advantage is to be inbound so you can do inbound.

Inbound organizations are less affected by increased competition because they rely on the customer experience rather than product features to create competitive advantage. It is harder for competitors to copy this type of innovation— companies must foster it by building trust, over time, through conversations and relationships. How often do you switch from a helpful supplier with whom you have a good relationship and a history of excellent experiences? Periodically you might test the market, but with all of the things pressing you for time, it is unlikely that you would switch from a quality relationship without a very good reason.

Inbound matches the reality you are operating in today. That is why it is the right approach for companies to connect with buyers in the digital age.