Marketing nowadays has become more and more complicated. With the advent of digital channels like social media, email, and websites, it’s difficult to propel growth if you focus on brand-centric promotions and marketing tactics. People nowadays hate being marketed at. They know sales talk and it’s a big turn-off for them.

So how do we market effectively? What kind of messages should we be putting out there? And what tactics should we apply to drive growth for our business?

One answer.

And that is to create a great customer experience. Especially in these trying times.

The customer experience will make or break you!!

Start here: It’s Not About You.
Advertising and marketing before the digital age was about getting ahead of competition. It’s about branding your product as the number one or having more benefits than the competitor. It’s about disruption and making the headlines. While that may sound completely strategic (maybe 10 years ago), the playing field in today’s digital age is completely different. People don’t like to be “disturbed” anymore. If given a chance, they’ll always opt to “skip the ads” or unfollow you when they feel like they’re being sold to.

That’s why you need to move the conversation from you – the brand – to your customers. And you can only do that if you know and understand your customers well.

Understand who your customers are.
Creating a great customer experience starts by knowing who your customers are. Aside from looking at their psychographics, it’s important to get to know your customer on a much deeper level.

Know their pains, discover what makes them happy, and see what makes them angry. Take time to get to know them. Talk to them. Sit and have coffee with them. Experience life with them if you must. You’ll get far better insights about your customers than just looking at the data you get. This will help you develop your product or service better and create relevant marketing messages that will truly resonate.

Re-engineer your customer’s experience.
Now that you’ve come to understand what your customer likes and don’t like, address those when crafting their experience of your brand.

Take for example what Disney World Resorts implemented when faced with the challenge of raising their revenue in 2011. The easiest way to do it was to raise their park ticket prices. Even if people complained, they would still get the foot traffic they need to meet their revenue goals. But they didn’t do that.
Here’s what they did – they reinvented the way people experience the park.

Disney Resorts World saw that people spend so much time waiting in lines – from checking in at the front desk of their hotels, waiting for almost half an hour at the turnstiles before being able to get in the park, paying for merchandise and food, and also getting on rides and attractions.

Recognizing that people go to the park for the experience and the nostalgia, Disney made it better by eliminating the waiting time and the lines! And they did this by introducing the MagicBand – a wristwatch that let’s people just swipe and go. Now with more time to spare, people are spending more inside the park!

By simply enhancing their customer’s experience, Disney was able to rake in more revenue than by just simply raising park ticket prices.

Now, that is simply genius!

Conclusion
Great customer experience can make or break a brand in today’s digitally connected world. It’s time to move the conversation from you to your customers. Get to know your audience. Empowering them by creating individualized and customized experiences will help build loyalty and rake in the revenue for your business.