Church of the Customer's Ben McConnell pointed to this interesting bit of research by BIGresearch recently. Apparently, advertisers have been making all the wrong investments in mass media advertising when most people still relies on family and friends to give their recommendations on what to buy.
According to BIGresearch:
As more marketers seek to make media expenditures accountable to the bottom line growth of their company, the consumers in the survey don't seem to be on the same page as advertising expenditures. When asked which media most influence their purchase decision for various product categories, consumers' choices are rarely in line with advertisers expenditures.
Now I am pretty sure that the same situation applies here in Singapore too. Many FMCG companies and car retailers still spend tonnes of cash on mass media advertising, outbidding each other in the advertising wars while totally neglecting their loyal customers. However, most of the time, we don't buy based on what we see on prime time TV. We buy after asking around our family and friends for recommendations, drilling the sales assistant at the shop, or checking out all the online forums and reviews.
Why don't those businesses spend just a fraction of that fortune on getting their existing pool of customers all excited (and maybe even fanatical) about their products or services? Better yet, look at how they can listen in to the conversations online or offline, in blogs or coffeeshops, and see how they can get their existing clients to refer or recommend them to associates.
Speaking of which I know for sure what my next big thing is going to be at work..... Yeah!Labels: Church of the Customer, customer evangelism, word of mouth
