Customer is in Control (Still)

If we knew it was going to be this crazy, we would have kept score of all of the meetings for the past 10 years involving business owners, marketing strategists, web developers and technology systems types (aka geeks), in "creative sessions."  Everyone acted like they knew what was going on and ambiguity, punctuated with someone saying "cool" is all you remember. Does this sound familiar?

Is it just me or is this happening to everyone else?  Do people really go through days and days of conversations full of jargon and thin on connecting vision with web pages, blogs and email marketing messages?  If you are the business owner or executive, or the customer, and you are nodding your head up and down, then you will be glad to discover Deborah Schultz.

If you have her blog--Deborah Schultz. Technology- it's people --in your RSS feeder already, then you know how refreshing and validating it feels to experience her words of truth and common sense commentary.  If you don't know her that well yet, today is your day to start. 

If any of the following gems from her posting The big guys join the party? connects with you beliefs and attitude toward customers, then you will really enjoy the whole posting:

• The big advertisers and marketers are waking up to the fact that the consumer is indeed in control. This probably has a lot to do with visions of dollar signs dancing in their heads.   
• Page views and banner ads alone will not cut it in the new marketing universe and there really are no shortcuts.  New metrics and a new cultural shift is needed.
• Engagement is more than asking your customers to create content for you.
• Markets are conversations.
• The timing is right to get the geeks and the marketers together for an old fashioned "throwdown" on getting past jargon and discussing how to get this done to the benefit of BOTH sides.

My personal favorite is "engagement is more than asking your customers to create content for you" because that is where the conversations in those thousands of hours of crazy meetings go into a zone of grandiose myths and misperceptions.

What I have found to be true in the past 500 or so meetings as the communications consultant or executive retreat facilitator is this:

• Web folks get deep in their coolness and then turn to the client and state, "you just need to provide the content." 
• Business owners and executives, wondering where "content" comes from say, "If we build it they will come and the search engines will suck them right into our website, where customers and prospects will then spend time and create content."
• Customers want to be served by people they know, like and trust.  They are not going to create your content or do your work for you.   

As much as we would all love for someone else to pay our bills for us, that's a myth too.  The huge industry called The Lottery is based on this one belief--someone else will come along to pay your debt or fund your dreams.

Comments

[deb schultz]

wow. wow. georgia, thanks for such a ringing endorsement - i am blushing through the keyboard. It is way too easy for everyone to get caught up in tools and hype - delivering on the product promise to the customer is still THE most important thing a company can do.

[Donna Konley]

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