Marketing 4.0: Moving from Traditional to Digital by Kotler Philip & Kartajaya Hermawan & Setiawan Iwan

Author:Kotler, Philip & Kartajaya, Hermawan & Setiawan, Iwan [Kotler, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781119341208
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2016-11-17T05:00:00+00:00

3: Increase Commitment

Attracting and convincing customers are important steps toward creating loyal brand advocates. Still, the job is far from done. Marketers need to make sure that customers end up buying and using their brands. Imagine a customer who heard about a brand on TV and went online to research that brand further. The customer was finally convinced that the brand was the right choice upon reading what the brand stands for. The customer now seeks to buy the brand online but finds out that it is available only in a store in a remote location. The customer may decide that it is not worth the time to go there and buy the brand. In this scenario, the customer path stops abruptly because the brand fails to ensure availability. The customer may also decide to go to the location to buy the brand. When the store experience—physical evidence, sales process, and salespeople—fails to meet the customer's expectations, the customer path stops as well. Thus, the ability to lock in customer commitment depends on channel availability and the ability to deliver superior experience.

Increasing customer commitment involves omnichannel marketing, which provides an integrated online/offline experience for customers regardless of touchpoints. It may include the customer's experience in a physical store, a website, a mobile application, a call center, or another channel. The key is not just to surround customers with many touchpoint options, but to provide a seamless experience as customers jump from one channel to another. It is important to note that customers are, in fact, channel-agnostic. They do not think in terms of channels, but they expect a consistent and seamless experience along their path to purchase.

Since different touchpoints are managed by different people with different budgets and goals within an organization, the biggest obstacle to delivering a seamless experience consists of the organizational silos, which usually lead to channel conflict. Marketers need to break down these silos and put themselves in the customers' shoes. They need to map the customer path using the most complete scenario and to define the role of each channel so as to drive customers into making the commitment to purchase. In this case, channels should be transformed from market specialists (serving specific market segments) and product specialists (selling specific product categories) into activity specialists (playing specific roles across the customer path). Despite being specialists in specific activities, each channel often is allowed to close a sale.

Macy's is a great example of this. A few years ago, Macy's discovered the relationship between its online and brick-and-mortar business. A dollar spent on search engine optimization drove six dollars of in-store purchase. Since then, Macy's has been integrating its offline and online operations. Customers may search a product on their mobile phone and check its availability in nearby stores. Customers are given the choice of buying the product directly through Macy's e-commerce site or buying it at a nearby store.

Macy's has become channel-agnostic and is indifferent as to whether customers purchase products online or offline. Customers have a higher commitment when they are enabled to make purchases in the moment they want to do so.

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