Question

Topic: Strategy

Ignore The Customer?

Posted by Anonymous on 10/27/2004 at 5:04 PM ET 25 Points
There is a little debate going on in marketing circles about being customer focused vs being competitor focused.

On one side of the aurgument is that marketing should be conducted from the customer's point of view and should be focused on his needs and wants.There aurgument is that by focusing on market research,the company finds out exactly what the customer wants or needs and gives it to them.This group believes in beating competion by serving the customer 'better' than the competition

The other side believes that marketing should be done excusively from a competitor's point of view.They're view is to ignore the customer and focus directly on the competition.As marketing guru jack trout has stated the true nature of marketing is the conflict between corporations for the customers wallet.NOT the serving of needs and wants.Trout aurgues that knowing what the customer wants or needs isnt too helpful if other companies are serving the same needs and wants.He says that most markets are strongly or weakly held by a range of competitors and that the goal of marketing is to hold on to your customers while trying to take market share from your competitors.




I personally agree with the notion that marketing should be competitor based instead of customer focused.Yes of course you should be aware of what the customer needs and wants is not the main issue in marketing.Getting people to spend money on your brand of soap instead of the competion is the issue in marketing.Not knowing that people need or want soap.

So what is your opinion?Should marketers ignore customers and make their marketing competitor focused and treat the customer 'good enough' or should the marketer be more 'customer centric' and finds ways of making the customer more happy.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by koen.h.pauwels on 10/27/2004 at 5:23 PM Accepted
    Hi,

    I must say I disagree with you: I feel marketeers should be customer-focused; the only reason to consider competition is because (1) customers compare your offer with that of competitors (positioning) and (2) competitors may give you deeper insight in customers (e.g. through their communication and their segmentation and pricing schemes). In that sense, marketing is like playing a sports game in which the winner is not the one scoring the most points (a competitor focus), but the one playing the best game (as voted by the customers). The pitfall of a competitor focus is that you focus all your resources on 'beating the competition' and get into a price war or get leap-frogged by new entrants from outside your industry (as you have not idenfied emerging substitutes for the same customer need)

    The pitfall of 'customer-focus' is that it may lead to a focus on the vocalized opinions (eg. in survey research) of the current customers. Marketeers should be sensitive to deeper underlying motivations (eg why do people use bar soap and what is inconvenient about it, which leads to the development and succesful marketing of liquid dispensed soap) and also consider potential customers, which includes competitor's customers and people currently not using the product.

    Great question! Looking forward to your feedback.
  • Posted by Inbox_Interactive on 10/27/2004 at 5:34 PM Accepted
    I don't get it.

    I can't see how you can run a business without being wholly aware of your customers' needs AND your competition.

    If I am focusing only on the competition, how do I know that I am meeting my customers' needs? I could be driving right off the same cliff with my competition.

    If I am focusing only on the customers, how do I know that my competition is not doing it better, faster, or cheaper?

    Maybe the question is over my head. After all, I'm still trying to determine if the light really does go off in the refrigerator when I close the door. Rumor is that it does, but short of installing a glass door, how do we *really* know?

    Paul
  • Posted by SteveByrneMarketing on 10/27/2004 at 6:16 PM Accepted
    mac504,

    I agree with the responses that stated there must be a balance of both. Why try to separate the two when they so naturally go together? It seems your question is a reaction to an OVER emphasis on the customer driven manta that can seem corporate robotic and therefore limiting.

    I thought about Koen’s example of innovation, bar soap to soft soap. I don’t know the soap industry story, but it seems product innovation would be based on knowing the customer and knowing the competition.

    Nice question.

    - Steve
  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 10/27/2004 at 6:50 PM Accepted
    Of course, in both cases, you need to monitor both customers and competitors, but...

    If you are the industry leader, you need to be more customer focused. To grow your business, you need to expand into new niches, etc. so that you make the whole indsutry larger.

    If you are the small company trying to break in, you should be more competitor focused. The best route for you to get sales is to steal from the big guys.

    Great, thought provoking question!
  • Posted by telemoxie on 10/27/2004 at 7:24 PM Accepted
    I think salespeople need to focus on:
    - prospects
    - customers

    and that marketing should focus on:
    - competitors
    - prospects
    - customers

    I believe one successful long term strategy is to focus on giving prospects and customers what they need, rather than what they say they want.
  • Posted by Deremiah *CPE on 10/27/2004 at 11:16 PM Accepted
    Mac504,

    Guten Abend. Here's my 2 Deutsch Marks worth.


    CUSTOMER PASSION EVANGELIST CORNER THE MARKET
    (I don't care what they say)

    As a Customer Passion Evangelist, I know from personal experience and hundreds of thousands of man hours aimed at serving the client that serving the customer is the only wise choice when given the option.


    THERE IS NO COMPETITION WHEN YOU'RE SERVING CUSTOMERS
    Nothing turns customers back to you quicker or wins the competitons customers faster than you providing them with geniune uncompromising Service.


    THE GREATEST IN THE KINGDOM IS THE SERVANT OF ALL
    I like to operate in the mindset that there is no competition when you are truly pleasing your customer. The greatest in the Kingdom is the servant of all. I've literally left competitors in the dust...Had clients come back to me two years later after they went to the competition because they thought cheaper was better all because I focus on out serving.

    THE "CUSTOMER SERVANT MENTALITY" IS THE NEW PARADIGM
    When you catch on to this one focusing on the competition will become a thing of the past.

    WHY PEOPLE FOCUS ON THE COMPETITION
    The reason why people focus on the competition is because they don't really...truly...honestly know their customers intimately. They look at the competition because the successful competitor knows their client better than their own unsuccessful company.

    CLAUDE HOPKINS KNEW WHAT WANNA BE MARKETING PEOPLE WISH THEY KNEW.

    CLAUDE HOPKINS SPEAKS LOUDLY FROM THE GRAVE
    My main mentor Claude Hopkins speaks louder from his grave than he ever has BECAUSE today most people, corporations, non-profit organizations ***FAIL*** to identify who their customers are and why there customers buy from them when they do decide to buy. They fail to ask the obvious "Reasons Why" marketing questions and in particular they fail to ask this most uncommon question...Why do you buy from me?

    PLEASE THE CUSTOMER & THE COMPETION WILL DISAPPEAR
    This is only a small tid bit of why I favor pleasing the customer and choosing the Customer Servant paradigm over
    the Competition centered approach to Marketing. This paradigm works for me and has made me plenty of money, plenty of influential friends and plenty of opportunities.

    Is there anything else I can do for you?

    Your Servant, Deremiah, *CPE (Customer Passion Evangelist)
  • Posted by tjh on 10/28/2004 at 3:11 PM Accepted
    "But the point is that success in marketing is having an competitive advantage over the people who compete with you."

    I view competition as everything that can or does distract my prospect/customer's attention and business, which can very often be something other than a direct industry competitor.

    These things produce the noise and share of voice issues in marketing. (IMHO)

    Anything I can do to penetrate to prospective minds, through whatever clouds of noise exist at the time, is what I'm after. Open the channel, put something on it. Establish a carrier wave, deliver a relevant message, measure the results, restart.

    It sometimes seems reductionist, and often over academic to me to even have an argument with someone about such issues. (I don't mean you, but those that hobby horse a marketing component or factor as a "be all")

    I have to know how happy I'm making my customers. I have to know their universe, as much as I can anyway - which is likely to consist of direct competitors, as well as the customer's other environmental kludge.

    Everything's a variable. Balancing the equation includes all the vectors, as we can, given our resources, purposes, and the nature of our universe, as well as our customer's and our industries'.

    What a good question.
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