What do you think generates more trust… if a brand writes in an article that his products are the best or if a brand connects a customer to an article from a professional journal which tested the products of this brand as great?
First of all we think about our customer if we think about trust. Is pushing everything in the direction of buy the right way or does it help to create moments and micro-moments?
Let’s have a look what logic, authenticity and empathy means within marketing and how they can help to generate trust.
Logic
Logic describes a stringent conclusion of something we think about. We hear a message or a story and believe it because it makes sense… it is clear, it is logic. This is what we need to integrate into our marketing messages and stories.
One goal of a brand is to generate a great experience. Here we are, we should talk about the experience logic. If we combine these two elements we have done the first step in direction of authenticity.
Content marketing has a long history and is (in his second wave) gone through the hype cycle. Now content marketing is in the phase of productivity. However there is still much to do. Content is the base for story telling. Some of the best communicators in the world are story tellers. Story telling needs time and requires that someone keeps on track (till the end of the story), so the logic needs to be within the story and needs to be visible quickly to keep attraction.
If the quality of logic is not at it’s best we have a huge problem we need to work on. In this case we may focus just on one strong point and back it with strong and stringent arguments to prove it.
Authenticity
Marketing creates desire, but if it comes to hard facts everybody is questioning it. Why? Because the goal of marketing is to sell something, even if it’s just the brand. Marketing puts everything in the right light for the target group and is looking for the ROI. Hardly spoken this is not without any hidden agenda, which is not honestly.
Brand marketing has much more room for authenticity than other marketing disciplines…. but has also a goal behind which let us doubt on the authenticity.
Being more present where our customers are and just show who we are instead of what we offer for our target group should be the direction. Ask yourself and others these simple questions:
How is our brand acting?
What are the words our customer would describe our brand and which words we do not want that they have in mind?
Customer problem solving is key, but how much does our brand helps here?
Do we seek the conversation and do we show respect?
Shortly spoke: Just be true!
Empathy
We have created logic and empathy. GREAT! But if someone loves our brand and products is more an empathic topic and not rational. Often it doesn’t matter if logic and authenticity is ok… sometimes or often someone will go for the brand / product which is not the best but which gives the best gut instinct. It is important that we trigger it. To do so, these are the main topics we should keep an eye on…. simple but difficult to implement.
Show emotions, the fire that burns in your topics
Show what you think and feel
Listen, repeat and ask the right questions
Show that you feel what someone moves
Trigger thoughts and reminder
This was the second part of a series of four. Have you seen the other once?
I spent most of my career in the digital realm. The key theme in my career is understanding the customer. From my early roles in leadership functions at various digital agencies to my roles at Coremetrics/IBM and Kenshoo in the solution consulting and sales area, I’ve always approached the topic of selling with a customer centric approach. I don’t just want to sell to them, I want to understand them deeply and help them with vision, strategy and execution towards solving their pain points. I aim to challenge and at the same time be a trusted advisor to the customer, aligning the discovery process with the strategic aims that he pursues in order to be able to fully articulate his desired future state vs. the current state.
After spending many many years employed in the industry, I wanted to take my passion for CX even further and decided to double down on myself and the topic of customer experience by opening my own consulting practice. I’ve been successfully running this business for many years now and have grown a small but very loyal following on my blog and other channels as well. The reason why I’m considering moving back to into employment is twofold. I am very self sufficient, but I am also team player and I want to come back into a team environment.
As you see here, I don‘t fit in a single drawer. Generally there will be no 1:1 match between a CV and a job description, but a very good fit between your business and my person. Trust me, let’s talk !! >> Contact me here <<
Overlay
3 – Vision
Vision is one of the most important things for me, even if it takes not much time and requires time only once. The vision is to reach the top (of a mountain)! It’s about what we want to achieve. This must be the same for all departments. This means all departments needs to work in the same direction.
2 – Strategy
The strategy is the timing, the route and stops we are planning. It’s about the way we reach the vision. This overall strategy needs to be adopted to the department AND to the current situation. Therefor I don’t see a strategy that fixed as a vision.
1 – Implementation
Success is just prepared by vision and strategy, but the success is coming from implementation and the daily doing. I’m happy to dive in as deep as needed and focus 80% of my time in implementation and daily operations.
Direction
3 – Marketing
I’m a marketing native by heart !! This is my DNA and what’s driving me. Here if have brought experiences in doing it day by day.
2 – Product
With a deep passion for my topics and an holistic market understanding I always have ideas how to make things different and how systems need to support this. I worked within product management but also as a pre-sales / technical sales with a strong connection to product management to bring client needs into the product.
1 – Sales
Love to be out in the market and exchange with others. Adopting to clients needs and show them how to win with the right solution is challenging me.
I’m not following a typical sales methodology. I’m selling through my deep knowledge and passion for the topics around Change, Marketing and CX. I never would be as good in selling other areas like finance for example.
There are minimum 6 drawers you can place me in. Drawer #7 would be that I’m not interested what is state of the art today. I’m interested about the day after tomorrow and how to prepare this today.
But always… the core for me (and each drawer) is around the topics Marketing, CX, Change. Here I have brought experiences. It doesn’t matter if I build the best marketing suite as a product manager, sell the marketing solution to clients or use the solution by myself. The core topic is what is important for me and this is my success factor.
Even if I’m within a brand and lead the marketing. Maybe the marketing strategy is going into the direction 12:05 than the sales can be at 11:55 but never at 6:30. If this would be the case my success within marketing will be blocked in some way. This is why I think out of the box and my area to sync with colleagues.
