Trust: The Key to Customer Satisfaction

People often ask me, "why isn't my marketing campaign working? I've spent lots of money creating advertisement material and hiring people to get the word out there, but my returns are not great." My first response to them is: "are you conducting an advertisement campaign or marketing campaign? Because it sounds more like advertising you're trying to do." What's the difference?

Seasoned marketing managers would tell you that that advertisement is an element of a successful marketing campaign, amongst other elements such as marketing feedback, research and development, consumer outreach. Traditionally, most companies (especially small businesses) would focus most of the marketing budget on advertisement via flyers, direct mailing, cold calling, door to door sales, etc. The communication only goes one-way, where content is pushed to the consumers without any means for consumer to provide feedback. It's almost like saying "I know what's best for you, just buy it." This bypasses a critical element of marketing which is consumer engagement.

People give credit to the uprising of "Web 2.0" and social networking websites/apps for bringing focus to consumer/user engagement where feedback adds valuable content to the web experience for other consumers/users (think yelp, youtube, tirerack, FB). I would argue that  the emergence of these websites and apps only helps make accessing (communicating) users or potential consumers easier.

I believe firmly that the purpose of any marketing campaign (no matter how large or small, product or services) is to gain trust from your targeted consumers. Through trust comes customer loyalty, engagement, and in the end satisfaction. The basic way of gaining trust, although it may not be intuitive for most people, is to start by listening. 

Ever get in an heating discussion with a sibling or family member where you know you're right and only care about getting what you want to say 'out?' Does this help you gain trust from the other party? It sounds very much like what I stated about traditional marketing campaign above where: "The communication only goes one-way, where content is pushed to the consumers without any means for consumer to provide feedback." 

HereTryThis: The next time you're planning for a successful marketing campaign, start by asking the question "how do I gain trust from my targeted customer?" Whether you choose to marketing yourself on the internet or not, the internet and its available tools enables you to reach out to and interact with thousands of people in a short amount of time. Good luck.