8 Startup Strategies

Michael Silverstein (Boston Consulting Group Partner) says there are eight rules for converting customers into loyal customers who advocate your brand and urge others to enjoy your products. Successful companies capture the power of digital word-of-mouth advocacy through these 8 Rules.

1. Virtual relationships: The world works on 24/7. The consumers with the most disposable income have the least amount of time. But they have high-speed Internet lines at home and at work. And they want to buy what they want to buy when they want it.

2. People do Judge A Book By Its Cover: Consumers use their eyes in every purchase and they carry the image in their subconscious. Visual brilliance costs a lot, but its value is priceless. Your digital marketing must also be brilliant.

3. Show your customers what they want: Success requires curiosity and courage, instinct, and a taste for the jugular. It requires you to look beyond simple answers and impulsive consumer rejection (the customer does not always know what they want…we must show them). Digital marketing allows you to show them.

4. Focus on biggest fans: Research supports the “rule of 2-20-80-150.” The 2 percent of customers (apostles) are personally responsible for 20 percent of sales. However, when they advocate to friends and acquaintances they are responsible for 80 percent of sales (and up to 150 percent of a company’s profits). Companies often waste time generate losses chasing the remaining 20 percent of sales. In your digital marketing micro-focus on the 20%.

5. Welcome customer’s scorn: A complaint is a gift (according to Toyota). ‘Complain once, let me fix it. Complain twice, shame on me. Complain three times, and I should be replaced’. When the complaints are really bad, listen and get ready to change. Also, find out not only what your customers really, really want, but also when and why they really want it. Digital engagement allows you to find out these things ASAP.

6. Employees as passionate disciples: Container Store calls this “man in the desert” selling… listening, helping, engaging, suggesting. Passion equals knowledge. Knowledge equals solutions. Solutions translate into sales. It’s so simple but so infrequently exercised. Engage your employees in the digital marketing journey.

7. Take giant leaps: Continuous improvement, incremental advances, and consolidation never changed the world. To change the world, you must show foresight, fearlessness, and fortitude. Big wins require big dreams. Think big in your digital marketing.

8. Schismogenesis: The laws of schismogenesis, means that relationships are not stable. Brands are always moving—up, up, up or down, down, down. Therefore, companies must learn how to use quantitative metrics, track customers like the third leg of the P&L—revenues and profits, share of the properly defined universe, and advocacy. ‘If you are not improving, you are in decline’. Digital marketing analytics must be fine tuned and honed to get effective results.

Successful digital marketing is based on converting customers into loyal customers, who in turn advocate your brand, and urge others to enjoy your products or services.

Dr. Gerard L. Danford (MBA The London Business School, PhD Helsinki School of Economics)
Eight Startup Strategies