The Four C’s of Smart Marketing
Last Saturday, I went to my Haas School All-Alumni Reunion Conference. This one was particularly significant as this would be 20 years since graduation from the MBA program. About a dozen of my classmates were in attendance, many I had not seen in 10+ years. I got some very surprised looks by many of the newer alumni when I told them it was 20 years ago that I did my graduate work at U.C. Berkeley. Nice to know I can still pass for my young-thirties! But I digress. We had some great speakers that day — from the faculty, alumni and our keynote speaker Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter. The lecture that resonated with me the most was from Professor Rashi Glazer.
A marketing guru (my words), Prof. Glazer was able in one short hour to enlighten the audience with simple insight and clarity on the future of marketing. Gone are the 4 P’s of marketing, In are the 4 C’s. And they are: Communication, Customization, Collaboration, Clairvoyance. Easy right? Well maybe the first three. A little more about the 4 C’s in a moment. The bigger questions is why this dramatic shift from one of the fundamentals of marketing that has been the core to most strategic marketing plans?
The answer is quite simple. The world we live in has changed. You’ve read, seen, heard and experienced it. Technology has fundamentally changed the way the people interact and buy products. Daniel Pink wrote about this in his book A Whole New Mind. And our everyday experience connecting on Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and other social networking avenues—the “crowdsphere”—confirms that. The conversation has changed, and so how you must market.
Prof. Glazer put it very simply, we have now, “evolved from Dumb Markets to Smart Markets.” Using the clinical definition of “dumb” – the inability to speak, his point was on target. In the past, the consumer was perceived to be dumb. Not that they did not speak, but rather their voice was not heard or many times ignored. Since the late 1990’s consumers have become smarter and empowered. Today they have the tools to make sure that their voice is heard. And those companies that have realized this shift from dumb to smart markets have been able to sustain themselves and even thrive during this recent downturn. IBM, Apple are just two that continue to grow market share, revenues and profits. On the other hand, those companies that have not evolved, are facing extinction. You can read their names in the paper or online everyday.
So back to the 4 C’s. The first is Communication. You have to communicate at every touch point. Not about facts, not about benefits, you have to communicate who you are on a personal, intimate level. Give your customers a reason why you matter. And conversely you need to understand your customer on the same level as well. You’re not trying to be their BFF. You just need to show that you truely care about them and are their to make their lives better.
The second is Customization. How can you make them feel your product was created just for her? It may not be your product at all that does this. You may require outside partners to achieve Customization. Take the Apple iPod for example. You can have the lastest Nano in 9 colors from Apple. Or if that doesn’t satisfy you, there are others who offer skins, cases, custom paint job, etc. to make it personal. I did it to my MacBook. The lid now sports a real teak veneer skin from iamhuman.
The third is Collaboration. Or if you prefer, co-creation. To do this, you need to be good at the first C—Communication. Invite your customers to be part of the creation process. Who knows what new opportunities they may introduce you to. Honda began over 60 years ago building motorcycles. Now they build airplanes and robots.
And finally the fourth is Clairvoyance. The best have it. The ability to see into the future, to anticipate what their customer (existing and new) will desire. The more you do the first three—Communication, Customization and Collaboration, the easier Clairvoyance becomes. Really.
I’ve just scratched the surface on Smart Marketing. There’s much, much more, stay tuned.