Listen! Your company needs the groundswell!
Listening is a skill not many people do well. In the groundswell everyone is constantly talking about themselves, each other and other companies. Well what if these people are talking about your company, will you listen then? You should, because if you don’t listen then someone else will listen to your customers, and possibly take those ideas they have for your product and form their own better product.
The groundswell is a trend that has given the voiceless a voice, letting people share their opinion about everything. Listening to these people is as easy as following them on their blogs, websites, or Twitter. As easy as it sounds, many companies aren’t listening the right way.
The groundswell has many members but singling out your target audience is key to getting the results you’re looking for. The first thing a company must do is figure out what role your target audience plays in the groundswell. By figuring out if your customers are creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators or inactive in the groundswell you can make your first decision.
After figuring out the role your customers play and assuming they take part in the groundswell in some form you must figure out what your company image is. Every company aspires to create an image they want their customers to view them as. However, as Ricardo Guimarães founder of Thymus Branding says “brands belong to customers, not companies.” So by listening to the groundswell you can figure out what brand your customers have created for your company.
Figuring out how your customers view your company will allow you to begin taking steps to creating some sort of way to listen to their views about your business. If you don’t like to listen, then PR isn’t going to work out for you, because the rest of your business marketing strategy should be affected by what you hear from your market.
The best way to tap into the groundswell I feel is by setting up your own private community. By creating your own community similar to communities people are already a part of they can make connections to people with similar interest, they’ll begin talking about your product, service and themselves, and let you begin to see behind the reasons they are your customers. In the book Groundswell the authors talk about Communispace, a supplier of private online communities, created a community for New York’s Memorial Sloan Kittering Cancer Center. The community allowed marketing specialist to figure out why people came to the hospital and eventually where their marketing funds should be spent to better promote the cancer center. The community helped them realize and correct current problems within their work environment and better focus on patient needs.
Brand monitoring is another way to monitor your brand that shouldn’t be ignored. It can offer a different perspective and should definitely be done especially if you don’t have a current online community. Private companies will monitor the positive and negative comments about your company on the Internet. They will then deliver precise summary reports that should spread throughout different departments so the company can better focus its attention. This can help you pay attention to trends, get new ideas, prevent crisis and find influential sources that will overall help your company’s marketing strategy.
Listening to your consumers is a large task, but if handled appropriately can make your company stand out above the rest. You will better predict trends, save money on marketing and research and keep up with your company brand as your customers see it. Customers will speak openly and freely about your product helping guide your company to your customers wants and needs. So why listen to management guess at what the customer wants, when the groundswell lets you see exactly what they’re saying. Listen! It’s the easiest way to a successful company.