Marketers seeking customer relationship, loyalty and experiences

Just looking at the two plain terms Experiential and Marketing, we can dissect each and then combine them to see how to apply them in our real life scenario.

Experiential is all about the WoW factor (some may disagree) on the part of the customer. Marketing is the way the process of moving goods from company to consumer (not to be confused with the logistics). So we are talking of emotions and logic. But emotions make the the corporate world uncomfortable.

Marketing prides itself on numbers and finiteness and tangibility. The efficiency-oriented operations are full of logic and predictability, so one tend to treat the customer accordingly. The perception is that since emotions cannot be managed very well and are difficult to fit into pie charts or reports, they must be ignored. Thus emotions are treated as the type of irrational behavior from which we must shy away.

A purely logical customer will shop for the lowest price every time and will demonstrate no loyalty at all. The cost of doing business with customers will be high, because each time marketer will have to “acquire” them again through expensive incentives.

Relationships, Loyalty, and Experiences, are emotionally loaded terms.

Relationship means making an emotional selection and sticking with it. The stronger the relationship, the longer it lasts and the deeper the commitment. This is exactly what one wants the customers to do with the products and services. Develop a deeper, longer commitment to brands, even if they are not the cheapest on the market.

The problem with emotions, however, is that many of them occur in a nurturing environment. They demand mutual commitment in order to deliver commitment. In the long, uncomfortable affair companies have with emotions, they have tended to exploit the customer’s emotions but not to communicate their own. Understand that relationships and loyalty require reciprocity, and you, the company, need to initiate the relationship.

So unleash the power of emotions to create differentiation in your products or services.
Allow people to add their emotional touch to the overall customer experience, and by doing so, create preference and positive experiences in the customers’ hearts.
Build a mechanism that demonstrates to customers your sincerity and authenticity, so they will be willing to forgo the next price cut from the competition and prefer your products— despite the higher price.

Emotional customers are customers who care; customers who share their views with the world; customers who pay you a premium and stay for the long run. They are usually profitable customers.