Why You Must Create with the Customers and Not for Them

As more brands continue to spring up in Africa, the competition for customer attention and loyally is getting fiercer. In the face of the scramble to get ahead with marketing and sales, the puzzle remains how to best engage with customers.

Today’s customers aren’t mere users anymore, they’re actively creating content, developing ideas and encouraging similar challenges like you are. As a recent HBR publication spotlights, it is vital to be adaptive when engaging with customers. Take social media, for example, you want to understand what your consumers truly need and weave your offering and content around that. 

Hubspot gives an example with the globally famous guitar brand Fender, which studied its target audience and realised that customers were abandoning their guitar after a year of purchase. Apparently, customers weren’t attaining the goals that led them to buy the guitar in the first place. In a move to help customers find their footing, the musical instruments company launched Fender Play, a subscription-based service that teaches users how to play the guitar on a daily basis. Reports show that the app has gained more than 30 thousand downloads worldwide with over $300 thousand in revenue.

Right here in Africa, we’re seeing more consumer-focused research highlighting specific pain points of customers right before the roll of products or to capture certain untapped markets. It’s interesting to see that businesses on the continent are starting to realise that the customers’ stories are the greatest inspiration for building a great brand.

Recall, how Donald Miller in his book Building a Story Brand highlights that your brand isn’t mainly about you or how you started, but more about how it can improve people’s lives. 

Your whole marketing campaign from emails to adverts and social media updates, whichever way you choose to engage with customers will be more effective if you tell your customers stories. Rather than say “We use the freshest ingredients” you should go with “We understand you need the freshest ingredients”.

READ ALSO: Why You Can’t Gain Grounds on Instagram