3 Keys for Reaching an Entitled Generation

Marketers face a paradox.

"Consumers expect your brand to know everything about them – who they are, what they want, and why – and to deliver that at the exact moment they need it. But ad saturation and inbox clutter make them resent everything marketers do. In this environment, traditional approaches just won’t cut it. Marketing to these entitled consumers demands a new strategy: consumer-first marketing."

How do you meet rising consumer expectations while fulfilling prospects’ hopes for increasingly personalized service? Here are three areas to emphasize:

Reciprocal Value

To gain a sustainable edge, you must continually seek new ways to deliver value to customers.

Marketing research shows that today’s customers are on the lookout for value. This includes competitive prices (desired by 68 percent of survey respondents), features like free shipping and returns (prioritized by 50 percent), and the ability to return the product or cancel the service without penalty (preferred by 43 percent).

Each company can add value in unique ways. Consider possibilities like enhancing your product or service, reducing consumer effort, improving customer experience, solving a consumer’s broader problem, aligning your company with your consumers’ values, or encouraging random acts of kindness.

Relevance

If you don’t want your message to get tuned out by prospects, relevance is vital.

Entitled consumers expect marketers to contact them only with information that’s just what they are looking for (at the moment they are seeking it). Statistics show that a customized message about products the customer is interested in RIGHT NOW can be twice as effective as a generic message to the same customer.

Whether it’s an in-app tip that pops up while a customer is browsing, or a personalized, perfectly timed direct-mail coupon, relevant messages drive brand loyalty.

Respectful Empathy

Respect and empathy are the keys to retaining brand potency, but this will only happen when care for the customer is a core tenet of your business.

Does your company have empathy? If you’re not sure, ask yourself this question: “If I were the customer, would I find the experience delivered by my company’s marketing to be valuable and useful?”

Keys to respectful empathy include an unfaltering commitment to customer data security and privacy, treating your prospects as targets rather than people, and refusing to flood your clients with irrelevant messages. Be considerate in three specific ways:

Transparency – Be clear about the information you collect and why it benefits the customer.
Restraint – Don’t send every message; send only those most likely to benefit the consumer.
Control – Allow customers to manage the cadence and channel of messages they receive.

Your Secret Weapon

Consumer-first marketing is a unique way to grab a competitive advantage.

The race to the one-to-one future is on! Entitled customers are driving, but the future is bright for brands who rise to these challenges. Your entitled consumers are ready for a new approach . . . are you?

Marketing to the Entitled Consumer: How to Turn Unreasonable Expectations into Lasting Relationships

by Nick Worth, Dave Frankland, Josh Bernoff

TODAY'S CONSUMERS WANT EVERYTHING. YOU SHOULD GIVE IT TO THEM.

Marketers face a paradox. Consumers expect your brand to know everything about them-who they are, what they want, and why-and to deliver it at the exact moment they need it. But ad saturation and inbox clutter make them resent everything marketers do. In this environment, traditional approaches just won't cut it. Marketing to these entitled consumers demands a new strategy: consumer-first marketing. And this book, featuring a foreword by NFL Hall of Famer Steve Young, is the first to lay out how to do it.

Based on focus groups and surveys with 7,000 consumers, combined with the authors' experience with hundreds of brands, Marketing to the Entitled Consumer shows you everything you need to apply consumer-first marketing in your organization. You'll learn which data to collect-from purchase histories to pollen counts-and how to deploy it consistently across online, mobile, and real-world channels. You'll see how to build consumer connections that cut through the clutter with the three Rs: reciprocal value, relevance, and respectful empathy. You'll even get a roadmap on how to win over your fellow marketers and the rest of your company.

Read the book that the legendary marketing thinker Don Peppers called "a warning shot across the bow of traditional marketing." Then get to work. Your entitled consumers are ready for a new approach...are you?