February 2006

Relevance Is the Key to Relationships

In the age of infinite media choices, it's not enough just to reach out and touch someone. Savvy marketers use relevant relationships to court their customers and spark the flames of brand passion.

By Karla Spormann

There's a telling scene in Minority Report, in which Tom Cruise's character, John Anderton, walks through a mall filled with interactive advertisements that call his name, pitching him products and services based on his "profile." The problem is, they're profiling him based on retinal scans, and John Anderton has someone else's eyes.

This scene seems especially appropriate today, as marketers are finally developing strategies for direct, ongoing customer engagement in an effort to build deeper customer relationships. Now their challenge is how to deliver a relevant experience. Why is relevance essential? Consider the environment that the average consumer or business decision maker faces today:

• The landscape of communication channels has never been more prolific or fractured.
• Consumers and business decision makers have never been more inundated with information.

Though newspaper and magazine circulation rates have declined over the past few years, the dramatic increase of Web content, email, blogs, podcasts, and social networks has attracted audiences with narrow, highly individualized interests and strong preferences for how they wish to consume entertainment and information. Yet the common denominator, regardless of media choice or special interest, is relevance: People choose to invest their time in the content and methods of receiving it that match their lifestyle and align with their personal and professional interests.

The relevance factor poses both a key challenge and a major opportunity for marketers. Driven by the fragmentation of traditional media choices and the self-selecting power of the Web and other new media, marketers are constantly challenged to capture mindshare from their increasingly elusive customers and prospects. Whatever the specific catalyst, the notion of cultivating a direct connection with the customer has finally come home to roost with marketers of all stripes. So how can marketers capitalize on relevance?

The basic rules for maintaining relevance are simple—yet marketers seem to struggle with executing them successfully. Let's review a few of them:

• Know your customer. Many marketers make assumptions without doing their homework. Take the time to learn the psychographic and demographic profiles of your target audience. Understand their media preferences, track their points of interaction with your company, and learn how they use your website and other communications. Find out how and when they spend their money and what drives their purchase behavior.
• Be consistent. Consistency pays off. Consistent messaging, frequency, voice, and tone help you build credibility, brand recognition, loyalty, and ultimately, long-lasting relationships. Just ask Apple.
• Deliver unique value. How much spam did you get in your inbox this morning? It's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, but deliver something your customer finds useful or unique—perspective, vision, information, opinion-and make it consistent with your brand position, and they'll spin your wheat into gold.
• Build communities. In 2002, The Tipping Point highlighted the power "connectors" that can influence behavioral changes. Four years later, marketers are waking up to the fact that creating communities-connecting like-minded individuals-can help them push their agendas.
• Match your message to your media. Relevance is all about reaching the right person with the right message at the right time. Savvy marketers know that choosing the right method to deliver their message is the key to success.

Following these simple principles will help you achieve relevance in your communications, and that's the best way forge a lasting and profitable relationship with your customer.

About the author:

Karla Spormann is the president and founding partner of Tendo Communications.