Marketing Technology Letter
It’s marketing’s turn to
start a quest for QUALITY
instead of worsening the
information avalanche that
buries us. This quest has to
be focused on the customer
to improve all forms of com-
munication with him or her.
Marketing has to increase
the quality & pertinence –
not the quantity & fre-
quency – of customer in-
formation and interaction
Companies that improve
customer satisfaction
end up increasing their
profits as well.
CONTACT US : IC3 Limited
March 2002 – NO.
Marketing Turn
Marketing is on course for a complete shambles. At the top, many companies pay
only lip service to customer focus and fail to integrate marketing in their corporate
strategy. Without a clear direction, they engage in sterile price wars or commit
worse marketing blunders. In the ranks, marketers have fallen in love with the
Internet and use related technologies to swamp customers with an increasing quan-
tity and frequency of irrelevant information and irritating communication.
We can’t keep doing more of the same, increasing the quantity of ads, press re-
leases, mail shots, electronic messages and so on because this is raising the noise
level in which the whole communication is drowning. After manufacturing, admini-
stration and other business components, it’s marketing’s turn to start a quest for
quality.
Technology has helped manufacturing to evolve from the mass production inflexibil-
ity of the Ford Model T to the mass customisation of Dell computers. Parallel efforts
have significantly increased the quality of most products. The focus on quality has
improved several business functions, including general administration. The Enron
fiasco will probably force improvements in the standards for auditing and for the
‘creative’ aspects of accounting.
So far, marketing has missed the turn towards quality. When mass production
methods generated an increasing number and variety of products, marketing came
to the rescue with the creation of brands that allowed reputable firms to stand out.
Then marketing seems to have jumped directly into customisation, one-to-one rela-
tionship and all that jazz without consideration for the quality of the music.
Although we are moving from areas where objective measurements leave room for
subjective evaluations, we have to enhance the quality of the information we publish
on atom-based and bit-based media. In a domain where the customer is now the
king, we have to improve the communication with him or her. And, through better
interaction, we have to cultivate relevant one-to-one relationship. Less is more.
This quest for quality has to be focused outwards at the customer. This requires new
ways for defining quality because most quality improvement methods such as six
sigma focus inwards at organisational effectiveness, process performance and other
corporate obsessions. Take direct mail. A company will be satisfied if a programme
reaches the expected response rate, say 2%. But this doesn’t measure what
happens with the 98% of people who have not responded. How many of them are
totally indifferent? How many got a good impression of the company but didn’t
respond because it wasn’t obvious how to do so? And how many are lost for ever
because they thought the mail piece was irrelevant, irritating or irresponsible?
Marketing quality is more about content of the message and its pertinence than
about the container and aesthetical factors. Customer-focused quality factors also
differ substantially depending on the point of view. From a customer angle, key
factors include relevance of the message, convenience relative to possible actions
and respect of privacy, identity and intelligence. On another angle, corporations
have to make sure that their message is differentiated, attractive and memorable.
The main challenge is to maintain the right balance between somewhat contradic-
tory requirements. For example the relentless repetition of mailings or TV ads can
make a company’s message more memorable but it will irritate people who have to
put up with the bombardment. On the other hand, a clearly differentiated
alternative offer is more relevant than a me-too message imitating the competition.
Successful marketers will be the ones who meet customers’ expectations as a
priority because, as a consequence, they also make their companies successful.
Studies show that companies focusing on quality of service to customers are more
profitable than others. This is reassuring. Otherwise the whole customer focus
movement would be pointless, wouldn’t it?
www.IC3marketing.com tel : +44 (0) 20 8339 0709 e-mail : Henri@IC3marketing.com
Copyright  IC3 Limited 2002 – All rights reserved