A fortnight ago on the blog, I mentioned an upcoming whitepaper looking at how marketers can engage with new, mobile consumers. I’m pleased to say that this paper has now been released, and can be downloaded in full here.
As with all marketing, before attempting to reach your target consumers you have to understand them. Who are they, where do they live and work, and how do they communicate? So before we jump the gun and start trying to understand how to reach these people, we have to ask: who is the empowered consumer?
According to some pretty reliable sources, this consumer is:
- A ‘Digital Native’: this generation has grown up online and expects brands to understand this. This means meeting their requirement for content and engaging in regular interaction. It also means that they are tech-savvy, making them increasingly… mobile.
- Mobile: the empowered consumer has access to all the information they need at any hour of the night or day. Mobile consultant and author, Tomi Ahonen describes mobile as the mass media where ‘all forms of content and communication converge’, making it the most potent medium in human history.
- ‘Bombarded with marketing messages’: this is according to Scott Goodson, author of Uprising, in which he claims that ‘traditional, one-way marketing doesn’t work anymore’.
These three crucial factors put the onus on brands to embrace a strategy that respects these new consumers’ requirements for content, marketing and communications on their terms. The interest of the empowered consumer is earned, not bought, and they expect (and often demand) personal, two-way communications.
For marketers and brands more accustomed to unilateral, ‘push’ communications with consumers, this may seem a difficult adjustment to make. But, if done correctly, marketing to empowered consumers can boost customer loyalty, increase brand advocacy and, in the long-run maintain or increase your competitive advantage.
To find out how to start doing this, either come back for next week’s post, or download the whitepaper and start learning for yourself.
