Identify unfulfilled needs, solve urgent problems or simply entertain the customer. This is the new marketing approach, called Consumer First Marketing. It goes far beyond Costumer Relationship Marketing, which has been practiced since the 1990s, and is supported by the latest communication technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality or even holo-lenses. The place of the performance: a loft at the Munich Ostbahnhof in mid-February.
Marketing dominated by marketing schedules and sales targets, is miles away from the interests of today’s self-assured and networked consumers. With this provocative thesis, Sebastian Fleischmann, Managing Director of Selligent GmbH, goes straight to medias res in the sky-blue retro suit and the 1980s Vokuhila hairstyle. The company is one of the world’s first addresses for automated marketing and supports companies in more than 30 countries in the areas of automotive, travel, retail, finance and publishing. About 60 people have come into the loft high above the rooftops at the Munich Ostbahnhof, the scene district on the former area of the Pfanni dumpling factory. It all seems to be here in this corner of the Bavarian capital. The only orignial Bavarian things here are the brezels at the buffet.
Here I also learn that marketing models, as taught in the 90s, are totally outdated. Today’s customer approach has nothing to do with it. Old tactics no longer work. Social media, the immediate retrieval of any information on mobile devices, not least virtual reality glasses and much more have changed everything. And now? Fleischmann says conventions have to be turned upside down in order to provide the customer with relevant information. He calls this approach “consumer first marketing”. Instead of starting with the product or the communication channel, this strategy is aimed first and foremost at the customer with the aim of recognizing unfulfilled needs, solving urgent problems or simply entertaining them. He also speaks of a new “Customer Journey”, the journey of a customer to the different contact points with a product, a brand or a company, to the decisive point, the purchase.
User behavior on the Internet is constantly changing. Customers would be less willing to visit an individual website for each issue. They would increasingly spend more time on selected social media channels, communities, and platforms, such as Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp. Users can at any time get mobile and convenient information via messenger services and chats or order products. Today it was necessary to use smart chatbots, text-based dialogue systems, which can communicate with the underlying system in natural language, to support the service and marketing teams in their tasks for social media channels and communities.
At the end of the event, a guest from London, digital strategist Maximillian Doelle at Kazendi, an innovation studio near Liverpool Street, gives another look into the future. He describes his experiences with Microsoft HoloLens. HoloLenses are Augmented Reality eyewear, https://www.arvrzone.com/ar-brillen/ which allows users to display their environment with 3D projection support. HoloLenses are controllable via gestures language and head movement. Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_HoloLens
He thus stands on the stage and tries to communicate with his surroundings through gestures and body movements, with us. It looks surreal and doesn´t work that day. This is the demonstration effect, he says. He then tells us a bit about Kazendi’s HoloCampaign, https://www.kazendi.com/projects/selligent-holocampaign, about 3D information and 3D audio.
The conclusion of the afternoon panel discussion of the market experts: Nowadays who knows everything about the customer is Google! Individual offers tailored to the customer can only be achieved in cooperation with Google. Every page that a user has ever visited reveals something about his preferences, says something about him. I will definitely read the book, The Circle, by Dave Eggers again. What is portrayed as a future, as fiction, has long been a reality and we are customers in the middle.
Susan Messer