How to get started with Open Marketing
Step 4. Open yourself up - Part 1

Hello everyone. I am Hayashi, the representative of Monosus.
In the previous article, we introduced how to get started with Open Marketing.
Step 1: Believe in your customers
Step 2: Believe in yourself
We have talked about Step 3: Gathering your strength.

In Step 4, we will reconsider how we communicate with customers with the theme of "opening yourself."

As I mentioned at the beginning of the first installment of this series, opening yourself up means
Basic Concept of Open Marketing

“In the past, we tried to force our “goodness” on others, but now we have to change it.
By "opening up" to honestly communicate our company's vision, way of thinking, and actions, we allow people to slowly understand.

Don't collect customers, gather them.
It's not a sale, it's an exchange of value.
It's not about tying things down, it's about connecting."

This is intended to put the following into practice.

There are some aspects where it is best not to compare or generalize too much,
I would like to talk about how changing the way you communicate with your customers will change the way you connect with them.

Five values to open yourself up.

At Open Marketing, we aim to maintain connections with our core customers rather than attracting a large number of faceless customers.
There are many things to consider when communicating with customers,
Mainly, who to communicate with (scope of communication), why to communicate with (purpose of communication), what to communicate with (what to communicate with), how to communicate with (method of communication),
I think it would be good to think about how much time you should spend communicating (the speed at which you communicate).

I would like to tell you about the values that should be the basis for communicating these topics.

1. Tell as few people as possible, not as many as possible

I will not go into detail here because I have already covered this in the previous article, Step 3 - Gathering Power.
Instead of just blindly gathering potential customers or new customers,
I think it's very important to narrow down the people you communicate with to something that can be handled in a manner close to one-on-one.

The first thing I want you to change is,
From the idea of "We want to gather as many potential customers as possible" to "We don't need more potential customers or new customers than we can properly handle"
The key is to change your way of thinking.

Customers who cannot become core customers not only do not bring profits to your company,
It makes it difficult to see the true essence of your products and services,
This will cost your company valuable time that could be spent interacting with potential core customers.

2. Communicate not to get people to buy your products or services, but to let them decide whether or not they share your values.

Companies consider customers who have purchased their products or services at least once to be
We tend to think of them as our own customers.
If the goal of communication is to get people to buy your products or services,
It is not unreasonable to think so, but in the case of many products and services, customers only pay the price because they want the product or service.
The reality is that it is difficult for people to think of the person who sold it to them as "a customer of that store, person, or company."

Rather than communicating with the goal of getting people to buy our products and services,
The purpose of this communication is to allow the other person to judge whether or not they share the same values as our company.

Whether customers can reach the core experience depends on
It is no exaggeration to say that it all depends on whether or not you share the same values.

3. Communicate your actions and existence, not just the benefits of your products and services

Many companies tend to focus on communicating the benefits customers will get from purchasing their products or services.
Of course, as a company that makes profits by selling products and services,
That alone makes it difficult to build good relationships with customers.

As mentioned earlier, even if a customer purchases a product or service,
It is rare for people to think, "I am a customer of this company."

In addition, communication between companies and customers is no longer achieved by simply conveying the benefits of products and services that the company has conveniently edited.

This is because the information released by companies is either true or false, and is not exaggerated.
This is because how much profit a company is making from each transaction can instantly be found out by customers via the Internet.
For a long time, marketing and branding have been carried out by taking advantage of the information gap.
That no longer works.

In other words, the benefits of a product or service are obvious even without the company communicating them.
We are now in an age where customers can make their own decisions.

In times like these, what companies should do is
Rather than exaggerating and presenting the benefits of your company's products and services,
It is about communicating our thoughts and actions on a daily basis.

4. Rather than collecting objective facts, speak in your own words in the first person.

When communicating your actions and way of being, it is important to speak in the first person, in your own words.
"Best selling in Japan"
"It contains 100mg of the ingredient XXX."
"It was featured on TV."
Communication that makes heavy use of objective facts such as
While this is easy to understand, it attracts a lot of potential customers who may never get to the core experience.

The aim is to share values,
It is important to speak about your own values in the first person.

This may be easy for small business owners,
This may be a high hurdle in large companies.
But I think this is something that is needed now, especially in large companies.

5. Rather than communicating efficiently, let people take their time to understand

As a company that wants to monetize its marketing activities,
You probably want to communicate as efficiently as possible.
However, if you try to convey everything in one or two communications,
It becomes necessary to embellish the message in order to get it across quickly.
When you try to convey something to someone in a short amount of time,
Sensational copy and sentences that make ordinary things seem amazing.
You'll need to take a photo from the perfect angle and then edit it further.

Speaking in the first person is similar to communication between humans, but dramatized expressions are
It's like you're giving a presentation in a sharp suit, under the spotlight.
It's a useful way to communicate something to someone in a short amount of time,
This is not a good way to foster shared values and understanding of humanity.

A presentation is merely a way to convey the speaker's intentions in a short amount of time.
It's not a method for building long-term relationships.

In this way, Open Marketing aims to stop rushing to communicate and
We believe it is important to allow people to slowly get to know our company by "opening up" our company's existence, way of thinking, and actions.

Instead of rushing to communicate and forcing a relationship together as if to create a fait accompli,
Just like building relationships, we need to know who we are, what we think,
Let the other person feel what you are doing.
And to do that, instead of giving a presentation,
To "open up" our thoughts and our actions.
This creates a situation where customers gather rather than attracting them.
Rather than just keeping customers connected,
The company develops.

I believe that if more situations like this occur, work will become more enjoyable.
Thank you for reading to the end this month as well.