How to get started with Open Marketing
Step 3. Gathering strength - Part 4

Hello everyone. I am Hayashi, the representative of Monosus.

As an effort to get core customers together three times so far,
We have talked about Step 3, "Gathering strength."

Last time

• Many companies are over-generating leads.
• Among the target customer base, the number of core customers is limited, and when you calculate the percentage, it is often less than 1%.
• As a result, even if you collect a large number of prospect lists, you end up with a large list of customers who never reach the core experience.
• In other words, you are marketing to a list that has 99% no chance of becoming your core customers, resulting in a lot of wasted time and money.

I told him that.

From now on, I would like to start putting together measures to gather strength.

Narrow down your prospects.

If we diagram the marketing challenges based on the funnel model we discussed last time, it would look like this:

Because they collect potential customers from the market with little selection,
Your prospect list contains very few potential core customers.
As a result, the number of customers who become regular customers is naturally limited.

However, what I am talking about is something like the diagram below.

Once they are converted into potential customers, the list is narrowed down considerably.
After they have had a proper experience using the service, we want them to become regular customers.
(Both figures are heavily deformed to make them easier to understand.)

Why do we need to think like this?

All the resources are being taken up by just 1,000 people.

Marketers are faced with a huge number of prospects and first-time buyers, creating huge challenges.

With your company's limited marketing resources, you need to approach potential customers and first-time buyers to encourage them to move on to the next phase.

However, when you have a large number of potential customers, you have no choice but to deal with them in a one-to-many manner.
As a result, it is impossible to respond to each individual customer, and we have to send out email newsletters, direct mail, etc., and convey information unilaterally.
The main approach is to wait for the customer to take the next action.

In addition, taking such measures against one person against many people means
It means leaving it up to the customer to deliver on their core experience.

Leaving it up to the customer to achieve the core experience
This could be a fatal opportunity loss for the company.

We have mentioned many times that only a limited number of people can reach the core experience, but even if they have the potential to do so, only a limited number of them can do so on their own.

In other words, even if you are able to successfully convert people who are likely to become core customers into potential customers, if you leave it as it is, most of them will never reach the core experience, and therefore will become dormant customers without becoming core customers.

This is an important point, so I would like to explain it a bit more.

Whether or not you reach the core experience depends on
Simply put, it depends on whether a company and its customers share the same values.
I have talked about this before.

In this case, values do not refer to the values of life as a whole in a broad sense,
Think of it simply as a value assessment of the product/service and related things.
Of course, a person's values regarding a particular product or service are closely linked to their values in life, but we will not take that into consideration here.

In addition to whether or not you can share the same values as the company, there is another important factor.
It's a question of whether customers themselves are aware of their own values or not.

Whether or not you recognize values means that you are aware of the relevant product or service and related matters.
How accurately do customers themselves understand their values?
This is heavily influenced by the customer's maturity with the product or service.

For example, when it comes to classical music, some people are just interested in classical music,
There are some people who can pretty much tell what song it is and by which composer after just the first few seconds of listening.

When it comes to restaurants, some people like delicious food but find everything delicious.
Some people can tell subtle differences in cooking methods and even the quality of ingredients just by tasting them.

This maturation leads to an awareness of values, such as "I like this kind of taste, service, and price range in Japanese cuisine."
By repeatedly consuming a product or service, customers accumulate experience points.
Customers themselves will become aware of their own tendencies, such as "I like this type of product or service," and will be able to determine whether a product or service fits their values without anyone having to explain it to them.

If we create a matrix with these as two axes, we get
It looks like the figure below.

In other words, if we try to verbalize the customer segments in the four quadrants above,

Ⅰ. There is a high possibility that values can be shared, but knowledge and experience of the product or service is lacking.
They don’t know their values, and therefore can’t get to the core experience on their own.

II. They are likely to share the same values, have a wealth of knowledge and experience in the products and services, and are aware of the values. They can arrive at the core experience on their own.

Ⅲ. They have a wealth of knowledge and experience about products and services and are aware of their values, but
It is unlikely that you will be able to share the same values. After clearly recognizing the points that do not suit you, stop becoming a customer of that company.

IV. They have little knowledge or experience of the product or service and do not recognize its value.
There is also a low possibility that you will be able to share the same values.

It will be.

The problem here is that compared to customers who are aware of their values,
The vast majority of customers are unaware of their values.
Many people may think, "I know my own values," but
In order to recognize values, not only the amount of purchasing experience but also knowledge of products and services,
You need motivation to get it.

Think for a moment about how many products or services you have the motivation and knowledge to reach the core experience for.

Even if you think there are, when you actually count them, you probably won't find that there are many.
Most customers consume products and services "somehow."

As a result, even though the customer base of I. may share the same values,
Because they are not aware of their values, they are unable to reach the core experience on their own and end up leaving without becoming core customers.

In other words, if you rely on your customers to achieve the core experience,
II. Only the limited customer base mentioned above can maintain ongoing relationships with core customers.

I often
Rather than just gathering 1,000 people,
We say that we gather 10 people who share the same values,
It may seem extreme, but unless you narrow it down to this extent,
Companies are using up all their marketing resources just trying to serve 1,000 people.

Narrow down your potential customers to the number that you can serve one-on-one.

So the important thing is not just to narrow down your potential customers,
The goal is to respond to each prospect as individually as possible.
Regardless of industry or business type, it is important to narrow down your options to the point where you can provide as close to one-to-one support as possible.

In addition, rather than simply dealing with each case individually,
You need to help your customers understand the value of your products and services.

You need to narrow down the number of potential customers.
It is no exaggeration to say that this is to focus marketing resources on supporting customers one-on-one, or as close to it as possible.

This has gotten long, so I'll end it here for this month.
Next month I will be sharing with you some of the steps you can take to help people recognise their values.

Thank you for reading to the end this month as well.