From one-time buyer to permanent customer
At the sixth marketing meeting on the topic of "Brand management under value", the focus was on new customer marketing. A study presented shows: 75 percent of all newly acquired customers buy the product only once.
In the representative study by Mediaschneider, Serviceplan and GfK, manufacturer brands were analyzed and evaluated. The comprehensive results were presented on Tuesday at the Widder Hotel in Zurich.
In front of around 140 guests present at this year's Marketing Meeting, the study on "Brand Management under Value" by Mediaschneider, Serviceplan and GfK was presented. After the welcome by Manfred Strobl (Managing Director Mediaschneider), Peter Haller (Founder and Managing Director Serviceplan Group), Robert Kecskes (Senior Insights Director GfK), Barbara Evans (Managing Director Facit Media Efficiency) and Monika Saeger (Managing Director Serviceplan Group) presented the results.
Steady loss of customers
44 percent of all manufacturer brands - and the number is rising - are so-called "burnout brands," meaning that they lose more than 30 percent of their regular customers per year. The brands are trying to compensate for these declines with an ever-increasing number of occasional customers: Thus, "Burnout Brands" mostly position themselves via short-term, classical and quantitative instruments and thus appear mainly product- and not brand-oriented. This hectic and inefficient brand management leads to a loss of market share after two years at the latest. What do the other 26 percent of brands, the growing "growth brands," do better?
Emotions as brand value
"Growth brands", which reach new buyers with a high propensity to repurchase, position themselves with their campaigns in a much more brand value-oriented and emotional way. The most successful among them pursue a consistent value fit at all levels of marketing: They make sure that their campaigns implement their own brand values and are placed in a media environment that matches their emotional brand values. It's not the classic, rational and user-oriented marketing tools that motivate people to buy these days: "Today, these account for only 30 percent of market share success. 70 percent are emotional brand values, but too little emphasis is placed on them," says Peter Haller, CEO and founder of the Serviceplan Group.
New understanding of target groups
A fundamentally new understanding of target groups is crucial to winning new customers who buy a product more than once. Generalizing characteristics such as age and income are distant from the brand and lead to the definition of irrelevant target groups. Only target groups that are defined according to their buying behavior are effective and brand-specific. Thus, three of them could be defined: "notorious tryers", "serious switchers" and "fixed loyalists". The "serious switchers" are the most interesting in the short and medium term, as they are dissatisfied with their current brand and are looking for a replacement.
Individual target group approach
The three target groups are addressed individually, but they must all be addressed cross-medially and with qualitatively convincing, tailored content, because the three types of buyer have different media consumption behavior. Although TV is the main medium for all three, they prefer different channels and programs. Based on the newly acquired knowledge about the media preferences of the three buyer groups and their differentiated approach, it is possible to plan and invest in a targeted manner.
