The seven Cs of marketing take a closer look at the overall marketing strategy by considering the following:
- Customer
- Consistency
- Creativity
- Culture
- Communication
- Change
- Channel
1. Customer
A company’s marketing strategy must be focused on its customers. The marketer must understand the customer as a person, not just a target market.
Once companies understand the target customer, they can adapt their product or service and even their brand to appeal to the target customer. Adapting to suit the target customer must be a continuous process if companies hope to succeed.
2. Consistency
At one time or another we have all seen mixed advertising messages coming from the same company.
Mixed messages often result in confusion. A confused customer is not a confident customer. A customer who is not confident in a product or service will look elsewhere. Marketing communication messages must be consistent, so the target customer gets the value proposition that the company is offering.
3. Creativity
Advertising is everywhere. Marketers have to find creative ways to get their target customer’s attention. Marketers have to dream up new and innovative ways to inform, educate and persuade target customers.
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4. Culture
In order to reach a global audience, marketing messages must have a broad cultural appeal. Alternatively, specific marketing messages can be delivered to specific cultures. Companies cannot assume that everyone behaves and responds as their culture does. Such an assumption can harm companies.
5. Communication
No one likes “in your face” marketing messages. Nor do people appreciate being “marketed to.” Most people prefer to be “communicated with.”
The right communication message informs, educates and persuades the target customer in a way that they understand—it gains the target customer’s trust.
6. Change
Marketers need to continually adjust their marketing strategy to accommodate the changing target customer, societal changes and especially technological changes. Trying something different is likely what it will take to get the attention of the target customers. Even the company itself may change. Marketing communication messages must reflect all of these potential areas of change if they are to be effective.
7. Channel
The transformational impact of the Internet on many modes of human interaction cannot be denied. The ability of companies to access global markets through a well-crafted online presence is particularly well recognized. Relatedly, the ability of competitors to target a company’s domestic market from remote corners of the globe presents a unique challenge for managers, including marketing specialists.
Web presence has evolved far beyond the option of maintaining a static website to engaging much more directly with customers, business partners, prospects and others via social media.
Facebook has taken on a decidedly more commercial flavour over the last few years, and Twitter has proven very effective as a mode of engagement as well.
The number, variety and positioning of various social networks is huge and increasing by the day so that a comprehensive listing of such platforms is difficult to gather and would be obsolete within very short order. International marketers must consider appropriate leverage of various social networks, and they must plan for the effective use of other new emerging mechanisms.
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