You can see this trend everywhere nowadays. Delta Airlines is changing its frequent flyer program. The New York Giants football team is working with a jewelry company. Starbucks is introducing a new special cold coffee drink with cream.
“We’re meeting our customers where they’re at.” (We want to be where our customers are.) This simple but powerful idea in sales and marketing might seem obvious, but it has become very important for businesses today. This customer centric marketing approach is changing how companies think about their customers.
Business experts often use this idea in different ways. When they talk about selling to older customers, they mention this approach. Marketing managers use it to explain why their message should be the same everywhere. Even the head of Estee Lauder, a famous beauty company, talked about this when discussing prices that customers would like, saying: "We want to understand what our customers need."
This idea isn't new. Jack Dorsey, who started Twitter, talked about it ten years ago when he created Square, a payment company. Doctors and social workers have also used this idea for a long time to help patients and people in need.
But now, more businesses are talking about this idea than ever before. Google Trends shows that many people searched for "meet our customers where they are" at the start of 2023 and end of 2024, and again this month. Before this, not many people were searching for it.
"Marketing has changed over time," explains Oliver Bogner, who started Team Go Ventures, a digital marketing company that grew very quickly and is number 43 on Inc. 5000's list of successful small businesses. He says first there was "brand marketing when TV soap operas were popular," then companies focused on "performance marketing" where "they wanted to measure everything they spent money on."
Now, Bogner says, we're in a new time of marketing: it's about "meeting customers where they’re at," Some people call it "full-funnel marketing" or what Bogner likes to call "smarketing" (which means combining sales and marketing in a smooth way).
Social media has changed everything, explains Bogner, who now leads social commerce at an agency that bought Team Go. "These days, you can buy things directly through social media. It's not just marketing teams saying 'We need to be on social media.' Now, sales teams and finance teams are also saying the same thing."
Jonathan Jadali, who started the B2B PR company Ascend Agency (ranked 18th on last year's Inc. 5000 list), has noticed that people keep talking about "meeting customers where they’re at," more and more lately.
"I'm not sure if it's just become popular in the last six months or year, but in my work with PR and marketing companies in Los Angeles and Dubai, they always use this phrase when talking about their clients," he tells Inc. "I seem to hear it every few weeks, if not more often."
He adds that people often use this phrase when they need to understand their clients better or make changes to meet their needs, showing a true customer centric approach to marketing.
Even though this way of talking is popular now, the idea behind it isn't new at all.
"Having products that your customers expect to find is a basic rule of selling," explains Mark Cohen, who used to teach retail studies at Columbia Business School. "Since the beginning of business, successful shops have tried to match what they sell with what their customers want." This customer centric marketing approach has always been important.
For example, he says, a smart business owner wouldn't try to sell snow shovels in Florida or Kansas City Chiefs sports clothes in Philadelphia.
"Everything about your business - what you sell in your shop, what's on your website, and how you tell people about your products - should think about what customers want," Cohen explains.
"When you aim your message at the right customers in the right places, they're more likely to listen and respond. It's better than just sending messages everywhere and hoping someone notices."
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HASH TAGS: #SocialCommerce #CustomerCentric #MarketingStrategy #B2BMarketing #SalesAndMarketing #MarketingTrends
Keywords: Customer-Centric Marketing Approach
Source: inc.com / FEB 19, 2025 / https://www.inc.com/brian-contreras/why-everyone-from-estee-lauder-to-starbucks-is-racing-to-meet-the-customer-where-they-are/91149081
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