That the consumer is king is an understatement- Femi Adelusi
By Zion Rufus
“That the consumer is king is an understatement”
The above statement made by Femi Adelusi, Founder/ Group CEO of BrandEye/ Mediaplus during the MARKETING EDGE IMC Quarterly Virtual Summit typically describes how the consumer is the most integral part of any business.
Why are the consumers the lifeline of a business?
Consumers create value, and they are the main source of demand for all goods and services. They contribute greatly to the success or failure of an organization. The day to day demand and consumption of these services will lead to expansion or enhancement of the business, service sector, and even the economy. Consumers are the basic economic entities of an economy.
“It’s critical to track how customers reassess priorities, reallocate funds, switch brands, and redefine value,” Adelusi explained.
Thanks to social media, customers now hold an even more tremendous power. How well you treat them will always have an impact on your business. Evolving rapidly beyond what can be tagged as a Gen Z trend, consumers turn to brands for aid, basics, experience-based connections, ideal facilitation, a sense of acceptance, belonging, and emotional connection amongst others.
The “Baba do giveaway no fall our hand” phrase has become a very familiar chant from fans and digital consumers to corporate brands, product brands, and personality brands. Not until recently did brands realize the value of connecting with their customers beyond the buying behavior and the value of utilizing social media for more than just a channel for promotion. The digital platform is currently the number one channel for brands to connect with consumers, gain new ones, and retain the old.
In the course of the MARKETING EDGE IMC Quarterly Virtual Summit, Oti Ukubeyinje, President of the Association of Digital Marketing Practitioners opined: “Brands need to move away from seeing digital as only a means of communication behavior but also as an experience behavior and customer touch points.”
As the connection improves thanks to immediate access through technological advancements, there are growing demands from consumers to brands and also changing digital consumers’ behavior; humans are fast becoming digital creatures. Actively or passively, people spend several hours every day on the internet and that has become a considerably significant factor for the digital marketing ecosystem. Consumers want brands to help them faster, know and connect to them better, and continuously impress them.
Brands have responded by fueling that connection through engagements, responses, building deeper relationships with consumers , sponsoring performance driven marketing, increasing spend efficiency demand for proven ROI, and solving for effective measurement. Brands monitor the digital consumer behavior, what devices they use, the sites they visit, the ads they engage with, the pages they navigate to, and when they leave.
The key to improving these touch points or interactions is centered on understanding who the customers are, what they need, where they are, how they buy, and why they need to interact.
With much reference to the post-recessionary economy, Femi Adelusi highlighted some various consumer segments. The Slam-on-the-brakes segment is the consumers that feel the most vulnerable and hardest hit financially. According to Adelusi, this group reduces all types of spending by eliminating, postponing, decreasing or substituting purchases. The Pained-but-patient consumers tend to be resilient and optimistic about the long term but less confident about the prospect for recovery in the near term or their ability to maintain their standard of living. Like Slam-on-the-brakes consumers, they economize in all areas, though less aggressive.
On the other hand, there are the Comfortably-well-off consumers. This segment feels secure about their ability to ride out current and future bumps in the economy. They consumer at near-pre-recession levels, though now they tend to be little more sensitive, and less conspicuous about their purchases. Then there are the Live-for-today consumers. They are carriers-on as usual, and for the most part they remain unconcerned about savings. These consumers respond to the recession mainly by extending their timetables for making major purchases.
Whatever industry you are in, whatever business you are into, your customers and would-be customers will always be one of your most valuable stakeholders.
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