Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
customer initiated marketing communication model by Duncan
129
Customer Initiated Marketing Model
Figure 1: Customer Initiated Marketing Model Duncan (2005)
How do Consumers Use Social Media?
Free images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Furthermore, social media plays a key role in protecting brands: 58 per cent of social media users say they write product reviews to protect others from bad experiences, and nearly 1 in 4 say they share their negative experiences to “punish companies”.
Research also shows in the Social Media Report recently published by Nielsen and NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey company that social media is increasingly a platform consumers use to express their loyalty to their favourite brands and products.
Many also seek to reap benefits from brands for helping promote their products. Among those who share their brand experiences through social media, at least 41 per cent say they do in order to receive discounts.
Many customers also use social media to engage with brands on a customer service level, with 42 per cent of 18- to 34-year-olds acknowledging that they expect customer support within 12 hours of a complaint.
When researching products, social media users are likely to trust the recommendations mostly from their friends and family and the results from Nielsen’s Global Online Survey indicate that 2 out of 3 respondents said they were either highly or somewhat influenced by advertising with a social context.
Free images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Customer Initiated Marketing Model
How do Organisations Respond?
Organisations such as Telstra are now taking a more consumer-centric approach and adapting their marketing activities to suit the way customers find out about products and services as suggested by Halligan et al (2009). Organisations like Telstra are responding to the consumers with a lot of enthusiasm to make sure that their issues will be addressed properly. This helps consumers to understand their brand but also helps Telstra to develop loyal relationships with their customers.
Customer initiated communication is where the customer is the ‘source’ or ‘initiator’ of the message as stated by Duncan (2005). Consumers decide what, when, who and how messages are communicated, unlike in traditional marketing where organisations send messages to consumers. The organisation ‘receives’ the message and must take action and respond to the customer as suggested by Halligan et al (2010). Examples of ways customers may contact an organisation includes through call centres, social media, mobile internet, direct mail or email. Organisations can use this knowledge to develop effective IMC programs, determining optimal touch points to encourage conversation as argued by Belch et al (2009).
Telstra has taken the rise of social media in customer service head on with around 60 staff constantly searching through social media channels for complaints & negative comments about their company. They looked at how many people were talking about Telstra on social media and searched Twitter and found almost 100,000,000 mentions. Telstra are trying to reach the unhappy customers to help them before they spread the word. Firstly, Telstra extended the hours of their social media support team to be 24/7 all year round. They also launched a Facebook customer service with features designed to provide customer service instantly without leaving their favourite social space. They also introduced CrowdSupport which is a forum where customers can help other customers. Since their first tweet in 2009, they have sent over 35,000 messages to over 11,000 followers offering support to customer queries and questions.
Free images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Emergence of Citizen Journalism
Value of Two-Way Communication
Free images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
With the emergence of citizen journalism, consumers are more involved in activities such as blogs, articles and sharing their experience with other readers. Consumers prefer to share their experience with others and this, in turn, will have an effect on a brand’s image and organisations now focus on these blogs to maintain their image in the market.
Free images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Organisations have started a new approach of marketing and are getting closer to consumers by putting their advertisements on the blogs and tweets. These techniques allows organisations the chance to make customers come to them and express what they think of their specific brand, their experiences with that organisation and the changes they expect to see in the brand.
It's imperative for organisations to gain as much understanding as possible about how consumers leverage social media and citizen journalism for everyday interaction as stated by Dyer (2011). A customer who tweets regularly, adds a blog and updates their Facebook status update can do more harm or good to a brand than a well-planned marketing campaign as mentioned by Levinson (2010).
Free images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Social media has given the customer power which highlights the importance and practicality of Duncan’s model whilst creating a new marketing communication environment. Duncan’s two-way communication model and the digital technology that complements it, has implications on the relationships between organisations and consumers.
Free images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Social media platforms not only provide organisations with relevant data but also an ideal medium to develop customer relationship management programs, which aim to establish a relationship with customers through affinities, and personalised communication as stated by Belch et al (2010).
Free images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
References
References
Babin, L. A., & Carder, S. T. (1996). Viewers’ recognition of brands placed within a film. International Journal of Advertising, 15 (2), 140-151.
Belch, G.E., Belch, M.A., Kerr, G., Powell, I. (2009) Advertising & promotion: an integrated marketing communication perspective. Sydney: McGraw Hill.
Belch, G.E., Belch, M. A., Kerr, G., & Powell. I. (2011) Advertising: An integrated marketing communication perspective. 2nd ed. North Ryde: McGraw Hill.
Duncan, T. (2005). Using advertising and promotion to build brands. In Principles of advertising & IMC. 2ND ED, 3-24. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Halligan, B., S. D., & Meerman, D. S. (2009). Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs. Wiley: Hoboken.
Levinson, J. (2010). Guerrilla Social Media Marketing, 100+ Steps to Grow Your Online Audience, Attract Customers and Drive Profits. Entrepreneur Press: Canada. Retrieved from http://reader.eblib.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/.
Nielsen. (2011). How Social Media Impacts Brand Marketing. Retrieve from http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/how-social-media-impacts-brand-marketing/
Telstra. (2012). Telstra keeps 120 eyes on Social Media, checking for complaints. Retrieved from http://www.news.com.au/technology/telstra-keeps-120-eyes-on-social-media-checking-for-complaints/story-e6frfro0-1226328034988.
Telstra. (2012). Telstra opens next chapter of social media customer service. Retrieved from
http://exchange.telstra.com.au/2011/08/16/telstra-opens-next-chapter-of-social-media-customer-service/.
Images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Free images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Customers choose what communication channels to use such as emails, organisation’s blog site, or through a call centre. The communications from the customers could be complaints, enquiries about new products or services or any other brand related content as suggested by Babin & Carder (1996).
The measure of this two-way communication can provide organisations with insight into the customers in the market. When the channels identify potential customers, organisations have great opportunity to turn them into loyal customers. Duncan (2005) states that the brand touch points are the channel points where customers come into direct or indirect contact with the brand and tell the brand what they expect and are willing to pay for. Every open-ended communication from customers gives organisations the ability to influence the customers about the brand, its products and service and finally by retaining the customers.
A customer is the transmitter or initiator of communication and the organisation is considered as the receiver. It’s different to the conventional one-way marketing approach where, the customer is the receiver of the brand message.
About 60 per cent of consumers research products through multiple online sources and have learned about a specific brand or retailer through social networking sites.
Active social media users are more likely to read product reviews online, and 3 out of 5 create their own reviews of products and services. Women are more likely than men to tell others about products that they like (81% of females vs. 72% of males).
Overall, consumer-generated reviews and product ratings are the most preferred sources of product information among social media users