Marketing lesson: listen to your customers

JupiterJasper is featuring some of the entries to our blog competition over the next few days, beginning with the winning blog competition entry, from Sarah Arrow, of Arrow Light Haulage, Same day courier services in Essex. The original guidelines for entry are here, read all the featured entries, you could also read about how we chose the winner, or what we learned from running the blogging competition.

The biggest marketing lesson I have learned so far…is that most marketers don’t listen.

It’s true. Do you recall a few months back I blogged about the term “haulage”? and how I get a slew of calls relating to selling me something? Because when people search for the term “haulage” rather than the term same day courier (which we wish to be found for), they are looking to sell me a fuel card rather than build a relationship or even understand what our services offer! I have found over the years I have had similar experiences with marketers; they don’t listen to what your business is about in order to market it. For example, I recently attended a networking event and got chatting to a marketing expert. When the marketing expert heard what we did he promptly informed me I was missing a very big marketing trick. “Go on” I asked, curious to what the response would be. “You need to sign write your vans and advertise on them”. "Why would I want to do that" I replied, "we do confidential deliveries”. “You need to do it so you get more business” came the reply back. “But how do we keep our customers reputation, and deliver in confidence if people know who we are?” “Oh my is that the time… I have to rush…” gulps wine and rushes off! Each business, including a courier business has different needs. They reach different customers. We deliver, quietly and confidently for our clients. You may not notice us as we drive sedately past you on the motorway, and that’s the way our customers like it. My biggest lesson in marketing is listening to what customers and potential customers have to say. In many cases advertising on vehicles is the right choice for a courier service, but it’s not for all of us. We deliver time sensitive freight and commercial products, quietly and swiftly so you can get on with business. How we market ourselves doesn’t impact on our customers requirements. Sarah (Visit Sarah's original post here, where you can read the various comments that her post generated. Do you agree with Sarah? Feel free to add your comments below)