Customer-Powered Companies Guaranteed to See Higher Sales, Experts Say

CANOGA PARK, Calif., June 26, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Customers are being recognized as extremely valuable assets by some of the most powerful companies in the world.(1) Large companies like Amazon have advocated for a "customer obsessed" mindset as part of an emerging business model. By sponsoring VIP communities for B2B customers to engage with a company, SMBs can also advance rewarding relationships that easily translate to millions of dollars in sales. "Understanding how critical the customer is and how they think is an incredibly powerful way to build, not just a product, but the core messaging of a brand," said Mark Organ, CEO of Influitive in the latest B2B If You Market Podcast.

Organ expanded on the ways in which both large and small companies can boost their ROI with a customer-powered business model on Episode 42 of the If You Market podcast "The Customer Powered Company with Mark Organ" hosted by MountainTop Data CEO Sky Cassidy and JOTO PR CEO Karla Jo Helms.(2)

Organ explained that the first step in creating a successful customer-powered brand is to forgo traditional customer-company boundaries in favor of a model that invites customers to truly engage and consult in every step of the process. These initiatives result in empowered customers and dedicated brand advocates with a uniquely powerful reach as well as streamlined product ideas that can impact the market.

"No matter what it is you need to do in a company, your customers can help you do it better because they understand themselves," Organ said. "The customers understand their own needs and are often better able to fulfill those requirements."

Organ cited OnePlus, the fastest growing smartphone provider in the world today, as an example of the successful integration of customer participants into a business model.(3) Rather than starting on the product, OnePlus built a robust community first. Once the product was completed and it came time to promote it, the established community naturally became the company's committed advocates and ensured that the product saw success.

The result was the highest ever recorded ratio of sales to marketing expense with $300 million in sales and a mere $3,000 spent on marketing.

Organ's Top 3 Tips for Becoming More Customer-Powered

1. Host a Meal—Invite VIP customers to a quarterly dinner to share feedback with other customers, prospects and company executives.

2. Create a Forum—Open up a messaging channel for your VIP customers to be involved in a community of feedback, insight and advocacy.

3. Co-create with Customers—When creating a new product, consult customers first and invite them to work with real members of the company.

Cassidy encouraged businesses to go beyond the routine acknowledgement of customer reviews. "Get customers involved in your business with genuine outreach. Give your customers a platform and ensure that they have a sense of ownership in the company." Helms noted that the success that comes from customer interaction is rooted in a larger trend, "As online presence grows, people are gravitating towards a human connection in the form of offline feedback."

Enhancing the customer experience through interactions and feedback as a marketing method is a proven way to achieve higher sales and a positive brand image.

Customer-Powered Companies utilize innovative marketing techniques that reinforce the power of the customer to sell. To listen to the podcast episode on Customer-Powered Companies with Mark Organ, visit http://ifyoumarkettheywillcome.com/2019/04/09/42-the-customer-powered-company-with-mark-organ/?PRS.

The If You Market podcast is a 45-minute conversation about B2B marketing—new trends, best practices and pitfalls to avoid. Each episode features a conversation with one expert guest discussing topics like: content marketing, account-based marketing, social media, marketing automation, PR, etc.
The podcast airs on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play and TuneIn Radio.

About Mark Organ
Mark is an entrepreneurial go-to-market specialist; a CEO with a focus on sales, marketing and business development and loves creating new billion-dollar categories in technology and developing new leaders. He's founded six companies and raised more than 15 rounds of financing. He's also the author of a new book "The Messenger is the Message."

About the If You Market Podcast
Meet If You Market podcast host, Sky Cassidy—an accomplished B2B marketer. And his co-host, disruptive PR evangelist Karla Jo Helms. Together they talk with industry experts to analyze B2B marketing tactics in a cocktail hour atmosphere.

Sky Cassidy is also the CEO of MountainTop Data. MountainTop Data, based in Los Angeles, CA, provides data and data services for B2B marketing. Karla Jo Helms is the CEO and Anti-PR Strategist of PR agency, JOTO PR DisruptorsTM, based in Tampa, FL. Visit them via http://ifyoumarkettheywillcome.com/category/if-you-market-podcast/?PRS

1. Premack, Rachel. "Jeff Bezos said the 'secret sauce' to Amazon's success is an 'obsessive compulsive focus' on customer over competitor," Business Insider; September 15, 2018.
2. Cassidy, Sky. "The Customer Powered Company with Mark Organ," If You Market podcast; April 9, 2019.
3. Schoon, Ben. "OnePlus sees a top-5 position in high-end US smartphone market thanks to strong OnePlus 6T sales," 9to5Google; February 12, 2019.

SOURCE If You Market Podcast