I don’t WANT to listen to the consumer!
Another phrase I hear constantly is that marketers ‘have to listen to the consumer’. I don’t buy it. I think the key isn’t to listen to the consumer, but rather to understand them. Think of everything/one you listen to in an average day. Do you understand everything you hear? If so you’re a better listener than I am.
How do we understand the consumer? By having a conversation. Communication leads to understanding, well usually. As we have a greater understanding of the consumer, we can better serve and anticipate their wants and needs. And as the consumer has a greater understanding of our role as marketers, they will begin to more freely communicate with us, which leads to greater understanding for both groups.
But how do we communicate with them? I can’t see ‘communicate with marketers today’ as being in the ‘to-do’ list for many consumers. It’s up to us as marketers to join their community, so we can communicate with them at a time and place that’s convenient for them. This is the main flaw I find in blogs as a communication tool with consumers, because the convenience factor is more in the hands of the company and the marketers. If Company A starts a blog and begins communicating with their customers, that’s great, but the customers have to come to the blog to talk to Company A. Why can’t Company A go to the customers? And why can’t they have a communication tool that provides true communication, and not posting and commenting? IMO, that’s the next step in the company/customer communication process beyond blogs, an outlet that’s convenient to the customers, and in their backyard, not the company’s. But that’s another post for another day.
Listening isn’t the key. Understanding is. Understanding comes from communication, and communication starts when we are in a place that makes the interaction convenient for the consumer. That place is their community.
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I think we’re all saying the same thing. I don’t think anyone is simply saying listen and that’s it. I think people are telling marketers to listen because they never have before. But by saying that, it’s also accompanied with “join the conversation.” I agree listening on it’s own does nothing. As you say, a marketer needs to converse in order to understand and that’s what I think many of us are saying even if we sometimes just use the word “listen.”
Lately I’ve been seeing more and more bloggers throwing out catch-phrases such as ‘We’ve got to listen to the consumer’, or ‘Markets really ARE conversations’, or ‘we have to get out of the way of the consumer’, and nothing else, making wonder if they’ve actually taken the time to stop and think about what they are saying. That’s one reason why I was so interested in Tara’s ‘Pinko Marketing’ ideas. No I didn’t agree with all of what she was saying, but she gets a standing ovation for actually putting some thoughts out there for discussion, instead of playing a round of ‘dueling catch-phrases’ like many blogs tend to do.
Guess I should close by saying that some bloggers ‘get it’
I completely agree with you. It is one thing to say you want to listen to consumers, it even might be nice if you have a blog, but what use is all that if consumers don’t come and talk to you.
Or what if they are honest with you? Or even honest with themselves (people have a nasty habit of saying what they want to believe)
So why not listen to the people who spend the most time with your customers and likely understand them the best: EMPLOYEES.
Companies are tripping over themselves to show that they listen to people outside their organizations, when they should start by listening to people inside their organization.