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What is Disruptive Marketing?

Disruptive Marketing succeeds traditional approaches fail.  This new approach rejects traditional methods and aims to rethink how companies operate. 

This approach not only changes the way that one company operates but impacts the industry as a whole.  The aim of a disruptor is to change the marketplace.  Done well, marketers using this approach can quickly become the next market leaders in their industry.

Traditionally, companies develop products then attract people who want to buy into their ideas.  The product is created according to the vision of the producer, not the customer.  The issue with the traditional approach is that companies often fail to cater for customers needs, producing products and services that they think their audience wants.  The end results are often flawed.

However, times are changing.  We now operate in a world where the consumer has more power than ever.  All of this means that companies are having to switch to a more flexible, Disruptive Marketing Approach to be heard.  These approaches put the customer at the heart of the development and marketing process.  The product is built up to solve the problems that customers have already faced with competitors products.

Smaller businesses with less resources and money than their competitors can disrupt industries.  However, these companies can harness the power of disruptive marketing strategies to quickly rise through the ranks and become market leaders.

Customers have more choice than before and aren’t worried about shopping around for new solutions if something isn’t working.  Getting in front of customers at the right time is important if marketers are going to solve their problems.  This forms the basic foundations for market disruptors.

How is Disruptive Marketing Effective?

Disruptive marketing approaches work because they cater directly to the needs of the customer.  Companies plug the gaps in their chosen industry.  This, in turn, drives industries forwards.

It is not enough to change your message without changing your approach.  To be successful, marketers need to identify how they can approach the problem in a different way.  Existing products may already provide part of the solution so it is important that marketers can differentiate their new offering.

Disruptive marketing approaches give marketers the tools they need to be original.  In a crowded marketplace it really is difficult to stand out.  A quick Google of any common problem gives tens, if not hundreds of thousands of results.  To stand out, your marketing message has to cut through the noise.  To do this, you need to know your customer inside out.  You need to gather data from as many sources as possible and interpret it.  That’s easier said than done.

The marketing message needs to be accessible and resonate with the target audience.  This can be achieved in two different ways:  By using the marketing channels customers use and by communicating with them using their own language.  A corporate marketing message may alienate a company’s intended audience.

In the next section, we will discuss the importance of understanding your customer using buyer personas and how you can gather data.  Then, we take a look at how you can build your marketing message.

Understanding the Customer with Buyer Personas

Build up a buyer persona using customer data that you have already have as a starting point.  This is important for any business but is absolutely critical for disruptors.  Without knowing your audience, how would you know how to create a solution to meet their needs?

When creating buyer personas you should consider:

– A day in the life of your customer:  Consider how your persona approaches their day, what their routine is and what they need to achieve.

– Common tasks:  Understand what the most repetitive and common tasks are.  You can use this information to automate their most repetitive and mundane tasks, leaving your customer to perform their job more efficiently.

– Common Problems and Obstacles:  Note down the main obstacles and crises that your customer faces.  Really think about what keeps your customer up at night.

– Seniority:  Make a note of what job title your customer has and where they fit into their company.

– Their goals:  What are the main things that your customers are trying to achieve?  How long do they have to achieve them?

Interests:  Consider what your target audience are interested in doing and reading in their spare time.

Devices Owned:  Note the devices that your ideal customers are likely to own.  You can use this information to target your marketing accordingly.

The more detailed you can make the buyer persona the better as this improves the chance that your message will accurately cater for their needs.  Your company’s buyer persona document should be a living being and should evolve each time your customer does.  Although you may start out with just one or two target buyer personas, you will find this number growing quickly as your company develops.

We have three main buyer personas here at Wired Plus that we update regularly.  Each time we create a document in-house, we make sure that we write it for one of the three buyer personas we have detailed.  We find that this gives us a focus when we are writing marketing collateral.  Addressing the buyer persona as if they are an individual recipient is most effective as you can write using a one-on-one targeted approach.

Delivering Your Message

The next challenge that a disruptive marketer faces is getting their message in front of the right person.  You need to target your customers on the devices that they are most likely to use.  You may want to spread your message across a number of popular devices or simply target the device that your buyer persona spends the majority of their time on.

Convincing customers to move away from traditional products and systems is a challenge which requires careful consideration.  Your message must be strong enough to convince people that your approach is going to meet their needs.

Examples of Effective Market Disruptors

Uber

Plenty of brands have made a success of using a disruptive marketing approach.  Uber is perhaps the most well-known current example of a successful start up built using a disruptive strategy.  Exploiting the need for quicker, more accessible transport, Uber quickly established itself as a popular alternative to traditional taxi travel.

Customers searching for taxi numbers for their trip home are encouraged to download the Uber app.  The app provides taxi users with a more convenient and accessible way to book a vehicle.  Even better, customers can choose from a range of different vehicles and prices which are displayed on the app.

This differs from traditional taxi services where users have to ring for a taxi, may struggle to get through, then may be given inaccurate waiting times by the phone operative before waiting for their taxi outside.  The Uber app gives users the option to hail a nearby Uber cab, see how far it is from the target destination and how much the fare is going to be before they travel.  Better still, the app gives users the option to rate the service of their taxi driver to ensure good customer service.

The success of the Uber brand can largely be attributed to the company’s commitment to convenience.  Econsultancy reported on a study by Flurry Analytics which reported a 15% increase in usage of travel apps for 2016.

GoodGym

There aren’t many people who haven’t heard of the genuis GoodGym running community.  GoodGym identified the need for care in the community and used runners as a vehicle (no pun intended!) to achieve success.  The scheme is successful as it gives people the means to fulfill two tasks in one:  Doing a good deed for an elderly member of society and keeping fit.  Setting up a GoodGym in a new area is quick and easy which is part of the appeal that has seen the business grow.  The ‘gym’ requires no expensive subscription either, bonus!

Why are we using this approach

Here at Wired Plus, we decided to use the disruptive marketing approach as it gives us the best platform for our message.  We want to stand out as an alternative to existing CRM platforms.  As a small company, we would struggle to be heard using traditional strategies.  We want to stand out as an alternative to existing CRM platforms. The way we can do this is by disrupting the market.

What does that mean in practice?

We listened to our existing clients and found that marketers were struggling to connect their approach. To get the information we needed to start out on our own journey meant having real life conversations about big industry problems.  Sales and marketing teams failed to align. This meant missed opportunities and lost revenue. All sounds pretty miserable, right?

We wanted to change that by giving marketers all the tools they needed to connect each data set they accessed.  Our in-house developers created a system connecting customers to appropriate products. We also wanted to connect marketing and sales teams to achieve higher ROIs.  This gives marketers more power than ever before to understand and evolve their own approach.

We changed our language too.  Instead of filling our website with technical jargon, we have adopted an easy-to-understand approach.  From talking to our customers, we know that it can sometimes be overwhelming to be faced with too many complex terms.  We want our customers to know that they can ask us anything and the way to achieve that is by using language that they understand.

Isn’t It Risky?

There are some risks involved with taking a disruptive marketing approach.  Misjudge the market and your marketing message may fall flat.  This may happen if you fail to research the market sufficiently or if you analyse old or inaccurate data.  You may end up alienating your intended audience.  However, this risk is minimised with proper market research.

There is no blueprint for how companies should market disruptively.  There is some certainty when walking on a well trodden path but disrupting the market is more comparable to forging a new path entirely.  It may lead to somewhere fantastic but it is riddled with challenges.  Being prepared for setbacks is important.

You need to be prepared to face difficult challenges, may suffer from a lack of funding or initial support.  The biggest challenge that you will face is getting people to support your mission into uncharted territory.  Established companies have already garnered the trust of their customers and you need to work hard to show your value.  However, get the message right and the reward for taking this risk is huge.

How to Take a Disruptive Marketing Approach

If you think that a disruptive approach to marketing may help you develop your business, take the following steps:

– Identify market trends

– Create a detailed buyer persona

– List the main pain points your customers face

– Develop a product or solution that addresses customer problems

– Market the product to the user in a way they understand

Summary

Taking a disruptive marketing approach can be effective for companies looking to burst into a market.  These approaches can also help quickly increase market share.  To use this approach, you need a product that stands out from the existing market with a strong USP.

By taking a disruptive marketing approach, we have been able to break into an already saturated CRM market.  Our presence continues to grow as we look to increase our client numbers.  Before long we want to increase our client base significantly and establish our software as a popular white-label option.  However, we are prepared to evolve and continue to listen to our customers as this will provide us with key insights about how we need to develop next.

Keep up to date with our journey to disrupting the Marketing CRM industry by signing up to the Wired Plus Journey below.

The post What is a disruptive marketing approach and why are we doing it? appeared first on Wired Plus Marketing Hub.