Dow does Marketing Strategy Create Value for Customers Journey? The opening passage of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities paints a reflection of pre-revolution Paris and London. It is also a reasonably accurate description of the state of marketing in the Digital Age.

1. How does Marketing
Strategy Create Value
for Customers Journey
The opening passage of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of
Two Cities paints a reflection of pre-revolution Paris
and London. It is also a reasonably accurate description
of the state of marketing in the Digital Age.
www.ppcexpo.com

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Marketing Strategy for Value Addition in Customer Journey
The opening passage of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities paints a reflection of pre-revolution Paris
and London. It is also a reasonably accurate description of the state of marketing in the Digital Age.
Many of you are likely familiar with this famous opening line, but, in case you need a refresher, Dickens
writes:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of
foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity…:”
This duality between the best and worst of times is something that every marketer has felt. It’s this
golden age where businesses are always accessible by their customers and vice versa. Marketers have
more communication channels than they know what to do with and more consumer insights than they
can reasonably comprehend.

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What is Return on Investment (ROI) and Why Does it Matter?
Yet, these benefits are often marred by the challenges that come with them. They’ve made marketing
more competitive and complicated than it has ever been. It’s hard to stand out and attract customers in
today’s marketing world; it’s even harder to keep those customers.
There is, however, a solution for both these obstacles: value. Value is achieved through information
(wisdom), creativity (a touch of foolishness) and establishing credibility at a time when many consumers
are looking for signals not to believe a marketing message.
The purpose of this discussion is to explore the concept of value-added marketing and why it is necessary
for today’s marketing climate. You’ll also be introduced to some strategies for creating value for
customers.

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Part 1: Is Anyone Even Listening? How To Get Noticed In The
Competitive, Value-Driven Marketing World
Businesses and consumers are connecting and interacting on many different channels. For consumers, it
can quickly become overwhelming. They are exposed to more branded messages than their brain can
reasonably recognize and compute. There are sponsored social media posts, email newsletters, and even
ads on their favorite websites.
All of this marketing noise makes it extremely difficult for a business to stand out. It creates a number of
challenges that need to be identified and addressed.
• Blind to Banners
• Too Much of A Bad Thing Is Still A Bad Thing
• Positioning Products/Services to Stand Out In a Crowded Market
• Value Addition Marketing
• Relevancy Is Vital

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Blind to Banners
Over the years, consumers have built up a semi-immunity to ads and marketing messages. This is only
worsened by the sheer abundance of marketing efforts bombarding people on a daily basis.
Subconsciously ignoring ads is an action that has extended to the online world as well, particularly with
banners that display on the edges of websites. This is known as banner blindness, where consumers
become so accustomed to ad banners that they don’t even really recognize them at all.
There may be banners on this very page. Before you just glanced at the edges of the page, did you know
what these banner ads were for?

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Too Much of A Bad Thing Is Still A Bad Thing
To ensure that their marketing messages are recognized, some businesses make the mistake of
sending more advertisements and promotional messages than their customers want to see.
This tactic creates view fatigue, where consumers get tired, or even annoyed, by the oversaturation of
ads that disrupt their activities. This feeling is worsened when the same messages are repeated over and
over again.
When studying social media unfollows, Sprout Social found clues as to what causes viewer fatigue:
• 60% of respondents were annoyed when a brand promoted too much.
• 41% disengaged from a brand because of irrelevant messages and content.

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Positioning Products/Services to Stand Out In a Crowded Market
Viewer fatigue, banner blindness, and other marketing obstacles are worsened when you try and enter a
space that is particularly oversaturated. In these cases, allowing your products or services to shine
requires a little extra effort and ingenuity.
Positioning your product or service to stand out in a crowded market requires you to utilize unique
messaging strategies. You don’t want to appear as ‘just another brand.’ Thus, your marketing strategies
need to highlight the ways that your company or products are different from the competition.
Can’t find a unique edge? Create one! A goofy marketing mascot, a rewarding loyalty program, a funny
social media presence, or a purpose-driven mission statement are all ways that you can produce a unique
experience that customers will want to cling to.

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Value Addition Marketing
This unique experience that gives products, services and brands much-wanted attention in crowded
markets is created through value addition. As mentioned earlier, businesses used to achieve this strictly
by offering financial value, like discounts, coupons, and other deals.
Now, value addition marketing includes any tactic that adds to the customer experience, financial or
otherwise. Because consumers have so many options to choose from, even in niche markets, price and
product quality are no longer enough to gain a competitive edge.
Instead, shoppers look at the experience around the products or services that they are buying. What
value is offered before and after the purchase? How does this compare to what other brands offer?
These are the questions that today’s consumers pose.
To respond, businesses need to focus on strategies for creating value for customers.

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Relevancy Is Vital
Successful marketing is achieved by adding relevant value. This is known as empathetic marketing.
Empathy comes from understanding the customer and his or her needs, motivations, attitudes and
feelings.
When you understand a customer’s attitudes and emotions, you can prepare content and experiences
that are more relevant to those motivations. This gives customers a sense that they matter and their
wants/needs are listened to and appreciated.

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Part 2: Where Does Value Come From? What Exactly Is Value
Added Marketing?
Value has shifted from a tangible concept to an intangible one. In the marketing days of old, we assessed
value almost entirely in dollars and cents. A quality product for less money had better value. We could
quantify value.
While this is still true today, the idea of value is used more and more to qualify the experience that each
business aims to showcase to potential customers.
In this sense, value is acquired through many different activities. Each activity adds value to this
experience and helps entice customers.

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Part 2: Where Does Value Come From? What Exactly Is Value
Added Marketing?
This section will explore where value comes from and what exactly is meant by value-added marketing.
• Where Does Value Come From?
• What Is Value Added Marketing?
• Examples of Value Addition Tactics
• The 4 Characteristics of Successful Value-Added Marketing
• Value-Added Marketing Creates More Valuable Customer
• Empowering Value Addition Marketing With A Customer-First Approach

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Where Does Value Come From?
Again, a value can be categorized as either financial value (tangible) or nonfinancial value (intangible)
Financial value manifests itself through the tactics that help customers save money. Value is created by
allowing consumers to get more for less. Common examples of financial value tactics include coupons,
discounts, reward programs, buy-one-get-one offers, etc.
This monetary value can also be created by adding new features or qualities to existing
products/services. When the perceived value of these additions is greater than the actual amount paid,
then consumers assume that they are getting a better deal.
Nonfinancial value is often harder to define. It is created by strategies that add value to the brand
experience surrounding your products and services. This experience happens before, during and after a
purchase is made.

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Where Does Value Come From?
Content and communication are two of the primary ways that businesses produce a valuable experience.
Content helps customers understand the products and services being offered. This assists them in making
smarter purchasing decisions. Communication, on the other hand, delivers customer service to solve
problems that shoppers may encounter.

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What Is Value Added Marketing?
By definition, value addition in marketing is gaining a competitive advantage by combining, packaging,
bundling, or otherwise adding benefits or features at a product level or company level. In other words,
you can add value to a single product/service, or to the brand itself.
The purpose of value-added marketing is to go beyond customer expectations through the addition of
these benefits or features. When companies are able to exceed expectations in helpful and new ways,
they gain a clear edge over the competition.
Remember, relevancy is key. You want to add value in ways that solve customer pain points and address
their attitudes. This creates value by offering a feature or benefit that is missing from the market. And, it
gives customers a sense that their feelings are recognized and appreciated.
This level of value addition generates loyal customers that quickly become ambassadors for your
company and products.

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Examples of Value Addition Tactics
Businesses can produce value addition across many different marketing channels. Value is not created
exclusively by producing better products and services. The real challenge is knowing where and how to
add value beyond improving your current offerings.
Some examples of value addition tactics include:
• Providing customer service that is faster and more convenient than expected
• Adding new features to existing products that help elevate their positions in the market
• Developing a new brand persona, mascot, logo, etc.
• Following up purchases with helpful materials and services
• Releasing new products/services that compliment or add to existing offerings

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Examples of Value Addition Tactics
• Creating helpful content that adds understanding or benefits
• Packaging products in new ways that offer convenience, savings or other perks
• Partnering with other companies to add new dimensions to your business and products
There are countless ways to add value. The more value you create, the greater the chance that your
brand and its products will stand out.

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The 4 Characteristics of Successful Value-Added Marketing
Adding more value is always a positive, but excellent value addition is only achieved when the value
being added meets specific criteria.
Relevant: As mentioned earlier, relevance is vital in value-added marketing. You have to carefully
consider your customers and their attitudes, perspectives, and needs. Then, meet these feelings with
features and benefits.
Creative: Creativity leads to new ways to repurpose or update old strategies. In terms of value addition,
creative ideas are perfect because they are often unique and even a little quirky. Many consumers love
discovering new things they’ve never seen or experienced before.

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The 4 Characteristics of Successful Value-Added Marketing
Unique and Unexpected: Value is only added when the tactic is something new or unexpected. If
you’re offering benefits or products that already exist in the market from other companies, then the
added value is minimized.
Convenient: Many tactics add value to a product or brand through convenience. They make the lives of
customers easier, or the product/services themselves more comfortable to use or acquire. It’s also
important that the value you’re adding is itself convenient. In other words, customers shouldn’t have to
go through endless hoops to acquire the value you’ve added.

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Value-Added Marketing Creates More Valuable Customer
Standing out in a competitive space and acquiring more market share are reasons enough to develop
new sources of value for customers to enjoy, but they aren’t the only benefits.
Today’s consumers are always chasing the latest brand experience like a cat chases the red dot from a
laser pointer. This has made customer loyalty very fleeting. When a brand experience is inherently more
valuable to customers, they are more willing to stay loyal for longer.
A valuable experience that holds attention for longer than a moment is a winner. Customers will spend
more and have a higher lifetime value. They’ll also be more inclined to recommend the brand to others.
This leads to more growth opportunities and an overall stronger customer base.

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Empowering Value Addition Marketing With A Customer-First
Approach
Businesses are faced with a tough conflict. While hyper-loyal customers are scarcer than ever, the value
of retaining customers remains the same. To ensure that your company retains customers, and does not
merely attract one-off purchases, a customer-first approach to value addition marketing is necessary.
Customer-first means exactly how it sounds: the customer is at the heart of everything. Adopting this
approach means putting the customer and his or her needs at the center. When the customer feels at the
top of your company’s totem pole, their loyalty is much easier to secure.
Unfortunately, it’s one thing to say you have a customer-first philosophy, and an entirely different animal
to actually implement this strategy. Businesses have to commit a lot of time and attention to their
audience to create a customer-centric approach.

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Empowering Value Addition Marketing With A Customer-First
Approach
It starts with identifying exactly who that audience is, as well as the smaller segments that comprise the
larger audience. Then, you need to “listen” to each segment, particularly as they move across different
touchpoints.
Listening, in this sense, means paying attention to how customers behave and interact on each channel.
Sometimes, customers will come out and say what they are feeling, but, more often than not, you need
to derive these insights for yourself.
Find out what makes your audiences tick and use this information to show them a customer-centric
experience that adds tremendous value to your brand.

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Part 3: Putting It All Together With Marketing Strategies for
Creating Value For Customers
With the importance of value-added marketing and a customer-focused approach established, it is time
to shift focus towards putting this knowledge to work. By exploring these strategies for creating value for
customers, you can discover tactics that can be incorporated into your own business.
• It All Starts With Data Analysis and Listening
• Make the Customer Feel Welcomed
• Don’t Let Friction Impede
• Innovate Endlessly
• Empower the Customer Voice
• Blending Self-Service and Full-Service Customer Support Together
• Loyalty Is a Gift Worth Treasuring
• Recognizing Complaints the Right Way

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It All Starts With Data Analysis and Listening
Your customers are practically screaming at you with their needs, preferences and feelings, whether they
realize it or not. It’s not just a matter of listening to direct feedback, but also the indirect breadcrumbs of
data that customers leave behind as they interact with your brand, products and/or services.
Sales data, engagement metrics, loyalty program participation, email opens and everything in between; it
all creates subtle and not-so-subtle insights into how customers are behaving and feeling. These insights
allow you to understand the customer journey and what your business needs to do to improve the
process.
When a customer journey is rife with value at every turn, it encourages prospective shoppers to not just
convert to customers, but become lovers of your brand and its products or services.

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Make the Customer Feel Welcomed
Customers want to feel heard and have their preferences recognized, remembered and delivered upon.
Personalization is a crucial factor in seizing long-term customer loyalty, but often hard to master. The
challenge is recognizing how to personalize the journey for each individual. This task is much harder for
large businesses that deal with hundreds to thousands of customers in a single day.
The importance of personalization has created a rise in CRM tools, which track and collect unique
customer data across different channels. When a customer interacts with your brand, you have a detailed
summary of who that customer is, what products they’ve purchased, problems they’ve encountered in
the past, their favorite shipping method, preferred payment option, etc. All of these chunks of
information allow you to approach the customer with a personalized experience.
A personalized experience makes a customer feel welcomed. It’s like walking into your favorite restaurant
and having the staff greet you by name and immediately begin preparing your favorite food order. When
a customer feels welcomed, they’ll want to keep coming back.

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Don’t Let Friction Impede Momentum
Women’s suffragist and educator Frances Willard wrote, “I will not waste my life in friction when it could
be turned into momentum.” While Willard was addressing far more serious matters than strategies for
creating value for customers, her words resonate with how customers feel when a brand experience is
clunky and disjointed.
Friction is your absolute worst enemy. Any process that is overly complicated, to the point that it detracts
from the overall experience, is not the preference of a customer. If a process can be achieved in four
steps, instead of seven, then your customers want the shorter route.
Creating a smooth customer journey is a great value addition. Whenever you can save a customer time
and effort, the perceived value of your goods and services is elevated.
Don’t make customers go through endless hoops or ask that they repeat the process at each new
touchpoint. The experience needs to be seamless no matter what channel the customer is on.

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Innovate Endlessly
Customers desire to be on the cutting edge. This is why brands like Nike, Apple, GE and other colossal
brands are where they are. It boils down to innovation. The products they create are innovative to the
point of being unique. People desire unique because it helps them stand out.
You don’t have to be a Nike or Apple for customers to see you as an innovator. By continuously adding
value to your products and experiences through new features and benefits, you create the perception
that your brand is committed to innovating and pushing the envelope.
In other words, value-added marketing isn’t always what about what you’re doing right at the moment,
but what you may do in the future.

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Empower the Customer Voice
While you can rely on analyzing data to understand your customers, it’s often better to hear it right from
the horse’s mouth. But, you first need to create an available platform that encourages customers to share
their feedback openly.
Most customers will be more than happy to share their thoughts and feelings when presented with the
opportunity. Customers are pulling for you to deliver the experience that they want and they understand
that it doesn’t always come automatically.
This strategy benefits both sides. Your business will gain invaluable insights that it wouldn’t otherwise
have, while your customers will gain a sense that their voices are heard and that they are contributing to
the growth and success of the brand. They’ll feel like a valued part of the brand, instead of just another
customer sales figure.

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Blending Self-Service and Full-Service Customer Support Together
Customer service and support have changed in recent years. Merely having a support phone number
available is no longer enough. Instead, customers look for multiple support and service channels to
handle their questions and problems.
Some of these channels are traditional customer support methods, like phoning a customer service
number. Others, however, are self-service channels where customers find solutions to problems on their
own. For example, a robust knowledge center, FAQ page, AI-powered chatbot or a library of how-to
guides are all ways that customers can solve their problems on their own.

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Blending Self-Service and Full-Service Customer Support Together
Your customer service offerings need to be complete. There should be resources available to
answer all possible customer problems, whether before, during or after a purchase is made. And, you
should offer customers the choice between many different forms of communication. Don’t be limited to
one communication channel!
A robust and empathetic customer service strategy will add tremendous value to all customers. Keep in
mind this is the voice of your company! One positive interaction with a customer support agent can gain
a customer’s loyalty for a lifetime.

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Loyalty Is a Gift Worth Treasuring
Given that customer loyalty is such a scarce commodity, you really need to treasure and reward it. There
should be an obvious distinction between customers that have long stood by your brand, and those that
have just purchased for the first time.
This is a hard balancing act to manage because you still want new customers to feel appreciated. Your
loyalty reward programs need to award long-term customers the most but still feel attainable for new
customers that want to participate and commit their patronage.
Loyalty programs are another value addition tactic that works both ways. Customers are rewarded the
more they buy or longer they remain a customer. These rewards help save money through discounts or
free products. The business, on the other side, retains customers for longer and achieves higher
customer lifetime values.

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Recognizing Complaints the Right Way
Unhappy customers are an inevitability. Even the best businesses in the world produce unhappy guests.
How you acknowledge and address customer complaints goes a long way in improving the customer
journey and increasing customer retention. One bad experience can turn a customer off for good, but
handling a customer complaint quickly and appropriately presents an opportunity to turn that negative
experience into a positive one.
It’s all about being proactive, instead of reactive. In other words, responding and rectifying customer’s
problems is great. However, if you can identify potential issues and resolve them before they ruin your
customer experience, that’s an even greater source of value addition.

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Recognizing Complaints the Right Way
This is why creating customer feedback loops is so important. Bill Gates identifies “unhappy customers as
your greatest source of learning.” So, it is crucial that you not only address pain points but resolve them
permanently.
Customers understand that mistakes can happen. How you handle and resolve your errors shows a lot
about your brand and adds value to the experience where it would otherwise have been lost.

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Conclusions
The ending of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities ends in tragedy, but your customer journey doesn’t have to
follow suit. At a time when marketers need to do more to stand out, it is imperative that your brand and
products give consumers reasons to become long-term, loyal customers.
Value-added marketing is the path to achieving this objective. By adding value at every turn of the
customer’s journey, you’ll become the obvious choice for shoppers looking for a new business.
And, because awesome customer experiences are so valued, these consumers will want to share their
discovery of your brand with others.
The result of value-added marketing is customers with higher retention rates and more lifetime value.
Now that is a happy ending.

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