Subscribe Now!

Events Calendar

Online Product Catalogs

Manufacturers Directory

Product Update Pages

eBabyShop newsletter

Baby Shop Flipbook

A Customer Strategy
Create Integrity Partnerships

Find the Fanatics
Where can integrity heavy-users be found? Some may be tucked inside your current customer base and just haven’t been asked the right questions or offered the right incentive to stick their heads up and be identified. Other are patronizing the competition, and aren’t necessarily happy with that experience. Still others may not have experienced your products or services, but they are always willing and eager to meet a new friend or form a limited, integrity-based partnership.

Integrity heavy-users are, in fact everywhere. You just have to know where to look or, more accurately, how to look. The behavior and attitudes of integrity buyers are eminently researchable. Using habits and attitudes studies that can track buyers’ brand or product affinities.

As just one example, a marketer of premium sportswear might also discover that their best prospects tend to buy premium sports equipment with common value propositions, namely, offering product that will outlive the customer. That could offer some co-branding opportunities, and it could also provide important insight into what the integrity heavy-user’s entire lifestyle looks like.

Here are a few things to look for when you are designing research to research out integrity heavy-users:

• They may be willing to pay a bit more for what they see as a lot more in quality. They seek longevity and durability over flash and empty style.
• They scan the marketplace for options like everyone else, but they don’t jump for the sake of trying something new. They are thoughtful more often than they are impetuous.
• They love the genuine article. They are attracted to all things athentic that don’t necessarily rely on enormous marketing budgets to prop up the brand. Some of them are specifically drawn to brands that are understated in their marketing communications.
• They tend to stay with a brand they like longer than their more fickle fellow buyers, especially if the brand has found ways to specifically reward them for their loyalty by providing them with even greater value for the superior quality. They may be willing to try new products and services, but they are considerably more likely to stick with new products from companies and brands that have proven they can be trusted. Because of that, they are more likely to try brand extensions from trusted “partners” than to seek the same products elsewhere.
• They are attracted to brand that more frequently market with a focus on performance rather than price, although they are more than willing to purchase lower-priced items if they believe they are a good value.
• They are more aware of the context of the product or brand, such as its history, the reputation of its parent company, the quality of its people who have contact with buyers, and what kind of level of customer service is offered.

Prospect in search of high-integrity brands may be more demanding than the ordinary buyer in terms of the time and attention a company must pay, but it’s generally worth it for a company or brand to take the extra time to work with them.

Editorial is a reprint from TRUTH: The New Rules for Marketing in a Skeptical World, by Lynn Upshaw. Copyright © 2007 Lynn Upshaw. Published by AMACOM Books, a division of American Management Association, New York, NY. Used with permission. All rights reserved. http://www.amacombooks.org.