Apostle customers:
How many times have you seen an Apple sticker pasted in a car? Or how many times when first meet a person have you realized that he probably wore Levi’s jeans? When companies think about their marketing strategies, they always pursue to persuade their target to have a need to purchase their products. They don’t create needs; they just design the right product or service to cover existing needs. Being successful doing that is not easy, but once a company gets it, everything becomes easier: the product will be sold to the right customers, company’s positioning will be the proper and the most faithful consumers will unconsciously start to promote the product by wearing clothes with the name of the brand, pasting stickers on the car or decorating their rooms as if it was a museum of their favorite brand. These are the customers I want to talk about, which are called “apostle customers”.
The marketing mix is more than 4 P’s, it is the beginning and the end of the success of a campaign. Product must appeal customers, Price must be competitive but profitable, the Place where companies sell their products is vital to attract the right customers and the Promotion must be established so as to find apostles. Thus, when marketers design their strategies, they first of all have to identify these customers in order to cover all the P’s properly. They could be seen as “the post sales representatives” because they are the first to purchase, try the product and tell other potential customers its features, advantages and benefits. The only differences are that they don’t solicit orders and they just do it because they want, in order words, they do it for free.
From my point of view, at the very beginning there could be a lot of potential customers but not everyone would react the same way to marketing campaigns. So, how can companies find their apostles? Now that new technologies permit to interconnect people from all over the world and share information in just two seconds wherever you are, products are more common shown first by Internet. Therefore, all the customers interested in purchasing the product will find themselves the information required while at the same moment companies can make surveys to them so as to know how apostles and other faithful customers understand and value the product and the whole campaign to sell it or make it familiar to society.
As they were two thousand years before, apostles keep on being the most appropriate allied for anyone. Marketers can learn from them how the current trends are, how they can present the product or even they can estimate whether the campaigns are going to be successful or not. Moreover, feedback can be received from apostles in several issues once the product has been launched such as the performance of the product, possible improvements and comparisons with other similar products. They form one of the most significant groups of stakeholders a company has, so resources should be allocated in every case in order not only to satisfy them but also to make them “indirectly” participate in creating the right positioning for new products.
To sum up, I would like to say that I don’t consider myself as an apostle. I would better define myself as a follower, once others have tried the product and I know exactly its features then I am ready to try it. In fact, although I think that apostles use to pay more for new products just to demonstrate they are up to date, they are crucial assets companies must take into account.
How many times have you seen an Apple sticker pasted in a car? Or how many times when first meet a person have you realized that he probably wore Levi’s jeans? When companies think about their marketing strategies, they always pursue to persuade their target to have a need to purchase their products. They don’t create needs; they just design the right product or service to cover existing needs. Being successful doing that is not easy, but once a company gets it, everything becomes easier: the product will be sold to the right customers, company’s positioning will be the proper and the most faithful consumers will unconsciously start to promote the product by wearing clothes with the name of the brand, pasting stickers on the car or decorating their rooms as if it was a museum of their favorite brand. These are the customers I want to talk about, which are called “apostle customers”.
The marketing mix is more than 4 P’s, it is the beginning and the end of the success of a campaign. Product must appeal customers, Price must be competitive but profitable, the Place where companies sell their products is vital to attract the right customers and the Promotion must be established so as to find apostles. Thus, when marketers design their strategies, they first of all have to identify these customers in order to cover all the P’s properly. They could be seen as “the post sales representatives” because they are the first to purchase, try the product and tell other potential customers its features, advantages and benefits. The only differences are that they don’t solicit orders and they just do it because they want, in order words, they do it for free.
From my point of view, at the very beginning there could be a lot of potential customers but not everyone would react the same way to marketing campaigns. So, how can companies find their apostles? Now that new technologies permit to interconnect people from all over the world and share information in just two seconds wherever you are, products are more common shown first by Internet. Therefore, all the customers interested in purchasing the product will find themselves the information required while at the same moment companies can make surveys to them so as to know how apostles and other faithful customers understand and value the product and the whole campaign to sell it or make it familiar to society.
As they were two thousand years before, apostles keep on being the most appropriate allied for anyone. Marketers can learn from them how the current trends are, how they can present the product or even they can estimate whether the campaigns are going to be successful or not. Moreover, feedback can be received from apostles in several issues once the product has been launched such as the performance of the product, possible improvements and comparisons with other similar products. They form one of the most significant groups of stakeholders a company has, so resources should be allocated in every case in order not only to satisfy them but also to make them “indirectly” participate in creating the right positioning for new products.
To sum up, I would like to say that I don’t consider myself as an apostle. I would better define myself as a follower, once others have tried the product and I know exactly its features then I am ready to try it. In fact, although I think that apostles use to pay more for new products just to demonstrate they are up to date, they are crucial assets companies must take into account.
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