The concept of " Giving the control to the customer "

The goal of marketing is to stand out and be noticed. Good marketing keeps drawing your customers' attention to your products and services.. Many of your marketing activities will focus on communicating to customers the greater value of your products (i.e. compared to your competitors). Consider which promotional activities will best meet your marketing needs.

And of one of the main aspects is  which strategies to use. Companies use either  Push or  Pull strategies   for accomplishing their marketing goals.

Above all this what's  important is that these strategies can be highly successful if customer involvement is high .If customer engages with the promotional/marketing campaign then it helps the company in many  ways i.e. branding,customer desire to purchase the product,respect for the company ,awareness etc.

One of the ways  by  which companies can  do this to attract its customers  is

“Giving the control to the customer”

This concept states that let  the customer  take  important decisions which companies generally decide like the price ,color of the product etc. Let customer decide what they want ,give the  control to the customer .   

This startegy can really do  wonders for any coampny provided that the company has  really done its homework.As if you give control on important aspects of the product ,it enagages the  audience .

When any  company opts  this strategy ,the promotional campaign or ad automatically creates interest as now its not a simple purchase but involving the customer to really decide how they can purchase the product

Crowdsourcing is about giving over control of creating ideas, knowledge.

Let us see some examples :

●Give away control of your pricing: Radiohead’s album “In Rainbows” was sold using a pay-as-you-like model, which was a limited time offer, and the album sold more copies than previous Radiohead releases.

●Microsoft invited hackers to fix bugs in their Xbox Kinect gaming console.

One of the banks in India (Indusland Bank) did a promotion in which they offered customer to decide  their bank account no.

Giving away control drives sales in the long-term

An even more radical example was Patagonia’s "Don't Buy This Jacket" advertisement during the peak of shopping season. It may have jeopardized short-term sales, but it built lasting, long-term loyalty based on shared values.

But Sometimes giving less control (and more meaning) works even better.

It is the opposite of giving control .It means rather than telling and asking things to the customer ,give customers a surprise or something which makes them excited ,something new and out of the box.Giving people less control might be a way to make them happier. It works when people are terrified by an abundance of choices.

Giving people less control might be a way to make them happier. It works when people are terrified by an abundance of choices.

As example – the travel service Nextpedition turns the trip into a game. It does not tell the traveler where he/she is going until the very last minute.

Therefore if the company really understands the market and its customer then either of strategies i.e.Giving Control or Less Control can  be  really useful for achieving company's goals.

By Ankit Sapra