Egocentric or Consumer-Centric ?

This is an extremely important question that we have asked ourselves many times, and certainly anyone who has a business has read at some point an article, a course or seen a video on youtube, by an expert who says how important it is to put the consumer first. 

And we have been trying for a time to give you such an example, but it is very difficult considering that there are many intangible things, difficult to explain and quantify. We definitely need an example, and this new example required a careful follow-up of the client for over a year.

Let us explain how we realized how important the market is for you, and how important it is to listen to what the customer wants from you. Think about it: this customer had an online fashion store and we took it over when he was having sales somewhere around 16,000 RON with an investment of 10,000 RON. 

The moment we picked it up, we analyzed everything. Through the audit we perform initially, we analyzed absolutely all the platforms, we saw the activity it was having and we decided, in the first phase, to reduce the budget from 12,000 RON to 9,000 RON, because there is a spam cap in Facebook, given that the algorithm and / or the pixel does not identify enough targets at that time. When the frequency of campaigns is blocked skype you will be algorithmically affected. 

The first part was to install the pixel corresponding to the platform. It was a pretty old shop, it wasn't very mobile, moreover, it had quite a few errors when there was high traffic and, you know very well what the spikes in social media are like: sometimes it gets stuck. And so, we thank the customers who had patience, in fact, our customers who had the patience to purchase the goods once again through subsequent advertisements.

When we reduced the budget, we also noticed in this analysis that the posts were extremely irregular. There were days when 70 pictures were posted, 90 pictures, then days of a very long break, that is, there were weeks when 4 posts were made 4 in a day, for four consecutive days, and then it went back into this algorithmic spam. 

That is why the first thing we did was to stabilize the posts to one post a day, the budget was low, and the sales in the first months jumped to 31,000 RON. This brand continued, reaching step by step, in one year to have an average of over 60,000 RON of sales per month and the monthly budget was 11,000 RON. There were all kinds of moments, for example, in September-December when people went on vacation, the budget plans were lower, because the couriers did not deliver at that time. 

One of our main values is that consistency is very important. 

Clientul nostru a ales să facă el singur pozele cu telefonul, insista că el știe foarte bine ceea ce vrea clientul său. După lungi discuții am ales să înțelegem, deși și nouă ne-a fost destul de greu să înțelegem de ce un om ar prefera o poză făcută cu un telefon destul de vechi cu haine agățate în nailon de pescuit decât o poză făcută profi pe un fundal alb sau poate într-o poză de social media care să transmită emoții. 

Din teste vă spunem că acest client a avut dreptate. A știut exact ceea ce clientul își dorea atât ca reprezentare, dar foarte important, a știut exact ce haine își dorea clientul respectiv. Și, aici, o să vedeți la sfârșit…dacă urmăriți tot studiul de caz o să înțelegeți ceea ce vrem să vă spunem și cum am descoperit lucrul acesta. 

After a year of record online sales came the pandemic. We will not take the pandemic months into account ,and this is not because they were lower, but because during the pandemic the sales. 

In the initial phase, this client called me, asked me what he should do. I told him that he should cut the budget, but never stop selling. The first two weeks were quite numb, but after the other two and a half months the sales were 180,000 RON, given that the monthly budget was 7,000 RON. So, with less money, he made 3 times more conversion, that's because during the pandemic, all the people, all the businesses ”certain”, the ”smart entrepreneurs”, gave up promoting themselves, but people didn't stop buying. 

 Here, we have an example of a very consumer-centric decision. That was a decision we made with him, and he listened to us very intelligently. There were enough businesses that did not listen to their marketers, but in this case it was not so. It was a very happy case. 

After the three months, due to some fiscal decisions and, of course, the decisions imposed by the government during this period, he had to close the company, even if he had record sales, which offered him the chance to take a break and sell the business. That's exactly what he did. He sold the business only to free himself for a short time. He was greatly affected by political decisions.

As you well know, no one does something for you if you do not do it for yourself, he sold the business to a person who already came with fashion experience, a person who had more experience in fashion, but in the B2B part. 

The person who took over the account, wanted to continue collaborating with us, but when he took over the account (this is where the person's egocentrism comes in), instead of continuing on the same line, considering that he was also a producer and the only thing they had to do was to copy the patterns, change the fabric and keep the patterns the same; they decided instead, to do everything the other way around. 

They changed everything. They changed the design of the products and their answer to our inquiry of why was always: "Well, yes, but I don't like the old ones". They ended up receiving messages and comments requesting a return to the designs that were established. 

Well, that's what a business that doesn't listen to what the consumer says looks like. 

Here, the effect was the following: sales plummeted from over 180,000 RON to only 26,000 RON in the following month.

Another thing they did, they deleted absolutely all the old products. They said they no longer wanted to have anything to do with the old brand build, but still sold the same brand. Here is again, what I told you about how the Facebook pixel and the algorithm work: they identify identical and similar behavioral typologies, and that's why the people they always explored were about the same. The new owner went from the established sizes of L and XL to sizes of S and M. Instantly, sales fell to 26,000 RON in one month, as a consequence. 

After that, we had a discussion in which I told him to resuscitate the business and return to the established model. In the second month, following the discussion, quite a lot of products were uploaded, which went to 26,000 RON in sales.

The moment you start to be successful, if instead of putting more money in advertising you decide to put less money in advertising, the facebook pixel ”penalises” you. 

The daily budget was reduced from 200 lei to 100 lei. Sales fell to 9,000 RON. After they dropped to 9,000 RON, we had another discussion in which we said to upload products similar to the ones before.

We have always said that, if you have a successful formula, use it and reuse this successful formula until you have a major success, and if you really want to start, or revolutionize a brand as you did now, build a new brand from scratch, but don't kill your main source of income. 

After the return to the previous budget, the sales increased by a little margin again. It reached somewhere around 14,000 RON, but there was the moment when theego frustration accumulated. It is very important even in the organic content you post, not to create content that only satisfies you, as the brands used to do in the past, but to build content that attracts your customer. 

Regarding the communication in the traditional marketing method: you built something, you put it on TV, aired it, and waited to see what the feedback was. Well, today's online marketing and especially social media marketing, gives you the opportunity to instantly find out what your customer wants.

Unfortunately, that selfish approach that simply pushes your thinking and pretensions (agenda) as a business and disregards the feedback that your customers give you continuously and constantly, especially when you have a brand with a certain name, guarantees that you will be quickly buried in garbage. 

What I said every time, in today's online you have two options: either you are a stand out and you manage to impose yourself, and this has some very nice outcomes namely, that you will sell a lot, you will prosper and, of course , people will recommend you, or you aren’t using things properly, then you will be easily forgotten. Even if you are a well-known brand, you will be easily forgotten.

This game is extremely important especially when you are a beginner so you do not know the market trends and tendencies. This is why I would suggest to a business that already makes online sales, to no longer elaborate the whole online strategy on its own, because there might be some things to observe, and, as I said, you must be objective at the moment in which you see them, and if you are in love with your business, this subjectivity can affect you very much. At the same time, subjectivity can shake the ground if you know how to interpret the logical conditions that are in these times.

So the question is, ”If you're wasting time by looking at online classes and not acting, why wouldn’t you waste time the right way?