Jeffrey Mucci at MarketingProfs.com provides a framework of turning your business into a marketing-led organization like Starbucks, Harley Davidson, Southwest Airlines, and FedEx. Marketing-led organizations require first and foremost a cultural shift in the organization where everyone becomes the voice of the customer. Marketing-led organizations focus on customer retention, satisfaction, experience management,and lifetime value, while sales-led organizations focus on customer acquisition, revenue, profit, and market share. As Jeffrey states, “There must be commitment to investing in the company and its infrastructure in an effort to better serve its customers—create a world-class customer experience and reputation.” This doesn’t mean you have to throw a ton of money to build brand awareness through advertising. As described in detail in Al Ries’ book “The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR“, Starbucks built its brand primarily through word-of-mouth and word-of-media. Their offer was compelling enough to get people talking about them. In particular, the experience Starbucks offers with its coffee was worth talking about.

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