What is Value-Added Marketing & Why is it so Important?
From small independent businesses to large multinational corporations, there are a few realities that every brand faces. One is that customer loyalty is proving increasingly difficult to retain in a saturated market with so much competition, and another is that the customer experience has never been more important.
So with this in mind, what can businesses do to stay front-of-mind among their customer base, and “go that extra mile” to ensure a positive and memorable brand experience every time? Value-added marketing is the answer.
What is value-added marketing?
Value-added marketing is when a brand over-delivers in order to exceed customers’ expectations. It involves providing customers with an experience beyond what they believe they paid for.
This could be anything from experiential rewards (like invitations to exclusive events), or tailored content that aims to enhance their experience with your product or service.
Consider how IKEA offers its customers an endless supply of blogs and videos that demonstrate how to get the most out of its homewares, for example. This conveys that IKEA cares about its customers, and wants them to enjoy the best possible value from its products.
Value-added marketing is what helps a brand go that extra mile, whether it’s in the form of:
Expert advice and blog content
VIP perks and referral rewards
Free workshops, product launches and other industry events
Surprise freebies
Unexpected upgrades
Why is value-added marketing so important?
Treating each customer as an individual is Marketing 101. It transforms your brand-customer relationship from a transactional one to an emotional one – this is crucial, considering that those with an emotional connection to a brand have a 306% higher lifetime value than regular customers (Motista).
When done properly, value-added marketing can even create a community around your brand and engage your customers in conversations with each other. As far as the customer experience goes, no other form of marketing offers a more affordable and sustainable way to stay front-of-mind with your customers or clients for all the right reasons.
How can brands that don’t typically have much ongoing engagement with their customers deliver value-added marketing?
So when it comes to staying front of mind with customers, businesses like insurance companies, gas suppliers and car manufacturers have a much tougher time than, say, your local coffee shop that you visit every morning, or the streaming service that you listen to all day at work.
This is where exclusive discounts and experiential rewards come into play. Whether your business already has a loyalty program or not, you can easily implement rewards solutions into your customer experience and leverage this with value-added marketing content.
Services like Choovie allow brands to improve the customer experience through tangible perks like discounted nights at the cinema, movie-themed events, film-related content sent directly to customers’ inboxes and other exciting features.
Not only does it instantly improve a customer’s overall impression of your brand, but it creates an environment where word-of-mouth referrals flourish.
With Choovie, you can delight customers with pre-screenings and movie-themed events, and align your brand alongside certain films for mutual benefits (such as Lexus and Black Panther, for example). Licensed movie posters, stills and previews add credibility to your brand, while movie-related EDMs and social media posts improve the customer experience.
It’s not without its perks on your end – gain access to customer search behaviour within the platform, notice trends and patterns vs. individual insights, and develop a deeper understanding of your customers through movie engagement.
In the same way that Nike has managed to make itself synonymous with fitness and an active lifestyle, you can associate your brand with entertainment and cinematic experiences.
Check out some of our work to date for brands like Toyota, KPMG, PwC and more.
Interested in value-added marketing with Choovie?
If you’d like to arrange a free 30-minute chat to discuss how Choovie can help you strengthen the emotional connection between your brand and its customers, please don’t hesitate to contact us.