Flow Marketing is a new approach for creating and cultivating relationships with customers.
- When a marketer delivers services, not messages
- When a company supports customers at the critical "point of need"
- When a brand forms an active, personal connection with consumers
How does Flow Marketing work?
Technology advances offer new opportunities for marketing communications. We know that consumers now spend more time interacting with digital media, at home and on the move, owing to the fast-growing array of portable, personal electronic devices.
It is an interactive approach to marketing that aims to create a flow experience** for the consumer and, at the same time, enhanced loyalty for the brand.
What kinds of services?
The point of Flow Marketing is to induce a flow state in consumers. Brands can accomplish this by providing, at the "point of need" – valuable services and relevant content that improve the customer’s experience, enabling her to make informed, satisfying choices.
What are the benefits for brands?
Flow Marketing operates on both functional and emotional levels. Consumers welcome useful services provided by brands; and by virtue of the regularity, reliability, relevance and value of a brand’s communications, they also feel more involved with the brand, more engaged.
What are the benefits for consumers?
The philosophy of Flow Marketing – communications as service – is true customer-centricity. It aims to anticipate consumers’ needs before they even crystallize, and to provide on-demand, customized responses. In consequence, customers experience fluid, personal relationships with their preferred brands.
Is there a downside?
Brands face the considerable challenge of coming up with fresh ideas for innovative digital services. There is also the risk that brands may ultimately bore or annoy customers: the frequency of communications must be calibrated with care. And inevitably, as consumers come to consider such initiatives as their due, the notion of a high-value, privileged relationship could erode.
Examples of Flow Marketing
With L’Oréal Paris, Nurun created a mobile services website, accessible via iPhone, that offers guidance, expertise and product information.
For Caja Madrid , Nurun has designed the Oficina Internet, which makes banking services available on Web, WAP and TV.
** Flow state: "a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, success of the activity." See Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper & Row, 1990)