Your customers have a shelf life

Most companies would never build a five-year financial plan using five-year-old market data. Yet when it comes to customers, organizations routinely make major decisions based on assumptions formed four marketing departments ago. From that older data, they know their audience. They know what customers value. They know why people buy. They know which segments matter most. Until they don’t. Customers rarely announce that they’ve changed. Their priorities shift gradually as new generations enter the category and media habits evolve. Expectations change and economic pressures alter purchasing decisions. New competitors reset what people consider valuable. Meanwhile, the organization keeps planning. Marketing targets familiar audiences while product teams develop against established needs. Media dollars follow historical behavior, and sales teams rely on the same value propositions. The strategy may be internally consistent, but it’s based on stale customer insights. THE DANGER OF INHERITED CUSTOMER KNOWLEDGE Every successful organization accumulates institutional knowledge about its customers. That knowledge is valuable, but can become dangerous when it morphs into assumption. Stateme…

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