What are the 3Cs of Marketing? Why is it important?

Introduction

Kenichi Ohmae is a Japanese theorist and author, who contributed to spreading the Japanese Management Methods to the West. He also devised this 3C methodology for determining business success. The 3Cs in marketing strategy are:

1. Customers

2. Company

3. Competitors

Each of these three elements forms an inter-related triangle affecting each other's performance. Hence, it is required to measure all these three factors continuously from time to time and take corresponding actions and measures to uphold the market share. Let's now look into each of these elements, and see why it is important and what needs to be monitored.

Customers

Jeff Bezos was clever in formulating the vision statement as "To be the most Customer-Centric company on Earth." He knew the importance of building for the Customers' needs than building for passion and trying to sell the same in the market.

Whether a startup or an established organization needs to re-validate its Market Research from time-to-time to check if the product still fills all the Customer needs, and try to recognize what more needs to be done. It is important to figure out what Customer motivation is, and market accordingly.

For example, look at the key marketing strategies of Amazon upon the establishment and International Expansion:

1. 1-Day delivery - This was one of the most lucrative strategies of Amazon that caught the Customers' attention, and increased its loyal Customers.

2. 30 Days Returns and Exchange - At a time when home deliveries were not so common, Jeff understood the underlying concern behind people's concern of purchasing online, and introduced the 1-month returns and exchange policy which added to gaining trust from its Customers.

Likewise, in any industry, it is crucial to study the mindset of users and product psychology to develop a product, which can be marketed easily using the key differentiators gathered from the research. When it's properly done, the ultimate expression of the user when he sees the Ad / Content will be "This is exactly what I wanted/was searching for".

Company

When we talk about the company, it is important to give clarity to your Customers about who you are, what are you creating, what problem you are trying to solve, and your core values.

A company should have a clear vision and mission statements to help clarify to users what problem you are trying to solve, and how are you planning to do the same. This will help you build your brand.

Now that you are investing time, money, and efforts into building a company, it is important to let people know what exactly extra are you doing in that niche. You need to explain the core differentiators that you are trying to establish as your tagline.

When we talk about a company, it is not just the obvious factors that we market are remembered by the Customers, but a company's name, its logo, its key slogans, or creative ads that make customers recognize the brand easily. This is why companies choose fancy single names and create a simple logo so that they can indirectly reach the subconscious of their Customers.

It is not always about reaching to customers on who you are, but to reaching to your internal stakeholders and employees. Your core working principles will help you build an integrated brand for your customers because these principles will mould each employees perspective of your company, and will help keep everyone on the same page and focused on the mission.

Competitors

It is not always the case that a startup is established in a Blue Market ( a completely new niche). Hence, it is natural to have various competitors with several offerings. But in order to thrive in the industry, there should be some factor that you are doing extraordinarily to help you retain your market share. It will also help you get funds from various investors.

These key parameters or differentiators decide whether your business will survive in the market or not.

For example, Hostinger entered the same niche as Bluehost, Siteground, or other competitors. But, the key differentiator was its speed and easily affordable cost. Now, this is the core differentiator that would attract customers who are new to the hosting space and don't want to invest much but need an optimal solution.