blog: Marketing Strategy

How to Rebuild Your Brand in Your Customer’s Image

OK. You have a product, service or company that became successful based on your accurate determination of product/price/place/persona (brand relationship). But now competition has made inroads, or leapfrogged you. The market has changed. Your revenue curve is slipping, price-cutting is killing your margins, you don’t seem to be able to satisfy your customers, and they won’t reveal why. What do you do?

Reinvent yourself, rebrand your business, keep it fresh? One of the most expensive undertakings a marketer can entertain is a rebranding process. And it is commonly one of the most futile acts when it is to combat a negative trend in the business cycle. A valued former client in the computer manufacturing business went through this undertaking three times in the course of two years, and ended up being swallowed by another titan, after shelling out a tidy six-figure number to a NY-based rebranding consulting group.

When you define the marketing assets of your business or product, stop thinking solely in terms of key differentiators and usps, and start thinking about the values that are at the heart of your customers’ purchase decisions. Corporate definitions of your marketing assets such as:

Leadership
Profitability
Patentability
Productivity
Stock Value
Innovation
Technology
Functionality
Style/Culture Price,

all sound great in the board room. But they can kill your relationship with your customer if you don’t factor is customer values like:

Achievement
Convenience
Comfort
Esteem
Pleasure
Trust.

Yes, the acronym ACCEPT is intentional. It is a good mnemonic for rebuilding your brand in your customer’s image. To continue, review The Good Old Days or The Good New Days blog entry.

Written By |Marketing Strategy|Comments Off on How to Rebuild Your Brand in Your Customer’s Image
Read More

SUPPLIER FROM PLUTO, CUSTOMER IN ANOTHER SOLAR SYSTEM

Borrowing from a recent article in the Nat Post Business Section (that applies the standard Mars/Venus equational imbalance), about a book called “Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy”, penned by Business Strategist Dev Patnaik, also founder and chief exec of Jump Associates, adviser to businesses on growth strategies:

“Companies often hinder their success by focusing too narrowly on selling products and not on their customers’ actual needs.” ibid.

He has written a book about a concept he describes as the ’empathy gap’ between employees and the customers they serve. Well, that saves me the trouble.

Dev specifies the gap as a chasm between employees in organizations and the people (customers?). I wonder if the euphemism was derived from actual experience of shopping at The Gap?

Not wanting to put the onus entirely on employees I was relieved to see he spoke of “Companies stamping out customer empathy” within their staff and then being “surprised when their employees make poor decisions or try to sell things that their customers don’t need.”

From the interview (attached) it comes as a fairly rudimentary exercise in customer-centric marketing. I haven’t bought it, so I can’t recommend it, but it is all grist to the mill.

But I want to deepen the thought: he describes the growth of a business as a cause, as success moves the stakeholders away from the products that they produce. What elastic band magnate uses the same product to hold up his socks? Not like the old days when he couldn’t afford socks with lycra built in (not a real example in the book).

Question: is there a lack of integrity in the staff of a business that does not use its own product? If they use a competitive product then the answer would be “Yes.” If you work for Chrysler and you don’t drive their wheels then you won’t think too much of customers that roll up with a Dodge Hemi under the hood. But if the employees are not users of that product, then there is no reason for the lack of empathy. I doubt that manufacturers of prosthetics are all missing body parts, yet they probably care more than most about how the customers feel using their products.

Empathy with the customer has to be defined within the culture of an organization, not at a product level. In fact it doesn’t have to be product relevant. The manufacturer of women’s hosiery doesn’t have to wear the product, (if he is not accustomed to pantyhose). He/She just has to understand the problems that wearers of such products have to deal with in the context of: warmth, protection, comfort, appearance, climate, U/V rays, skin sensitivity, ease of putting on/removing, durability and budget. That puts hosiery on the same plane as global warming. I am in no doubt that, in the microcosm of daily frustrations with women’s hosiery, there are issues that are scalable to global warming. This is what we can call ‘empathy’. I don’t know if the author of the book goes so far to say so. But, it should be, from the CEO down to the photocopy worker, that empathy is ingrained. That way a customer might actually believe in the advertising.

Otherwise you might as well be as far removed from the Sun as Pluto and wondering why your customer is orbiting a different solar system.

Written By |Marketing Strategy|Comments Off on SUPPLIER FROM PLUTO, CUSTOMER IN ANOTHER SOLAR SYSTEM
Read More

Loyalty and Price Elasticity

In recent marketing history the belief was formed that rewards increase customer retention. Up to what point is the value of the reward negated by a price increase? Forget rewards – with any price increase, what is the melting point of intrinsic loyalty?

Questions:

Hypothesis: Wal-Mart unilaterally increases its pricing by 15%. Could the Wal-Mart brand handle a 15% bump in prices?

Fact: gasoline goes up universally 50% and is absorbed. At 100% it starts to topple one of the world’s biggest companies. What do you do next?

Experience: your insurance company surcharges you on your dental plan because your dentist increased his fees outside the range of their policy limits. Do you swallow the difference or find a cheaper dentist?

Air Miles Rewards offers to double its rewards on select brand name products. Do you buy them or go for the store brand at the lower price?

Your hair-stylist: on whom you depend doubles his/her fees. To what extent is that reflection in the mirror worth the increase?

The answer to all of these questions depends greatly on to what extent price was a factor in the original decision. In the blog entry “Price, Shmice!”, I posited that Price is an indicator of value, but marketers should evaluate the decision criteria that precede it before they start messing with their prices, and presented the following as predetermining factors ahead of price valuation:

Achievement: how well will this decision help me to achieve my goals? Convenience: how easy is it to engage or acquire this product or service? Comfort: can I use this product or service easily or with peace of mind? Esteem: how will I be respected for this decision (by self or others)? Pleasure: how will I derive pleasure from the outcome of this decision? Trust: how can I trust that all my expectations will be met?

Answers:

Wal-Mart could not handle a unilateral 15% increase across the board because the trust that it has built up with its customers is based completely on price-point. Wal-Mart doesn’t cheat like some other discount retailers. All its products meet its discount values standards and any departure would breach the trust of its customer relationship.

Gasoline is oligopolistic. Come one price increase come all. But there’s no love lost. If you were to put your pump price up $0.001 cent above the gas shack down the street, watch and wave your kishkas goodbye, as no self-respecting driver will want to be seen in your station. There is zero loyalty now in the gas station business and I am bona fide PetroPoints customer. 2 years ago I would have given them a penny premium. Not any more.

Your choice of dentist has nothing to do with price. Trust, convenience and comfort are important values in play here. The surcharge on your insurance will only affect you if it brings economic hardship. You would sooner look for a better insurance plan.

Air Miles: doubt it. Most consumers put off future gain in favour of immediate gratification. That’s why personal savings are at an all-time low, credit card debt is an all-time high and most people fail to keep to their diet. If you are pre-disposed to buy the branded product and the rewards come gratis, you should buy in bulk while the promotion lasts, giving the branded product a false sense of accomplishment and the likelihood of repeating the mistake when sales falter over the next 3 months.

Hair-Stylist: offer to sweep the floor for them, or spread the visits out by a week or two. If it costs $300.00 for you to have your hair done with highlights and the whole bit you will see the increase as more reflective of the true value of you than the stylist. Esteem, achievement, pleasure, trust, comfort all come with a successful trip to the personal image reinvention store.

The customer-centric marketer will seek to constantly over-deliver value relative to the price. This is insulation against price increase, as the increase will then only reflect true commercial value. It is the quintessential value-add. As the price increases the customer-centric marketer will create more value-add offsets to the price escalation. Most marketers don’t put the customer at the center and when the prices increase there is no elasticity. Loyalty rewards are an artificial stimulant to fabricate a customer retention framework but they don’t offset price increases.

I am not an opponent of rewards. I simply don’t regard them as effective incentives for loyalty. As long as they don’t cost anything I will enjoy them. But increase the cost and bye-bye. I reward customers because I believe that they deserve them, not because the reward will keep them loyal. The customer-centric marketer will match price elasticity with values for long-term customer retention. That is what is meant by “Customer-centric marketing increases loyalty, frequency and continuity.”

 

 

Written By |Marketing Strategy|Comments Off on Loyalty and Price Elasticity
Read More

Price, Shmice!!!

I recently went head-to-head with my toughest critic to argue that A.C.C.E.P.T. decision criteria accurately summarize the values that purchasers use, knowingly or unknowingly, in making a purchase decision, regardless of whether they are a consumer, a business or a procurement agency.

A quick refresher on the criteria:

> Achievement: will this purchase help me to achieve my goals??
> Convenience: how easy is it to buy this product/ service?
> Comfort: can I use this with peace of mind?
> Esteem: will my decision be respected?
> Pleasure: can I derive pleasure from the outcome?
> Trust: can I trust that my expectations will be met?

The first comment hurled back at me was “PRICE!!! How can you possibly represent purchase decision criteria and exclude price?”

So with my back up against the wall I had to explain how price is a value indicator that is relative to all of the above. How if 2 identical products at the same price from the same country of manufacture were offered and one had a designer label on it and a sticker that showed it was discounted to the same price as the one without the label, then price would not be relevant to the decision and you would choose the discounted product. How if you have $10 to spend you will apply all these decision criteria in order to maximize the value you derive from the $10, and it is still $10 so cost is not issue, satisfying your values is the issue. How products that help you to achieve very little are the most price-sensitive and those that help to achieve a lot are the least price-sensitive (a truth that can be applied to any of these criteria). How low-income families will minimize cost on low quality food and invest significant portions of their income on entertainment products to maximize pleasure. How even this particular critic only purchased Heinz Ketchup and not a cheaper brand because that is what they learned to trust from early childhood.

It was a tough exchange and brought up some good points, such as longevity of the product (warranties, reliability etc.), which I parked under Achievement, and culture (tradition, religion, pop values), which I parked under Trust and Esteem.

There are words that can be added as sub-categories or used in place to mean the same thing like objectives, respect, flexibility, location, and satisfaction. I created these labels as a memorable acronym. But the function of these criteria is not to constrain the customer, but to determine, through analysis, where their values lie in reference to a marketer’s products or services, based on what they want to achieve, respect, trust, enjoy, in comfort and convenience. And I use them to build a compelling marketing program to align the brand, product and service values to key customer segments in the market.

Buyers frequently make the wrong choices:

– They expect to achieve more than the product can deliver (the 6 HP snow-blower in a 3 foot drift).
– They experience delays and frustrations with services that are not convenient. (Almost any Telco.)
– They make choices that do not suit their personality or appearance. (The Wrong Designer Dress at the Oscars, what was she
– They choose a product that they cannot easily use (Ikea, keep working on user-friendly self-build manuals).
– They expect pleasure from the packaging and are disappointed by the reality of the experience (Most diet frozen meals).
– They assume trust when they choose the lowest price (Municipal tenders on anything).

But they are lured to all these decisions by the promise of satisfying their expectations. The application of the A.C.C.E.P.T. decision criteria is to align your product or service offering to these customer segment values, then communicate and deliver to the customer, in order to satisfy their expectations. Price elasticity could be more accurately gauged as the margin by which a product would exceed or trail the customer’s values. Prices are relative and, as buyers, we often assume too much based on price. But once expectations fail to materialize we learn from our mistakes.

Some of the resistance I experienced in this exchange might have been because no one likes to be psychoanalyzed. Our unique values are programmed into our subconscious like a lens shutter. Blink, fits, blink, doesn’t fit. Even in a long-term evaluation designed to eliminate all possible irregularities and biases, decisions are still made based on expectation of achievement, convenience, esteem and trust. When a competent bidder that has the best product at the best price, still doesn’t get the sale, they should review the trust, or esteem criteria, because therein might lie the weakness. Customers are risk-averse, which is why it is so hard to break in with new products unless you cover all the bases of the A.C.C.E.P.T. decision criteria. Putting such programs together depend on a strong understanding of the market segments you need to penetrate and then defining your marketing program to encompass all of these criteria. If you rate some of the outstanding performers like the iPod, you will observe how successfully this product meets all of these criteria, and it’s not cheap.

I did not lose the argument, or my wife, in the process of this discussion, but I would like to invite comment from other sources.

 

 

Written By |Marketing Strategy|Comments Off on Price, Shmice!!!
Read More
  • Attracting Customers
  • Building Relationships
  • Eliminating Competition

Hydrogen Creative builds marketing, advertising and creative communications that reach for your goals.

kadıköy escortkadıköy escortataşehir escortbostancı escortmaltepe escortmaltepe escortanadolu yakası escortanadolu yakası escortataşehir escortbostancı escortistanbul escortkartal escortbostancı escortkartal escortkadıköy escortpendik escortpendik escortmaltepe escortataşehir escortmaltepe escortmaltepe escortanadolu yakası escortkadıköy escortataşehir escortkadıköy escortataşehir escortümraniye escortataşehir escortkartal escortescort bayankartal escortpendik escortkartal escortgöztepe escorttuzla escortkadıköy escortkartal escortkadıköy escortmaltepe escortkartal escortataşehir escortmaltepe escortbostancı escortkartal escortpendik escortkadıköy escortataköy escortavrupa yakası escortataköy escortbakırköy escortbeylikdüzü escorttaksim escorthalkalı escortetiler escortbodrum escortmalatya escortankara escortantalya escortmersin escortantalya escortHacklinkHacklinkphp shellphp shellphp shellgörüntülü sohbetcanlı bahisbahis siteleriforumsaç tozu
prefabrik ev fiyatlarıPrefabrikhayvan sahiplendirmeköpek sahiplendirmekedi sahiplendirmegörüntülü sohbetnasıl gidilirhacklinkhacklinkphp shellphp shellphp shellphp shellbahis siteleri