Marketing Matters. Don't leave it to chance.

All posts in Featured

Great products always have a market. The question is this: What’s the value proposition that makes sense in difficult times? If your product is all about quality, you have two advantages over lesser products:

  1. Your product can enhance your customer’s brand
  2. You can offer risk-reduction purchasing strategies to your customers.

Both of these differentiators depend on the quality of your product. If your offering is really well-designed, and it stands out from the crowd, you can offer your customer a way to differentiate, simply because they own and use your product. This applies to furniture, lighting, stationery, web design, product packaging and a host of other things. If you can enhance your customer’s brand, you have unique value in a tough economy. Your customer needs to be differentiated, just as you do. This is one way you can be successful in tough times.

The second factor is about risk reduction. Of course you can always offer money-back guarantees, performance guarantees and the like. These are time-tested selling strategies. The problem is that if you don’t have a great product, too many customers will call in the guarantees. Ideally you want to offer the guarantee and have no-one take you up on it, because it costs money to service a guarantee. That’s why there’s such a strong link between quality and risk reduction. The better the quality of your product, the better a guarantee you can offer. The better the guarantee, the more compelling the risk reduction argument. And the more compelling your risk reduction offer, the more likely your customer is to buy from you—especially in tough times like these.

The bottom line: now, more than ever, quality sells.

We are experts at ignoring and tuning out. We especially ignore things that are like other things we’ve seen before. It’s a natural response to the clutter that surrounds us every day. Our brains have learned to look for the new and the different, and to ignore that which is undifferentiated. Most of marketing is about efficiently defeating this built-in, natural reflex, and causing potential customers to see our offering as new and different and valuable. In product and service positioning, it’s vital to stand out. In this article I will talk about some simple ways of setting yourself apart from the pack. First, some preconceptions that we might as well remove right at the beginning.

  • Nothing has to be a commodity
  • Differentiation isn’t always about the product
  • Business is not a war with your customers.

Here’s an instructive story about differentiation in the most difficult of circumstances: Read more

I have never been branded in the physical sense;+ however millions of farm animals over the centuries would attest to its effectiveness. The original of the word “brand” is in old Norse–the language of ancient Scandinavia. It means “to burn.” It was a good idea in Scandinavia to burn an identifying mark into the rump of your livestock, because the cattle had to roam about to find enough food, and anyhow, building fences was a lot of work. Read more

Welcome!

Categories: Featured
Comments: No

This site is dedicated to improving your business results. Every business needs customers who know who you are, what you offer, and why they need it.

You can build your market presence and creating outstanding business results, if you’re willing to follow a few simple steps.

On this site you’ll find a great range of free articles that explain the key actions that will build your business through awareness, clear messaging, and effective positioning.

We value the time you spend with us: feel free to apply these techniques to make the most of your business opportunities!

Tim