May 18, 2012 | Customers, Marketing, Strategy
Marketing groups usually set about segmenting markets by one of two basic ways:
- By demographics, age, sex, education, income, with/without children, and so on, or,
- By product category, for example meat is usually segmented by breed, cut, pack size, price.
However, there is a third way, one that disregards the traditional segmentations, one that recognises the difference between cause and effect.
You do not buy fillet steak because you are a 35 year old graduate earning 150k +, with no children, you buy filet steak because you like it, or your partners school friend is coming around for a BBQ, you buy it because it is the right product for the job to be done. Nobody buys a Ferrari to get from point A to point B, they buy a Ferrari to make a statement, as a car costing 10% of the Ferrari will offer reliable, relatively comfortable transport.
The marketing of every product can benefit from these simple questions, asked from the point of view of the prospective customer:
- What job do I want done?
- How will this product deliver on the job to be done?
- Which of the acceptable product options offers the best value, however the I define value in the circumstances?
Apr 29, 2012 | Change, Customers, Innovation, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
It is simply a fact of life that digital media is evolving faster than the existing institutions around it, particularly the regulatory ones.
The decision during the week to reverse the Federal Courts decision on the streaming of “almost live” NRL and AFL games by Optus, determining that after all, it was a breach of copyright, is a case in point. Regardless of the merits of either sides case, and the logic that the continuing success of the professional codes relies on funding from TV rights, the world has moved on, but the business model of the professional games has not.
We will wait around for another year or so until the high court comes down with a decision, and there will be a winner and loser, but from a long term perspective, both will be losers, simply because another year has been wasted trying to shore up the gunwales against Digital Darwinism, and we all know how successful that has been in the music industry, newspaper publishing, and a host of others.
If both games wish to engage with youngsters, those who will be around for a while to fund the games by watching, buying branded gear, attending events, they need to consider how these youngsters consume entertainment, and adapt.
The current copyright law was conceived in the 1700’s, and whilst it has evolved, it no longer is a reflection of society, but a distorted shadow vainly trying to keep up with technical changes happening at digital speed.
Apr 27, 2012 | Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales
The costs of advertising only get counted when you do lousy advertising.
When you place an ad, and you get a great response, the costs are never considered, but place a lousy ad, getting little response, then the cost is alarming.
Therefore the task is to be sufficiently compelling to a targeted audience to bring a quality response, then the cost is not considered, because you get an outcome that (presumably) makes commercial sense.
My son recently sold a car on line, it was a good car, but not one that would be for everyone. He thought he would just put up an ad, and it would just sell, easy, because it was a good car, and the price offered good value.
Failure, this first ad got almost no response, and those that did respond were not interested in the car, just getting it at half the advertised price.
We had another shot at writing an ad, putting in much more detail, and then placed it more specifically to attract a specialised buyer, one to whom the particular characteristics of the car beyond the provision of a transport device would be of value.
It got a number of responses, several very good ones, and it sold very quickly at the full price.
The cost of the second ad was irrelevant, but he is still complaining about the first placement.
Apr 19, 2012 | Customers, Strategy
Observing and working with a wide range of clients and networks over a long period, it seems to me that there are three foundations of strategy that appear time and time again, present in the successes, and absent in the failures.
- Differentiation. Clear, sustainable differentiation from competitors in a manner that customers value is the essence of strategy. Differentiation comes in many forms, superior product, service backup, design, marketing and distribution, and many activities, often seemingly mundane, but a part of the process of delivering value to customers.
- Simplicity. Successful enterprises are simple to the extent that everybody understands what they are doing, why, what role they play, and what constitutes success.
- Intellectual capital development. IC evolves from learning from mistakes and experiments, continuous improvement loops, communication feedback mechanisms, cross functional, cross company, and increasingly cross geographic collaboration and behavior. All these things create a culture, a “way we do things around here” that becomes the driver of corporate DNA evolution, and the creation of Intellectual Capital.
Strategy is probably the most commonly written about subject in management, scary to think its essence can be distilled into three simple headings.
Apr 16, 2012 | Branding, Customers, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
Content is the new creativity.
In the “old days” a core part of developing advertising that had brand building as its purpose, was a need to be memorable, relevant, deliver a proposition, and cut through the clutter on TV (or magazines, or radio, our only choices) all in thirty seconds. Then you repeated the message, as the common wisdom said, until you were sick of it, because the punters were only just getting to recognise it.
All that is changed, now media choices are numbered in the thousands, and you need to engage punters, one by one.
The content of the communication therefore is the still the key, but you get only one shot at it in most cases, and you rely on, perhaps pray for, the recipient to pass it on to like minded people they know.
Makes it pretty hard.
How do you market a bookshop? Common wisdom would say get really deeply into a niche with a few enthusiasts, or get out while you can, as it is all going on-line.
However, every now and again, a piece of luck comes along, that when combined with creativity and truly great understanding of what your market, wherever they are, may be looking for, you get something like this short bit of brilliance from Barter Books.
Would you go anywhere else?
Mar 27, 2012 | Customers, Sales
I walked into a retail store last week, the salesperson wandered up, big smile, “How can I help you” he said. Good start, better than the usual “Can I help?” which has as a possible answer, “No thanks, just looking”.
I told him the product category I was looking for, and he then asked “how much do you want to spend?”
Perhaps a logical next question, but the wrong one.
Why should I trust someone I do not know, whose job it is to sell me as much as possible for as much as possible, with the boundaries of my budget?
Obviously, had I said $2000, he would have shown me items at $2100, just a touch over my budget, an easy step up of just 5%, and think of all that added functionality, instead of items at $1000 that may have suited my needs just as well.
What he should have done is ask questions about what job I needed done, which features I needed, and which ones would be just nice to have, did I have brand preferences, and what about the aesthetics?
Had he done all that, he may very well have sold me the $2100 unit, and would almost certainly sold me something, and I have been pleased with the result, but as it was, I thanked him and went down the road.
And we wonder why retail sales are so flat!
