How to quantify your Customer Value Proposition

How to quantify your Customer Value Proposition

 

 

The value proposition to a customer is the means by which you converted them to being a customer.

Unless you can demonstrate value to them, in excess of any alternative, including doing nothing, you will not convert.

When you think about it, there are some pretty consistent variables that can  be massaged into some sort of quantification of a proposition. While it will never be perfect, it will be better than nothing when assessing the power of your marketing collateral, or perhaps assessing alternative wording.

Having a powerful value proposition is not enough, you must communicate it clearly and effectively to those who may be interested. You also must understand that ‘Value’ is a qualitative term, and will change with context and circumstances.

There are 7 variables I commonly see:

  • The strength of the purchase intent of the lead. This will vary enormously on a whole series of parameters, and will vary from time to time. For example, a need expressed to convert IT processes to the cloud from your own server might be a good idea, whose time has come, but when your server blows up, the need increases geometrically. The better you understand the drivers of the purchase intent the better able you will be to make a judgement,
  • How closely your proposition matches the need being expressed. When you are trying to sell a 4X4 and the lead is a single bloke who hates camping, you will have a challenge on your hands. Better to offer him the sports car.
  • Differentiation. When you are the only one in the market niche, selling to those who need your product becomes easier. When you are one of a number of undifferentiated alternatives, price becomes the major distinguishing factor, and that is never good. Conversion becomes a race to the bottom, and the greatest risk is that you win too often and go broke.
  • The clarity of the value proposition to the lead. This is where most fall down in the execution. Look at 100 websites, and see if you can locate the value proposition. While we are learning, the clarity of the proposition to a visitor to a website, which is now the first port of call in almost every purchase beyond the regular and mundane, will be terrible. The key to remember is that the lead, after reading the headline copy on the site, must be able to tell you why they should buy from you, and not someone else, assuming they are in the market you service.
  • The level of friction in the sales process. Increasingly as we go on line, friction in the process is becoming more and more important. Off line purchasers are increasingly expecting on line frictionless processes. In B2B sales, the friction is often institutional, the bureaucracy of procurement simply gets in the way. Effective Key Account Management is essential in these circumstances.
  • The incentives used to counter the friction. Most often financial incentives are the primary ones used, but tying them to another is common, for example ‘this special lasts only until Sunday’ or ‘Only 5 left’
  • Uncertainty caused by the purchase process. Human psychology seeks safety, and that resides in the known, and with the crowd. Asking a lead to do something different increases the risk to them, and the riskier they perceive the solution, the less likely they will be to convert.

So, to the equation.

Conversion potential = Purchase intent + need satisfaction + Differentiation + proposition clarity + (process friction – incentives) + uncertainty.

The way to put numbers on each of these parameters would be to weight each of the parameters in your particular circumstance, then score your lead on a 1-5 scale. The ‘w’ in the formula is the weight you give to each of the variables.

CP = wPI +wNS +wD + WPC + (wPF – wI) + U.

As an exercise, look at your own landing page and score it as a potential customer would when seeking a solution to an itch.

Image credit, again, to Gapingvoid.com

Modern Marketing’s dark underbelly.

Modern Marketing’s dark underbelly.

 

On hearing the term ‘Modern Marketing,’ most would immediately imagine something digital.

That was my intention.

Marketing used to be about delivering meaningful information to potential and current customers in order that they become or remain customers, despite the flirtatious approaches of competitors.

The more appealing the information,  the greater the chance of some sort of engagement that might lead at some point to a consummation.

Bit like the University bar in 1970, when I was young(er).

Advertising used to be, and still is a crucial component, however, this is where it has changed.

Advertising in my day used to be the means by which the information was communicated.

In todays marketing, advertising is often the way people are identified, tracked, stalked, and targeted for  offers, sometimes genuine, sometimes outrageous, increasingly fraudulent, and usually unwanted.

This is the dark side of the digital advertising component  of modern marketing.

I have yet to hear anyone complaining that they do not receive sufficient numbers of unsolicited digital offers.  

No wonder we do  not trust anyone or anything anymore.

While it is counter intuitive, limiting your ‘digital reach’ to those who have actively demonstrated they welcome your approach, will become a valuable tactic. By ‘actively demonstrated’, I do  not mean just filled in one landing page email address to access a lead bait, I mean meaningful interaction.

Back to the Uni bar.

There was one rather unprepossessing bloke we all made some fun of, as he would sometimes turn up with a bunch of flowers. His ‘transaction’ rate was impressive indeed, and few of us ever figured out how that was the case until much later.

Perhaps being truly generous with our knowledge rather than demanding an email address in return for some valueless rubbish is the new digital bunch of flowers.

 

The 8 most viewed StrategyAudit blog posts of 2018.

The 8 most viewed StrategyAudit blog posts of 2018.

 

Over 2018, the StrategyAudit blog attracted 19,948 page views from 10,568 individual visitors, about 65% of whom are repeat visitors. To me this repeat visitation is a vital number. I would rather have 1 person who demonstrates that the musings I publish are of value by returning, than  10 casual visitors who read and leave, never to return. Also important is the simple fact that on average, each visitor visited almost 2 posts. Averages are misleading, many visitors leave quickly, others engage with 2,3,sometimes 4 posts, and sign up to the feed so they do not miss further posts. It is this engagement that delivers the value to them, and is the reason I persist.

To some, 20,000 page views across a year would constitute a disaster, they get that in a week, but to others, it is a significant number. I am just pleased that the number is well up on 2017, despite the increased ‘noise’ from so called content that now infests the web.  

These numbers are in addition to  the thousands of views that occur from second party platforms, most often LinkedIn. These are valuable, but long term digital marketing success is dependent on the quality of your own digital ‘homebase’ where you control the rules. For example, back in August, LinkedIn changed their algorithm, and the visitors from LinkedIn halved overnight, and the geography changed from 75% Australia, where there is some potential return for me from the effort of writing the posts, to 75% from the US, from where I will not be able to leverage any benefit. I do  not mind helping the Americans, they need all the help they can get, but it is nice to have some hope of receiving a benefit in return, which Linkedin, and their colleague ‘Social’ platforms are making increasingly difficult unless you pay for it.

Organic reach from third party platforms is almost a thing of the past, something  to think about as you plan for 2019.   

To the most viewed posts of the year.

The 4 dimensions of project planning. Published July 2016

It looks like this will become one of the most viewed posts over an extended period, as the numbers keep climbing every month, 2018 being 40% higher than 2017. It is only a short post, 300 words, but summarises the challenges faced by every team planning a project, from a tactical initiative to a major enterprise changing implementation.

7 tips on how not to be boring while presenting. Published March 2018.

This post garnered may views in the days after it was posted, but attracted little attention thereafter. This is  not an uncommon pattern amongst those posts that have a ‘long tail’. They start slowly after an initial  flurry, then build over time. I am hopeful this happens with this post, as several readers have let me know that the tips have helped them enormously.

3 essential pieces of the supermarket business model. Published November 2014

This post would be on this list for every year since 2014, clearly it struck a chord.  Although 2018 was below 2017, it delivers readers to the blog every day. Along with Loose/Tight management further down this list, it is the most viewed post I have written. On several occasions, this post has been the basis of a successful keynote to various gatherings.

11 trends that will influence success in 2018. Published January 2018

January and  February were big months, presumably as people planned for the year, with little since. However, the trends noted for 2018 are all still present as we face 2019, so I would expect (hope for)a revival.

How do you measure culture?. Published May 2018

May and June were heavy, with modest numbers subsequently, but this post is building momentum slowly, as we come to realise the vital role enterprise culture plays in success, and failure. Perhaps I should send it to some of the senior executives in the financial services industry, as they contemplate their navels and bonuses in the wake of the royal commission.

Loose/tight management. Published October 2010

This is the most surprising post, delivering pretty consistent numbers month in month out since posting, in the early days of this blog. it is short, and specific, must be the headline that catches ‘googlers’. However, I note a recurring flurry of readers in April/May every year, so assume that somewhere an academic has cited the post in course material.

What is the number 1 job of the CEO? Published July 2018.

Published at the end of July this post was seen mostly in August, with few views since then. A short post that concludes that the number one job of the CEO is to create the environment in which employees can flourish, thereby delivering the strategic and financial outcomes required for sustainable economic success. In a word, the number 1 job of the CEO is ‘Culture’

10 considerations to make better pricing decisions. Published July 2018.

Significant readership in the days around posting, then almost nothing. Perhaps it is a lousy headline, a good one is vital to attracting readers. This is unfortunate, as I consider it to be one of the posts that can deliver  immediate and meaningful outcomes to readers after consideration of the issues noted. It has also been the basis of several seemingly well recieved keynotes.

These top 8 posts are only 15% of the total post views over the year, a strong indication of the longevity of posts that add value to someone, somewhere.

Now, on to 2019. Thanks for reading, your feedback and good wishes during 2018.

 

Do not make resolutions, set goals.

Do not make resolutions, set goals.

It is the morning of the last day of 2018.

Tonight most of us will gather with friends and family, watch the fireworks, have a few sherbets, and consider what 2019 might bring.

Some of us will make New Year’s resolutions.

Things we decide to do to change our lives, some will be tiny, others huge, most will be things we have had in our minds for some time, and new year’s eve is the traditional time to trot them out (again) for a moment of feel-good.

Most will be discarded a few days into January.

If we know anything about resolutions, it is that they fail unless there is a clear path towards the achievement, and usually we call them goals, or objectives.  

‘Resolutions’ are even easier to discard than goals.

To achieve a goal, there are a few simple steps:

  • It needs to be worthwhile.
  • There needs to be a clear path towards the achievement made up of incremental steps that are individually achievable.
  • We need to be committed to the goal. Hope is not a strategy, we need to be serious and commit.
  • There needs to be performance measures along the way so we can see progress, measure what works and what does not, and adjust as necessary.
  • Be public. Public goals are way better than private ones, let others know, and you will be more committed.

Take those steps, and your chances increase.

Some ‘resolutions’ do not fit the typical path above, such as giving up smoking.

Every smoker and former smoker I know failed many times to give up, and giving up smoking incrementally does not work. When I gave up, 35 years ago, I used a simpler method. I did not give up smoking, again, as doing so had failed comprehensively many times, and is a deprivation, something none of us like. I took up ‘non-smoking,’ a practice that had seen me happy and healthy in the past. It worked; it was a positive goal, not a negative one.

Try seeing your New Year’s goals as positives, things to which you aspire, things that make you feel good, rather than focusing on the negatives.

Don’t set out to deprive yourself.

Have a great 2019, see you there.

The reconciliation of advertising and content.

The reconciliation of advertising and content.

 

Self appointed digital marketing experts have for years been telling us that ‘Content is King’, and for a while it was. As a result, marketers have flung millions upon millions on the altar of ‘creating content’.

Piles of crap produced en masse with the odd gem well hidden, aiming at leveraging the reach of the web and social platforms, to deliver messages to consumers in a manner that demanded more attention than the ad breaks on TV, without the cost.

Google and Facebook developed a virtual duopoly, and so the dream of cost free reach has been squeezed out of existence.

To get reach you have to pay for it.

Isn’t this what we did when we paid for advertising?

Why pay for content aimed at ‘engaging,’ or some other cliché, if you are going to pay to have it delivered? You may as well make it an ad, that has as its objective generating a sale.

As Facebook and Google, and the other platforms as they evolve continue to squeeze organic reach, Content will morph back to something more like the advertising used in the 20th century to build the huge brands we all still buy.

Call it what it is, don’t be precious, it is Advertising!

Cartoon credit: Tom Fishburne of Marketoonist, who continues to express in simple drawings the complexity and hubris of modern marketing. I hope you have a great Christmas Tom.

As for me, I am taking a short break from my (unpaid) adverting disguised as content on this blog, to see if I can catch the elusive bloke in the red suit.  Thank you all for reading, sharing and often commenting on my  brainfarts, it is a privilege and pleasure to be able to communicate in this way.  Have a safe and merry Christmas and i will ‘see” you all in 2019.

 

 

 

 

 

What marketers can learn at church

What marketers can learn at church

Every religion, from the worlds great ones to the meanest cult with a few deluded followers has something in common.

They communicate their message, engage their followers, with stories.

In most cases they are setting out to explain the mysteries of the human condition, to get at the essential truths that underlay behaviour, to explain the complexity in a simple and memorable manner, that makes recall and retelling easy and consistent.

The story of Adam and Eve is set in a perfect garden, with a snake representing evil, and an apple representing the pressures of the human condition.

Try explaining that without a story.

Every story in the Christian bible, from Cain and Abel to Jesus walking on water and making a crippled man walk contains a message. It is the same in the Koran, Hindu Bhagavad Gita and Buddhist Tripitakas.

With effective storytelling, they have all succeeded at the marketers dream.

Brand differentiation, and effective segmentation within the brands

Longevity

Strong loyalty and commitment that is multi-generational

Sustained commercial success

It may be a touch insensitive to make these observations as we are about to go into Christmas, but think of all the stories around Santa, and traditions that have built up over generations about what you eat, how you behave, and who you commune with.

All communicated by stories that support the central proposition, and even if you do not believe it, the behaviour still prevails. 

You have to give it to the clergy, of every brand,  they have this marketing gig nailed!