How to build an effective Marketing funnel

Mar 17, 2015 | Customers, Marketing, Sales, Small business

marketing funnel

marketing funnel

Creating a marketing funnel is the basis of all digital marketing initiatives. If you put the term into google, you get back 3 million plus responses, many of them having nice illustrations attached that in one way or another, look like a funnel, with stages and various names attached.

However, there are very few places with useful advice on how you create and manage a funnel, perhaps it is easier than I have found it.

Every situation is different, and every prospect needs to be addressed personally in some way, nevertheless, there are a number of generalised stages I have seen,  which drive the manner in which you deploy the digital tools.

Step 1. Create a “Hook”. A “Hook” is something that arrests the attention of someone in the target market. This implies, accurately, that you have defined your target market in considerable detail. I am working with someone who is an expert at setting up self managed superannuation funds. His target market is the owners of small businesses that rely on the owners presence, often they are tradesmen, who are over 55, and have not put enough money away enough for retirement. The “Hook” we have evolved is “If you are over 55, and behind in savings for your retirement, you have the opportunity to use a tax effective  self managed super fund which delivers a doubling of your net worth in 7 years”.

This statement is in 4 parts:

It identifies the prospect very clearly,

It is very specific about the situation the prospect finds themselves in

It tells them of a solution to the situation

It makes a big promise.

Without the very specific definition of a target market, the Hook is less effective, as it does not speak to anything specific to which a reader will relate, it becomes too general.

Step 2. Generate traffic. This can be done by a variety of means, using both paid and organic means. Organic is slower, and is centred around personal networking, blog posts, articles, and other content that gets shared on social platforms. It is a passive approach. By contrast, paid traffic generation can be very effective with the great degree of target definition that can now be generated by all the social platforms. For my self managed superannuation  (SMSF) client, we are targeting the  small business owners with a  very specific and targeted Google Adwords campaign, coupled with an extensive organic program.

Step 3. Customer capture. Having driven traffic to a website, you need to do something with them to progress them through the steps towards a transaction. Usually this involves the download of something of value for free in exchange for a name and email address. The lead is then followed up with a staged set of automated emails that are responsive to the actions of the potential customer, often offering further “freebies”. This tactic is now so widely used that it is losing its effect, so  increasingly it is being supplemented with the further offer of something of greater value still for a minimal amount, $3-7. This does two things:

It qualifies the lead as a real lead, not just a freebie follower,

It gets leads used to using their cards to purchase from you.

Step 4. Transaction development. This process can take many forms, from the gentle prompting towards a transaction that can be a highly iterative and lengthy process, to the maximisation of a sale by adding value to the original offer. By way of example, it takes me ages to come to the conclusion that I need to buy a new suit, it is a substantial cost, and occasional purchase. However, once in a shop, the opportunity to also sell me a tie, belt, shirts, and perhaps another pair of shoes is real. The upsell stage, or as McDonalds have perfected, “would you like fries with that?”

Step 5. Remarketing. Once you have a customer who has bought and hopefully had a good experience, it is easier to sell them again, and again, and over time you can build a very good picture of what they like and what they do not by their interactions with your database. Again, by way of example, I still buy a lot of books, real books from one of the few remaining bookshop chains. I have a card that gives me a discount based on purchases, yet they insist on sending me emails with offers that bear no resemblance to the purchase habits exhibited on their database via the card. Utterly stupid, and exactly the reason they will go out of business eventually. Amazon will never make that mistake, their offers are very specific and targeted to behaviour, not just of the individual, but of the cohort of individuals with similar behaviours that can be ascribed to the individual. In addition, once someone subscribes to your database, you have their permission to market to them, so irrespective of where they may be in the funnel, there should be processes in place to periodically “re-tweak” their interest.

Funnel management Toolbox. There are a range of tools, digital and otherwise, for each step in the sequence, and their relative performance is the subject of much very effective review, so I will not repeat it. Suffice to say several specific tools are necessary for any effective automation.

  1. Registration page .  To attract the registration and manage the delivery of the “freebie” and of the leads details to the auto responder software. There are many around, but Leadpages seems to have the game pretty well sewn up. Recently both Facebook and Twitter have added “one click opt-in” capabilities to their sites that leads people directly to your autoresponder.
  2. Autoresponder software. Absolutely necessary, and there are a host of suppliers, from those with simple tools to those fully integrated with CRM systems with more bells and whistles than even the most sophisticated and technically savvy medium sized business will struggle with, so my advice for the small businesses where I operate, is to keep it simple. Mailchimp and Aweber are the most popular around my patch, and both work well.
  3. Creativity and originality. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for some of us this does not  yet come in a box, or made available for download, it resides between the ears of real people.
  4. Customer centric copywriting skills. As with the above, not available via download. It is one thing to get all the digital tools right, but someone still has to be able to make them work to optimum levels, and the copy writing skills and experience needed are significant.
  5. Technology implementation . Again, somebody who knows what they are doing with this technology. It is one thing to know how it works, it is another entirely to actually make it work.  Implementation simply is not as simple as all the vendors would have you believe, for most small businesses, implementation sucks.

PS. The illustration at the top of the post is confusing, hard to understand, and not at all like the last one you saw. Just like in life!!

8 Things you do not say to a supermarket buyer when launching a new product.

Mar 16, 2015 | Branding, Customers, Innovation, Marketing, retail, Sales

Words spoken cannot be taken back

Words spoken cannot be taken back

Gaining distribution in supermarkets is really hard, and more to the point, expensive.

Supermarkets control the key  “choke point” between you as a supplier, and consumers. On occasions when you are pitching a “me too” product, a decision just comes down to the retailer margin and the amount of promotional and advertising dollars that are being thrown at the launch, which both reassures the buyer that you are committed, and offers some confidence that consumers may be receptive. Generally with a “me too” product, you need to be prepared to take something out of your own range to make space, or be able to pinpoint with data an under-performing competitors product that can be deleted.

New products are usually a bit more complicated. For a retailer to put a new product on shelf, in addition to their existing ranges, it is often more than just a simple one in one out decision, particularly if the new product claims to be opening up a new category or subcategory.

In either case, the simple fact is that retailer stores do not have elastic walls, and space needs to be made somehow.

Over the years, I have launched many new products, some category creating products that have been a huge success, and some not so much, and many line extensions of various kinds. However, in the launching of them, I have done hundreds, if not thousands of presentations to supermarket buyers, and found a number of things that should not be said of you are to be successful.

It really is important to recognise that even though you may think your new product is the best thing since sliced bread, supermarket buyers see hundreds a year, and have heard it all before, so your presentation must be sympathetic to that simple fact.

Some of the wrong things to say which have come out of long experience are:

  1. “Our research says that this product will increase the total size of the mart by $50 million in three years”. You both know that research is usually rubbish, and that everyone lies to supermarket buyers about theirs. If you cannot support the research claims with very solid data, just be honest about it, recognising that even supermarkets buyers cannot tell the future, and be realistic.
  2. “Our sales forecasts are conservative” See above, and the truth is that the forecasts are usually these days just spreadsheets with autofill, and are really meaningless. Speak more about the assumptions that are the foundation of the numbers rather than the numbers themselves.
  3. “You are the only chain that has yet to confirm their acceptance and promotional program for this product“. Nonsense. While someone is always last, it will not usually be one of the big retailers. They know you need them more than they need you, so better to honest, although being desperate is also the wrong tactic.
  4. “XY company, the current category leader is too slow and locked into their ways to react quickly, so we will have this new segment to ourselves for a long period”. Big companies do not  usually get big by being stupid, they may be a bit slower than the small guys, but they do know their stuff, and can move quickly when necessary. A buyer will see your confidence as misplaced, and react accordingly.
  5. “ABC Co do not have the will to risk their cosy positon by innovating” or some similar comment. Denigrating a competitor is a common fault, and should never be done, you just might be denigrating the people who give the buyer his most profitable products, and he will  not take kindly to having his stocking decisions being questioned.
  6. “This product has been protected by patent” More rubbish. Only very few companies have the resources to develop something genuinely new, patent it, then be prepared to spend the megabucks to protect the patent. The last one I can remember is the Nestles cappuccino product in a pouch, a genuine innovation that gave them just a small amount of time before the copy cats arrived. If Nestles cannot so it, you almost certainly cannot, and the buyer knows it, so do not kid yourself.
  7. “We have first mover advantage“. This is sometimes true, but is may not worth all that much unless there are long lead times involved in equipment. When a new product can be made on existing plant, you cannot usually count on more than about 12 weeks start, after which the copy cats can arrive, correct any mistakes you have made, and capitalise on your investment with consumers to open up the new category. Sometimes it is better to be second mover, and step over the carcass of the pioneer, who gets the arrows in his back. Having said all that, First mover in a genuine innovation does give you a good chance at distribution.
  8. “Our plant is state of the art“. Retailers do not care much about your plant, so long as their orders are filled, the product is safe for consumers, and moves quickly off their shelves.

There are 40 years experience in these points, some of it painful, but there is no greater (commercial) feeling than seeing a product you have conceived, developed and successfully launched still on the shelves 20 years later, still meeting consumers needs and delivering profits to all concerned.

69 Questions to be answered before a website designer starts.

Mar 11, 2015 | Change, Marketing, Small business, Social Media

Designing websites requires the skill of a master juggler

Designing websites requires the skill of a master juggler

Often I find myself working with a small business to specify a website and digital strategy, and sometimes I am actually taking a brief for a website design. Either way, the same questions keep popping up, so I thought it sensible to list them down.

For some unknown reason, I stopped at 69, although I am sure you can add a number more that have been missed.

Background information.

  1. What is the purpose of the site?
  2. What is it about your current digital marketing that  needs to be changed, and why?
  3. Who are your most aggressive competitors?
  4. Where are the new competitors going to come from?
  5. If you were to start in business again today, what would you do differently to what you are doing currently?
  6. How has digital technology changed your competitive environment, and what impact do you think it will have in the next few years?

Your strategy

  1. What are your corporate values, mission, purpose, however you choose to articulate the reasons you are in business?
  2. What problems do you solve for your customers?
  3. What makes you different to your competitors?
  4. What do you do better that your competitors?
  5. Why should people do business with you rather than others?
  6. What are the things you will not do to attract or keep a customer?

Customers

  1. Describe your most valuable customer.
  2. Describe the customer journey, how do they typically end up with you?
  3. What are your levels of customer churn and retention?
  4. From initial contact, what are your conversion rates?
  5. What is your conversion cost?
  6. How do customers find you initially?
  7. How much is a good customer worth to you over a period of time?
  8. How long is the sales cycle?
  9. Do you have a good database of current, past and potential customers, and how is it managed and refreshed?
  10. Do you know why former customers stopped buying from you?
  11. Do you have a referral system that captures benefits for the referrer?

Competitors

  1. What elements of your competitors sites do you like/want?
  2. What elements of competitors sites do you want to avoid?
  3. What are your competitors doing to attract your customers and potential customers?

Technical considerations

  1. Do you have a site architecture or is it part of the design exercise?
  2. Do you have hosting, domain, email management services to be continued?
  3. Are the current arrangements if any, compatible with the needs of the new site?
  4. Are there any specific mobile requirements needed? It is assumed that  “mobile friendly” rather than just “mobile compatible” is required.
  5. What analytics do you want?
  6. Do you have preferences about the CMS system used?
  7. How will the content management/ approval system work?
  8. Do you require log in and chat features, and will they be password protected?
  9. How will user names and access to the site CMS be managed?
  10. Are there content on demand requirements, i.e. hidden content becomes visible after a series of actions.
  11. Are there digital commerce and shopping carts to be managed?
  12. How will inventory and fulfillment be managed?
  13. Are there any general functionality requirements you need, such as data bases, and data base interrogation processes, site search facilities, calendars, maps, et al?
  14. What other digital systems are needed to be integrated, CRM, MRP, order/invoice?
  15. How will you manage SEO?
  16. What sort of content download requirements are there?
  17. What levels of skill are there in the business to apply to the site maintenance?
  18. Are these compatible with the requirements of the site or is training and outsourcing required?

Design elements.

  1. What are the most important three things in the design?
  2. What content and design elements of a current site are required to be carried over?
  3. What information will go where?
  4. What corporate logos, colours, designs and style elements must be present?
  5. How do you want the inclusions that are required, such as calendars & maps to work?
  6. Will different parts of the site have a different look and feel?
  7. Are there taglines, market positioning statements or other such marketing elements that need to be incorporated?
  8. Do you have the original artwork files of elements you want incorporated?
  9. Do you have photos, video, or other material you want incorporated, and if “yes” do you hold or have paid for the copyright use of them?
  10. What font sizes and styles are preferred?
  11. What contact information and automated  functions do you want, and where do you want it?

Marketing strategies.

  1. How are you going to create the content for the site initially, and on an ongoing basis?
  2. Who is going to maintain the site?
  3. How does the site integrate into other marketing activities?
  4. When someone is on the site, what do you want them to do?
  5. What sites of any type do you like, and why?
  6. What are the pages you require?
  7. What social platforms do you want connected, how prominent should the connections be, and which pages do you want them on?
  8. How are visitors to the site going to be converted?

Project management considerations

  1. When do you want it? (oh crap)
  2. Who in your organisation is going to provide the content agreed?
  3. What content will the contractor provide, and at what cost?
  4. How will the approval process work as the project progresses?
  5. How much do you expect all this to cost?
  6. What are you now prepared to do without?

When you need someone who has successfully juggled in the three ring circus, and knows how to deliver you a great performance without stealing your shirt, give me a call.

8 factors to ensure your website delivers value

Feb 23, 2015 | Branding, Marketing, Small business

 

8 factors to build a great site

8 factors to build a great site

First thing you need to do is decide what you want the site to deliver. Once you have that, you can build the site around the objective. A website has really only two possible purposes: first, it may be commercial, second, it may be a hobby.  If you decide that the latter is your sites purpose, save yourself  some time, and  stop reading now.

However, should it be a commercial  objective, the following will have some value for you.

  1.  A headline with a hook. You may get a couple of seconds at best or catch a visitors attention, you must do it with the headline. There are plenty of posts around that tell you how to write a killer headline, but however you do it, you need to be able to hook and engage a casual reader.  A great headline focuses on a problem that the reader needs solved. It can be a list, question, or many other forms, but is must be about them, not you.
  2. Visual and text alignment. The image on the page must reflect what the page, and site are about. Humans are visual animals, we impute a lot of information from visual cues, make sure they are all aligned.
  3. Logical progression. Being visual we run from headline to sub head, to sub-sub head, and expect there to be a logical progression if information. In the event  we do not find it, our minds meander off somewhere, and a visitor will “bounce”.
  4. Uncluttered clarity. Unclear, disorganised content is death to a casual visitor. They want  to find what they are looking for with a minimum of fuss, trouble, and clicks. Make it hard to navigate and they are gone before you know it, probably never to return. In many ways this is similar to the point above, but clarity is more than a logical progression of headlines, it is also the layout, and visitor centric journey through the levels of information.
  5. Visitor centric page names and headers. A site should be all about the reader, not the site owner. “About us” is perhaps the most common, as well as  the worst page name on the web. A visitor does not care about you, they care about them, and what you can do for them. For heavens sake call them “how we can help” or “problems we solve” or something, anything other than “About us”. (perhaps you can hear a hobby horse)
  6. Relevance and clarity.  Irrelevant material must be banned. Just having a video for the sale of having a video, because somebody told you humans were visual animals, or because the bloke down the road has  one is stupid.
  7. Clear, easy to use, call to action. Does  not matter what it is, click here for info, download the research, even like us, it has to be clear what you want a visitor to do.
  8. Mobile editing. More than  just “mobile friendly” you site needs to be “mobile edited”, Mobile sites play a different role to desktops. Mobile fills a more short term role satisfying an immediate information need, rather than being a tool for research. Therefore much of the information and links that are usually on a website are superfluous to a mobile, just serving to slow down delivery and extend the “finger-flicking” necessary to get the answer.

 

None of this is easy, a website that delivers commercial value rarely happens by accident, particularly now when there are over a billion sites plus the social media platforms vying for the limited attention of your audience.

There are many opportunities to vote for the worst website of all time, this is mine as it combines unsurpassed zealotry with a psychedelic “sicko”  design that is a stomach churner.

 

The 9 imperatives for small businesses when building a brand.

Feb 17, 2015 | Branding, Customers, Marketing, Small business

 

 

Build your brand on solid foundations if you want it to last.

Build your brand on solid foundations if you want it to last.

This is the fourth on the series focusing on how to beat the supermarket gorillas at their own game, by building a brand that has a loyal and evangelistic group of customers . The original summary post, here, followed up by the expanded first post on the supermarket business  model, the third advising to be savvy with data, and the most recent suggesting some ideas to leverage category management for the benefit of small businesses.

Reaching consumers via supermarket retailers remains a tough game, one in which the supermarkets  set all the rules, own the referee, and choose who can play with them. In other words, they are holding all the cards, so to remain in the game, you have to be smart, focused and innovative.

Building a brand is not something that happens overnight, rather it happens over an extended time, and requires vision, patience, and investment. However, the fantastic opportunities for small businesses to play with the big league opened up by digital technology has bent the rules a little.

So, following are the key considerations in your brand building challenge:

Know your starting point.

As with any journey, knowing where you are now, where you want to be, and having some idea of the road in between those points is vital to success. Therefore the logical starting point is a review of your current competitive and strategic environment, along with a critical review of your own capabilities, distinctive or otherwise, and the points that differentiates you from your competitors. A part of your starting point is a clear understanding of what drives success in your business, what drives costs and  revenues, how the business model works, and reacts to stress. Being self aware is as important in business as it is in personal relationships.

Have a clear picture of your customer in mind.

“Customer profiling” is for small businesses one of the opportunities they have that can differentiate them from their bigger competitors, but it takes the will to be able to say “No”, to define who you want to attract, and build your brand offering and communications to appeal to those people specifically. It makes little difference if you are B2B or B2C, the same rules apply. The closer you come to being able to define your ideal customer as a person you know, the better. A real part of this exercise is to be able to think like a customer. Some large companies now employ anthropologists to spend time in the homes of their target customers to see how they operate in the context that they are seeing as an opportunity to offer a branded product to deliver value of some sort

Have a clear view of your brand as a person.

Similarly, defining your brand with human traits is of vital importance. People relate to people not brands, therefore to build empathy, a consumer has to be able to impute behavioural characteristics, beliefs, and personality to your brand.

Build a brand differentiated from competitors in some ways of vital importance to customers.

There is little point in being the same, or very similar to everyone else when dealing with supermarkets. Negotiations then just becomes an auction between suppliers for shelf space, and once you have succeeded there, you face a reverse  auction for the consumers dollars. Neither are winning strategies. Small businesses by their nature do not have the scale to serve everyone, so having a clear offer to a small group, sufficiently powerful that they are not  prepared to accept a substitute is the desired outcome. If you can sit in front of one of the gorillas, knowing you only want distribution in one, and knowing that at least some of your customers will be prepared to either change their store choice to get your product, or build a bit of loyalty to their current store because it stocks your product, you  have some leverage in the discussions. It is all about negotiation leverage, and differentiation that delivers value to consumers gives leverage.

Aim for the long term.

‘Lifetime customer value” has become a  bit of a cliché in recent times, but that does not mean it is of less value as an idea. Building in the triggers that will bring our existing customers back time and time again is a far better way of building a brand and a business than to be constantly out fishing for  new customers. The digital tools now available have given us a wide array of tools that assist in the calculation  of the cost of acquisition and retention of customers. Marketing expenditure can be now absolutely accountable for results, and sensitive to even very small changes in tactics, and this is a potent  tool small business can use against their bigger rivals, and to build brand loyalty. Knowing what sorts of marketing activity engages existing customers is of way more value than going fishing for new ones.

 Consistency and predictability.

These two words are factors that always come up in consumer research seeking to identify the foundations of good brands. Consumers know what they stand for, know they will have those things delivered with  no surprises. However, the notion of consistency goes further, to the way the brand is packaged, advertised, an positioned, they are all consistent over  along period of time, change coming as evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Consumers also want to be entertained, intrigued, and engaged with their brands, and that will not happen if they are boring, so the communications have to walk that fine line of being consistent, while being constantly fresh and interesting. Few succeed, but those that do become significant players in their niche, weather that niche be a global market, like Apple, or a local market.

Differentiation.

Whatever else you develop your brand to be, and to do, make it different to everything else out there that could fill the same customer need. Without your own distinctive identity, you will be simply one of the forgotten brands that fight for shelf space on the basis of price, and then all you do is deliver profits to the supermarkets. However, differentiation does not mean a different pack size, or colour scheme, it means genuinely solving the consumers problem or addressing the “job to be done” in a different way, one that adds value by reflecting the job. You must however be very focused about what value you add to who, and why they should buy your brand over the other guy. The final implication here is that you know your competitor well, well enough to counter their obvious and logical competitive responses in the manner in which you build your brand.

Communications must be in the customer language.

Brands that communicate in the language customers use in the context in which the product is used have a chance of success, as the customers relate to the context and language. Many years ago I was a part of the team, an observer really as I was just a young graduate,  that created the “you ought to be congratulated” advertising that gave Meadow Lea margarine a stranglehold on the Australian market for 30 years. In a market with many heavily   advertised brands, Meadow Lea held a share of more than three times its closest rival for many years. The line, and the ads themselves spoke in the language of the primary customer, busy, smart women with families who were juggling multiple roles and responsibilities.

Plan and integrate your marketing activity across platforms.

In the “old days” the scope of available marketing activity was limited to the paid media, paid public relations, sales promotions and a few others. Now, that has changed, and the menu of available marketing tools has exploded. This huge array of options also makes life for the marketers complicated and dangerous, so great care must be taken to be consistent in your message and positioning across the whole array of marketing tools that are employed, and you need to be employing a range of them, rather than  a few, depending on the behaviour of your customers. These days, social media platforms play a huge role in the development of an opportunity to sell, but in fact they do not yet do much in the way of brand-building.  The core of much brand building activity is your website, to which you drive potential customers so they can check you out, and existing customers to reinforce the value of your brand in more “long form” ways like recipes, hints, detailed information, whatever is relevant to the consumers relationship with the product category and your brand. However, the most common problem with websites is that people “set and forget”. They need to be living creatures, fed and nurtured like the family pet if they are to deliver a return.

 

Two final thoughts.

  1.  Even if you do all the above right, better than anyone else, but your product sucks, you will have wasted all that effort , time and money. The consumer is not a fool, they will not mistake good marketing for a good product, at least, not more than once.
  2. If you want your brand to last, to stand the test of time and competition, build it on solid foundations, but make it flexible enough to adjust to consumers as they evolve.

4 steps to identify a Unique Value Proposition

Feb 16, 2015 | Customers, Marketing, Small business

crowd

Being different is fundamental to being profitable, as if you are the same as everyone else in everything you do, then the discriminator becomes price, and being the cheapest is rarely a profitable strategy.

Often this notion is written about as a ‘Unique Selling Proposition”, useful, but in this connected world, you have to be able to demonstrate your value before you have a chance at a sale, therefore it helps to have the value proposition at  the forefront of your thinking.

If consumers think  value is what you have to offer, they will buy it.

First, a definition.

A UVP is something  that clearly differentiates you from your opposition, it creates a point around which your target market can choose you simply because the others do not have what you do, and therefore cannot offer the same value. This does not mean you have to be the “best”, few would argue that a Hyundai is a better car than a Mercedes, but amongst its peers, it offers more electronic “bling” than the others, for the same money. If the bling is what you want, buy a Hyundai.

Second, make your UVP as clear as crystal. There is little point making the investment in identifying and creating the supporting infrastructure of a UVP, and then not clearly telling people what it is. This also acts as a focal point to attract the sorts of customers you specifically want, as they will be attracted by the UVP, others less so, so perhaps they go elsewhere. This creating of a “choice” mechanism is a powerful marketing tool.

Third, how do you identify and develop a UVP?

There are a lot of tools, and tricks, but no substitute for thoughtful, creative and extensive market and customer research and feedback. There is however, a relatively simple series of questions you can ask yourself to uncover the UVP.

  1. Identify clearly the offers of your major competitors. What they do well, what they do poorly, any guarantees they have in place, what they can do that you cannot, and vice versa, and any other factors relevant to a sale in your category, like geography, parking availability, speed of service, and so on.
  2. Understand the trends in your industry, in order to try and anticipate where it may be heading. Things such as the impact of technology, regulation, industry imposed standards, and the general levels of quality, service, and delivery that apply.
  3. Focus on your target market. Every market has characteristics of product, customer, business model, distribution channels and common cost and revenue drivers. Understand as completely as you can what these all are, looking for the typical distribution of characteristics for each parameter of importance. For example, if you are selling men’s suits, the target market is men, identify the typical or average customer, he may be 40 years old, a middle ranking executive, with two kids a wife who works, mortgage and 2 cars. However, that doesn’t not mean that single 25 year olds may not buy, it is just that there are less of them currently, they are less likely to buy, and almost certainly, they do not  buy multiple suits.
  4. Identify your specific ideal customer. The better you can identify the specific person you are targeting the better you will be able to craft a UVP of value to them, and communicate it. To continue the analogy above,  25 year old single men may not need as many suits as their 40 year old counterpart, but the one they want is not for every day wear, so they may be prepared to pay much more for the quality and styling you can offer. It may also be that your target customer is that 25 year olds partner?

When you think that an old head that has done this sort of exercise many times may be able to help, give me a call.