Marketing Articles

By Marc Aronson

Many businesses believe buyers just want the lowest price. After all, the yellow pages and newspapers are loaded with ads that make pricing the main focus. However, surveys show that what buyers really want, whether consumers or businesses, is value. Buyers want the best quality, fastest service, etc., at the best possible price. In other words, they want the most for their dollars.

Today’s weak economy poses a huge challenge

Today, businesses are complaining about the lack of results from their advertising. Due to the slow economy, buyers are worried and reluctant to spend, especially if they don’t trust what they hear or see. Thus, people less frequently respond to mediocre advertising filled with platitudes, fluff and generalities. Yet, most advertising continues to be loaded with banalities. Why then do advertisers continue to advertise in this way? Because this is the method they were taught. It is what nearly everyone else still does and they know no better approach.

Make your product or service stand out from the rest

So, what do you do? It starts by bridging this lack of buyer trust by ensuring what your business provides is clearly superior to your competition. Superiority must be in terms of quality, customer service, convenience (ease of use), consistency and/or price. Also, the way in which your product or service is superior must be perceived as having value to your potential buyers. For example, if your service is faster than your competitors’ but your market is concerned more with quality, promoting fast service might keep your cash registers empty. Therefore, you must first know exactly what would make your offer perceived as superior in a way that is considered valuable. Chances are you think you know their answers but would be surprised by the results surveys reveal.

Should you choose to survey, the findings might cause you to decide you must make some changes to your operations. Or, you may already have the right superiority and are ready to launch your marketing campaign. If your business first requires operational changes, you’ll need a plan that can be easily implemented. The marketing firm you choose must understand this and possess the managerial know-how to assist you with a smooth and effective transition.

How to Find the Most Effective Way to Separate Your Business from Your Competitors

1) Decide on the target market you will focus on.

2) Determine the hot buttons of your target market. If you are not absolutely certain what their hot buttons are, survey the market. (How to survey your target market will be covered in a future e-newsletter).

3) Take the leading hot buttons and brainstorm innovative ideas that directly relate to the hot buttons. Make sure the concepts you select will allow your product or service to be perceived as being superior. Choose one or more innovations you can implement. (If you are not sure whether the one(s) you wish to use will make your product or service perceived as being superior, survey your target market).

4) Determine whether it will be cost effective to implement your innovation. Project the additional revenue you anticipate and calculate a thorough list of all expected expenses including personnel, material and advertising.

5) Contact your competition, pose as a prospective customer, and make sure what you wish to implement is not being offered by competitors.

6) When you are certain you have an innovation you can successfully implement, develop promotion and test market it on a small sample of your target market.

7) Once you’ve run a successful test market, launch a full campaign.

In the future, we will provide an e-newsletter that will explain each step above in more detail.