Positioning Strategy: Do you choose your customer, or do they choose you?
Posted by Rebecca Blackwell on Nov 21, 2008
(This post began as a response to Jeff P.’s comment on an earlier post. He asked, “do you choose your customer…or do they choose you?)
“Selling benefits, not features” is a mantra that is repeated often by sales and marketing experts alike in response to those seeking marketing help. At YML, we write about it a lot. One of the YML Partners, Sonia Simone even teaches a very good course on how to sell benefits rather than features.
This concept is taught often by many for good reason. It’s good positioning strategy. None of us purchase anything because of the features of that product or service. We purchase because of what the features of that product or service does for us. More importantly - we purchase because of what we perceive the features of that product or service will do for us.
Perception, as always, is king.
To go one step further: How we think about a product or service not only drives our purchasing decisions, it also shapes our expectations about that product or service and influences how committed we are to enjoying the product or service and getting value from it.
I happen to have the perfect example of the power of desire and perception. A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I decided to go to the movies. We had just finished up a tough week and were in the mood to relax and laugh. We were in the market for fun!
So, we chose a comedy that we expected to be lighthearted and funny. We’d seen funny previews for this movie and read rave reviews and fully expected to laugh and have a great time watching it. Well.. the movie was terrible. Absolutely terrible. And we knew right away that it was terrible, and we really knew halfway through that it was terrible, and we still stayed for the whole movie, which ended…. terribly.
As we were walking out of the theater, we had to ask ourselves why we stayed for the entire movie. The answer is simple. We really, really wanted it to get better. We wanted it to get better so badly that we held out hope that it might get better way past the point that rational people should.
Have you ever done the same thing? Have you ever been so determined to enjoy something or achieve something that you held on to it for way too long?
A couple important points to make about this example:
1. If you can craft a message that taps into something a group of people really, really want, they will work hard to really, really like it. If our perception is that a product or service is going to give us what we really want, we will try very hard to get what we really want out of it.
2. We weren’t really buying a movie that night. We were buying comedic relief. We were buying an escape. We were buying laughter and fun. The movie itself (the medium to deliver what we wanted) was incidental.
So - the original question was, “Do you choose your customers or do they choose you?” I have two answers.
Answer #1: They choose you - IF you have managed to be where they are, offering what they want, and can deliver.
Answer #2: You choose them - IF you first decide that you want to be the option they choose to get what they already want and shape your message accordingly.
Even better: Remember earlier when I said that “perception is king?” If the message you are communicating to your target market is in alignment with what people are already looking for, you can shape their perceptions of expecting an exceptional product or service even before they purchase from you.
BUT - your message must hit home with what they actually want (benefits) and your product or service MUST deliver what you promise.
With a well developed, relevant message you don’t have to do any of the icky parts of selling. Rather, your job is to connect and communicate and then deliver. Going back to our movie example, my husband and I were already looking for a comedy. No one had to “sell” us on wanting to watch a comedy. They just had to put something in front of us that had the potential of meeting our desire. We were sold before we bought the ticket. It took a poorly done movie to “unsell” us. And even that wasn’t easy. You have a better product. You can deliver.
So, what are your ideal customers really looking for? What do they really want? What do they really need? What are they already looking for? What do your products or services do that can deliver on those desires? Those are the benefits. Those are the hot buttons of your core message and they will have little to do with the actual features of your product or service. As long as your product or service delivers on what they really want, the actual product or service is incidental.
So here’s the big take-away: To be a successful business, don’t craft your marketing message around what’s incidental. Craft it around what is badly desired.
6 Secrets to Capturing More Business
Posted by Rebecca Blackwell on Nov 17, 2008
I attended a lunch last week where Tony Rubleski, author of Mind Capture: How you can stand out in the age of Advertising Deficit Disorder, spoke. I took a couple pages of notes that I thought I would share with you here.
A lot of what he talked about is not ground breaking information, but he positioned it in such a way that it had a real impact on me.
It’s interesting how we need to hear the same messages over an over in order for them to really sink in. As business owners and marketers, we know that it’s important to provide a consistent message across multiple media in order for our prospects to really hear it. This is also true for us. I might read 10 books this year and countless blog posts that essentially say the same things. However, I will likely pull different insights from each simply because of the positioning strategy of the message, or because of my frame of mind when reading it, or because of what someone else said about it.
The point is this: Keep reading. Keep listening. Keep learning.
With that said, here’s what Tony had to say about standing out in the “age of Advertising Deficit Disorder.” I’ve added some of my thoughts as well. Enjoy! (Then buy the book.)
The 3 Greatest Challenges We Face As Marketers in pursuit of a truly successful business:
1. Attention. We’ve all heard the claim that you only have 2 seconds to grab someone’s attention before you’ve lost your opportunity. I don’t know if that’s exactly true, but Tony points out that the principle is absolutely true. You have a very short period of time to capture someone’s attention with your marketing.
2. Time: 99.9% of people today are busy and easily distracted. When was the last time you talked to someone who wasn’t “really busy”? Yeah… I can’t remember either. All marketing campaigns are just one more thing competing for our prospect’s time.
3. Credibility: We are a highly skeptical society these days. In order for anyone to listen to you for more than 2 seconds and not immediately dismiss what you are claiming, you must prove your case. And, of course, you must do it quickly.
Here are 6 ways you can capture your audience’s attention, time and trust:
1. Referral Capture. Referrals are extremely powerful. We are much more likely to be open to hearing what someone has to say if they were first recommended to us by someone we know and trust. So… how can you get more referrals? Ask for them. You simply never know what will happen until you ask.
There’s an effective and not-so-effective way of doing this. The not-so-effective way is to just hand someone a few of your business cards and say, “When you come across someone who might be interested in what I have to offer, would you point them in my direction?”
The effective way is to be a bit more proactive and ask for introductions. If you are doing a good job taking care of your customers, they want you to be successful. Who do they know that you need to know? Ask them to introduce you.
A really great idea that Tony called “website magic” is to visit your top customer’s web sites and take a look at what they’re doing. Have they won any awards? Did they just launch a new product or service? Take note of something you would like to congratulate them on. Then, look for the space on their site where they list their clients. Find the one or two that you most want to be introduced to. Send your client an email that says, “I was on your web site today and noticed that ________. Congratulations! By the way, I also noticed that _____ is one of your clients. Would you mind introducing me to them?” You can also use this technique on Facebook, Linked in and My Space, etc.
Keep track of who is referring other people to you and reward them! If someone refers you once, it is highly likely they will refer you again and again - IF, you encourage that behavior by rewarding them. Every document you have should ask, “How did you hear about us?” Give your referrers gift certificates, gas cards, movie tickets, etc. Make the gift a real gift (not just a promotion) by giving them something you think they would enjoy that is not something you make or do.
2. Evidence Capture. Use testimonials, videos and blogs to support your claims. Give away content rich white papers, free reports and eBooks. Generate positive PR. Have an outrageous guarantee that shows just how much you believe in your product or service. Update testimonials frequently and consider the use of video testimonials.
3. Story Capture. Stories engage the mind. They are great attention grabbers. Once pulled into a great story, it is hard to pull away. Using stories in your marketing is a great way to capture someone’s attention and hold it for a decent length of time.
4. Content Capture. Give people really, really good content. Stop worrying about giving too much away for free. Do you really think that you have information that is not available for free somewhere right now? You can’t control information. You can’t capture it, hold it or corner the market on it. Don’t even try. Instead, set yourself up to be the main authority in your particular niche. Use the fact that people are short on time and don’t want to spend a lot of it searching for what they want or need to set yourself up as the one source they trust in a particular area.
Just because so much information is available for free doesn’t mean we aren’t willing to pay for it. Once we get serious about wanting to know something or do something, we will gladly pay for “how to” information. Your customers and clients are going to buy from someone when they get to that point. If you’ve given them plenty of great content over time, you will be the first one they go to when they are ready to purchase.
5. Grabber Capture. When using direct mail you must be creative in how you send it. Hand address the envelope and put a real stamp on it. Send it in a red greeting card envelope. Put something in the envelope (the lumpy mail technique). Mail the marketing piece in something other than an envelope. Be creative and bold about this. You could even send your letters via UPS or Fedex. The point is, put at least as much thought into how you are going to get your prospect to read a promotion as you do into producing the promotion. (This applies to email marketing as well. Be creative!)
6. Innovation Capture. Gather good ideas from everywhere. This includes outside your industry. A good idea is a good idea and can be applied to any industry. Make it a habit to look at everything with a child-like curiosity. Some of the best ideas have come from those who questioned everything. Keep track of all your ideas and the ideas of others’ by create and use a swipe or idea file.
Finally, Tony shared these quotes that I thought was worth passing on:
“Sometimes you have to be willing to be misunderstood.” Jeff Bezos (SP?) founder of Amazon.
“How many industry norms can you violate or turn upside down?” Dan Kennedy
