what is a brand?
There is little doubt that brands have become extremely powerful. But as their power is often seen in a negative light, this isn’t necessarily a good thing. If you ask me, however, in an ideal world such power presents a glorious opportunity to do something for the good, for the great a subject I’ll examine in more detail later in the post. But acknowledging how powerful brands have become also throws up a number of questions: is our obsession with brands the result of a cheap trick? Is a brand a set of cognitive associations linked to something or someone, or is it just a physical object? Is there anywhere in the world that has not been infiltrated by the brand? http://ift.tt/2n2fdALSo many questions, so little time. There are brands and there are products: this is the defining line. A brand is something that we have an emotional connection with. It may be completely fake and manufactured, but we nevertheless experience some kind of bond. This is human programming at its best. It takes a certain something to evoke in a prospective consumer a sudden feeling of connection when he or she is stood in the supermarket at 7.30 p.m. after a hard day’s work, hungry as a horse, looking for something half-decent to chow but faced with a shelf of identical brands. ‘Which ready meal do I buy?’ The brand that pulls at our heartstrings like a puppy at the pound is the brand that will get our money. Ker-ching! The way I see it is that because everything in the cultural world is constantly changing, brands have to adapt to these changes in order to remain relevant. This dynamic relationship to culture, however, is something that the world of brands rarely celebrates. For brands to admit that what really makes them attractive is all the stuff that has rubbed off on to them from the world of culture is way too honest, way to close to the knuckle. But this is what makes a successful brand story stand out. A company creates a product a sneaker, say but the real gravity and magnetism of that product is created by the culture that embraces it. In other words, it’s not the brand that made the sneaker cool, but culture. This fact is a game changer, but once the brand story becomes the focus of all communications, nothing can get in its way, regardless of the real story, regardless of the truth. So let’s forget the mirages that advertising agencies and marketing departments build around brands. The global rise of many brands is indelibly linked to underground cultural phenomena, and this is the real juice, the real deal. It’s also the kind of thing that gets me out of bed each day. But it’s strange how global brands often behave as though they are made of kryptonite one moment and glass the next – saturating the media one day and then censoring it twenty-four hours later if anyone has anything to say that isn’t 100 per cent complimentary. One thing, however, is certain: the way in which brands acquire their market share is never by simply being the best, as all products out there are pretty much identical. To quote Malcolm X remixing Jean-Paul Sartre, they do it ‘by any means necessary’. In one way or another we are all brands, and behave as such. From the current crop of hipsters running around the planet to the yummy mummies of Stoke Newington, Westchester and Prenzlauer Berg, we are all self-branded by the choices we make everyday – by the cars we drive, the clothes we wear, the food we eat, and so on. And what we display in public we extend into the digital realm via our social-media channels. I think a lot of us are totally unaware of this fact, and so our ‘brand’ is pretty shite: photos of getting wasted, misbehaving, hating/trolling, duck-faces, trying to look ‘sexy’, wearing something hideous, driving an expensive yet ridiculous-looking car all of which damages ‘brand me’. Image, after all, is everything, and the power of the brand is controlled by its story, its choices and its image. The key ingredient in these three elements is authenticity. If it’s an authentic choice then it will work for the brand and it will work for us. So here is my definition: a brand is a thing or a person or a company that has got some kind of media traction and has managed (by hook or by crook) to get itself on the public radar and into our heads. The first rule for any brand is that we all have to know about it; we have to be aware that it exists, as only then can it begin to build its story deep within our subconscious. The second rule is that it has to offer something in return (apart from the actual product) for either our money or our loyalty. This is where it gets interesting. Thanks to the digital revolution, cultural currency has become almost as important as the regular, physical, common or garden dollar or pound, because it all helps to drive the story of the product the all important backstory into the mind of the consumer. As we all know, most mobile phones last a couple of years before they slow down or stop working altogether (that’s if you haven’t already broken it) a great example of planned obsolescence in full effect. In most cases it’s one small part of the phone that has actually broken, but because of the way in which they’re designed, you can’t just swap that part for a new one. Until now, that is. The Phoneblok is a mobile phone designed around a system of detachable components, or ‘bloks’, connected to a solid base that locks them all together. If a certain blok breaks, you simply replace it; and if the phone is slowing down, you can upgrade the processor for a faster one. All this revolves around the Blokstore, a digital hub where you can buy, sell, read reviews, get information or just purchase a ready assembled phone. The tagline is ‘A Phone Worth Keeping’. The inventor of the Phoneblok is a chap called Dave Hakkens, a designer from the Netherlands whose goal is to make the world a better place by making things that can be fixed and not just thrown away better and sustainable things. He started this quest when his beloved digital camera stopped working. After trying to fix it himself, he discovered that the one part he needed was not available anywhere. Dave was also acutely aware of waste streams (the total flow of waste from manufacture to disposal) generated by the mobile-phone industry, so he started working on a phone that could be easily fixed and would not contribute to these waste streams. Phonebloks was born, and has since gathered considerable digital momentum – a social-media reach of more than 380 million people. The first major company to get on board was Motorola. The Google owned telecommunications giant had been working on its own modular phone, and approached Phonebloks asking if it could get involved. As Dave wants Phonebloks to become a reality, he agreed, but with the strict condition that the consumer must always be kept in the loop, so that the project can be developed in the open. To me, Phonebloks represents an authentic link between producer and consumer. This is something that really needs to be focused on how brands can genuinely connect with the consumer. Motorola’s involvement with Phonebloks tells me that the once blinkered eyes of the tech giants are slowly beginning to open. Why Phonebloks works:
via Blogger http://ift.tt/2mpL8hm March 05, 2017 at 08:57PM
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Guide to lean customer development
A key component to our customer-driven strategy is maintaining an ongoing conversation with your customers. Customer interviews are an easy, low-cost, method of collecting customer feedback. It provides rich insight as you’re hearing it “right from the source” and it also creates an atmosphere that has customers feeling valued by your organization. http://ift.tt/2mGHhNKIn this post, we focus a lot on the value of conducting customer interviews. We find that it’s an incredible way to not only gather insights, but to create a great and lasting relationship with your customers. Regardless of what data collection methods you employ, we highly recommend that it is supplemented with customer interviews. We’ll talk about how to conduct a successful interview in a moment, but first, let’s discuss how we can remain objective while collecting customer data. It starts with understanding and avoiding our own biases. We’re not going to go into the complex nuances of how our brain works or the theories of working memory, but it’s important to understand the consequences of how our cognitive bias effects our interpretation and analysis of customer data. Reducing cognitive biasCognitive bias effects the way we process information, creating patterns and rules to help us make sense of the world. Like assumptions, biases are not a bad thing, but they can be incredibly powerful if they remain unchecked.Below is not an extensive list of the dozens of biases that exist, but common biases we’ve encountered with our teams: We tend ignore information that contradicts our assumptions and search for information that supports it.
We are more likely to notice the first and last thing we heard or saw, which doesn’t make it the most meaningful.
By being aware of your cognitive bias you can reduce, but not eliminate, the effects it has on your data. Here’s are some things you can do to help reduce bias:
Finding CustomersTo maintain a great customer feedback loop, where you’ll be engaging with customers, eliciting their feedback, iterating on concepts, and responding to your customer’s problems with valuable solutions, it’s important to create a system to help you find customers to interact with.We’ve found that social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook are great networks to leverage when trying to find customers. You can also leverage local user groups, meetups, or conferences to help build your rolodex of customer contacts. Leveraging your product’s existing support channels can be helpful as well. If you have support forums or a support hotline, you may consider using these resources to identify customers with a certain motivation or problem. We also find that offering more support can be a great, inexpensive, way to get a customer to talk with you. For example, if a customer is having an issue with logging in, you could put them in contact with a support technician to help them. Once the issue is resolved, you could ask if the customer would be willing to share a few more moments of their time to go over some of questions. Customers tend to be more agreeable if you’ve just helped them with an issue they were having; so, it’s a great way to turn a customer support call into a customer interview. Be personal and authenticProbably one of the most difficult tasks you’ll have, when reaching out to a customer, is to overcome their belief that you’re trying to sell them something. We’ve all been inundated with countless telemarketers, sales promotions, or “giveaways”, to the point that we’ve created a “noise filter”, automatically disregarding any communication that sounds like a sales pitch.Unfortunately, when you try to contact a customer, you’ll have to overcome those filters to get a customer’s attention. Here are some tips that can help. Update your online profileDepending on the tech-savviness of your customer, you might consider how often they will be looking you up on various social networks. Therefore, it’s a good idea to ensure, if they do look you up online, that your social networking bios are up-to-date. For instance, if your reach out to a customer as a representative of your company, make sure your LinkedIn and Twitter profiles have been updated to show that you work for the company.We’ve also found that an updated profile picture makes a big difference. It may sound funny, but having a nice profile picture, with your smiling face, can go a long way in a customer believing that you’re a real person who’s interested in your feedback. Favor depth over breadthIt may be tempting to do an “email blast” or mass communication as it can seem as a sure-fire way to “catch” the most number of customers in a single communication. The problem with this approach is that these communications tend to find their way into customers’ spam filters, or completely ignored altogether. It’s tough to be personal and authentic when your email sounds like it has been formatted with the broadest possible audience in mind.We like to do a bit of work, investigating a potential customer, prior to making the first contact. It can take more time up front, but it tends to produce a higher quality group of participants than mass communication. For example, let’s say we’re working on an app that puts medical students in contact with hospitals offering open residency programs. We could search Twitter to see if anyone has posted about residency programs and come across a blog post that discusses frustrations with the process. The post has been retweeted over 1,000 times and has been liked nearly 5,000 times. This gives us an indication that this article resonated with our customer base. We could reach out to the author to tell her we appreciate the article and ask if she’d be okay with us contacting her regarding an application we’re building to help students find great residency programs. If she’s written a blog post about it, there’s a high likelihood that she’s passionate about finding a resolution to the problem and has a desire to partner with us in resolving it. This type of communication is meaningful and personal. It sounds less like a sales pitch and more like a genuine interest in what the customer is trying to achieve. Additionally, we could look at the thousands of people that liked or retweeted her article, cross-referencing those users with their LinkedIn profiles to determine whether their professional background aligns with the type of customer we’re looking for. Therefore, a single tweet could foster many high-value customers for upcoming interviews. Some people refer to this as “Internet stalking”. We like to think of it as “smart recruiting”. Reward participation with “exclusivity”If you work on a product team, you should absolutely mention that in your communication. We find that customers like the idea that they’ve been contacted directly by the people who make the products they use. Be sure to tell them why they’ve been selected and be specific about how you believe they can help you and other customers.Cindy Alvarez suggests that there are three things that we’re all motivated by the same basic desires1:
We find this to be true as well. Any time we position the customer as “the expert”, we find they have a greater sense of duty and engagement. They feel empowered and have a greater desire to get involved and offer their expertise. We’ve even created “insider programs” or “customer councils” and invited some of our more vocal customers to participate. Customers like the distinction of being involved in an exclusive group or feeling like they have a say in the direction of the product you’re building. As a reward, we elevate their status, offering a direct line with our product team or an opportunity to see new features before they’re released. Methods for collecting customer dataA great customer and product development strategy should include a multitude of signals to help you increase your confidence that you’re headed in the right direction. While customer interviews should be considered the core of your research strategy, you should also consider supplementing your findings with the following methods.SurveysProsCan provide a large sample size: Surveys can be completed by a greater number of respondents because they can be completed and distributed rather easily.Easy to administer: Once the survey is completed, it’s unmoderated. In other words, the survey can be given to the respondent to be completed themselves. Through experience, we’ve found that surveys are great when 1. You are looking to create a pool of customers that fit your demographic profile or 2. to determine if the hypotheses you validated with a small sample size generalize to a larger population. If you have access to customers and want to determine if they fit your target population criteria, a survey is a great way to contact customers to build your rolodex. This initial contact with the customer is not an attempt to test your assumptions, but to target a pool of customers to interview. Secondly, if you have an established relationship with your customers where you’ve tested and validated your hypotheses, a survey is a great method to see if your findings generalize to a larger or different population of customers. If your using this approach, you have learned from a subset of the customer population and know what questions to ask. Formulating the questions, as well as responses, should be fairly easy. ConsWriting survey questions is tricky: It can be hard to craft a survey question that will elicit the response you’re looking for and be easy for the respondent to interpret correctly. Survey data can be heavily impacted by the types of questions you ask and how you ask them.When we first start working with teams, we find that they typically want their initial conversation with a customer to start with a survey. If they don’t know a lot about the customer, they want to gather as much information before engaging in a phone conversation. Intuitively, that seems like the right approach. Yet, the minute the team starts to write the survey, they realize they don’t know the right questions to ask. At this point in the customer journey, the team knows very little about the customer, so asking specific, directive questions in a survey is difficult. We suggest that if you are trying to learn about the customer, interviews are the best approach. You still may not know the perfect question to ask, but it gives you an opportunity to ask clarifying questions. You them have an opportunity to update your questions for the next interview. The more conversations you have the more your understanding will grow. This will lead to deeper, richer learnings than a survey would provide. Can lead to more questions than answers: Surveys can give you a “quick read” of a bulk of responses. They can easily tell you what respondents said, but not why they said it. We often find that when teams use surveys, they inevitably end up with, more specific, follow-up questions. That’s why surveys should be used as a tool to “test the waters” or give you a general feeling of a group. Following up a survey with a series of interviews will help you understand the nuances of their responses. Therefore, it’s good idea to conclude the survey with a question that asks, “Would you be willing for us to contact you regarding your responses to this survey?” and ask respondents to leave a contact e-mail. Focus GroupsProsCan provide interesting customer interaction: It can be great to have participants interact and share with each other. In some cases, one customer’s comment generates a new idea or thought by another customer; hearing one person’s frustration might embolden someone to share a similar experience where they might not have otherwise. This type of interaction can lead to a livelier and more engaging interview session.More interviews in the same amount of time: If you’re short on time and cannot commit to running a single interview, with each person individually, getting multiple people on the same call can help save time. ConsRequires a skilled moderator: It can be difficult to manage a group of people while asking for their feedback. A single comment can take the focus group “off the rails” as they spend all their time discussing something that is irrelevant to your study. A skilled moderator can gently guide the group to ensure that the conversation stays on course.Influence of Groupthink: Having a group of customers provide feedback can generate an engaging conversation and the sharing of alternative ideas. However, you should also be mindful of the effects of “Groupthink”; which is a mode of thinking that occurs when you’re involved in a cohesive group where members strive for agreement, rather than appreciating alternative courses of action. During focus groups, customers may respond as a cohesive group, rather than expressing their individual opinions. You may find that customers in the group may be reluctant to say or do anything that may disrupt the group, such as voicing criticisms against the ideas or opinions of another group members3.Conclusion_janis_political_psychology A good moderation is one that is skilled to look for signals that groupthink is occurring, such as having a strong group that persuades the group to support their opinions, a high level of group cohesion on multiple topics to avoid conflict, or lack of an opposing view because the group members lack an understanding of the topic, thus following along with the group’s responses. Logistics can be challenging: Depending on the audience you’re targeting; it can be challenging to schedule them all at the same time. Conducting focus groups, remotely, using an online video conference solution can help reduce the friction of people coming together. Site VisitsProsGain a unique perspective: It’s one thing to hear a customer describe their environment, but another thing completely to see it for yourself. Site visits are the highest fidelity and deepest customer learning you can experience. With site visits, you can immerse yourself in the customer’s world, which can allow you to gain insights that a customer would otherwise deem unimportant or not worth mentioning.Observe environmental factors: We often become so focused on what we can do with our products, that we forget there are external variables that effect our product’s performance. Being able to observe your product “in the wild” can offer new insights that you hadn’t previously considered. Things like office noise, ergonomics, or the layout of a physical space can give you new ideas for how to improve your products. ConsCostly: Depending on where your customer base is located, it can be costly to make travel arrangements. To save on cost, you may consider sending a smaller team with a set of cameras (assuming it’s okay with your customer to record video of their environment). We’ve had success using wide-angle cameras from companies like GoPro. They’re small, unobtrusive, and the wide-angle lens provides the ability to capture more of the physical space in the recording.Difficult to gain access: Depending on your customer, it may be challenging to gain access to the work they do or visit them at their place of work. Depending on the sensitive nature of their work, you may find it difficult to get an NDA signed for you and your team to be onsite. Additionally, gaining access to the customer and their team for a large chunk of time may be difficult. You may have to coordinate a visit during non-peak periods and they may not necessarily align with your company’s timeline. TelemetryProsLarge sample size: Telemetry gives you the widest possible access to your customer base. By measuring actual usage, you’ll be able to gain insight into how customers are using your exisiting products. Additionally, there is little to no barrier or friction for the customer. A/B testing: Using telemetry you can set up experiments within your product. You can try different configurations and experiences and measure if they result in the behavior you’re looking for. This can be a low-cost way to test the validity of your ideas on real customers using your product. ConsDifficult to correlate with customer intent: While telemetry can give you an indication of what is happening, it does a poor job of answering why it’s happening. Inferring a customer’s motivation from their usage can leave major gaps in your understanding.For example, let’s imagine we’re working on a website for a high-end shoe retailer. We’ve added a new “Clearance” tab and telemetry is suggesting that only a small amount of our customers are selecting it. We might infer that the location or visibility of the tab is poor; resulting in fewer clicks. It may seem like a good idea to increase visibility by making the tab more prominent on the page. However, after talking with customers, we find the actual reason they are not clicking on “Clearance” tab is because their primary motivation, when they come to our site, is to find the latest fashions; not to pay less for shoes. Telemetry is a low-cost way to look for signals, but interviews and focus groups can help explain the data and find deeper meaning. That’s why telemetry should be used to cross-validate results from other customer and product development research. Conducting a customer interviewWe’ve outlined many methods to get feedback from customers, all having their benefits and limitations. Over the years, we’ve used a combination of mixed methodologies to ensure that we’re developing products that customers will love. Based on our experience working with teams, we’ve found that customer interviews provide the fastest way to start learning from our customers.Our playbook is a structured approach that moves you from learning about your customers, primarily through interviews, and identifying opportunities to conceptualizing new ideas and refining the quality of your product offerings. The stage in this approach is to provide you with guidelines on conducting customer interviews. One of the key characteristics to any successful interview is preparation. While it may be tempting to jump online and start asking your customers questions, you will be better served with a more structured approach. Let’s break down the things you’ll need to ensure you have a productive and insightful interview. ScreenerBefore you start having conversations with customers, it’s a good idea to have the team decide on the type of customer you want to talk to. While it might be tempting to say, “we’re interested in anyone who might want to talk to us.” That doesn’t set the foundation for a constructive interview. Having too broad of a segment doesn’t allow you to focus your interview into a concise series of questions.A screener is a series of questions that can help you determine whether a customer is a good fit for the interview you plan to have. For example, let’s imagine we were interested in learning more about how customers were using our web portal that connects them to service providers in their area. We’ve decided that we’re interested in finding out how well the relationships have been going between our customers and the service providers they’ve contacted. We could set up a set of screener questions to ensure that we’re talking to the best possible candidates for our study:
If we find a customer that answered, “very often” or “yes” to the following questions, there’s a higher likelihood that he or she will have enough experience with our portal to give us better insight into the relationships that get established with our service providers. When used for screeners, surveys can be a great tool to get specific answers to questions as quickly as possible. This will reduce the burden on the participant, making it easy for them to quickly respond to your screener. Also, it’ll help you to quickly identify if a customer is the right fit for your interview by simply scanning the survey results. If you pursue the survey approach to your screener, be sure to include a question that asks the participant if they would be willing to be contacted by someone from the product team and to have them include their contact information. You can then filter your results based on people that were willing to be contacted. As a team, creating a screener can be a valuable exercise in determining what qualities you’re looking for. Additionally, you can create multiple screeners and split different segments between team members. This will allow you to cover more ground and organize your team regarding who is talking with whom. It can be helpful to have a template for contacting customers via e-mail, message boards, etc. This will give you an easy and consistent way to communicate with customers about what you’re interested in learning. Remote vs. in-person interviewsYou should determine which type of interview makes sense for your project. In-person interviews are great, because they offer an ability to catch subtle cues like body language. For example, a quick roll of the eyes, might suggest sarcasm or that the customer is making a comment in jest.The downside of conducting interviews in-person is that it can be costly and hard to plan. Meeting with someone at their place of work or another location adds an extra burden in terms of resourcing. It’s much easier to take a call at your desk, then plan to meet someone in-person. Additionally, depending on your budget, if you decide to meet customers in-person, you may be limiting your selection to only customers in your immediate region. Today, there are great online, video-conferencing, solutions like Microsoft Skype, Google Hangouts, or Facebook Messenger. These tools allow you to connect with anyone in the world for free. Depending on your customer base and their familiarity with technology, this can be an easy, low-cost, solution. Calling your customer over the phone is acceptable as well, however, it should be noted that over the phone, it can be hard to tell if the customer is distracted, irritated, or confused because you miss those important visual cues. Give time for responsesWhen you’re talking with customers, you may feel the urge to fill up silent moments with conversation. As an interviewer, you should be comfortable with “awkward silence” because it gives the customers a chance to reflect on the questions you give them.If a customer says something interesting that you want to drill into, make note of it and wait until they’ve completed their comment before asking a follow up question. Avoid leading questionsIt can be very easy to lead or bias a customer to a certain response. Consider the following question:What do you like about our product? This question implies that the customer must like something about your product. They might not like anything! Yet, they feel compelled to find something they like just so they can answer your question. A better way to ask this would be: What do you think about our product? Is there anything you like or dislike? These questions are neutral. You’re interested in hearing any thoughts; positive or negative. You’re also giving the customer permission to tell you the things that they don’t like. Remain positiveDuring the interview, you want to exude positivity. Continually encourage feedback and reassure the customer that they won’t hurt your feelings with negative comments. The customer may feel like they’re failing the interview, because they’re not telling you what you want to hear. So, you want to continually reassure them that any feedback is important and helpful, even when it’s tough criticism.via Blogger http://ift.tt/2mGMjKb March 05, 2017 at 06:29PM
Benefits of Social Media Marketing
We have already discussed the importance of social media, but what about the benefits that social media has to offer? On a personal level, social media can be more about a personality contest and who gets the most likes and comments. From a business perspective, social media has an exorbitant amount of benefits. Some of those benefits include an increase in traffic to their websites, increase in loyal fans, improved search rankings, an increase in business partnerships, improved sales, a reduction in overall marketing expenses, and much more. A couple of the top benefits are explained in more detail below. http://ift.tt/2kHO7BmFirst and foremost, the biggest benefit is exposure. The number of people a business can reach online is far more than they can reach face-to-face. This means that brand awareness can increase simply by sharing and promoting the brand online. In fact, most people look for product reviews and product information online prior to purchasing it. While a lot of people would look towards a website first instead of calling, or just dropping by the store, people are now looking towards social media. With just a scroll through Instagram you can find great deals and new events without heading to a website or inquiring. If a person isn’t in the community, they may not know what you are offering. Bring in social media and you can increase your customer base to just outside your community and further, building a relationship with those who know you and who will get to know you. This is why utilizing social media as a marketing campaign is so meaningful. By becoming more involved with the customer, you are building loyalty. Social media sites help develop a brand and legitimize them in ways that regular websites cannot. While static webpages tell consumers who they are, provide a little bit of background, and provide a shopping area, they do not change much. Social media sites allow companies to establish themselves as industry leaders. They can showcase their products and services, provide question and answer sessions, and continually produce updates to provide more about their brand. Building credibility is an important part of social media marketing. Social media is invaluable to customer service. Many customers tend to use social media as a way to communicate with businesses. Either to ask questions, compliment them or complain. Use this to your advantage by ensuring you respond to your messages and posts within a reasonable amount of time. Large companies such as Nike, T-Mobile, and Under Armour are likely to see over 2,000 questions on their wall at any given time because they have well over a million followers. It is important that they keep customer service agents focused on social media sites and answer at least 65% of these questions because recent studies show that 1 in 3 people prefer social media contact rather than phone calls. The better you serve your customers, regardless of the avenue, the better your brand appearance is. In today’s society people are using social media as a primary means of communication. Gone are the days of calling in to complain, or scroll through lists of reviews. Now, all anyone has to do is take to social media to see how a business stands up. Take this into consideration as you build your online presence. Social media marketing is a big driver of increased sales and profit. There are numerous tools and features on each of the social media platforms that help drive consumers to a sale. The ability to buy directly from a shop on Facebook, create target driven advertising campaigns, buy directly from Amazon or Twitter, utilize Instagram as a place to introduce your followers to more than just your store, and YouTube for a look at how you might use products or services. The future is lazy and instant, if you don’t keep up you’ll be driven out. There are a million tools and features that can be capitalized on from each of the social media platforms available. The key is finding which ones will work for your company. Last, social media marketing can reduce your overall advertising and marketing costs. Social media is a cost-effective manner of getting your brand and message out because of the population pool that social media platforms have. You have the ability to get text, images, videos, etc. in various forms of promotions, showcases, product updates and so on free of charge as often as you like. The use of paid ads using target audiences (and management of your social media accounts) is where you will invest your money. Social media campaigns are highly specific and more cost-effective than any TV ad or radio ad you have produced before. If you’re still using your original ways of advertising and want to add social media to the mix, this can be a great tool. Customers will see you everywhere, from TV to radio to Twitter to Facebook. By using a smaller amount of money to access social media, and still keeping your original advertising, at least for the time being, you will find that your budgets will start to look healthier. In essence, you are getting the best bargain possible buy using social media and are accessing the largest population available to you. via Blogger http://ift.tt/2jX4NjG February 07, 2017 at 02:44PM
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing is the utilization of modern social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and others to gain website traffic and bring attention to your brand as well as expand your marketing communication. There are several reasons why you may want to expand your marketing resources into social media, but to understand the significance and importance of that expansion, below are some statistics that might baffle you. http://ift.tt/2jX0wwI
As you plan your social media marketing strategy you need to look at all of the platforms available. What is the popularity like, what marketing opportunities are there, what type of content will you need to create and share, and do you have the right content that will be engaging enough to generate leads and purchases? Taking advantage of every social media platform available to you may be the best option for you and your company, or it may be beneficial just to use one or two platforms. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGYYour social media marketing strategy should clearly identify your business goals. You need to have a clear vision of what you are working towards so that you can create objectives to attain them. Your goals may be to increase brand awareness, retain your customers, introduce new products or services, expand to a new geographic or demographic market; etc. Choose two or three primary goals that you believe are attainable from your list, as well as two or three secondary goals that you want to focus on in this marketing strategy.Once you have your goals clearly defined, you can then develop specific measures to achieve those goals. Ask yourself how you can meet those goals. If one of your primary goals is to increase brand awareness, what can you feasibly do to meet that goal? Utilize Facebook advertising and contests? Generate Twitter posts on a routine basis? Whatever the objectives are you should be able to meet the goal successfully in a timely manner. Your goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Note: Do not overshoot your goals. For example, do not set a goal that you will reach over one million users on social media within the first year. This is highly unfeasible and unrealistic. Make sure your goals are relevant and consistent with your company’s mission. Using social media as a marketing tool is a great way to heighten your brand awareness and tap into new users, especially the younger market. However, social media marketing is a long-term goal and takes a lot of time and effort to achieve high-standing status. Be patient with your goals and re-assess what they mean to you and your company monthly, if not weekly. After you have you goals and objectives, you then need to identify who you need to engage. Who are your customers? Who will use your product or services? You need to think about your target audience from every perspective including, but not limited to: demographics, geography, age, income, occupation, motivations, obstacles, etc. The more specific you can breakdown your user groups, the better off you will be when it comes time to market your brand. You will be able to target specific groups and tailor your advertising for them. Now that you know your audience, what does your competition look like? Take an active approach in studying your competition to understand what social media platforms they are currently using and what type of content seems to attract the most response. You can use these notes as you decide what social media platforms you believe will be the most beneficial for you and the kind of content you need to post to be successful. The most important thing you need to remember is that engagement is your number one goal. If you are posting daily on any social media platform, or perhaps all of them, but aren’t getting any engagement, or very little, it’s time to re-think your plans. Go over your goals, see what others are doing, and re-start your social media marketing. Once you find out what seems to be working for your competitors and you have done your research to determine what will work best for your business (remember your research should be based around your goals and objectives as well what works for your competitors), it is time to decide what social media platforms you will use. I will tell you that most people spend at least 40% of their online time on Facebook and at least 20% of their time on Twitter. These two platforms are almost a given for any new social media marketing campaign. You can also use one form of social media more frequently than the other. Say, for example, you focus more energy into Facebook, and post a little less on Twitter. You’re still reaching an audience and putting your name out there, but you are focusing your efforts onto one social media platform more than you are in another. You can also increase the time and money spent on other platforms as you continue to grow and feel comfortable using social media for marketing. A simple way to even out the amount of time you are spending on your platforms is to link your accounts. For instance, you can link your Facebook and Twitter accounts, so that when you post something on one, it will automatically post to the other. Once you have settled on your social media platforms, you need to develop your content strategy. Content is extremely important to building relationships online. Your new accounts will be meaningless unless you have meaningful content to connect you with new followers (either current customers or prospective customers). Your content strategy will include what content you will post, the timing of your posts and the frequency you should be posting. There are different types of content that can be posted: pure text, images, links, video, etc. All of these have their own value, which will be discussed later on. Now that the entire social media marketing strategy has been written, it is time to allocate some time and resources to this plan. You need to decide how much money you are willing to allocate to the social media side of advertising as opposed to traditional advertising. Many companies are pulling advertising dollars from other advertising budgets; however, many have now created a special budget for social media because of its impact on the company. You will need to look at your return on investment to help you make these decisions and it may be something that comes alive as you generate profits. Maybe you build the social media marketing strategy over time. Your budget may need to be broadened the longer you market with social media and use different ways to engage your customers and future customers. Also, who will handle this new advertising burden? Do you have a social media expert(s)? Make sure you have a plan intact that controls who is developing the content, researching content, posting the content, and handing the management of each site traffic analytics. This may be a job for someone who can handle more responsibility, meeting with yourself to figure out your marketing plan. Or, you may need to hire an entirely new person (or promote from within and hire for their previous position) to help take over the social media platforms. Once you get going and use each one, a job that once seemed flippant and easy will take great time and care. This entire process should be a work in process as you build your social media marketing strategy. via Blogger http://ift.tt/2jXeQFn February 07, 2017 at 01:40PM
Freemium price optimization
If you give generously your business will be blessed. This isn't mysticism or spirituality. It's good business. Why? Let's look at it more closely. http://ift.tt/2jiocjw3 Reasons $0.00 so powerful I think there are three strong reasons why free is a powerful price. Risk Transfer.If you're a prospective customer, and you wonder whether a new business is going to treat you right, you have a lot to worry about. Let's be honest - it's a big risk.As a potential buyer you risk, * Wasting your time on a bad solution * Wasting your money * Identity theft * Tons of frustration and hassle We've all taken a risk on a new company and been burned. That stinks. When you give customers something for free you take away most of that risk. GenerosityWhen you give something for free you show yourself as generous. Customers have one radio station they listen to, WIIFM What's-In-It-For-Me. You want to broadcast loudly on that station. You want to show them that in the "who is going to win" equation - the answer is going to be them, not you.Most businesses aren't generous and don't let customers win very much. But the more you can structure your business to give the customer the upper hand, the better you'll do. Liberty Jane Clothing is from Seattle, and as you might guess, the legend of Nordstrom customer service is always top of mind for us. The return policy is simple - if you want your money back - they'll give it to you. The most powerful Nordstrom story comes from one of their Alaska stores. Here is what happened... A man walked in carrying two snow tires. He set them up on the counter and asked the clerk for a refund. Even though the clerk had only worked there for two weeks he knew two things:
That one story, and the $145 refund, has boosted Nordstrom's brand for the last 35 years. It's a powerful example of the company's fearless commitment to customer happiness. When Nordstrom lets you use and then return items, it is in effect, giving you the use of items for free. It is also showing an extreme amount of generosity. ConfidenceYou show yourself as confident in your business when you give something away for free. Most products and services are average. Most people don't launch high-quality, top-rated, awe-inspiring products. They put out an average product and hope that people won't ask for a refund if they're not happy. If you give away your product, in the form of samples, or offer generous return policies, you show everyone that you're confident your product is going to make the customer happy.How To Give Away TonsSo how do you actually give generously in your business and leverage the power of $0.00? Let's look at eight ways that might work for you. Samples If you can give your customers a sample, then they get to try before they buy. That small gift allows them to make a decision without making an investment. It is a fantastic pre-sell methodology. There is a reason Costco does it. Contests One way to give away a copy of your product for free is to run a simple contest. While only one person gets the copy, dozens, hundreds, or even thousands get engaged in the process. A comment contest on your blog, for example, offers the opportunity for your customers to share in the fun of participating, and support your brand. Giveaways A giveaway, similar to a contest, allows prospects to engage with your brand with no commitment. Guarantees A guarantee can be a powerful statement to your prospective customers. When we started on eBay the standard guarantee language was, "all sales are final". Instead of that, we decided to offer the most generous guarantee we could. Here is what we say, "We guarantee you'll be thrilled with these cute clothes, (everyone always is)! Our exceptional rating is important to us and we want everyone to have a great experience with Liberty Jane Clothing. We know you'll love it, but if you're unhappy with this outfit for any reason we will be happy to refund your purchase price, not including any shipping charges. There is nothing to loose." How-to Videos When you take the time to offer practical instructions or advice in the form of an instructional guidebook, or video, you're creating free content that has incredible value to your customers. You're also boldly stating to your prospective customers that you're committed to their success with the product. Tutorials Similar to a how-to, a tutorial gives prospective customers a free lesson. Tutoring or coaching is a commitment of time and energy in support of the customer's goals. Bonus Gifts Customers love a bonus gift. When you can create your product suite so that the customer gets extra value when they buy from you - you're demonstrating your generosity. Information Products The most incredible part of information products is that they can be given away for free - in unlimited quantities. Whereas with a contest you're limited by the costs involved in the item you're giving away, with an information product you can be incredibly generous. For all these reasons, and more, spend the time to consider how your business can leverage the power of the free item. Price optimization actionMake a list of the ways you currently offer free items. Brainstorm new ways to demonstrate your commitment to the customer's success.via Blogger http://ift.tt/2jitJXv January 29, 2017 at 02:46PM
Differentiation: Premium pricing strategy
Differentiation is the most critical issue when it comes to brand building and pricing power. You maximize your penetration pricing strategy by offering something unique. Over time you maintain pricing power by creating a brand that stands out as unique in the mind of the customer. They pay more because of the uniqueness. http://ift.tt/2jihF8LYou know you're different when people tell you that you are. If people never tell you you're different, then you're not different enough. Your brand is the embodiment of your unique ideals. Marketers call that a Unique Selling Proposition, or a USP. You need one, and is one of the most potent pricing Strategies in marketing. Having a USP that customers understand and respect gives you a powerful brand in the minds of customers, and that creates their willingness to pay a premium price. Did I mention you need a USP? Since 2008 our USP at Liberty Jane has been, In other words we want to offer our customers original designs that are rare and beautiful. For six years we’ve worked to prove we can achieve this goal. We've also continuously tried to underscore and expand on that simple promise. For example, when we had the opportunity to hire Karen Pascho after a thirteen-year career as a Senior Designer at Nordstrom Product Group, we knew it would help fulfill our USP. A year later, when we had the chance to hire Melinda Schlimmer, the creator of the Melody Valerie Couture clothing line, we realized the same thing. Hiring these talented designers helped us reinforce our USP. The reason our business has pricing power is because we have customers that believe in our USP and business is aligned with pricing. They believe we can continuously offer them new and interesting designs. Our pricing power exists because of our USP. And the #1 attribute of a commodity is that it is not unique. The second attribute of a commodity is that the only thing that can possibly be unique is the purchase price. Therefore, people use the price to compete. You don’t want to be in that space not in the doll clothing marketplace or any other type of product or service. You need a Unique Selling Proposition so that you can compete on something other than price war. That means prospective customers don’t care whom they buy from in a commodity market. When that happens – pricing power vanishes. But something always seems to happen, even in highly commoditized markets – customers begin to bond with the most unique brands. They find the brands that meet their ideals and energize their thinking. Customers go looking for a USP that they can believe in. The USP gives people a reason to pay a higher price. People are willing to pay a higher price if you give them a good reason. That reason is generally tied to how your product is unique. The more unique customers believe your brand to be, the stronger your pricing power. We regularly hear people tell us that our work has “changed the market”. That's another indicator, (expressed by our customers), that we're meeting our USP. How do you become more unique?Step one: focus on how you are different - not how you are the same as your competition. Identify the differentiators. Make a list of the common descriptive statements in your niche or industry and promise to avoid them. Want to hear the most over-used phrase in the history of doll clothes selling? "I've been sewing for 40 years" Everyone uses that phrase. The problem is - that phrase is not original, unique, or memorable. It's an attempt at creating credibility, but it doesn't work too well for that purpose. Mainly because doing anything for a long time and doing it well are two different things. As a doll clothes seller you'd be much better off saying, "I've been sewing for forty years - with one hand - the other hand was lost in a bad accident involving a Grizzly Bear " Okay, I'm totally joking. But you get the idea. You want an original statement, not a "me-too" statement. Sometimes people think that a USP starts with a big accomplishment that you brag about. But it doesn't. A USP starts with an accomplishment that is unique and memorable. It needs to be something that sets you apart. Donald Trump wisely said, "Great brands are built by great deeds". While that is certainly true, great brands are frequently remembered and talked about because of unique or memorable attributes. Find your unique attribute. Step two: A USP is developed and reinforced through powerful storytelling and ongoing actions. To borrow a phrase from noted theologian Eugene Peterson, "It's a long obedience in the same direction" You should use your "about me" type pages to fully craft your USP and you should frequently refer people to it. You should constantly be doing things that align with and strengthen your USP. People will comment on a USP if they like it. They will talk to you about it and ask questions. It will produce an enthusiastic response. The Beauty Of A USPSome small business owners live in a world of scarcity thinking. If they see a competitor doing well they will say, "That opportunity is lost - I better give up". Other people realize the truth - there are as many opportunities to be unique as there are stars in the sky. The marketplace is begging for unique and memorable brands. Buyers are hunting for unique sellers. They clearly reject the commodity type sellers and seek out the unique brands. People want something to believe in. If you have a USP clearly crafted let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. If you don't have a clear USP, then you are selling a commodity, and you will only get commodity pricing. If you have a USP in your mind, but the marketplace isn't reflecting back to you that they understand it, then you have work to do on your branding. Work to clarify and reinforce the USP. When your customers start to express to you that they understand and appreciate your USP, then you'll know you're doing well standing out and being unique. Pricing power quickly follows. Premium pricing strategy action stepsCreate and polish your USP. Your USP is your secret weapon for pricing power. If customers respect your USP you will have strategic pricing power. via Blogger http://ift.tt/2jilMl7 January 29, 2017 at 01:36PM
Indulging in penetration pricing strategy
Prices are never absolute, and rarely ever stable. There is no "right price" for your product. http://ift.tt/2kfHANLPeople are sensitive to different pricing strategies in relation to what's "baked in" to their minds. They have a number in their head, and if your offer price is within reason, they'll agree to buy. According to noted researcher Ernst Weber it is the relative percentage of change that people notice, not the absolute amount. So people grow comfortable with a certain range of prices over time. They develop a "range" of "okay" deep in their gut. If your price falls inside that range then the purchase decision is easy. Fall outside that range, and the customer gets emotionally uncomfortable. If you've encountered a "90% off sale" on your favorite product, then you know the emotions involved bliss, greed, and a panic to snatch up as much as you can afford! Likewise, if you see your favorite product skyrocket in price, you know the emotions involved - anger, frustration, and even rage. If you appreciate a product, such as art or a collectible, and you observe the prices skyrocket, you frequently have the feeling of "awe". As in, you can't believe it's happening, but you're energized to see how it will play out. Anticipating The DiscountPeople also grow accustomed to prices trending either up or down. Either is accepted, as people grow accustomed to paying what needs to be paid to get a specific product or service. Many customers learn to anticipate the inevitable discounts that will occur in association with some products. Customers are smart and when they can't afford something they either look for a cheaper alternative, or they wait until they can get the item at a discount. Can't afford the eighty-inch TV at Costco? Just wait a year or two and it will be less than half the current price. Don't want to pay full retail for a new prescription drug? Just wait, (if you can), until they release a generic version. Want an awesome new car, but need a 30% discount? Wait for two years and buy it used. Many industries have these anticipated future discount characteristics. Those are hard industries to be in. There is constant pressure to lower your prices. If you're in an industry like that - my only advice is - maybe you should look for greener pastures. Anticipating The IncreaseBut there are other industries where customers know that prices trend up and not down. My first car was a 1968 Chevelle Malibu. Man I loved that thing. I still regret getting rid of it. My brother gave it to me for free and helped me get it running. Imagine my surprise a few years ago when I started seeing muscle cars sell at auction for increasingly high prices. $10,000? $20,000? $30,000? Lets have a look at the pricing strategies in marketing applied by marketers. The smart marketers at the Barrett-Jackson collector car auction in Scottsdale Arizona have done a lot to impact the price of collector muscle cars. Their auctions are huge events, regularly televised, and they create powerful new "normal prices" for these cars. They've created the expectation that collectible hot rods quickly appreciate in value. Last year they sold a 1968 Chevelle Malibu. Admittedly it was much nicer than mine ever was, but it sold for $61,600. Wow. Guess which way I expect prices of my old car to keep going? Up. There are special markets that have built in anticipation related to price increases. You're much better off operating in one of those markets than you are in a market that has the downward trends. Collector items frequently have this characteristic. Real Estate, (in some regions of the country), have this characteristic, and there are others. Hopefully your niche or industry has this characteristic. It's IncrementalEven in industries that have prices that trend up, it happens incrementally. People's willingness to pay is stretched slowly over time. If, for example, you're American Girl, and each January you sell your new Girl Of The Year doll for $105, then one year you change it to $120, as American Girl recently did, only the prior customers notice. New customers wouldn't know any different - and if you're paying $105 for a doll - what's another $15 bucks? These incremental increases tend to work in niches that have the upward pricing trends. But of course, the repeat buyers, who purchase the new Girl Of The Year doll each year, will notice the difference and be less than thrilled. If you're not familiar with the doll collector market, and you have a negative emotional reaction to hearing that the price of a doll is $120, it's probably because you have a lower price "baked into your brain". But that's only your reality. Other people think $105 is fine. Now many will think $120 is fine. You might say, "No - other people agree with me - this is an outrage." And that's fine, but enough other people don't, that it's still good business. As a buyer, you adapt, or you find an alternative that is within your comfort zone. My brother from California always asks me, "How much is gas in Seattle" every time we chat. He is intrigued by the difference. He has a price "baked in" that makes sense for him - but he knows distant markets have different realities. The Best Secret of penetration pricing strategyThe Internet is a giant place, which despite what you might think - has many funny pit stops, tourist destinations, backwoods, and odd shopping destinations that people become familiarized with. In these locations people's "mental measure" of what is right gets established. People form mental habits and opinions based on their activities on these locations. If you can create your own anchors you'll almost always have strategic pricing power. And you can create your own anchors. When you learn to do things like pre-selling, event management, auctions, and related promotional activities you'll be well on your way. Create your own anchors and you'll have a good shot of establishing a stable price point that people will honor. As a seller you want to avoid setting up shop in the online equivalent of Zimbabwe. Places where prices are spiraling down to zero. You won't control the anchors in those places; therefore you shouldn't be there. If you see aggressive price wars in the online places you sell, then pull up your tent stakes. Most importantly you want to sell in places that give you stable pricing potential, long-term pricing power, and stability by having anchors that are favorable. Places where customers grow accustomed to a consistent price. You might have a hint of reservation about all of this retail pricing strategies work. Maybe even begin to think it's somehow unfair to the customer. But this isn't about being unfair to customers. It isn't about trying to take advantage of people, or being unkind to customers. It's about selling items at a price your business can survive on, by aligning pricing with marketing and business. If your customers know, like and trust you, then they want you to be around for a long time. Customers know there is no perfect price and expect you to sell your items at a price that ensures your business survival. They want a bargain, but they also want their favorite brands to prosper. This is about your ability to serve your customers well into the future. Since there is no perfect price you want to strive for stable, consistent, and fair pricing over the long-term. Penetration pricing strategy action stepsExamine the anchors in your marketplace and consider how they impact your customers expectations related to prices and the trend of prices. Do you have anchors that help establish your pricing strategy? Are you in a volatile marketplace online that is losing pricing power? Consider your long-term selling location online and how to ensure it becomes your "castle with an unbreachable moat". via Blogger http://ift.tt/2kGxPor January 29, 2017 at 01:19PM
Applying different pricing strategies
I'm trying to remember how I learned about prices and the value of things. Do you remember how you learned about those topics? https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Rwr0cWjKVAM/WIw0Pcp31EI/AAAAAAAAAqU/izcNxUPXyEMHseTqnqQYjH82xzfnlSV8gCLcB/s400/different%2Bpricing%2Bstrategies.pngI was a kid in the 70's, then a teenager in the 1980's. That's a long time ago now. I still remember the ritual prior to Christmas. We would get a Sears & Roebuck catalog and circle the things we'd hope to get. Then talk to mom & dad about our choices. We weren't alone. Kids have done it since the 1890's. "No Jason - you cannot have a canoe for Christmas - that's too expensive, besides, you're only six - and we don't live by a lake." "What about a riding lawn-mower?" "No" Remember those days? Somewhere in our childhood we get an understanding of what things should cost, what we can afford, and what range of spending we can comfortably operate in. It gets baked into our brain - like a permanent record of what's possible - and what's okay and not okay. For me, I think that happened each Christmas when I'd ask for things - and I would either get shot down, or get the more positive response, "Okay, we'll see about that". When I was a kid we knew our birthday gifts needed to be about $20. Ask for something more expensive than that and you were running the risk of having mom actually come up with her own idea for your gift, which of course was under $20. Fast-forward to today - and that amount seems like a cruel punishment for my kids. Talk about a mutiny, (when I jokingly suggest it). They just have a different range baked into their brain. We each perceive the "expensiveness" or "inexpensiveness" of an item depending on our context. So prices are relative - the same price can be expensive for some people, but inexpensive for others. I'll never forget the Thanksgiving when my in-laws came to visit us in Seattle, (Auburn actually), from San Francisco, (Petaluma actually). We were bored one morning, and the weather was nice, so we took them for a walk around our new neighborhood. We had just moved into a very large master-planned community full of nice big houses. Ours was modest, but down the street there were mcmansions. What did we stumble upon? The model homes. So we went inside, just to look at the paint, carpet, and furnishings. Model homes are always so fun to gawk at. As we strolled through the kitchen area of one of the mcmansions my mother-in-law picked up one of the pricing sheets that list the number of houses available and the specific price of each one. Her eyes bugged out of her head. "What?" - she (almost) screamed! As it turned out they could sell their 1,100 square foot home, which happened to be 40 years old, and get one three times bigger at half the price. Done deal. 14 years later they are still happily in their dream house. We're blessed to have them right down the street. Tons of Californians have done this over the decades. They take advantage of the relative price differences of housing in different markets. Context Creates AnchorsWhat's the point of our little trip down memory lane? It's simply this - the reason relative prices impact us is because our minds create what is known as an anchor. Anchors are formed by the memory of a prior price or simply knowing about the price of a related item. The anchor amounts are what is "baked in". Imagine for example, that you live your entire childhood in the one-square block in San Francisco known as Union Square. Maybe you have a condo above one of the stores or live in the Hilton hotel. Here is your reality - On one corner you've got Neiman Marcus, which in-case you haven't been in it - is a 4 story, (as I recall), department store loaded with the most expensive boutique brands in the world. On another corner you've got the largest Macy's most people have ever seen. Then there's Saks Fifth Avenue across the square - and of course the Tiffany's Jewelers. In the middle is a nice plaza with ice-skating in the winter. (Side note - if you're ever there, go to Britex Fabrics. It is Cinnamon's favorite place on the planet). Imagine you live your whole life growing up there, never visiting anywhere else. Now imagine you fall madly in love with a tourist from Zimbabwe and move to the capital city of Harare. [I truly mean no disrespect to the country or wonderful people of Zimbabwe.] In Zimbabwe they print One Hundred Trillion dollar bills, (I'm not joking), because the Trillion dollar bills were apparently too hard to carry around, (in large wads that would fill your pockets). Apparently they became useless, so the country started going with the One Hundred Trillion notes instead. Not long ago, when I was in Zimbabwe in 2009, a cashier tried to give me change in U.S. Dollars. I asked if I could get change in Zimbabwean currency, (as a souvenir). He said, "How much do you want?" I said, "Do you have any of the new Trillion dollar bills?" He said, "No, people keep asking me for them. I'm out, but I've got Billions." I said, "How much will $2 U.S. dollars get me?" He said, "It's not worth anything, so just take some." He started counting me out a pile of billion dollar bills very quickly - in exchange for $2 U.S. dollars. I started giggling. Yes - I'm a billionaire now. I give away billions of dollars - to people as gag gifts - it's fun. People start giggling. Sadly, the pricing power in that country has vaporized if you use their currency. They use U.S. dollars instead. That spiral downward of retail pricing strategies power is known as hyperinflation. Imagine the difficulty you'd have in moving from Union Square in San Francisco to Harare! Your understanding of the appropriate price of things would be all messed up until you grew accustomed to the new context. The simple fact is - different customers will perceive your prices differently. Some will complain bitterly while others giggle. The only logical response is to test different price points, have a solid plan, and try to be careful not to make changes based on one or two vocal customers. Having a solid plan will help you navigate these tricky waters. Different pricing strategies action stepsConsider the context in which your prospects establish their strategic pricing ideas related to your product or service. Make a list of the things that influence their thinking and consider how you can impact these situations. Test various prices to determine the market acceptance of your offers. Don't over react when you have one person complain about your pricing strategy . via Blogger http://ift.tt/2kcFvCb January 28, 2017 at 11:40AM
Retail pricing strategies: Location Pricing Power
It's not just the time of the encounter with your product that matters. The place creates pricing power too, (or destroys it) and aligns pricing with marketing and business. You want the process to be like this: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oGLBQ-AsZsE/WIwuMcnWwBI/AAAAAAAAAqA/tgfZYcrfdeQGT0hUFbLzCcftSMW4jI0uwCLcB/s400/Retail%2Bpricing%2Bstrategies.png
Three Great Places To Sell OnlineSome places online seem to make it easy to sell. Other places make it very difficult. Your job is to identify the easy places and expand your operation there, while avoiding the hard places. Three great places to sell online include,
The Hardest Place To Maintain Pricing PowerIf your prospect is in a buying mood - and they go looking for a solution and they find your item as just one option amongst many similar options - then you've lost your pricing power.So the hardest place to maintain pricing power is in a crowded & undifferentiated marketplace. Especially a marketplace that doesn't have any pricing controls in place for sellers. In that location your item becomes a commodity and commodities don't maintain pricing power. This situation can occur both online or offline and you need to avoid it. Department Store Retail Pricing StrategiesSome websites, like Amazon's Kindle platform, and Apple's itunes, give sellers guide rails they must stay within. This marketplace pricing strategy helps prevent a "race to the bottom". We call this a department store model.We use this strategy on our pixie faire site. By giving sellers guide rails we act as a safeguard to all the designers there. This helps stabilize customer expectations too. It is not an open marketplace like Etsy or eBay, where prices are set at the seller's discretion. It is more like a department store, where prices are carefully managed at the store level. Smart marketplace owners like to assert this level of pricing control because they commit to being the market leader and establishing price points. Steve Jobs did this for the music industry when he established 99 cents as the acceptable price for a single music track. These strategic pricing create a "safe harbor" for sellers and set buyers expectations. If a seller wants to deviate from these guidelines - they cannot do it. The Challenge With eBay & EtsyEBay and Etsy can both be problematic if you're selling popular items because there is no "safe harbor" in terms of pricing power. I'm not saying you can't do well on these sites, but a lack of stable pricing is the downside of selling in those places. The benefit of being on those sites is that they have tons of customers that show up in a buying mood.Three Ways To Maintain Pricing Power In Turbulent Marketplaces There are three ways to maintain sales volume and pricing power in a crowded marketplace where pricing isn't managed.
So if you're going to sell in a marketplace online, try to find options that include a "department store" pricing strategy, rather than an un-managed marketplace strategy. A department store strategy gives you protection from brutal price wars. Your most important task in a crowded and unmanaged marketplace is to find ways to get the customer to connect directly with you and your brand. Retail pricing strategies Action StepsMake a list of the places that your prospects encounter your products. Are you controlling those encounters and ensuring that your brand and product is presented in an effective way? Consider eliminating sales channels that have too many downsides. If you sell in a marketplace online, look for one that has a department store pricing strategy rather than a "free-for-all" pricing strategy.via Blogger http://ift.tt/2kcAI3u January 28, 2017 at 11:21AM
Strategic pricing with timing
People are funny about when they'll pay a premium for an item they want. As a smart price-ologist (with specific interest in finding how to fight a price war) you want to find these wrinkles in the Universe, study them, and set up shop there. You want to figure out how to sell at the specific times that give you maximum pricing power. http://ift.tt/2k2oM2hTiming Creates Strategic Pricing PowerEarlier we talked about a family planning a trip to Disneyland and how the prices at Disneyland weren't going to deter them from going. That's because your price can vary depending on how pre-sold your prospect is.But your price can also vary by when your customer encounters your product. Disneyland can charge premium prices for their gift shop items because people say in their head, "We aren't going to be here again for a very long time - we better buy this t-shirt as a memento." The Holiday Shopping season is the most top-of-mind example of how timing impacts pricing strategies in marketing. But there are many other examples, such as:
Does your product have this type of seasonality? The Easiest Time (EVER) To Make A Sale OnlineOf course, the easiest time to make a sale, and get a premium price, is when your customer is actively searching for a solution to their problem, (or a tool to help them meet a felt need or accomplish a project). That is why search engine advertising, (Google, Bing, Yahoo), makes so much sense. You are responding to people who are typing in phrases that indicate they want to buy something. That's a good time to have an encounter with a prospective customer.Here is an example on aligning pricing with marketing and business, At Pixie Faire we are truly blessed to be the #1 online destination for digital doll clothes patterns. We started in September 2009 with just 11 sales, but since then we've had over 350,000 patterns downloaded. 124,000 of them were in 2013 alone. Can you guess which month is our highest volume of sales each year? Why did you guess that month? (I'll reveal the answer at the bottom of this chapter - sneaky I know, right?!) Having Time On Your Side Creates Pricing PowerPricing Power exists when you can get time on your side. How do you do that? Here are a few ways:Run an auction The countdown timer is incredibly powerful. It's like a drum beat that people (who are in a buying mood) hear more and more loudly as the auction comes to a close. Price is NOT what they are primarily focused on it's the clock. Hold Selling Events If you set things up so that there is the real (and genuine) possibility of items being "sold out" - and that is clear to everyone involved you're pricing strategy will have pricing power. People stampede (sometimes literally) when they think items are going to be unavailable to them in the future. Small Batch Scarcity is one of the most effective psychological triggers when it comes to buying. One common way online retailers use scarcity is by selling things in small batches. We use that technique to help sell our physical items. If Time Is On Your Side - Sell MoreWhen customers are in a buying mood, you also want to ensure they get a complete set of options. They might want to add more to their shopping cart and you want those items to be easily available to them. You can do this by adding:Up-Sells The up-sell is simply offering your customer a larger, or bigger version of the product they're about to buy. One of the most famous up-sell phrases is "do you want the big one?” Of course McDonalds got into PR trouble for their famous slogan, "Super Sized?” They stopped using that phrase for PR reasons, not sales reasons. Cross-Sells The cross-sell is simply offering the customer a related product before they finish their transaction. The most famous phrase associated with cross-selling is, "combo?" Meaning "would you like to add fries and a drink to your order?" Recurring Payments Getting buyers set up on a recurring purchase arrangement is probably the most powerful selling technique of all time. Instead of asking the customer to simply buy the item one time, then having to ask them again, you simply ask them if they'd like to be set up as a recurring purchaser automatically. Product of the month clubs, membership sites, and related programs help accomplish this task. Strategic pricing Action Steps:
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