by tradesmeninsights | Sep 20, 2022 | Industry Articles, Tradesmen Insights
by ISURUS, guest blogger
Differentiating your product or brand boils down to two simple questions. 1) What are your customer’s needs and buying criteria? And, 2) which of these can your product/brand own?
Most marketers and strategists do a good job on Step 1: They generally know their customer’s needs and buying criteria—the set of capabilities, brand traits, and outcomes that drive purchase decisions. This is the right first step. It identifies many key factors that influence vendor selection. But that initial list can be misleading and lack actionability. Here’s why.
- Competitors hold an advantage on some of the dimensions important to customers and it will be challenging and costly to compete on those criteria.
- Some of the customer’s most important buying criteria are threshold conditions and you cannot differentiate on table-stakes requirements.
Consider these examples. (more…)
by tradesmeninsights | May 14, 2014 | Marketing Tips, Traditional Marketing
Most of us try not to be all things to all people, especially in the B-to-B world. For those of you who are, I feel bad for you.
If part of your criteria for new business is “anyone with money” or “I hope to get paid,” I have to believe you’re not running a growing or profitable business.
We’re in the competitive niche of marketing and have taken the position of not being all things to all people. We have defined our niche as helping manufacturers who want to reach the professional tradesman and promote it appropriately.
Here are some tips that have helped us grow and prosper in our competitive space:
- Hire us to be effective, not efficient.
- We help clients become profit leaders, not market leaders.
- Category knowledge – intellectual capital.
- Don’t be afraid to focus – be afraid of mediocrity.
Make your value proposition clear because relevance and differentiation do matter.
You and your company only have so much time. Why not spend it on clients you choose? Remember, bad clients can drive out good ones! If you stay true to your positioning, new clients will find you.
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 16, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Traditional Marketing
Depending on what industry you’re in, the rule of thumb is that it takes anywhere from 5-9 times more effort to get a new customer than to keep an existing one. So why don’t we spend more time nurturing the ones we have?
We’re all guilty of taking customers for granted sometimes. I read an article on marketingprofs.com, The 7 Ps of Customer Retention that I thought was appropriate. Here are some highlights:
- People – It’s about building relationships. Treat your customer as a person.
- Product – Make sure your product is up to what you promised it would be.
- Place – How does a customer communicate with you? Make it easy.
- Price – You need to take care and give them a good price. They expect you to take care of them.
- Promotions – Since they are already your customers, you know what they are buying and can make suggestions for other potential products/services they may be interested in.
- Processes – Customer surveys, social media monitoring and customer engagement tools to understand how each customer is engaging with you.
- Positioning – Know who you are and clearly communicate that to your customers. Keep the message simple and to the point.
Those are some suggestions on how to keep your current customers happy.
