Does your business have the “er” factor

Your customers and prospects need to be able to see very quickly why they should buy from you. On a previous post we mentioned that many company mission statements use words like leading, biggest, oldest, cheapest to describe what they believe makes them different. We recommend however that a business focuses on what makes them genuinely different and focus on the words that make these differences stand out. For example is your company cleverer, faster, friendlier or better than other businesses offering the same or similar products or services as you?

Finding your “er” factor

Finding a point of difference or standing out from your competition isn’t always straightforward and we spend much of our time helping our clients determine this. How do we do this? By challenging the thinking within the organisation from inside out and outside in. Spending time listening to the feedback from the senior management team, the operational staff and customers gives us a very good insight into what the company is good and not so good at delivering.

In most instances there is some disparity between what the management team believe and what the customers think of them as a business. In fact recently we worked with a business that came to us looking for a new website and brand identity only to discover before they could do this effectively they needed to have a very clear idea of what their sales proposition was. They undertook to delve deeper and as a result have realigned their business and its resources to focus on their core strengths and what makes their customers buy from them.

If your first approach to winning new business is to cut your prices you are well on the road to not only losing profit and credibility you will seriously erode your brand and its values. So why do it?

In previous posts we discuss differentiation and making yourself stand out from your competition. Easier said than done I hear you say but if you do take the time to create a clear and differentiated proposition prospective customer will be able to see straight away that you are match for what they are looking for and are less likely to compare you on price.

We appreciate that there will be times that you will have to negotiate terms but ideally your first engagement with a prospective new client should not be about how much you charge or how much your products or services cost. We suggest you do the following to attract customers that are looking for the value you can deliver rather than the pounds they can save.

Know what your customers and prospects want

Know your market place and understand why your customers are buying from you. Remember to ask them now and then and not always assume you know what they want.

Know your competition

Who they are, what they are doing, why they are winning your business

Know your market

Keep abreast of changes taking place in the market place. Adapt to these changes and update your customers too

Know your stuff

Demonstrate your knowledge by becoming an expert. Participate in trade events, expert panels in trade and relevant business publications. Win awards for doing things differently and better. Then communicate this knowledge to your customers and prospects. Reassure them constantly that their business is safe in your hands.

It’s a well-known fact in business that when times are good and business is steady we invest little time in speaking to existing customers and creating new prospects. However when business slows down we begin to panic and focus our attention on our marketing and what’s in the sales pipeline. Rather than panic we recommend using this time to reflect on your business, your customer base, and the profitability of these customers. More importantly what you do as a business to win more prospects and get them to buy from you?

So why doesn’t everyone want to buy your products and services? By turning our opening statement into a question we like to challenge are clients with another set of questions.

Is your service or product clearly differentiated from your competition?

We find many companies describe themselves in a similar way. How many times for example do you read mission statements that contain the words, leading, biggest, best, oldest, cheapest.  (We have a different set of words for you to consider see our post “ Know your “er” factor”)

Is your competition winning business from you?

Perhaps your sales pitch isn’t strong enough or your sales pitch sounded like the competitions and the prospective customer has made his final purchasing decision based purely on price

Are you up to date on what’s happening in your market place?

In busy times we are all guilty of not keeping ourselves up to date with changes taking place within our market place. Take some time to review what’s happening, read your trade press or attend a trade event or conference and update your knowledge.

Talk to your customers

Quite often our clients and new prospects believe strongly that they know what their customers want from them. However recently we have undertaken customer research projects and the findings don’t often align to the thinking of the business owners. We advocate taking the time out to speak and meet with customers and discover their pain points and challenges so that you do align your offering more effectively.

Know your prospects

By knowing what makes you different and communicating these differences you will begin to attract prospects that can easily recognise that your product or service offering is a match for them.

Recently we ran two Brand Workshops to help two very different businesses define their brand and their competitive positioning. The results and outcomes of these sessions has enabled these companies to restructure their current marketing and business strategies and consider more carefully the tactics they need to deploy to support future business growth and success.

 Our Brand Workshops help businesses on many levels:

• Checking that your management team’s thinking and understanding of the company’s brand and is aligned to where the company’s vision.
• They challenge the thinking and understanding behind what the business perceives its core strengths and weaknesses to be.
• A close look at the competition and how they are positioned also helps the company define its key point of difference in order to compete more effectively and win new business.
• In some cases we also conduct an external audit on a company’s behalf to discover the views and issues of its customers. Feedback on customer service, price, value, product & service delivery are all areas we can research for you. This exercise clearly highlights areas of the business the company needs to reassess and define.

We are always so busy helping everyone else with their marketing activities that the words ‘cobblers’ and ‘children’ spring to mind when it comes to promoting ourselves!

Greenfisher is our design partner of many years and we felt it was high time we shared some of their more recent work with everyone.

‘In brief’ says what it is on the tin. We’ve been tackling some really diverse and interesting projects and we hope you’ll be interested to see what we have been up to.

If you would like to receive a copy simply email Ingrid @exigentmarketing.co.uk

or visit the greenfisher website

Is this where you are…?
We’ve been too busy reacting to existing business but recognise we need to develop new business and create more awareness in the market place.

The marketing objective here is one of competitive positioning, clearer customer segmentation and substantiating the businesses success to date.

Planning

Create a strategic and tactical marketing plan that specifically supports sales objectives:

• Review and audit existing processes
• Evaluate sales and profits to ascertain sales strategies
• Create tactical marketing plans for segmented customer target groups.
• Explore 3rd party relationships and sponsorship opportunities
• Media planning and negotiation with key media, trade press and trade exhibitions

Corporate Identity and Brand

• Refresh existing branding and ensure its relevancy and potency in the market place
• Update existing corporate collateral
• Corporate brochure design and layout
• E-Bulletin design template for customer communication

Website

• Refresh existing site and review existing content.
• Prepare case studies to highlight successes to date
• Include lead capture mechanisms

Events

• Review existing face to face activity and propose an
• Event marketing strategy and approach to events and
• Trade show attendance.

If you can identify with the above and feel this is the marketing solution you need complete our enquiry form and we’ll give you a very competitive quote !

Is this where you are…?
We are looking to launch a new business
or a new product or service offering.

The overriding marketing objective is to create a platform and decide on your overall competitive positioning in your market place.

Included in this marketing package is the following:

Planning

A tailored strategic marketing plan to include tactics to support your sales objectives:

• Audit of all existing communications
• Customer profiling and segmentation
• Recommended tactics and approach
• Costing & Budget

Corporate Identity

Reviewing your current corporate image and associated collateral and messaging.

• Create logotype branding or redefine existing branding.
• Create messaging and positioning statements
• Create a design template for all corporate stationery
• Create a design template for powerpoint
• Create a design template for sales presentations

Website

Create a website to position the company, its product or service offering as well as any enquiry forms. It does not the creation of an ecommerce site.

If you can identify with the above and feel this is the marketing solution you need complete our enquiry form and we’ll give you a very competitive quote !