Where Should Your Brand Focus First

In recent years social media marketing has been gradually gaining acceptance as a legitimate and when properly utilised, powerful tool in the marketer’s arsenal.

And with this rise in popularity and use, has also come a call from various business writers for marketers to forget about segmentation in the traditional sense and instead, adopt the approach of marketing their product to segments of one. 

This approach is predicated on the belief  that social media allows marketers greater insight into customer’s needs based on their new found ability to engage the prospect with a true dialog,  unavailable before the rise of the current day social media networking platforms. 

This potential is well established and where the customer is willing to engage online with the business, a better understanding of the unmet need can be obtained and act as a basis for tailoring solutions that exactly meet that individuals needs.   

 The rate limiting factor with this approach is that not everyone will be willing to engage with you and in the absence of a proactive and strategic approach to targeting, the result is likely to be an uncoordinated and ultimately unsuccessful effort.

The need for segmentation and intelligent target marketing has not been replaced by LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.  These platforms provide added insight but do not replace these key pillars that are so crucial to the overall marketing planning process.

With this said the conversation should then turn to what are the key criteria to think about when targeting for your business.

There are 3 that should be focused on. Namely:  customer attractiveness, customer growth potential and customer usage.

By customer attractiveness we are referring to how closely does a particular client or prospect match up with your stated target audience and brand positioning. 

For this you need to have a clearly thought out and concise description about who your ideal customer is and by extension who your target audience is. This should always be formally written down and contain the following key elements.

Specifically the statement:

n  Should describe a distinct place that the brand occupies with the target market.

n  Should differentiate the brand in a meaningful way from rival brands.

n  Should include a core benefit that will assist the user.

For example some years back as a product manager for a leading pharmaceutical firm I wrote a positioning statement for one of the cardiovascular products as follows:

Brand X is the blood pressure medicine of choice for mature hypertensives, which have declining kidney function, because it offers superior tolerability due to its dual pathways of drug elimination.

This statement includes: the target audience you seek to attract (i.e. mature hypertensives), the brand name (Brand X), the product category (blood pressure medication), the core benefit (better tolerated) and importantly the reason to believe in that benefit (dual pathways of drug elimination).

The closer an individual fits this target group the more attractive they are for our brand. 

The second criterion is customer potential. Here you are looking at how much of your brand a customer is likely to need to have their needs met. Let’s look at the example of two separate businesses that could buy your product. For example a restaurateur about to open a restaurant could buy a hundred chairs for his venue and therefore have a have a much larger need for chairs than a local convenience store owner about to open that business that will require only a hand full of chairs. Again as with the first criterion of customer attractiveness, the range will be from low to high.

The third criterion is current usage. Does the prospect or customer use the product already and if so how much.When you combine these 3 criteria you get a simple model as demonstrated below.

Figure 1.  The Target Market Analysis Model*   

You can imagine a numerical scale of 1 to 10 along each of the three axes, and altogether forming 8 possible quadrants. So which of these quadrants represent the optimal focal points for maximum impact?

A strong case can be made for two in particular.

The first of these is the group that concurrently has high potential, high attractiveness and high usage.

In other words the customer or prospect being targeted has high attractiveness because they fall squarely into the overtly stated target market definition contained within the brands positioning statement.

Fig 2.Typical Long Term Customer Profile with High Potential, High Attractiveness and High Usage Quadrant.

Secondly they also have high potential because they still require more of the product to have their existing customer needs satisfactorily met. Finally they use an existing high current level of your brand, which will usually have been built up as the relationship, experience and overall outcomes with the brand have proven beneficial over time.
Clearly this quadrant describes the dynamic of an established client with a high level of customer satisfaction, which would imply a higher level of loyalty to the brand and a greater long term probability of ongoing, repeat business. In any situation this is a critical group that needs to be analysed, identified and rewarded for their patronage.

The second attractive quadrant that should always be actively targeted is that of the high potential, high attractiveness but low (or no) current usage prospect. In this instance we see the potential or former customer, who still has a high degree of attractiveness to the business as they align perfectly to the specified target market, which also have high potential because they still use large amounts of this type of product to meet their needs.

Unlike the first group however who are avid users and already consume high levels of the brand, this group currently has a low level of current use and will require tactical effort by the business to convince them of why this product should be preferentially preferred over other rival brands. 

Fig 3. Typical High Potential Prospect Profile with High Potential, High Attractiveness and Low Usage Quadrant.

Although you can make a strong case that this is the more difficult group of the two to sell to because it still needs convincing, it remains the group with the greatest dollar potential for growth because the amount that can potentially be bought in the future is much larger than the earlier group.

Summary

Where ever possible a business should attempt to actively define and target the two influential groups outlined in this article, through its marketing and commercial efforts.

Although these targets are distinct groups requiring strategically different approaches to maximise the potential of each, they stand out individually and collectively as the groups with the greatest potential for dollar growth.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,

Daniele.

Comparative Advertising: The Most Powerful and Persuasive Form of Advertising

Currently On The Small Screen

This week I was asked by a student about  an advertisement she had seen recently on television which was directly comparing two forms of painkillers. Namely: Panadol (paracetamol) and Nurofen (Ibuprofen).  

These days we tend to see less and less of this type of head to head, comparative advertising for several reasons. Firstly if you're going to use comparative advertising you need to be fairly certain that your brand is either better than a key rival brand in a key area that holds strong significance to the target market audience or at vet least that you are as good as that rival brand and with this established parity, you can then claim some additional edge in another important aspect of the brand's function and usage.

If you can't do this you need to be careful because this type of promotion is certainly interesting and tends to throw a strong spotlight on both brands as people are always looking to gain some additional insight into which brand is better, by how much and why.

Classic Battle

The classic example of comparative advertising that made ripples globally and lead to formal legal action and a prolonged fight within the courts was that of the “Energizer” television commercial which described how the “Energizer” lasted longer than a “Duracell”.

This is a powerful form of advertising which can build strong, selective demand if a product is perceived as being superior to its opposition. Overall competitive advertising is used after a product class has been established and the general public has become reasonably familiar with it and consequently wants to purchase the product.

The Need For Differentiation

I have always advocated of course that every brand regardless of its origin, market or size, should always to continue to develop its own genuine point of difference that is meaningful, sustainable and relevant to the target markets unmet need.

If as the guiding mind of your business or brand you pursue this goal and develop a reasonably significant point of  difference, you will always be well rewarded by astute use of direct comparative advertising, but I stress that this will only work if your USP is a strong one that has already been established and is valued by the market.

So for now, think about every aspect of your brand and how it differs from the  opposition and consider how each key difference can be best utilised to drive your core promotional messages more effectively.  Let us know what you come up with.

And until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,

Daniele.

Why Blogging Is So Popular and Effective

Blogging is the most popular thing in the web market. Many small entrepreneurs make use of blogs for promoting their business. Blog is usually considered to be the first step of getting into the internet business. Many small entrepreneurs earn huge money from their blogs. Let us learn the top 10 reasons to use blog marketing for promoting your internet business.

1. Cheap or Free way of Marketing

Many blog hosting services are free. At the most they are cheap. Blog is a good way of promoting your website as well as products. It is the most cost-effective option of internet business. Blogs are informative and directly interact with the viewers. Therefore, blogs give authenticity to the web business. Blogs help in creating brand name for any internet business. No wonder this reason tops our list of top 10 reasons to use blog marketing

2. Brilliant platform to create a wide network

All kinds of internet businesses need to maintain interactions and network with other corporations and consumers. However, remaining in touch with all of them is not possible. Therefore, maintaining a blog that is updated regularly will come in as handy. Blogs can reach thousands of targeted readers at any time in any place.

3. Superior company presence

Blog marketing increases visibility of your internet business or brand. Whenever anyone is looking out for a particular product or service, your brand will come first in their mind. Other than this, if you have a blog that it is attached to your main website then it can contain links to other pages of your website. On the other hand, a non-attached blog is directly linked to the site. When you get familiar with blogging you can also exchange links with other high PR blogs for getting good search engine results and quality traffic.

4. Enhanced product or service popularity

Blog marketing give popularity to your products. People trust blogs more easily than they trust your website. Blogs can be the main window for educating consumers or clients about your products or services in a very effective manner. You can also add interactive features to your blog for making it more user-friendly and thus, enhancing your credibility.

If you don’t have the time for maintaining such a blog then hiring bloggers for this purpose will prove to be highly beneficial. These bloggers who have a good professional experience can give engaging and proper information of your products and services.

5. Ameliorated brand or company name

Blog marketing accelerates personal interactions with the consumers. The tone and style of the blog articles and the blog introduces as well as forms a connection between you and the consumers. This makes them get closer to you and gain an in-depth understanding of the kind of products that you sell or the services that you offer. A regularly updated blog builds a strong relationship with the consumers. The relationship gets even stronger if the comments are answered regularly.

6. Increased consumer communication and bonding

One of the main reasons to use the blog marketing is to know your consumer opinions, likes and dislikes through comment feature. If your products or services need improvement of any kind then you will not have to conduct any survey or research; you will come to know it directly through your comments section. Other than complaints, you can get compliments as well.

7. Pulling heaving heavy relevant traffic

Blogs always increase your website, product, internet business or any business popularity if the links are placed in the blog posts. Of course, for getting traffic quality posts are a must. But the traffic that is sent from your blog is usually convertible. Blogs actually sell products and that is why many companies hire bloggers for selling their products.

8. Viral effect through mouth publicity

When people read about your product, if you are able to convince through your blog posts; you will get free publicity when they tell their friends. So, this viral effect will increase your sales. Word of mouth marketing is very effective and you can capture this market with the help of your blog. If you share personal experiences with the readers, you can create affinity between your readers and you, and this affinity will help you to increase the sales of your product.

9. Improving the search engine presence of your site

A very well search engine optimized blog that is attached to your website adds to the search engine presence of your site. Content containing quality information and specific keywords will give your internet business or website an extra edge. You must make use of appropriate tools to spot specific keywords for including in your blog posts. Your blog title and posts both must contain the main keyword.

10. High rate of viewers converting into buyers

Blogs that contain specific or targeted keywords and have engaging informative content provide traffic that ends up buying your products or services. Search engine optimized blogs provide traffic or readers who are looking out for specific products or services. If the content or blog posts are able to build relations with the readers such readers are easily converted into buyers.




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