A review of
the recent holiday circulars reveals dozens of stores selling similar products
all promising savings if you shop their store vs. another. When multiple store formats all sell the
same type of products, convenience and price often win over brands. In many cases, there is not a large
difference in what you and your competitors sell. But there is still a difference – and you
need to get your target customers to notice, understand and buy your
difference. The challenge how to do that
well in a world of limited marketing budgets, fragmented consumer media and
continued integration of social and mobile media into the marketing mix.
Whether
your business is consumer electronics, CPG, FMCG, fashion apparel, hand tools, automobiles,
or a cup of coffee…or the store where they sell any of these products, you need
to stand out and differentiate yourself.
Significantly outspending your competitors is one way to do that, but
given you likely have a cap on your marketing budget, here are three ways you
can be more effective by taking a “Do more with less” approach.
Stand
for One Thing that Matters
It is hard
to win category leadership and customer loyalty when you offer an average
product at an OK price. Your customers
need a reason to buy your brand. What do
you stand for? Are you the highest
quality, the lowest cost, the strongest, the lightest, the most fashionable, the
most consistent, the most innovative, the most environmentally friendly, the
partner of a key charity, or the brand most likely to irritate parents?
Beyond the
base product or service what do they get from you? When your shoppers are asked why they bought
your product, do you want the answer to be, “it was on sale”? If your product is not unique, how can your
brand positioning betterdefine you? If
you do not stand for something, you stand for nothing. Standing apart for something that matters to
your customers will help define your brand and win sales. Once you have identified what you stand for,
stick with it and own it. Communicating
that message becomes more powerful and cost effective the longer you stay with
it.
Is this
basic marketing? Yes! Does everyone do this well? No.
Refine
Your Experience
Once you
stand for something, the customer experience with your product and brand need
to deliver against it. Your brand
experience is not limited to the use of your product or service. It also includes your marketing and customer interactions
in both the retail and the social media space.
To customers, your brand is the emotional connection they make with you
and the trust they put in you to deliver against expectations.
If you want
to earn loyal customers, refine how you are going to differentiate their
experience based on the key brand dimensions you stand for. Compare the customer experience described as
“Dell Hell” customer service vs. getting help at an Apple store. If you shop at Publix “Where Shopping is a
Pleasure” and ask where a product is, that employee will stop what they are
doing and walk you to that product. Whether
or not you like the coffee, Starbucks differentiates the coffee
experience. Tom’s combines fashion and
social responsibility to differentiate the experience of buying shoes and
eyewear. A holiday kiosk with samples in
a shopping mall turns a pound of Hickory Farms sausage into a special gift.
What is
your experience? What can/should it be
based on your brand promise? What can
you do to simply, but effectively deliver it?
Focus
Your Efforts
Many brands
and marketing teams are less effective than they could be because they try to
do too much with limited marketing dollars.
The budget is spread so thin across so many activities, it is hard to be
effective in all of them. The good news
is some brands are getting more money to invest in social media and content
creation, but dollars are still limited for overall brand building.
Here are a
couple reminders of how a “do more with less” approach can actually make you
more effective.
Say the same thing everywhere – taking an integrated marketing
approach, where the same message and visual is used in all channels of
communication, will make each consumer touch point work more effectively. Multiple ad campaigns and creative executions
take extra time and money and diminish your ability to simply communicate what
you stand for.
Do less by focusing your time and
money on the customer touch points that matter most.
Yes you may have had some marketing programs or partnerships for years,
but they may not matter anymore.
Annually evaluate where your customers are spending their time with your
brand. Focus your time and money where
your customers are. Fish where the fish
are today, not where you caught fish two years ago.
Work closely with your IT/CIO
counterpart to
combine budgets and efforts to make your social media and online efforts they
most effective they can be. Working
closely with your IT team can make combined budgets go farther, speed up
project development, and help you gain senior management support for new
initiatives.
Be consistent and repeat – if you can focus your efforts
behind just several key initiatives, do them well, deliver them consistently
and then repeat them in the market, you can make yourself and your team more
effective.
The above
three steps, executed together, will help you become more effective by doing
more with less. As you clearly
communicate what you stand for, consistently deliver against it and focus your
efforts around the select key programs and customer touch points that make a
difference, you be more effective, free time from time wasting initiatives and
focus your organization and budget in new ways to boost results and marketing
ROI.
A great result for any brand!
GrowthSpring Group is a marketing strategy, market research, and
innovation firm focused on accelerating your sales and profit growth. We help
you identify new business growth insights & opportunities and execute
winning strategies & plans. www.GrowthSpringGroup.com
