marketing competitors, competitor positioning,

Why don’t customers buy now?

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Today I’m working with a client who is finding it hard to get prospects to buy.

We are working through a list of possible reasons.  My first view is that more advertising / publicity is probably not the reason.  I think that it’s more to do with the offer, the positioning, the brand promise and perceptions of value and immediate need.

Later is an option

Buying now is obviously what the client brand wants.

But for the prospect, why would they?

Deferring risk is part of the prospect’s decision making.  And as marketers we tend to presume that our logic, our world view must prevail.

But the reasons people don’t buy can also be

  • awareness
  • trust
  • world view
  • perceptions about value

We wrote a list of all the reasons someone would not buy this product.  Try it for yourself.

Competitors exist too

Some people will buy from your competitors.  Can you find out why they chose them?  Do you have anecdotes about customers trying another brand and coming back to yours?

Without publishing it, could you assemble anecdotes about your competitors, classify them and produce a rank order of WHY people choose them over you?

Then compare that to your positioning and brand promise.
Where do you really stand out, where are you broadly the same?

That will give your sales team clues….. I call these “golden questions” and they are defined by Don Peppers as questions whose answers tell you a lot more than the question implies.

So, if the customer is really concerned about something…. what do you ask / tell them?
If they are really concerned about price and only price ….what do you ask / tell them?

Today is later

Now is usually better than later.

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Air NZ, holiday styles quiz, CRM, Customer segmentation tool

AirNZ gamifys its customer segments

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As a marketer I love being marketed to and so when I got invited by Air New Zealand to “Find out what’s your travel style?” I clicked to do the self-test quiz.

Backstory – Customer Differentiation for CRM

Air NZ Contest quiz, CRM, customer segmentation

Facebook advert for Air NZ Quiz

Brands need to be clear about different messages to different audiences.  This is basic database marketing concept is easy to achieve using segmentation based on actions.  The difficult part is identifying customer attitudes and desires which have not yet become actions.

Creating a differentiation matrix for your customer base is worthwhile and if you have never done one before, ask us to help you create it.

After you have actions plus attitudes then you can create a layered differentiation plan – plugging your customer journey and content plan with clear guidelines which your team will love because it makes it very easy to track progress towards your goals.

Here’s Per Caroe’s slide from our Unhurried Conversation in which we focused on discussing customer journey maps.

Activity scoring for customer segmentation

Back to Air New Zealand’s segmentation strategy

The team will have created the segments based on research data (Qual and Quant) but their challenge is how to populate their existing customers into the data grid.  Here’s where the fun quiz fits.  By running a campaign with a prize draw, they are creating a series of Golden Questions and the obliging customer fills in the quiz and creates a score which populates their preferences in the database.  What follows is the clever part – using the insights gained, AirNZ will be cross-populating the insights into their current database of customers who did not fill in the quiz – by inference from other customers who look alike.

What I’m looking forward to is the communications that should follow – will I (A Lounger) get more customised messaging?

The Travel Style quiz told in screenshots

First up the quiz questions – you can guess the alignment between the four travel styles (lower down) and the questions if you choose to base your own quiz on this format.

Then the detail of the travel styles.

And lastly the up-sell in every travel style description – mine was for the Skycouch including a video and a transcript (very important for people using social without sound enabled).

Air NZ how do you holiday?

Quiz step 1

Air NZ, holiday styles quiz, CRM, Customer segmentation tool

Quiz question 2

Air NZ, holiday styles quiz, CRM, Customer segmentation tool

Quiz question 3

Air NZ, holiday styles quiz, CRM, Customer segmentation tool

Quiz question 4

Air NZ, holiday styles quiz, CRM, Customer segmentation tool

Quiz question 5

Air NZ, holiday styles quiz, CRM, Customer segmentation tool

Quiz outcome – Travel Lounger segment

Air NZ, holiday styles quiz, CRM, Customer segmentation tool

Quiz result Savvy selector

Air NZ, holiday styles quiz, CRM, Customer segmentation tool

Quiz result segment opportunist

Air NZ, holiday styles quiz, CRM, Customer segmentation tool

Quiz result segment Goody gatherer

Air NZ, holiday styles quiz, CRM, Customer segmentation tool

Skycouch advert from my segment profile

Air NZ Skycouch video and 360 tour - with transcript

Skycouch video and 360 tour – with transcript

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What is an Expert?

How to hire any expert e.g. a website developer

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It’s really easy to find a specialist supplier.  It’s really difficult to find out if they are any good at that specialism.  Especially when it is in an area that you know nothing about.

What is an Expert?

What is an Expert? Image Credit: Workcabincommunications.ca

Giving a keynote speech to an industry group recently I was stunned to find how many felt that they did not have the confidence to hire a website designer.  This motivated me to write this short guide.

How to hire an expert (when you don’t know)

Are you a business owner who feels that they got mis-sold or ripped off by a website design project?

Did you pay a lot of money and find that the website you got did not deliver what was promised?

This is my tried and tested technique that will help you to find a supplier who is both an expert and will work well with your project situation.

  1. Start with the outcome you want.  Can you describe in plain English what you want to happen by the end of the project?  Use this to explain what you want to buy.  So you could say I need a website that  will showcase my products to customers living in Australian cities who buy mens fashion.  That is much clearer than “I want a website that will put me on page one of Google”. [By the way, that’s impossible to promise – so don’t trust anyone who says they can do this for you.] When we work with clients seeking websites, read the descriptions we write about their projects.
  2. Ask good questions.  By gaining detail from questions, you can discover the depth of expertise in each business you talk to.  Let’s say you have a written quote from a web developer explaining how they’d achieve your outcome.  You can ask them questions like “What’s the best way to achieve my outcome?” and “How will you go about doing that?”.  So if they say that on-page SEO is the best way to achieve search results for customers living in Australian cities who buy mens fashion, ask them to show you HOW they’ll do it.  Step.  By.  Step.  Yes, I’d ask them to explain in this level of detail.  If they can’t do it, or do not appear consistent, or are unwilling that’s a big red flag that they may not have a robust process methodology.
  3. Know the language they use and understand it.  Write down the words they use in written submissions and in conversation.  Go away and look them up.  What is on-page SEO? How do UTM Tags work?   There is no shame in research and increasing YOUR knowledge.  And afterwards, you can follow up and get them to explain more about the phrase they used once you understand what it is.  So that’s back to Step 2 – ask good questions.
  4. Run tests when you are face to face.  Any skilled operator should be able to show you real live work jobs that they have done or are currently working on that will be using the same techniques as your project. So when you meet your expert – get them to SHOW you what they mean.  Open up Google Analytics for YOUR website live in the meeting on your laptop.  Ask them for their views on your recent traffic history.  Watch how they browse inside Google Analytics – do they know the sub-menus, can they navigate confidently to the answer they’re talking about, do they explain something which you hadn’t noticed?  Nobody who works in marketing should be ignorant of GA.  Including YOU.  So if they don’t or can’t use it.  Run away fast.  Another test you can run is to show them a problem you have and ask how they’d fix it.  Then ask them “How will I know that this problem is fixed?” so that they show you the proof that they are an expert and good at their job and can prove it as well.
  5. Think hard before hiring a friend.  Many business people like to recommend other businesses.  Nothing wrong with this.  But in my experience, your friend or your friend’s friend is probably not the only person who can help you.  Do interview the friend, but also go and look for other supplier experts and compare them fairly.  You want the best value for your business, after all, don’t you?

Now you’ve got a good core set of skills to start your expert hiring process.  Be courageous and keep good records – you won’t regret it.

 

And if you want a website built, or some direct response copywriting, or a video made and overall effective marketing done that brings in sales – get in touch with us.  We will either teach you how to do it yourself or we can do it for you.  Easy!

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