Positioning on Quality
A scenario: Both you and your competitor have the same price, the same swiftness of service and your product/service truly only allows you to focus on the same target market.
When this scenario occurs, businesses are sometimes tempted to lower prices (we here at Sprite Marketing do not condone price-wars). As an alternative, we advise clients to differentiate based on a specialty or niche market.
For example: you are a florist in Portland, Oregon. Your business niche may be better served by specializing in weddings as opposed to spreading all of your marketing dollars and initiatives thinly over several segments. However, it is really only safe to specialty niche when a) the niche market is truly viable (do your research) and 2) you are going to invest the time and money needed to effectively market your business to this particular segment.
But, I am digressing here from my original topic. Let’s say you and your competitor(s) are truly an apples-to-apples comparison. In this situation, companies tend to position their service or product based on quality.
So, how tangible is positioning on quality? As an advocate of any customer centered initiative, we do want to pass on some words of wisdom regarding positioning on quality:
1) As with any positioning statement, all aspects of your business must focus on the positioning statement. Meaning, if you want to sell the idea of quality, your company must truly provide quality.
2) Keep the quality statement customer centered; what do your customers define quality as? Are you administering customer surveys to find out? Are you actively working with your customer representatives and sales team to learn what your customer concerns are? Does your customer base even care about quality?
3) Sell the quality position within your marketing message. OK, this is where we run into some trouble; it’s difficult to prove/describe/illustrate something like quality (if you are not already known for quality; Volvo does not have this problem).
Here are a couple of ways to help solidify your positioning statement within your marketing message:
a) Clearly word your customer centered, quality positioning statement.
b) Offer a guarantee.
c) Provide customer testimonials that reflect your positioning statement
We’d love to hear some more ideas on this topic; please leave a comment.
Cheers,
Creating Your Marketing Brochure
A friend of mine asked me to review her company’s brochure today and I gladly accepted. Based off of my friend’s brochure (and the hundreds, if not thousands I had seen throughout my professional life), I wanted to provide the following advice:
1) Be sure all of your images are of the highest resolution. Customers will be turned off by a pixelated graphic. Not sure if your graphic is fuzzy? Blow your .pdf (or image) up to 300%.
2) Print the brochures at your local off-set or online digital printer. I do not recommend that you use your desk jet, due to poor print quality and toner expense.
3) Do not try to force all of your segments into one brochure. If your segments range from physicians to veterinarians; create 2 separate brochures.
4) Write the brochure to the benefit of your target audience! Meaning: how will your target audience benefit from your service or product?
Not sure your brochure is working? Send me a note via this contact form and I’ll reply with an email address for you to send the .pdf to.
Cheers! Abby, Sprite Marketing
Backyard Gardening
OK, this is not really related to marketing. Let’s just imagine that you are a market researcher trying to gauge the population’s interest in local industry…. In which case, this might be of interest to you.
As a newbie (and borderline obsessed) gardener, I wanted to post an interesting tidbit from one of my favorite blogs: You Grow Girl.
It seems that this year “vegetable seed sales outstripped, …those of flowers for the first time since the 1950s.”
I am just in awe and so delighted! If you are interested, the article can be found here.
Effective Business Networking (read: a REAL networking plan)
While I have a very diverse marketing acumen, I do struggle with networking. So what is the best way to overcome a lacking skill? Answer: jump right in and figure it out. Or, as Tim Gunn would say, “make it work“.
In late 2007, I jumped into the Portland, Oregon networking pool and received mixed results. I want to save these results/insights for another post. But, in the meantime, I wanted to share with you the most effective advice procured: how to build an initial networking circle.
The initial networking circle is so simple, here are the short Sprite Marketing notes:
1) Grab a pen, paper or TextEdit and determine 10 industries that associate with your business. For me that includes: programmers, accountants, general business consultants and ect.
2) Once you have determined these industries, branch out and determine 10 individuals within each group.
3) You now have 100 potential partner relationships. Send them an email, stop by their shop or give them a call. Have a relaxed conversation on how you can help each other. You may decide to set up a commission partnership or just a plain ol’ referral network.
Extra Tip: Don’t be afraid to include your own industry! I have had great success handling extra work from other marketing firms. You never know when your competitor will have overflow.
Cheers!
Differentiating Green
With more competitors “green washing” the minds of consumers; what is a truly green company to do?
The onslaught of green propaganda creates three problems that you, the marketer of your product/service, must tackle: 1) the consumer does not know what constitutes as a green product or service, 2) the consumer does not know what green product/service to trust and 3) why should the consumer care that your company is a green supplier?
Tackling problem #1 and #2 can be packed into your positioning statement, then reiterated in all of your marketing messages. With any positioning statement, you must live your business philosophy to the fullest. This means if you position yourself as a green company; your product development, your marketing, your business logistics and all of your shareholders must truly believe in the green ideology. Tackling problem #3 is getting easier day-by-day as the consumer’s paradigm shifts to concern for the environment. Read the article in its entirety here.
- Abby Herrera, Sprite Marketing
Green Direct Mail
I belong to the Portland ECO Business Network and I have witnessed a trend involving my colleagues eliminating all direct mail from their marketing mix. In fact, most green conscious business owners are quick to move all of their marketing online. While I do agree a diversified marketing mix is very effective, I am hesitant to recommend that businesses just toss out their direct mail initiatives. In fact, as much as I love online marketing initiatives, just think about the energy your computer is consuming just reading this post I wrote. A 24kg desktop computer (with monitor) requires 10 times its weight in fossil fuels and chemicals to manufacture. Once we get past the manufacturing of the computer, let’s think about the energy consumed to run server farms.
I am definitely not advocating wasteful marketing initiatives, but don’t be so quick to unload your direct mail initiatives. Mail out the materials on recycled paper, use soy inks and incorporate proper CRM (customer relationship management) techniques that will allow you to segment your message and audience for maximum impact.
Best,
Abby Herrera, Sprite Marketing
Public Relations and The Small Business Owner
My fantastic sister-in-law and her business partners are launching a very niche service down in San Fransisco this year and she asked me for some general marketing advice. Flattered, I shouted “PR”!
Although every business can benefit from any form of free publicity, her business in particular will attract publicity better than most other business types. Why? Without giving the business idea away before launch, let’s just say she owns the San Fran market with this new service. Truth be told, most first to the market services or products are notably more newsworthy.
Even with the minor disclaimer that publicity will come easier to some businesses when compared to others, I still recommend that every business actively prepare for a public relations initiative. Here are my initial recommendations for DIY public relations:
1) Audit all of your local media (read and watch every outlet that covers your local area and don’t forget local online media outlets). Create a spreadsheet of all local media outlets and the reporter/writers that cover stories that relate to your industry or topic. Be sure to research contact information.
2) Stay abreast of all articles the writers/reporters create and keep copies of items that are relevant to your topic or industry within an organized folder.
3) Learn what types of organizations the writers/reporters are involved in, this may open you to a great sponsorship opportunities and publicity.
Items 1-3 should be an on-going discipline; enabling you to maintain familiarity with your local media.
- Abby Herrera, Sprite Marketing
Q: How do I prepare my business to purchase advertising?
A: Determine your target market. What geographic, demographic and psychographics are you trying to reach? Determining your target market is immensely important to the success of your advertising buy. If you are an established business, looking at your own data may surprise you. You may find that your top 20 clients are all upper income women, living in Lake Oswego, Oregon. These top 20 women represent your most lucrative segment and you want your advertising to specifically reach more of this ideal client.
Informally interview your ideal customers. Ask what types of local publications they read, what local TV channels and radio stations they listen to. Take it a step further and query for co-marketing promotional ideas and find out your ideal customer’s favorite restaurant and retail shops. Be sure to collect all of this information and add to an electronic spreadsheet to query and quantify your data in an on-going fashion. I recommend that my clients add newly acquired data to their spreadsheet daily, but once or twice a week should suffice if you keep very careful handwritten notes. Be sure to back-up all of your customer and business data often!
Determine how to position your business’s product or service in the mind of the consumer. Are you less expensive than your competitors (Winco)? Is your service or product more dependable than you competitors (Honda)? Is your product safer than your competitors (Volvo)? Be sure your positioning statement is honest and a statement of value to the target audience. In 2007, I wrote a brief article on positioning. Remember, your market position is always evolving.
Determine your marketing message. Based off of your business’s positioning statement, address how your unique product or service fits into your target audience’s problems, desires, hopes, and fears. How can your product or service benefit the prospect?
Determine your marketing budget. After working in the corporate world and writing annual marketing plans and budgets, I found that writing budgets and marketing plans quarterly to be more realistic. So much changes in a year and your business needs to remain agile. If a quarter is too long of a period for your small business; take stock of your marketing budget at least monthly. Why? You must allocate enough of your budget to each chosen advertising vehicle for the most impact. If you only have $400 to spend on advertising this month, it may be wise to stick with just one or two paid advertising vehicles just to be sure that your two vehicles are properly funded. Your advertising budget must be large enough to meet the growth goals of your company.
