How to Choose the Right Marketing Strategy for Your Business

A marketing strategy is shaped by a businesses’ strengths, opportunities, and goals, and directs the more specific deliverables of the marketing plan.

Without a marketing strategy, firms are just chucking a product or service out there, hoping it will work. 

Hoping there is a customer for it. 

Hoping there is something that sets them apart from the alternatives. 

Having no strategy is like walking across a desert without a compass or map, hoping good luck will help make it out the other side…

“Marketing strategy is an organisation’s integrated pattern of decisions that specify its crucial choices concerning products, markets, marketing activities and marketing resources in the creation, communication and/or delivery of products… and thereby enables the organization to achieve specific objectives.” (Varadarajan 2010, p. 119)

This article explores marketing strategy and its key components. Five common business orientations are also discussed, and how these influence the marketing strategy and dictates the specific activities of a marketing plan.

---

What is Marketing Strategy?

A marketing strategy is the overall ‘game plan’ for a business of implementing and reaching marketing-related goals. Focused and achievable; the strategy contains the major objectives, purpose and goals, as well as essential policies and plans for reaching those goals. It is forward-looking, focused on major decisions that affect the long-term direction of the business. It is unique to each business; dependent on their offering, resources, competition and target customers.

This strategy outlines how a firm interacts with the market and its customers. Objectives must consider what a business does well and what they are not doing well, to improve their performance.

In simple terms, marketing’s goal is to reach prospective consumers and turn them into customers, or to retain existing customers. To achieve this, a firm must have a deep understanding of their market and the needs and wants of customers. Their marketing strategy is the link between them and their potential customers.

The importance of a marketing strategy

If a firm does not have a marketing strategy, it can lack direction. Marketing that is not producing results waste money and the firm lose customers that do not know their brand exists. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, firms must make strategic decisions to increase the chances of making the right decisions.

“(A Marketing Strategy is) essentially a formula for how a business is going to compete, what its goals should be and what policies will be needed to carry out these goals.” (Porter, 1980)

A marketing strategy defines a firm’s plan to improve its performance, accounting for its unique challenges and opportunities. Firms produce their strategy by matching their goals, key resources and core capabilities, with external opportunities and trends, and the consideration of the possible risks they face.

Corporate objectives and strategy transformed into a competitive market position through differentiation and meeting customer need more effectively than competitors. Marketing defines how a product or service provides value to customers.

---

What is the difference between a marketing plan and marketing strategy?

The marketing strategy guides a marketing plan by outlining the firm’s vision, direction and goals. A marketing plan outlines the practical details of specific and defined marketing actions, activities and tactics to reach those goals. A marketing plan aims to make the strategy a reality.

Marketing strategy is the ‘big picture’ and has a longer timeline than an individual marketing plan, as it contains key business elements such as branding and their unique value proposition. A marketing plan contains the details of individual campaigns, which could be over a brief period such as six months to a year.

“Strategy decisions and actions… concerning a firm’s desired goals over a future time period, and the means through which it intends to achieve them including selecting target markets and customers; identifying required value propositions; and designing and enacting integrated marketing programs to develop, deliver, and communicate the value offerings.” (Morgan, Whitler, Feng & Chari, 2019)

Creating a marketing strategy

Formulating a marketing strategy can be a daunting process, even for an experienced marketer. How do you know if your strategy is going to work? To maximise their effectiveness, firms should use the following three co-ordinated steps when creating their marketing strategy:

1. Evaluate the situation, including internal and external environments. Any competitive advantage should be the basis for a marketing strategy, but it still needs to match customer demand. Market research helps to understand the wider business environment and define specific customer needs and identify opportunities.

2. The next phase is the formulation of the strategy that matches products/services with customer segments and outlining specific marketing plans for reaching these target customers.

3. The final phase is the implementation of the marketing mix activities that provides a competitive market position and the set of actions necessary to put the plan in place to reach the firm’s goals.

---

Key components of a marketing strategy

The goal of marketing is to align a businesses’ strengths and capabilities with customer need. Their value proposition and any competitive advantage should be the foundation of their marketing strategy. These internal factors become important components of a marketing strategy and brand communications. Other key tools and techniques that help guide a marketing strategy through understanding and meeting customer needs are segmentation, targeting and positioning.

Basis of a Marketing Strategy (Drummond, Ensor & Ashford, 2010)

Segmentation

Market Segmentation is the act of breaking down a market and grouping together customers who share similar characteristics, behaviours and attitudes. This process helps businesses to understand their customer needs, optimising their marketing, advertising and sales. Creating buyer personas is part of the segmentation process; these are fictional representations of the customer types in your chosen market segment, to illustrate their different personality traits. This process helps match customer wants and needs with your businesses’ ability to satisfy them.

Targeting

Targeting focuses all marketing efforts on a defined group or groups of people called a target market. The selected market segments share common characteristics and interests, so are likely to respond similarly to the marketing material. Because advertising and other marketing strategies focus solely on a target market, marketing becomes more affordable, efficient and effective at generating customer leads.

The targeted customers can be based on existing customers or might be groups of people who overlooked by the competition. If they are profitable, this then presents an opportunity, but it should be long-term to build relationships with customers.

“The marketing strategy lays out target markets and the value proposition that will be offered based on an analysis of the best market opportunities.” (Kotler & Keller, 2012)

Positioning

Firms use positioning to communicate their value proposition and create an image of their brand, product or service, in the minds of target customers. This position is relative to competitors, defining how a brand is unique and how it provides a distinct benefit to customers. Marketing communicates this market position, influencing customer perceptions. Before determining their position in the market, firms decide on a segment of the market that they want to target.

Business Orientations

A firm’s business orientation is their overall strategic organisational focus, which also dictates its marketing strategy. There are five main orientations: production, product, sales, market and societal. This orientation should be based on the strengths of the firm.

Production orientation

A firm with a production orientation focuses on efficient production as its key performance indicator. The key concern is on mass production, the economy of scale (high volume), cost control and meeting production schedules.

A production orientation does not use customer needs or desires to guide their strategy but instead focuses on producing high-quality products as cheaply and quickly as possible. This approach assumes that if you create good products at an affordable price, customers will purchase them, regardless of whether it meets their every need.

Product orientation

Although it sounds similar, a product orientation is vastly different from a production orientation. Instead of focusing on producing a product cheaply, motivation is product development and innovation to continuously improve products to stay ahead of the competition. The idea is that the products are of high quality, so they should sell themselves. Sometimes this means that a firm must try and find a market for a product, as opposed to creating a product for the needs of a market.

Sales orientation

Sales volume is the focus of a sales orientation. Often these firms employ a large salesforce, and focus on short-term sales targets, instead of a long-term strategy. Firms might implement this strategy after a production orientation, to move stock that did not sell as well as expected. Companies concentrate their resources on marketing and sales instead of customer needs. They are a means to an end.

Car dealerships often have a sales focus

Market orientation

Understanding and meeting customer needs is the basis of market orientation. Also called a customer orientation, being responsive to customer needs is the key objective. Customer demand becomes the focus for resources, to be able to supply what the market wants. Understanding the marketplace comes before any production or marketing. If a firm moves its marketing strategy to a market-based orientation, it often requires fundamental changes in the organisational structure. A market orientation also considers what the competition is doing as well as a focus on building long-term relationships with customers.

Societal orientation

The consideration of society’s long-term interests and doing ‘the right thing’ is the focus of a societal marketing orientation. This philosophy dictates that the environment and society become a consideration for marketing decision-making before customer wants or the company’s requirements. Ethical considerations come first, focusing on the impact the firm and its products have on society and the wider environment.

---

This article has explored what a marketing strategy is and how its key components segmentation, targeting and positioning direct a marketing plan and its specific activities.

The five common business orientations production, product, sales, market and societal were discussed and how they influence a businesses’ marketing strategy

Customer Service: why it matters and 10 key skills

 

Customer service is a vital component of the consumption experience to any firm who wants to retain customers and grow their business. 

Great customer service means customers are likely to come back, but a subpar experience means they are unlikely to come back. 

What Is Customer Service?

Customer service is the support provided by a firm or brand to the customers or potential customers of their product or service. It can happen before, during or after customers purchase or use a product or service. Firms aim to meet the needs, desires and requirements of these customers through delivering professional and supportive and assistance, to ensure an easy and pleasant consumption experience.

Customer service can be face to face in a store, over the phone, through digital activities such as text, social media messaging or email, or by automated means such as an ATM. This interaction between a service organisation and its customers or clients is referred to as a service encounter and a firm has the opportunity to form an impression with customers every time they come into contact.

“Interpersonal interaction between an organisation’s employees and its customers… have a high “impact” on the consumer and the quality of the service encounter… thus a vital ingredient in the overall quality of service experienced by the customer.” (Lewis & Mitchell, 1990)

Why is customer service important?

Customer service is part of the promise brands give customers. There is now an expectation from customers that businesses provide a certain quality of customer service. This is especially true in the services industry. Even the local mechanic now needs to step up their game. Businesses need the ability to learn, identify and adapt to the needs and wants of consumers. Customer-oriented firms have a higher ability to anticipate the developing needs of consumers and respond with goods and services.

Customer service that is at least on par with competitors is critical to competing effectively. If it is better, it can give you a competitive advantage. Customers do not shop based on price as often as they used to. Instead, their overall experience is often the motivator.

“89% of companies now expect to compete mostly on the basis of customer experience.” (Gartner Research, 2014)

It is cheaper to keep existing customers than to acquire new ones. But it is not as simple as just having great products to retain them — your customer service needs to be on point. Bad customer service is enough for previously loyal customers to choose a competitor — if customers are not happy with the service, chances are they will leave.

The benefits of great customer service

Providing customers with an elevated level of service quality has a positive relationship with brand performance and customer satisfaction. Service quality is how well the delivery of that service matches customers’ expectations. Satisfaction has a positive relationship with repeat purchase, and this is particularly true for service industries. Customers are satisfied when a firm performs better than they expected.

Prioritising customer service support might increase the costs of a firm through needing extra staff or tools/technologies, but there are a few benefits that should outweigh the investment. Studies have indicated that over 80 per cent of people would pay more for better customer service.

Some other benefits of providing great customer service include:

• customers are more satisfied with their experience
• enhanced perceptions of the firm’s overall market strategies
• increased positive word of mouth and referrals attracting new customers
• increased customer loyalty and repeat purchase
• increased ability to upsell or cross-sell relevant services
• customers can be willing to pay higher prices for a better experience
• customers perceive products and services as having better quality
• customers perceive the servicescape as being of higher quality

The customer service of a firm or brand can ‘make’ or ‘break’ their reputation.

“…Organisational culture that stresses the customer as the focal point of strategic planning and execution…  Employees consistently exhibit customer-oriented behaviours, and consumers thereby become accustomed to this philosophy.” (Brady & Cronin Jr, 2001)

Having somebody yell through the phone line is nothing new to customer service representatives

Bad customer service

In the world of mobile phones and social media, it is hard to hide a bad customer experience. People can quickly share a negative experience online, which can reach a large audience. With many people using Google search to check out a business, a couple of bad reviews can make a significant difference. People are more likely to share a negative experience on social media or talk about it with their friends than they are with a positive experience.

How can firms improve their customer service?

Improving customer service means making every touchpoint great and not letting any interaction fall between the cracks. There must be consistency across the organisation in providing a great customer experience.

In 2020, it is not enough for firms to only use the traditional means of customer support such as over the telephone for customer support. Customers expect to be able to reach organisations by whatever means they find convenient, whether it is email or social media. Therefore, firms must have a comprehensive approach and provide a range of customer service options to customers.

Businesses can also provide self-service support to customers so they can find the answers they require without needing to deal with customer support staff.

A customer orientation

Marketing has progressively moved towards a customer orientation since Leonard Berry’s seminal writing on Relationship Marketing (1983), now considered a fundamental principle of marketing. To be customer-oriented implies that a firm focuses on the customer as the centre point of their strategic planning and execution. They aim to identify and adapt to consumers’ needs and wants as a competitive strategy through learning from customer perceptions of their experience.

“Having a customer orientation has a positive influence on customer perceptions and, ultimately, the performance of firms.” (Brady & Cronin Jr, 2001)

A customer’s evaluation of the overall service quality is determined by three factors: employee service performance, physical goods/service quality, and servicescape (place of business) quality. Firms must be proactive in collecting and analysing customer data for a better picture of how they are performing and the needs and wants of customers, and to act on this information.

Digital tools for customer service

In the digital age, consumers now have several methods available to communicate with customer service representatives.

Over the past few years, social media has become increasingly popular to request and receive customer service. It is an expectation now to be able to send a message via a major brand’s Facebook page with any questions or problems you may have related to their products or services and receive a prompt response. Around half of the internet users now turn to social media for help. Accordingly, many large organisations implemented dedicated customer service teams to respond to social media messages. Studies (see Xu, Liu, Guo, Sinha & Akkiraju, 2017) have indicated that users who message a brand’s Twitter account expect a response within an hour.

This consumer demand for an instant response and the time-consuming nature of manually addressing these requests lead to the rise of AI for customer service on social media. This led to the creation of chatbots to automatically generate responses for user requests on social media and now on websites. These chatbots provide an opportunity for brands to provide individualised attention to consumers.

“Marketing is concerned with exchange relationships between the organisation and its customers. Quality and customer service are key linkages in this relationship.” (Christopher, Payne & Ballantyne, 91)

A genuine smile goes a long way in customer service 

Key customer service skills

As much as a firm can have a customer orientated strategy, much of the responsibility for great customer service falls on the staff members. Luckily, customer service is a skill that people can learn and develop, rather than a personality trait you either have or you do not.

Here are ten customer service skills that are key to providing great customer service.

1. Patience

Patience is vital for anybody with customer service in their role. From real estate sales to a check out operator at a supermarket. Customers who reach out to support are often frustrated and at their wit’s end. Sometimes they want to vent. There could be a simple solution, but let the customer get it out of their system. For example, a study found that 40% of user requests on Twitter are emotional and not intended to seek specific information. Empathy goes hand in hand with patience, which is a person’s ability to understand another person’s feelings. A staff members ability to see an issue from the customer’s point of view is a huge advantage and customers appreciate it.

2. Listening

The ability to truly listen is not only a key skill for customer service but life in general. Listening allows you to fully understand the customer’s point of view and solve their problem. When you do not listen, it is easy to get it wrong and create a frustrating experience for the customer. Customer service reps can often jump to conclusions about a solution, which can come across as rude and brash. Take time to listen and understand customer issues, it will show you value their needs.

3. Communication

It might sound obvious, but how you communicate with customers is key to their experience. You do not want to come across as condescending, grumpy or rude — this will translate into a negative experience. It is important to be mindful of how staff communication comes across. As well as attitude, the clarity of the communication during customer service is key providing the right outcome. The last thing you want is more confusion on the part of the customer because they do not understand what they are supposed to do or what the solution is.

4. Learning

By learning about the issues and concerns of their customers, so they can provide a solution. How do we learn from our customers? By asking questions and listening when interacting. The more your customer service staff know about your customers’ needs, the more of an asset they are to both the organisation and the customers.

If the same customer issues come up consistently, chances are you have not learnt from this to provide an adequate solution. Staff must communicate these issues to management so they can plan to resolve the problem. If your customer service team is working like a well-oiled machine and learning from the feedback, you will start anticipating problems instead of just solving them.

5. Time management

Customers often expect a resolution as quickly as possible. They hate to wait — especially over the phone, so long waiting times can negatively affect customer experience. So, whilst patience and taking time with customers is important, there is a limit to how long you should commit to each customer. Firms should provide customer service employees with the information and tools to support their customers are as quick as possible. Staff training can help improve resolution times.

6. Composure

Customer service staff must have the ability to stay consistently calm under pressure, even if they are experiencing difficulties with an upset customer. This cool demeanour can help calm down the customer and keep the conversation as objective as possible to find a resolution to their issue. Emotion triggers many of the interaction customers have with customer service, so it is key for staff to remain level-headed — even when customers are being insulting to them or their firm. The staff that can think on their feet are a huge advantage — not every interaction will be in the training manual. Expect the unexpected.

7. Negotiation

Often staff members will need to negotiate with customers to find a resolution. Conversations need to end with a solution and/or with the customer feeling that the firm have (or will) taken care of their needs. Negotiation is not arguing — it is important to remain calm and have a constructive conversation. There will always be one party who feels like they have come out better off than the other party — make sure that is the customer! Do not just give in to the customer demands, there must be some give and take. Customer service staff require good persuasion skills when there is no obvious solution, this reasoning can help convince the customer of a suitable outcome.

8. Teamwork

Teamwork and customer service go hand in hand; both staff and customers will benefit when customer teams work together as resolutions to the customer issues are faster. One customer service representative will never have all the answers, so there must be open communication lines across teams to find a solution to each unique issue. Large firms often have several dedicated customer service teams for different requirements. There might be one team for technical support, another team for accounts and billing, and another team for general inquires. In smaller firms, provide all employees with some customer service training so they can help when required.

9. Positivity

It can be a challenge for customer service staff to spend their days dealing with customer complaints and negativity that comes along with the role. However, it is a key customer service skill to remain upbeat and positive. If staff meet customers with a smile and a cheerful attitude, it makes customers feel a lot better. This can put staff on the front foot when trying to find a resolution. It also creates a better work environment. If staff are happy and they can feel other staff are happy, they enjoy their jobs more and become more productive.

10. Product & brand knowledge

The more your sales staff know about your product or service, the better they are at selling them. Similarly, with customer service, the better staff become at providing a solution. Training should be a key part of customer support. Many large companies onboard every new employee to ensure they know their products inside and out. Onboarding is the process of integrating new employees into an organisation, familiarising them with the products and/or services. The best customer service staff have intimate knowledge of how their products work or order to find each customer an adequate solution to their problems.

---

In summary, this article has explored how great customer service can positively influence the performance of a firm and 10 key skills for customer service staff. 

I hope you enjoyed this week’s content and learnt some new tips and strategies for improving your firm’s customer experience.

Targeting: how to make marketing more efficient and effective

Who are you targeting? 

Often when you ask a small business owner who they are targeting as customers, their response is “Everyone”, or “Anybody interested in…” They might refine this audience down to “homeowners” or “people who go to the gym”. This is still too broad. The problem is with this is, not all consumers think alike, and not everyone is going to purchase your product. Because of this broad focus, marketing can miss the mark.

Instead of trying to market to everybody, targeted marketing makes your product or service as attractive as possible to certain groups of people. Firms focus their marketing efforts on a specific and defined audience. 

This week’s topic explores targeted marketing and how businesses use targeting to be more effective with their marketing and improve their ROI.

“Provided that sales in the target segment are higher than lost sales in the non-target segment, the firm is undoubtedly better off financially.” (Cahill, 1997)

---

What Is Targeting?

Targeting focuses all marketing efforts on the defined group or groups of people MOST LIKELY to become profitable customers. These groups of customers will have common characteristics and interests and could be based on existing customers, as there is likely to be similar people who you will also benefit. The targeted customers might also be groups of people who overlooked by the competition. If they are profitable, this then presents an opportunity for that business.

The benefits of targeting

With targeting, marketing becomes more affordable, efficient and effective at generating customer leads. Saving money on marketing and a better return on investment are the most obvious benefits of targeted marketing — especially for small businesses with frugal marketing budgets. Targeted marketing is far more cost-effective than mass marketing as firms are not wasting time and money marketing to people who will never be a customer. Instead, the target audience is specific consumers who are most likely to become customers.

“Firms can obtain significant benefits by targeting their promotions.” (Narayanan & Manchanda, 2009)

If we understand who our most profitable customers are, we will know which customers are not profitable, and we can also overlook them with our marketing which is important with paid advertising (why waste your money!?)

Targeting should begin with the customers and the marketplace. Therefore, it creates a strategic focus as the firm must take a realistic and well thought out approach to their product or service offering, their marketing and their customers. This integrated approach ensures everything is a good fit.

If you are not targeting specific groups of customers with your communication, the message can become blurred. The broader the targeted market is, the broader their preferences, needs and desires are. The more focused your message is, the more receptive the target audience will be.

What is a Target Market?

Identifying their target market/s is a crucial step for any firm when developing their strategic marketing plan. A target market is the group/s of customers that a business focuses their marketing efforts on. The people they want as their customers. It is a segment of the total market for a good or service. The consumers who make up a target market share similar characteristics, defined by demographics such as gender, location and age as well as criteria based on their consumer behaviour.

“A target market is, at its most basic, simply the market or submarket (such as a segment) at which the firm aims its marketing message(s).” (Cahill, 1997)

This target market determines other key factors for a product or service such as distribution and pricing, or it can influence aspects of the product or service itself. After identifying what group/s of customers you wish to target, you must learn their values and consumption habits. This will help you strategize how to communicate with them effectively and ensure your offering best fits their requirements. If something is not right, firms can modify aspects of the product or service itself, or its marketing such as the packaging, pricing or even the brand name to help facilitate a more successful result with their target market.

Target marketing sits alongside the positioning strategy. Positioning creates an image of a brand’s product or service in the mind of a target customer. It defines how the brand’s offering is unique and how it provides a distinct benefit to customers. Marketing communicates a brand’s positioning to consumers to influence their perception.

Your positioning must be attractive and credible to the people who require your product and are most likely to purchase it.

“This identification of target customer groups is market segmentation, where customers are aggregated into groups with similar requirements and buying characteristics.” (Dibb & Simkin, 1991)

An orange segment — think of your target market as a segment

Segmentation: defining your target market

The strategy of using targeted marketing to reach specific groups or clusters of customers is market segmentation. A firm can choose one or even numerous segmented groups as their target market, divided up based on their characteristics, based on their unique marketplace. As customers have unique buying patterns to try and understand, this process helps to match customer demands with a firm’s ability to satisfy them.

Firms can follow a range of different segmentation strategies such as concentrating on a single segment with one product or brand, concentrating on numerous segments with one brand or having many brands or products each targeting a unique segment.

Market segments are specific and objective, comprised of people with similar characteristics that are likely to respond similarly to a marketing campaign. This helps businesses to optimise their branding, advertising and sales.

For example, a Gym might choose to market to fitness-minded people between the ages of 15 and 40 in Hamilton, New Zealand. To make this segment even more defined, they might choose to market to people with strength and performance-based goals, attend the local university, and use a lot of social media. The gym could further break down this market into further niches, such as performance-based goals for sport, or powerlifting or CrossFit, or bodybuilding.

Indian International Students as a market segment

Target market characteristics

The process of dividing a target market into segments uses three key categorisation techniques. They are demographics, psychographics and behavioural.

Demographics: Demographic segmentation aims to build an accurate picture of who the target market “is” by using statistical characteristics of human populations to identify these people. These include:

· Age

· Location

· Gender

· Occupation

· Ethnic background

Psychographics: Psychographics segmentation looks at consumers as people (not customers), seeking to better understand the personal characteristics on a human level. This includes their lifestyle, key values and activities. These include:

· Personality

· Opinions, attitudes, and beliefs

· Values

· Interests/hobbies

· Lifestyles

Behavioural: Behavioural segmentation defines people based on their actions and thoughts as a consumer. This helps marketers to further define who they want to attract and who they do not want to attract. These include:

· Purchase Behaviour

· Customer Loyalty

· Occasion or timing

· Benefits sought

· Usage

Understanding the consumer behaviour of your target market

Brands need to understand what their target consumers believe are the most important components of a product or service when they decide to purchase. How will they use the product? What product features are most appealing to them? Market research is a crucial step to get your positioning in the market right.

Before releasing a new product, it is beneficial to test it with the target market. Using focus groups are a fantastic way to test perceptions and the performance of your offering with the types of people you want to purchase it. This constructive feedback will allow you to make improvements before it comes to the market. Analyse industry or talk to existing customers about what they want from a product. This will all help answer important questions you may have about your marketplace or target customers.

After the product is on the market, it is beneficial to monitor sales data or use customer surveys and other actions that help monitor performance and better understand customers and what they want. Measuring customer satisfaction allows brands to continuously improve their offering.

“Each target market needs to be addressed in different ways in order for a marketing campaign to be effective.” (Geraghty & Conway, 2016)

Communicating with your target market

It is important to market to your target market precisely, otherwise, you waste precious time and money. Targeted advertising helps improve the efficiency of matching brands with customers. To reach a target audience, marketers must consider how and where to communicate to reach these people and have them listen. Do they read the local paper every day? Are they browsing Facebook? They might watch a lot of television. Once you have chosen where to advertise, what marketing message will best resonate with them? Marketing must match customers preferences and behaviours. You will only learn this through trial and error or market research.

Traditional marketing communications include television, radio or film advertising or product placements, sponsorship of events or live sport, billboards, point of purchase placement, print advertising such as flyers, business cards or newspaper and magazine adverts. Studies have indicated that magazines have the longest life span of any traditional form of marketing (See Blakeman, 2014). People can share magazines around with their friends, or they are often left by businesses for customers to browse whilst they wait, such as in the waiting room at the Doctors, at cafés or the local fish and chips shop, and can be left for months or even years on end. 

In-person events are the most successful form of lead generation for B2B businesses (See Tomas, 2015), making networking events, conferences or expos popular with salespeople. It is much easier to convert face-to-face than it is with any other marketing technique, it is just very time consuming and you do not have a massive potential audience as you do online. The important thing to consider is, will your communication method reach your target audience.

Advances in digital marketing

Innovations in technology and software over the past quarter of a century has made it possible for any business to collect valuable data about customers and potential customers. Digital marketing provides many targeted marketing tools such as email marketing, blogging and search engine marketing or optimisation and gives marketers a much higher capacity for in-depth analysis of consumer behaviour than was possible through traditional means of marketing. The growth and popularity of social media have helped businesses to create highly customised and personalised targeted advertising based on the behaviours we learn from peoples’ habits online.

“Online targeting consumers has been a great advantage to marketers as they can now see not only what a person is viewing but for how long, where and why” (Geraghty & Conway, 2016)

Social media is a powerful tool for targeted marketing

Facebook for targeted advertising

Facebook is hugely popular for creating targeted advertising. A big strength of Facebook is the enormous audience (1.79 billion daily users) and the ability to create hyper-targeted advertising based on a vast number of attributes. There are more than 240,000 attributes that marketers can combine to target highly specific groups of people based on combinations of attributes. Facebook even allows you to exclude people based on certain characteristics, which makes your advertising even more targeted.

Because of this potential, there are over 7 million people or business advertising on Facebook. Facebook provides four major techniques for targeting and users can use a combination of these methods. They are Personally Identifiable Information, Attribute targeting, Look-alike audience and retargeting.

· Personally Identifiable Information targeting is when the users provide a database of people with personal information such as name, email address and phone number. Facebook will then place adverts in front of these people browsing the platform. Create custom audiences based on characteristics such as liking their Facebook page, downloaded an app or visited their website.

· Attribute targeting allows advertisers to target people based on a wide range of elements that include user basic demographics such as age and gender, advanced demographics such as newly married, interests such as a basketball or videogames and behaviours such people who have recently purchased online. Combining more attributes makes the audience more specific for an advert. Interests can be predefined and chosen from a dropdown menu, or a relevant topic typed in and the user can browse related attributes.

· Look-alike audiences are another option the Facebook offers to help put your advertising in front of the right people. Users input a database of people, use a previous audience or this audience can be based on people who “like” their Facebook page. The Facebook algorithm then targets other people who share similar characteristics

“By compiling demographic data, purchasing history, and responses to past advertising messages, digital marketers can create and refine advertising messages tuned precisely to the psychographic and behavioural patterns of the individual.” (Montgomery & Chester, 2009)

· Retargeting focuses on people who have already interacted with the business. Many customers need numerous interactions with a brand before they decide to purchase, so it is important to stay in front of and relevant to these people. People who have visited your website can be targeting through using a tracking pixel, or businesses can target other behaviours such as people who have watched previous videos or “liked” previous advertisements. Facebook is a powerful tool for retargeting.

---

Thank you for reading my blog article! I hope you enjoyed this content about targeting. 

If you are a small business owner, you should now understand some of the benefits of having a specific and refined target market.

Dan

Positioning: 5 strategies to stand out from your competitors

Positioning is one of the fundamental elements of marketing, both for consumer products and B2B (Business to Business). Positioning is a brand’s unique way of providing value to its customers. Where does a brand sit in the hearts and minds of customers? These associations that consumers hold with a brand reflect their positioning.

This week’s blog topic explores positioning as a marketing strategy and how it relates to other marketing strategies. Five common positioning strategies are also discussed.

“A position that takes into consideration not only a company’s own strengths and weaknesses, but those of its competitors as well.” (Ries & Trout, 2001)

What Is Positioning?

Firms use positioning to create an image of a brand’s product or service in the mind of a target customer. Positioning defines how the brand’s offering is unique, how it provides a distinct benefit to customers. Businesses use marketing to communicate their market position to customers and influence their perception of the brand’s products or services. Marketing establishes the brand identity, influencing consumer perceptions of its position in the market relative to the alternatives available from competitors.

“Positioning is not what you do to a product. Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect. That is, you position the product in the mind of the prospect.” (Ries & Trout, 2001)

Before determining its position in the market, a firm should decide on a segment of the market that they want to target. This segment of the market should be profitable — either there are many customers, or it is a niche in the market that presents an opportunity due to a lack of competition. This is where positioning comes in. A business must decide how to make their brand as attractive as possible to this group of customers they want to target. This target market defined by demographics such as gender, location and age as well as criteria based on their consumer behaviour.

Unique Selling Proposition

Effectively positioning a product or service gives it a USP (Unique selling proposition). A USP is an attractive feature or characteristic of a brand that differentiates it from similar alternatives. In a modern marketplace cluttered with so many choices with similar benefits, you want your brand to stand out from the rest. It becomes more memorable and can have a competitive advantage over alternatives. Your USP is your unique benefit to entice customers to purchase your brand over another. Brands must communicate This USP with their target audience. This is where positioning comes in.

McDonald’s is a notable example of using a USP to help position their brand. They are the world’s most widely known fast-food brand and compete with hundreds of other fast food outlets. They do not try and position themselves as the fastest, cheapest or best tasting. Instead, their USP is that they are a family-friendly restaurant. The children’s menu items, the free toy with a kid’s meal, the playgrounds. They position themselves to target families.

Positioning statement

A USP and positioning statement is similar. The biggest difference is that a USP is product or service-centric and focuses on what sets your product or service apart from competitors; where a business creates their positioning statement after the USP, focusing on the primary benefit of the product or services for their target market. Businesses need to ask themselves, “How do I want our brand to be perceived?”

A positioning statement should be no longer than a paragraph, and should discuss the following:

· First, the positioning statement begins with describing your target market and what their specific needs or goals are. Market research helps businesses to understand their market and customers more intimately.

· Define what category your product or service belongs to and how it meets the needs of consumers. Customers need a reference point to provide context to evaluate a brand’s offering.

· What differentiates your product or service from the alternatives? One point of differentiation is best, stating your difference from the customer’s perspective. How does your differentiator will help solve the customer’s problem or help them achieve their goals?

· Explain why consumers in your target market should believe your brand’s claims. Consumers must see credibility in your positioning, so provide evidence to justify the claim of your brand in your positioning. Do not just say you are the fastest or best quality, state HOW you are.

“There is a positive relationship between company performance (profitability/efficiency) and well-formulated and clearly-defined positioning activities.” (Kalafatis, Tsogas & Blankson, 2000)

Determining a Positioning Strategy

A successful positioning strategy relies on a deep understanding of the marketplace you want to compete in. It identifies how your company is different from the competitors and the conditions and opportunities in the marketplace. A big mistake that many businesses make is assuming that positioning is just a marketing strategy. It should be one of the foundations of the business strategy. After all, you cannot position a product as a high-quality offering in your marketing if the product itself cannot back up those claims.

Customers can recognise a clear positioning strategy — they understand whether a brand is competing on price or quality. Positioning must be a cohesive effort between the business strategy and sales and marketing tactics. It is far more than just a communication strategy. This is the only way the product or service will deliver on customer expectation and the promises of its positioning. Organisations must clearly define their positioning across the value chain, otherwise, communication loses focus and can become confusing.

There are five main strategies upon which businesses can base their positioning.

1. Positioning based on product characteristics

Using product characteristics or benefits as a positioning strategy associates your brand with a certain characteristic that is beneficial to customers. For example, in the automobile industry, Toyota’s position in the market is reliability, Porsche’s position is performance and Volvo’s position is safety. Brands consistently communicate the most unique benefit or characteristic of the product with consumers.

“Volvo owns ‘safety.’ BMW owns ‘driving’…” (Ries & Trout, 2001)

2. Positioning based on price

Positioning your products or services based on price is associating your brand with competitive pricing. Usually, with pricing positioning strategy, a brand aims to be the cheapest or one of the cheapest in the market, and value becomes their position. For example, Supermarket chains often have a house brand with very low-price products in many product categories. Their lower logistical and distribution costs allow them to price their products lower than the competitors, so price-sensitive buyers will often purchase them without knowing the price because they know it is often the cheapest option.

Brands can also position based on price if they find a gap in the market at a certain price point. Being the only option in a certain price range becomes your market position. Often brands extend their product lines to fill a gap in the market.

3. Positioning based on quality or luxury

Often the price and quality of a product align, certainly in the mind of the consumer, as the high price is often associated with high quality. But positioning a product based on its high quality or ‘luxury’ is different from positioning based on price. Often these brands do not communicate their price point, but instead high quality or prestige is the focal point of communication, to create a desire so customers want the product regardless of the price.

Note that luxury does not always mean better quality, but customers still believe it is better because of the reputation of the brand due to their long-term brand positioning strategies. For example, a $200,000 Rolls Royce car, the epitome of luxury, is likely to have a lower build quality than a $30,000 Hyundai.

4. Positioning based on product use or application

Associating your product with a particular use is another way to position your brand in the market. For example, meal replacement supplements can be of use to anyone lacking time or wanting a quick convenient meal. There are also meal replacements designed specifically for people who want performance in the gym, so high in calories and added vitamins and minerals. Other meal replacements are for people on a diet, so they are low in calories and would not provide much energy for somebody’s workout. 

Often the former meal replacement target males and the diet low-calorie option target females. Both are meal replacements, but different positioning.

5. Positioning based on competition

Competitor based positioning focuses on using the competition as a reference point for differentiation. Brands highlight a key difference their product/service offers in their marketing to make it seem favourable and unique compared to other options in the marketplace. The product or services becomes unique.

Brands can also use the competition as a reference point to follow a similar strategy. If a particular brand has a large market share, their positioning strategy must be attractive to a large group of customers, so you try and convert some of their customers by offering a similar product with similar benefits at the same price point.

Positioning Perceptual Maps

Businesses can create a perceptual map of the positioning of the dominant brands in a marketplace to identify any gaps and opportunities in that market.

Positioning perceptual map example

The positioning map compares brands competing in a marketplace by illustrating consumer perceptions of those brands by using two key variables.

For example, businesses can apply price and quality for most markets; but the map should focus on the primary consumer needs or product benefits you want to understand, which will vary depending on the market. See below for an example of a positioning map.

In conclusion, your positioning in the market determines where your brand sits relative to competitors. It is important for brands to have a point of difference and to emphasise it in their marketing.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s content about positioning.

See you next week,

Dan