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Articles filed in: Strategy
On Being Noticed
filed in Entrepreneurship, Strategy
You want your brand, your business or your cause to be noticed, but have you considered what you’d actually do with the attention if it came flooding in?
What would you do if Oprah called? What would happen if you were featured in that publication of your wildest dreams? What then?
How would you prepare to capture that attention for more than just five minutes?
What would you do to make people want to stick around not just for today, but for a week, a month, a year?
The flip side is that once you understand what really matters to your audience and how to start building something that lasts beyond those first five minutes, the loyalty and success you crave will follow.
You’re building your brand to last, not just to be noticed.
Image by Micea Turcan.
Different, Because
We are different because ———————.
We are the only one that does ———————.
How are you different and why does that matter to your customers?
Image by Evive.
10 Questions To Help You With Your Pricing Strategy
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
When my family and I were in Venice recently we decided to take a seat in a tiny Cafe in St Marks Square and ordered four hot drinks (anyone who has holidayed in Italy knows what’s coming next!). There was nothing remarkable about the coffee but we walked out half an hour later having paid €37 for 4 drinks…. the most expensive cup of coffee I have ever had…. my husband kept the receipt!
The lesson. If you want to sit, not stand to have coffee in Italy you will pay a premium. The way a service is designed and delivered can alter its value. The price of a commodity has little to do with what it costs to produce and everything to do with customer perception and available alternatives.
Many of my clients struggle with pricing their products and services.
Here are 10 questions to ask and answer to help you with your pricing strategy
1. Have you covered your production and service delivery costs?
2. What’s your customer’s perception of the value you deliver?
3. What other choices do they have?
4. What do you want to communicate with your pricing strategy?
5. Are you telling a story about luxury, affordability or something else?
6. Have you taken the availability of alternatives into account with your pricing?
7. Have you done enough to convince your audience that there are no better substitutes to what you offer?
8. Can your mode of service delivery, specifications or design add value?
9. Is your pricing strategy in line with your longer term business goals?
10. What type of clients are you trying to attract and how can you use price to send a signal to the right people?
The MBA version on pricing strategy can be found here.
And for those travelling any time soon here are some tips for what not to do when you are eating out in Italy.
Image by Dan Zelazo.
5 Questions You Need To Ask About Your Ideal Client
filed in Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Strategy
1. Who is she?
What’s her backstory? What makes her who she is?
(Hint…she may not be you).
2. What does her typical day look like?
How does she spend her time and where (both online and offline)?
3. What does she care about?
What inspires and informs her? What motivates her to act?
4. What problem(s) does she need to have solved?
Is it a physical pain or obstacle, or is there a want she needs to have fulfilled?
5. How are you solving that problem better than the competition?
Why are you the business that changes how she feels, the one she can trust above everyone else?
If you don’t know how her story starts how can you be a part of it?
Image by Marianne Janssens.
The Secret To Spreading Ideas
filed in Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Strategy
I recently had the opportunity to share an idea I care about thanks to the team at TEDx Perth.
The talk went live online two days ago. I hope it helps you to spread the ideas that you care about.
Image by Sally Jarvis at TEDxPerth
There’s Only One Way To Get A Different Outcome
We should have known as soon as we walked in. The place was empty, not a soul in sight apart from two lone waiters who pounced. Every other breakfast place in the city was teeming with life and overflowing with plates of over easy eggs. This place was dead.
We stayed because we didn’t have the heart to back out, but instantly regretted the decision when the food and the bill arrived. The waiters having fewer customers to keep the place afloat upsold and charged handsomely for sides of fruit and freshly squeezed juices (which weren’t).
We left feeling sorry for them (it must be soul destroying to work there), and more than a little ripped off.
It might be easy to nab a one-off table of rookie tourists but that’s hardly a brilliant marketing strategy.
If nobody shows up or something is not working then there’s a reason. It’s your job to find out what that reason is and fix it. If you keep doing the same thing you did yesterday and expecting a different result, or even a miracle tomorrow you’re going to be both disappointing and disappointed.
Image by Tom Ellefsen.
Buy Versus Buy Into
Don’t be the brand that people buy.
Be the one they ‘buy into’.
Image by Peter Morgan.
What Don’t You Do?
It’s easy to rattle off the features of your product or benefits of your service.
Which means it’s not hard for the competition to do that too.
Far more difficult to stand for something and be willing to stand out because of what you don’t do.
It turns out that time and again telling the story of what’s missing and how you are least like the competition is a far better marketing strategy.
Image by Eric Konon.
Anticipation Is Your Point Of Differentiation
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Brand new guest rooms, sleek kitchenettes, minibars and bright, new bathrooms were only the start of the boutique hotel’s story. The ‘dream pillow menu’ gave me six choices from buckwheat to hypo-allergenic, duck down to Swedish memory foam.
And yet…..there was no chance of an early check in after a 30 hour journey. No mechanism to anticipate or to care in a way that the competition doesn’t.
Anyone can take instructions. Every business can get customer to tick boxes and say exactly what they want. The thing that’s scarce is what the customer didn’t know they needed or wanted in the first place.
The brands that succeed understand that the ability to anticipate, and act upon what isn’t already known is what makes them stand head and shoulders above all the rest.
Image by Amanda Tipton.
What Your Clients Need Now
They need you to ask the right questions, not to have all the answers.
They need your generosity, not jargon.
They need the truth.
They need what works for them, not what makes you look good.
They need faith in you and your intention.
They need to be empowered more than they need to be helped.
Image by Skinnyde.