Here’s a helpful tip that will save you time and money.
You have to have the right product or service, for the right price, targeted to the right audience, accompanied by the right message, in the right medium to see success. Otherwise, you’re one frustrated business owner and marketer.
Right Product/Service
This goes back to yesterday’s post on delivering value. It truly doesn’t matter if you make the world’s finest seven finger gloves. You can hand-stitch the finest materials to craft your gloves but if you don’t have buyers for seven-fingered gloves you’re not delivering value to the consumer. And more than likely you’ll be out of business soon unless you can find an innovative solution for using seven-fingered gloves. Deliver goods and services consumers want, do some investigating and develop products consumers may want and clamor for (think iPad) and you’ll have the right product.
Right Price
What’s the right price to sell your product or service? Pricing strategy requires you do your homework. See what the competition is doing, again gauge the customer and determine their value of such services. There’s the price of materials and man-hours. All of which must be considered when pricing your product or service. Are you pricing just above the competition to differentiate your product?
Right Audience
I can’t emphasize enough targeting the right audience for your product or service. There is nothing more frustrating than presenting a fabulous product or service to the wrong audience. Your audience determines your message and your price so if you miss here, you’ve wasted a lot of time and money. Make sure you segment your market and find your target audience.
Right Message
If you’ve done the hard work of segmenting the market, found your target market, developed this killer product or service, priced it just right you owe it to yourself to present the right message. Just because you like black and white photography may not mean your target audience likes black and white photographs. They may prefer caricatures or color images. Don’t do all the right things only to craft a message that appeals to you and your stakeholders. You’re not the ones buying the product. Deliver the right message to the right audience. Speak their language, use their pop culture references, craft the message to them.
If you do these things, you’ll save yourself time, money and aggravation.
