Your Strong Marketing Structure Strengthens Customers' Lives.

Jay Abraham advocated developing multiple approaches to make your marketing solid like the Greek Parthenon.

Competitive & economic forces might disrupt some approaches/pillars while other pillars still support your business infrastructure. Though successful approaches might eventually fade, you can avoid total failure by testing methods & adapting offers to customers’ emerging realities.

Alternative offers & methods might have some redundancy but appeal to subniches.

Example: Depending on local people & infrastructure, hybrid & electric vehicle offers can be similar but should be adjusted according to preferences plus technological advancements. There are similar environmental appeals of hybrids & EVs, but vehicle & charging system prices plus driving needs & traffic add variables affecting personal advantages. Variables increase potential confusion. People need help with personal considerations. Consultation Example: ‘I understand ABC is changing, but XYZ isn't. Let’s compare options to reach your goal of LMOPQ. (Hybrid) would help you fulfill KLM & (EV) would help you fulfill OPQR. So, (EV) fulfills more priorities but not your current top two. As your life changes, your needs will evolve. (Hybrid) seems better considering prices & availability of charging systems & fuel. (EV) fits your emerging commuting needs plus growing infrastructure & technician availability. Commuting increases necessary maintenance, (EV) will require less maintenance than (Hybrid). It means less long-term expense & hassle.’

Include customers' concerns in advantage offers to inspire testimonials.

Example: Dealers might lease new vehicles & sell previously leased vehicles. It’s important to compare new vehicle warranties with older model remaining warranties or buying extensions. When leases expire, are there more advantages for lessees to buy familiar, comfortable vehicles or lease new advanced technological vehicles?

Your comparison methods should evolve as improved elements of advantage offers so competitors’ offers are more likely to stagnate than yours. Differentiate your business by creating the difference between mediocrity, possibly irritation, & optimal advantages.

Cognitive Labor makes a big difference because consumers don't always know what they should research. Until you connect facts, how can customers discover what they need to know?

Example: If they drive vehicles without automatic pressure monitoring, people can check tire inflation during trips. Specific tire inflation depends on vehicle model recommendations. If people check tires during long summer trips, heat might make pressures seem too high. Drivers need reminders because they're mostly concerned about safety from accidents & crimes plus are distracted by biological needs.

If current offer & method effectiveness stagnates, use tested alternatives to attract customers, so marketing pillars won’t collapse while you test & build new options. Your offers & methods should be as current as changes of conditions & consumers’ priorities. Offer & method viability varies with consumers’ conditions. You can’t control consumers’ conditions or responses but you can control your responses so you’ll become more influential.

Though it’s important to keep using productive offers & methods, tests increase your viable options & resources. Optimization is easier to start & maintain with multiple options. Self-imposed limited options would restrict your ability to adapt to competitive, consumer & economic changes.

You won’t know which options will be best for attracting specific customers until they compare offers with their progress & obstacles.

Increased sales can make your store more valuable for suppliers. If you order more products, suppliers might prioritize you so you can afford to specialize & stabilize inventory costs.

Things Aren’t As They Seem

People perceive reality differently. Stressed people might decide what’s true instead of perceiving & coping with inconvenient facts. Since some retailers don’t advertise or do it inadequately, they seemingly decide consumers are aware how product benefits prevent or solve problems.

Whether you promote new or familiar product technologies, people vary in awareness of product benefits &/or problematic circumstances. With limited awareness, people might: 1) underestimate problems &/or comprehensiveness of preventions, mitigations & solutions; 2) undervalue product necessity & reject offers.

Reality checks can be uncomfortable until people accept necessary changes. Reality checks can bounce if people don’t know how facts connect plus which causes & effects can modify those connections.

Example: Rodents can sneak into houses, then find & hide bird seeds in places humans don’t see. Even after people exterminated current rodents & used sealed containers for bird seeds, future rodents can find hidden seeds. It’s important for retailers to suggest using sealed containers for bird seeds starting with the first purchases.

Causes & effects are easier to acknowledge when people have functional hope of remediation. Information & insights build functional hope by showing routes out of/away from problems & to fulfilled expectations.

Example: If people decrease rodent access with sealers, fewer rodents will enter. Those few will find less food to eat & hide. Sealers block rodents from exiting, but as they hunt for food, they’ll become susceptible to traps.

Show you’re interested in customers’ wellbeing instead of just sales. Explain how products fit customers’ conditions & how benefits connect to customers’ desires. Maximize product benefits with advantageous information & insights.

How Will People Know Where to Find the Best Value When They Want to Go 'THERE'?

If you’re offended by my explanation (below), you should change/add approaches.

I keep expanding Marshall Goldsmith’s bear-salmon analogy because too many retailers & consumers are like spawning salmon. They’re optimized for one method in one condition which they don’t control. Retailers’ optimization declines as consumers develop new preferences & find better fulfillment from competitors.

When nature & humans change rivers, salmon are more negatively affected than bears that have more options to change approaches. Bears have more influence on & options in salmons’ conditions than salmon do. The salmon species survives because many hatchlings survive, but individual spawners don’t.

Bears skillfully pursue prey on land & adequately in shallow water. Salmon skillfully evade predators in deep water but can be at disadvantages in shallow water. Many fish die quickly out of water. Bears bite fish & hold them out of water, so fish run out of advantages.

You need advantage offers because big competitors already have more advantages than you. Suppliers favor big retailers so they have more resources to build advantages for themselves & consumers.

Retailers & consumers have agency but stubbornly reject options then blame others or conditions for failure. Retailers reject opportunities & claim consumers are fickle! Consumers feel retailers are financial predators unless they offer advantages of functional hope (based on consumers’ criteria).

If you need consumers to change, you should change your approaches instead of faulting consumers!

Analogy: Roger Miller’s hit “Kansas City Star” expressed: “I’ve got credit down at the grocery store. My barber tells me jokes." He rejected another offer: "I’m the King of Kansas City. No thanks, Omaha. Thanks a lot.”

If you refuse to help customers feel like queens & kings, service-oriented competitors will SEEM to cause you royal pains. You’ll give yourself royal pains if your offers aren’t more advantageous than competitors'.

Though the Kansas City kiddy show star probably got some exclusive privileges, other privileges are special treatments available also to regular folk. Help customers be & feel like stars.

Some testimonial/case study ads have disclaimers: “Results not typical”. You can add: “Special treatment IS typical for all (Store) customers. Though (Store) special treatment isn’t miraculous, let’s review your needs & expectations to develop your goals.”

Specialized added-value might be exclusively available to your customers who are equally special. Though product ownership can imply social status, help customers focus on long-term value whether they own products or create special memories from experiences.

If advice isn’t among your offered special treatment, customers might not give you direct testimonials about your offers. Ask consumers & suppliers for product focused, descriptive testimonials to introduce product benefits.

Specialized offers can inspire local testimonials highlighting advantages you offer. Your customers' testimonials & case studies can explicitly or implicitly compare results of people who settled for competitors' offers. Even if you buy from the same suppliers as discounters, customers can gain advantages from your knowledge & attention-to-detail.

Thank you for using my blog. Please let me know if I should clarify anything.

Copyright 2023 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.

When you compete against big businesses with big budgets you need powerful marketing strategies & tactics. You'll find them here- https://thriving-small-businesses.blogspot.com/