Better than "Please Don't Touch"
Pam Fox Rollin, Executive and Leadership Coach extroadinnaire, shared this photo recently. Its a perfect example of using insight about your audience’s complete context to make your message more relevant and notable.
The owners of this store didn’t just state what was important to them (i.e. “Don’t touch” or “Watch your children”) They thought about what would make the request really stand out to busy parents. They thought about the reality of the lives of those busy parents, and came up with great, catchy, and funny sign instead.
Are you thinking about your customers’ real life when you design your messages?
by Lilia Shirman on June 26, 2009
in Marketing
Relevance – to your buyer’s context for making the purchase: company, industry, role, current business objectives and challenges, and personal interests.
Value – tangible, provable value that specifically and directly links what you’re selling to what the customer wants. Value is the intersection of results you have proved you can deliver (according to existing customers), and the results the customer is looking for.
Uniqueness – Your secret sauce. That thing that only you can deliver, or for which you are known as the best or the vanguard.
As a follow-up to the previous post, here are some practical differences to keep in mind when planning for solutions marketing.
Solution marketing differs from traditional product marketing. This is a partial list, of course, but 7 is supposed to be a lucky number, right?
- Solutions marketers understand what motives customers to allocate budget within the broader context for a purchase
- Solutions marketing content is focused on the buyer and their objectives, not the product or its features
- Solutions-oriented value propositions focus in on specific use-cases or situations in which the customer is involved.
- The solutions marketing process and programs provide information or resources that are valuable to the customer
- Thought leadership and value creation are critical components of solutions marketing
- Solutions marketing activity often involves collaboration with other companies (see broader context in #1)
- To ensure that all of the above are truly relevant, current, and valuable to your audience, Solutions Marketing must engage the customer in conversation and dialogue at every available opportunity.
Speaking of dialogues, please add to the list with your comments!
