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| Subject: It's All Competition, All The Time | |
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Author: Dennis S Vogel |
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Date Posted: 23:17:43 12/31/14 Wed In reply to: Hoping To Succeed This Time 's message, "Opening Stores Since The Recession Seems To Be Over" on 01:09:19 11/30/14 Sun Some business owners think they offer such special, unique value they don't have any serious competitors. I hope you realize there is always competition that can delay or prevent sales. I usually avoid redundancy unless I determine extra emphasis is warranted. Even if you don't have direct product/service competitors, as a marketer: You'll always compete to be a priority in your niche members' lives. You'll always compete for your niche members' attention. You'll always compete for your niche members' interest. You'll always compete for your niche members' desire. You'll always compete for your niche members' action. You'll always compete for your niche members' physical & mental energy. You'll always compete for your niche members' money. You'll always compete for your niche members' time. As your niche members, they may be predisposed to your advertising as long as they recognize your messages as offers of superior value. Since situations continually change, you should maintain superior value. That predisposition & superior value don't guarantee you a high priority in their lives. Nothing guarantees they'll remember you. Like random access memory (RAM) in computers, anything can be quickly lost & replaced by something else. You need to be like a computer central processing unit (CPU) & keep the right information in the right "computer code" in people's memories. It's one of your responsibilities, so don't blame consumers for forgetting. Consumers may opt-in for updates (choose to pay attention to your messages), but sending the right updates is your responsibility. Is That Relevant? Relevant To Whom? Relevant When? In case you need a reminder - The statements (above) starting with "You'll always compete" also indicate how many external distractions people endure. External distractions may be less severe than internal (physical & mental) pains. Each distraction & pain, whether external or internal - adds to & aggravates the others. It's even worse when external distractions are irrelevant to a person's general life. Each time a person receives an irrelevant advertising message it's like a affirmation of how necessary it is to ignore advertising. In addition to general life relevance, another concern about making advertising effective is what I call 'situational role & immediate relevance'. A part/role in a play/movie is a good analogy for each role people have in their lives. In real life though, it's as if people are in multiple plays & they have to rush from one performance to the next. If they don't perform well, they'll interfere with other people's performances. Performing well requires mentally & physically focusing on the current primary role & setting aside conflicting roles. They need you to offer resources they need for optimal performances. Wouldn't You Like To Get Away? 1st verse of the theme song "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" of TV show "Cheers": Making your way in the world today Takes everything you've got; Taking a break from all your worries Sure would help a lot. Wouldn't you like to get away? Immediate relevance pertains to whatever can help a person thrive - or at least survive - the challenges in a situation. Physical survival may be assured (not currently threatened), but each chunk of stress seems to take a chunk out of a person. Injured pride & reputation can feel like physical injuries. A person may feel grief when discovering money, time &/or effort were wasted when attempted solutions didn't work. In addition to the wasted resources, a problem still exists! Successful retailers offer what people need for at least one of their roles. Superior offers could be helping people solve, mitigate or avoid problems (pain). Superior offers could be helping people attain & maintain relaxation & pleasure (relief from stress). Whatever results people did or didn't achieve, a superior offer could be a necessary, peaceful distraction to help them relax & recover from stress. OK, It Makes Sense As Long As I Know How To Use It Business owners tend to wonder how to use advice from Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor, Scott Cook, Taddy Hall, Scott D. Anthony, Gerald Berstell & Denise Nitterhouse about focusing marketing on jobs-to-be-done. Each person has various roles to fulfill. Each role includes responsibilities which include jobs-to-be-done. This insight about role fulfillment can be added to some insights from these other authors. Instead of going into more detail about this concept, I'm giving you some gifts. I'm not authorized to give you or sell any copies of these documents, but I've listed the file names. If I included specific links, the links could be broken by the time you read this. You can use a search engine to find these (if they're still available). As I'm writing this, there are copies of these documents that are available for free. Otherwise, these articles have been available either through paid subscriptions or are individually priced. Since I have no control over the content or availability, I can't guarantee if what you get would be the actual articles or somebody's warped writings. Here are the file names: ChristensenMarketingMalpractive.pdf Christensen_Finding_the_right_job_for_your_product_MIT_Sloan_2007.pdf Finding-the-Right-Job-for-Your-Product-Working-Paper.pdf People's roles (in business, their families & society) affect which priorities warrant full attention in various situations. Example: A consultant may want to buy something special for his/her spouse, but a message about that product has a lower priority when it isn't relevant in the immediate situation. Serving a client could be disrupted by thoughts about a spouse. By effectively & efficiently developing & implementing your strategy & tactics, you may get your messages to niche members, when they can buy what you offer (have time, money, energy & transportation). What also counts is presenting your messages when your offers are relevant to what people are currently doing or will soon experience. Sometimes, this can be done with mass media. Often to get your offers accepted, you'll need printed circulars &/or digital messages via mobile &/or web commerce. Some products & services fit this jobs-to-be-done paradigm better than others. Even when products & services are useful for many roles, some of your messages may be included in relevant contexts. Some role-specific context examples are - events focusing on parents, business trade shows, written articles about a subject, etc. You should do your best to feature the kind of benefits wanted/needed by people in those contexts. When people are focused on an issue, immediate relevance means other issues have (what I call) a lower action priority. Example - Loved ones are always high among a person's priorities even while that person focuses on another issue. But that person needs to focus on performing current actions even if those actions have a lower priority in his/her life. What About Another Big Jobs-To-Be-Done Issue? Find people who have similar jobs-to-be-done by demographic, psychographic, sociographic traits. People may be attracted to events or editorial content to get information to help them with their roles & tasks. If there are no events or editorial content, you should find others to sponsor the events & content can be Internet/online &/or offline. Other sponsors hopefully reach people you don't reach yet & vice versa. Build from there by increasing the value, so you get referrals. Encourage referrals by showing how many more benefits can be provided when each sponsor scales up & can offer more resources. Consumers may be members of clubs, unions, religious congregations, support groups, social & business networks. You could contact some consumers through their employers. People can be reached through other stores they patronize. If owners/managers of those stores won't work with you, maybe you can arrange for notices/signs with nearby store owners/managers. There may be legal or policy restrictions in cities, business district & malls. There are a lot more details I could include, but I also have other roles to fulfill. I squeeze reading & writing in between other things as usual, now there are more things squeezing energy out of me. I've been struggling more lately to post useful content each month. I have a lot of content, but I need to focus on writing it clearly. If you need me to clarify what I've written or you think I've excluded valuable details, please let me know. You can post messages here or send me messages via my email address in my sig file. Unfortunately, I don't check for email as often as I used to do it. I won't guarantee any answers. Thank you for using this blog. I hope we all have better lives in 2015. Dennis S. Vogel thrivingbusiness@email.com Optimal marketing is vital for your business & customers. Optimal marketing helps consumers get more of the benefits they want & need to live optimally. Please click here for free information. http://www.lakefield.net/~thrivingbusiness/ [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
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