Why It Is Important to Create Value for Your Product We live in an incredibly innovative and competitive world. Consumers and businesses have more options than ever to choose from to meet their needs and wants. They also have endless options at their fingertips via the World Wide Web. Depending on what a buyer is looking for, thousands of options are just a Google search away. Online review sites are also now extremely popular for evaluating options. There are social media groups focused on just about every topic under the sun where people can ask for other recommendations, opinions, and experiences. A friend or peer is just an email or text message away for their input. In short, we now live in a buyer’s world. With so many options and sources of information, it’s more important now than ever for marketers to communicate the value of products and services to their target customers. The role of your product value in marketing Regardless of how attractive or well-designed your packaging is, your ads, your website, or even how accurately your audience is targeted with an ad campaign, if your target customers do not see how your product has value to them, they will move on. Consumers and business decision-makers have all the information at their disposal that they need to make a good, educated decision. However, humans are still emotional and value-based creatures. We all ultimately make our decisions based on whether a product will solve our unique problems, challenges, or desires. A critical marketing role, then, is to communicate the value of your product in a way that resonates with your target customers’ wants, needs, and values to inspire them to part with their money to get it. Understand and consider your target customers’ perspective If you do not understand your customer’s perspective, how can you communicate why they should value your product? Ask current customers why they chose your product or service. what problems or challenges did it help them solve? hat opportunity did it provide for them that they desired? And why was it important for them to have a solution? How has it made their life or job easier? What benefits or outcomes have they gained from your product? Are there any measurable impacts that they can share? How much time has your product saved them? How much more productive are they? How much more revenue has your product helped their business gain? Do they have peace of mind, because of your product? Is life easier? Does it make them feel better about themselves? Etc. All too often, businesses focus primarily on the features of their product or service rather than the benefits. Most people don’t care about your features until they know “what’s in it for me”. So, focus on the benefits they will gain to communicate your product’s value, how it helps them meet their needs, and helps them get what they want. Create a customer persona that includes answers to the above questions to use as a guide and reminder when creating your marketing messaging. When you do this, you’ll be sure to create content and marketing messaging that communicates the value of your product or services. Customer satisfaction is the lifeblood of product adoption A critical component to creating product value is making sure your product provides the desired benefits your customers purchase it for. One great way to make sure that it does is to utilize customer feedback surveys. This can provide valuable feedback on ways to improve your product or service to better meet customer needs. Not to mention, when your customers see your interest and concern for their satisfaction, this can go a long way to help with customer loyalty and retention. Customer feedback is also a great path to find and utilize great customer success stories and case studies that can be utilized in marketing to help communicate your product’s value. There are lots of easy-to-use tools on the market to help with customer feedback, like Survey Monkey. Feedback and survey tools also often provide templates that can help you think of good questions to ask for honest and helpful feedback. And a great benefit to the business, according to an independent study by Forrester, commissioned by Qualtrics, companies that lead in customer experience outperform laggards by nearly 80%. Models for improving product value in marketing communication To make it easier to communicate value in your marketing communication, there are several helpful models to consider. My favorite is the 4 Cs of marketing communication. This model focuses on Clarity, Credibility, Consistency, and Competitiveness. Utilizing your customer persona, this model can help you refine your value statement and competitive differentiators and drive home the value of your product. Creating a customer experience to remember Not only does a great customer experience help with customer retention, but it’s also a great way to generate new business through four and five-star online reviews and referrals. According to PWC, 73% of consumers say a good experience is key to brand loyalty. Customer experience can and should be part of your product value. What’s more, “superior CX drives superior revenue growth in industries where customers are free to switch business and competitors deliver a differentiated customer experience”, according to Forrester. How superior is their revenue growth? 5.7x more! Those stats should give any business pause and reason to reflect on and make serious plans for improving their customer experience. To do so, you need to focus on and evaluate the various stages of the buyer and customer journey. This includes the following stages. Awareness > Consideration > Decision > Customer > Evangelist/Retention. This means putting the customer first and developing a customer-centric, or a customer-driven growth focus for your business. One of the best examples of this is illustrated in the book Delivering Happiness by the late Tony Hsieh, former Zappos’ CEO. When you focus on the customer experience, you build a lasting relationship with your customers. You provide a level of support and service that goes beyond the product or service sold. This builds loyalty and creates brand evangelists that take business growth to a whole new level. Always be helping, rather than “always be selling” From every stage of the buyer and customer journey, consumers and businesses don’t want to be ‘sold’, they want to be helped. And by helping you make your selling process go smoother and even convert customers at a higher rate. One of the best ways to be helpful and indirectly add value to your products or services is by providing helpful content mapped to the different stages of the buyer journey. Content marketing is defined by the Content Marketing Institute as “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” This is why most growing and booming businesses have adopted Content Marketing as part of their marketing strategy. 86% of B2B marketers and 77% of B2C marketers use content marketing for B2B lead generation and customer acquisition. (Content Marketing Institute) Examples of content marketing include ‘How to…” blog articles, free download content offers like guides and white papers that provide deeper dive insights on a relevant topic or focus, customer case studies, competitor comparison charts, webinars, videos, podcasts, etc. Providing helpful content in these formats builds trust with your persona, sets your brand up as a “go-to” industry authority, and sets you apart from competitors by adding free value. It also generates the brand awareness you need to grow and scale your business. And of course, alongside your helpful content, you draw potential customers into considering your related and relevant products or services. And buyers are far more likely to purchase from a business they trust than one they don’t. Conclusion Creating value for your product is not rocket science, but it does require having and implementing a thoughtful strategy and plan. By now you understand that you must keep your target customers perspective at the center. Communicate how your product or service helps them get what they want and deliver on what is promised. Provide a stellar customer experience. And approach your marketing with an “always be helping” mindset. Doing so will not only add value to your product or service, it will build customer loyalty that will help you grow and scale your business.
