Understanding Customer and Product Based Marketing Strategies
Marketing strategies are changing with time. Different strategies have their focus on different goals. Marketing strategies have always been revolving around its 4Ps. These 4P are Product, Place, Promotion, Price. There is a saying in marketing, ”The right Product, at right Price, at Right Place, and with right Promotion.”
Marketers at first assume that all customers are looking for their products. The best way to sell now will be to let all customers know about a company’s products. They bombard the product to all the customers and see how many of them get influenced by this.
A marketing strategy starts with a customer’s needs, perceptions, and values. Marketers use different strategies for different focus and these may work for some specific products but all together customers and Product based marketing work amazingly.
General Product Based Marketing:
When it comes to selling a large selection of products to a large number of customers, general product-based marketing strategies are introduced. Let’s understand it with an example.
As we learned so far, different products and different customer groups require a different marketing strategy. But when this number of products and consumers is big, a big number of campaigns have to be built in order to cover potential consumers. But this will not be an efficient way to target consumers.
Instead of going with a hundred arrows and a hundred aims, they go with a hundred arrows but selected aims. Here arrows are audience/ consumers and aims are products. In other words, marketers select a few products and target them to the general public.
This method may seem a little impractical but this works, to be true, very well. It really gets the words out about the products. Also, increases your chances to hit the target as you have more arrows.
For this method, marketers use email marketing tool or Cloud Telephony tools to target a large number of people at once.
Specific Product-Based Marketing:
This one is like, you market only what you are good at. For example, let there be several gadgets in the market that do x thing. Then a company decided to make a gadget that does the same x thing.
Here is a twist, it only cost the third quarter of what other gadgets cost. This price is the feature this company will focus on while running its marketing campaign. If not price, it either be quality of products, durability, variety or it can be a little extra feature that makes it different from others.
When any company has a product like this they focus their campaign around that particular feature. This type of marketing campaign is adaptable but only have focuses on one feature at a time.
“Build something 100 people love, not something 1 million people kind of like.” – Brian Chesky, Co-Founder of Airbnb
General Customer-Based Marketing:
In marketing, the Customer is King and will always be. As Jonathan Midenhall, CMO of Airbnb said, “Amazing things happen when you listen to your consumers.” Marketing always focused on consumers. In this kind of marketing, the marketer’s main focus is to build a connection between products and/ or brand and consumer.
This strategy is focused on luring consumers to make to purchase from the same retailers or companies again and again. This practice involves discounts for repetitive customers, a standard level of customer service for all consumers, and a loyalty program that builds the relation strong again and again.
One common example of this can be seen in our daily life and that is the point card. Yes, when you make the purchase from some retailers they offer you a point card. They want you to subscribe to it. As one sign up for that card, one will get access to some exclusive offers, discounts, or products before others.
These incentives lure a customer to the same store again because now they have a motive to purchase from there. This point system or card costs nothing at all to a customer.
This practice does not need any specific type of research on customer or product or require running an expensive campaign to promote. Whenever a customer comes to your store, you will hit that person with this practice.
All general customers are your potential future customers.
Specific Customer-Based Marketing:
This strategy has its sole focus on the customer who is making the purchase. During this practice, marketers ignore the retailers or the product and its specific quality or feature.
This is like selecting the aim (customer), with the right research and by running effective yet efficient campaigns. These targeting campaigns are targeting mechanisms to find out that right customer for your product.
It is like companies that make products that are useful or affordable to only a small segment of the market will never run its campaign on the general public. Like we see ads for Internet packages but do not see ads for the server. A normal person doesn’t need a server, he/ she only access the internet. A business person might need one.
This is how it works, you put your efforts on the right person at the right place in the right proportion about the right product.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” –Maya Angelou
Departing Words
These are the 4 different practices that marketers put their efforts and energy in, depending on the end goal. Understanding these will help you understand how and where you should put your energy in order to reach your target. Make your sale goes up by going with the right marketing practice.
Marketing strategies are changing with time. Different strategies have their focus on different goals. Marketing strategies have always been revolving around its 4Ps. These 4P are Product, Place, Promotion, Price. There is a saying in marketing, ”The right Product, at right Price, at Right Place, and with right Promotion.”
Marketers at first assume that all customers are looking for their products. The best way to sell now will be to let all customers know about a company’s products. They bombard the product to all the customers and see how many of them get influenced by this.
A marketing strategy starts with a customer’s needs, perceptions, and values. Marketers use different strategies for different focus and these may work for some specific products but all together customers and Product based marketing work amazingly.
General Product Based Marketing:
When it comes to selling a large selection of products to a large number of customers, general product-based marketing strategies are introduced. Let’s understand it with an example.
As we learned so far, different products and different customer groups require a different marketing strategy. But when this number of products and consumers is big, a big number of campaigns have to be built in order to cover potential consumers. But this will not be an efficient way to target consumers.
Instead of going with a hundred arrows and a hundred aims, they go with a hundred arrows but selected aims. Here arrows are audience/ consumers and aims are products. In other words, marketers select a few products and target them to the general public.
This method may seem a little impractical but this works, to be true, very well. It really gets the words out about the products. Also, increases your chances to hit the target as you have more arrows.
For this method, marketers use email marketing tool or Cloud Telephony tools to target a large number of people at once.
Specific Product-Based Marketing:
This one is like, you market only what you are good at. For example, let there be several gadgets in the market that do x thing. Then a company decided to make a gadget that does the same x thing.
Here is a twist, it only cost the third quarter of what other gadgets cost. This price is the feature this company will focus on while running its marketing campaign. If not price, it either be quality of products, durability, variety or it can be a little extra feature that makes it different from others.
When any company has a product like this they focus their campaign around that particular feature. This type of marketing campaign is adaptable but only have focuses on one feature at a time.
“Build something 100 people love, not something 1 million people kind of like.” – Brian Chesky, Co-Founder of Airbnb
General Customer-Based Marketing:
In marketing, the Customer is King and will always be. As Jonathan Midenhall, CMO of Airbnb said, “Amazing things happen when you listen to your consumers.” Marketing always focused on consumers. In this kind of marketing, the marketer’s main focus is to build a connection between products and/ or brand and consumer.
This strategy is focused on luring consumers to make to purchase from the same retailers or companies again and again. This practice involves discounts for repetitive customers, a standard level of customer service for all consumers, and a loyalty program that builds the relation strong again and again.
One common example of this can be seen in our daily life and that is the point card. Yes, when you make the purchase from some retailers they offer you a point card. They want you to subscribe to it. As one sign up for that card, one will get access to some exclusive offers, discounts, or products before others.
These incentives lure a customer to the same store again because now they have a motive to purchase from there. This point system or card costs nothing at all to a customer.
This practice does not need any specific type of research on customer or product or require running an expensive campaign to promote. Whenever a customer comes to your store, you will hit that person with this practice.
All general customers are your potential future customers.
Specific Customer-Based Marketing:
This strategy has its sole focus on the customer who is making the purchase. During this practice, marketers ignore the retailers or the product and its specific quality or feature.
This is like selecting the aim (customer), with the right research and by running effective yet efficient campaigns. These targeting campaigns are targeting mechanisms to find out that right customer for your product.
It is like companies that make products that are useful or affordable to only a small segment of the market will never run its campaign on the general public. Like we see ads for Internet packages but do not see ads for the server. A normal person doesn’t need a server, he/ she only access the internet. A business person might need one.
This is how it works, you put your efforts on the right person at the right place in the right proportion about the right product.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” –Maya Angelou
Departing Words
These are the 4 different practices that marketers put their efforts and energy in, depending on the end goal. Understanding these will help you understand how and where you should put your energy in order to reach your target. Make your sale goes up by going with the right marketing practice.
