Business monitor JAN:Layout 1 25/01/2010 13:12 Page 22
BUSINESS MONITOR
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profit). But it strongly suggests that they don’t really know what their
customers want, so they offer everything, which either confuses
customers or makes them suspicious. There is a marketing theory that you
don’t need to offer good, fast and cheap. Do two and you don’t need the
third. It’s called the GFC Triangle and, like I say, it’s a theory, but it
sounds right.
Two of the most emotive words you can lay hands on are free and save.
Something for nothing or saving money makes people feel good about
themselves – “Aren’t I clever?” The head might be telling them there’s no
such thing as a free lunch but the heart is saying ‘go on’. As a practise,
aim to use free rather than save because it’s stronger. It’s also a better
deal for you. Look at the sums: if you give 10% extra free on say, 100
units at £1 each, you charge £100 and deliver 110; if you deliver 110 of
the same units costing £110, 10% off is £11 and you charge £99.
Comment not required.
Scrutinise your sales proposition compared to your competitors’ and you
will probably find that there are some things you do for free that they
don’t. Make a feature of this: free delivery, free insurance, free sample.
The more you can say free, the better your deal looks.
There are some words that work better with one of the sexes than the
other. ‘We’d love to do business with you’ works far better with
women than men. Equally, men respond to the prompt of ‘win’
better than women. In the same way, team-working appeals to
men (even though the experts say women are better at it) and
partnership-building appeals to women. In practise, the two
dovetail together quite nicely.
‘New’ is a potent magic word. It is also immensely flexible. A
short trip round a supermarket will demonstrate that lots of
products are sporting ‘new’ flashes but the product isn’t really
new at all, it’s just different. It might have a different flavour or
pack size or a small change to the product formulation. Customers
know this really, but that new flash still gets the product into the
trolley. Use these variants of new and suggest that the newness is in
response to customer requests (which it should be). Take pack sizes
as a case in point. I don’t see socks or underpants sold in packs of
seven, but it seems such an obvious multi-buy. The same process
applies to all printwear sold for commercial purposes. By the same
token if you only want one of something, having to multi-buy is
aggravating.
‘New’ isn’t just about product. ‘New in Anytown’ creates interest.
There are a lot of ‘new’ aspects to service, too: opening hours,
delivery times, speed of delivery, payment options and extent of
range. I predict that you could campaign ‘new’ messages by e-mail
and have a different message to tell virtually every month which
would make the business look cutting edge. It also justifies regular
communication – customers will come to recognise that you have
always have something new and worthwhile to talk about.
When talking business to business so many companies think
they’ve hit the buy button once they’ve said: “you’ll make more
profits”. I seriously question that. Profit contribution
comes from many corners and all business
owners know it. From time to time,
along comes a product or idea
that, yes, is a real contributor.
But they’re far, far rarer
than the number that
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