Sometimes there’s a perception the winners in business are those who are doing the most things. That’s incorrect. The winners are the ones who do the important things. To keep your customers and get more, deliver more of what they want the most. Loads of people espouse the ideas of “amazing” and “delighting” customers and doing things which are totally “unique” in order to “WOW” them. Those are all great ideas and would be good to achieve but when you get right down to brass tacks, there’s one question you should ask: What about if we just concentrated on making a better product?
The reality is if you make a better product, customers will like that and buy more. You won’t need the marketing smoke and mirrors or anything else. If you have a product or service which is genuinely better, you will win in the marketplace. The simple dynamic is people buy what you offer not because of the marketing sizzle but because they want or need the benefits you deliver. They want what you offer so much they are even prepared to give you some of their hard earned money in exchange for your product or service. That’s something you should respect and be working to build on.
If you can do an extraordinary job on delivering those things, customers will love it and you’ll probably find your business will prosper. If, on the other hand, you get distracted into delivering other unnecessary bells and whistles, then you’ll lose out.
Your goal should be to get so good at the basics that you become cutting edge. To illustrate, look at the example of Zappos, the Internet shoe retailer which was acquired by Amazon. Zappos is one of the most talked-about companies in the business world. If you look at what they do particularly well, their secret sauce really breaks down into just three factors:
To deliver more of what customers want, you first have to ask them what exactly do they want. Don’t assume you already know the answers – get out and speak to your customers and figure out what they’re after. Once you understand that, you can then gear up to deliver more of what they value the most.
Rather than wowing customers, it’s more important to deliver on your value promise every time – because that builds confidence. Customers don’t want to be surprised, they want to see consistency.
One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Internet era of business is the days of hype are gone forever. Today’s customers are quick to go online and voice their opinions and detail their experiences as a warning to others. If you don’t deliver, customers will let the world know.
While a lot of marketers are focusing on the hype around social media and mobile focusing on core customer benefits could and will always ensure customers stat customers.
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