Richard van Hooijdonk

Think about a unique product proposition!

It's not always easy to change or improve our core product. And yet, we need a product proposition that differentiates us, to get one up on the competition. At my seminars, I often show powerful examples from IKEA, whose 'Billy book cases' sell in huge numbers. IKEA supports its core product with the IKEA Club community, a restaurant, playpens for kids, excellent delivery and montage services and a keen stock policy.

The customer is happy and perceives IKEA as offering very complete service packages at very reasonable prices. They barely notice spending lots of money on the family lunch, extra furniture and its montage or the delivery services. That's the key secret that has hundreds of thousands of people enjoy their weekend visits to the Swedish furniture giant, it's the key secret to IKEA's ever increasing customer value. Having discussed the example of IKEA, it's your turn to develop a unique product proposition, developing it using four different elements.

The first element is having a strong core product. This product can be expanded with the second element: modules or add-ons, allowing us to enrichen the product and raise customer value. The third element is to couple online services to the core product. These online services support and differentiate the core product proposition. Fourth, there's the element of extra's: presents and other incentives for your client to make that final purchasing decision. When developing your unique product proposition, you can use the MarketingMonday Proposition Model. I'll cover this model in one of our future publications.

Let your customers create your products (co- creation)

Who are you to know what your clients need? Aren't they the ones who know what they want, and aren't you the one to use that information? A lot has been said and written about co-creation, where you use large groups of customers or consumers to develop new products. The basics are simple: you can take a certain starting point and let your clients work from there to come up with something better.

Using a special 'interaction model', all those new ideas are then classified and turned into specific product scenarios. It's an excellent way to obtain and use customer insights!

In following articles, we'll take a closer look at the 'stage-gate' development process, a process that allows you to efficiently turn a market scan into a new product launch. In recent years I've used this method to launch many new products and services, almost always with great results!

You can't be everything for everyone: choose your target audiences!

Commercial success depends on how valuable you are to buyers. This means you have to focus on groups who share the same needs demands.
Focusing means being up-to-date on specific groups' customer insights. Afterall, customer insights are the basis for your commercial strategy. With these insights in mind, you develop the product proposition, crossmedial campaign, web presence and brand. Make sure you get through to what your target audience is thinking,
understand their reasons for purchasing, their reasons not to, their compliments and criticism. This is what fuels a profitable, customer focused approach. Target groups differ from eachother, so you'll have to tweak and tune your approach for specific groups. Customer insights can be gained through many different ways: user generated content, online discussion boards, talking to or interviewing your clients, branch research, account managers, callcenters or other forms of customer interaction.

When setting your targets, be firm!

There are several reasons to formulate firm, thorough targets. Once you've set them, you can 'measure' your targets and analyze the results. You can then use those results to adapt your targets insightfully. Targets form an excellent base to any good business case. If the recession faces you with budget cuts, there are two ways to get the budget you want. First of all, you can exceed your targets. Second, you can present a 'recession business case'. In both cases, targets are crucial to your success. Targets are measurable numbers you can define at specific levels. Use the 'down drill': turnover, profit, target, product, brand, channel, crossmedia, web presence and goals facilitating the connection to sales. Strong operational goals ensure you can keep track of campaign results, target audience turnover, web conversion, lead generation and customer value. That means you have a much bigger chance of getting the results you want!