In today’s age of discounts and sales, it is really difficult for businesses to imagine a world in which they don’t have to compete on price alone.
Price competition is truly unsustainable… think about it – if Bob and Andrew both sell the same product and they keep discounting, eventually one or both of them will go out of business. If one manages to stay in business, chances are he is running on limited margins and that makes it difficult to stay in business – especially for small and new businesses!
We are trained to think that price is the only factor consumers look at – but if that was true, no one would buy a MacBook, no one would buy a Mercedes, no one would even buy a block of Lindt chocolate.
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Consumers care about more than just the price, and as business owners and marketers, we need to be aware of that and learn how to stop our consumers from looking at the price tag.
There are a few things that we can do to sway our consumers:
- Build a strong brand – A strong and meaningful brand can help to set you apart from your competitors. Think of brands like Apple and Rolex – even a brand like Jamie Oliver (a person can become a brand), his cookbooks are more than most, and he can get away with it because he has a strong brand.
- Develop your product ‘benefits’ – Showcasing the benefits of your product in a different way to your competitors is one way to get them to ignore the price. Find out what is truly important to your customers (you might already be doing, or including these without knowing about it – this is where market research is very helpful) and market it! It could be product guarantees, something your product does that no one else can match – it can even be something that everyone does but no one has bothered mentioning!!
- Offer an ‘incentive’ – It can be a feature addition, a bonus product (obviously one that doesn’t cost you much – but the consumer doesn’t need to know that!) or it can be as extravagant as a free holiday (you can get these for about $25 last time I checked – email me if you want details!) or a bottle of wine.
I hope these tips can help you to stop being sole ‘price’ focused and to start being more ‘benefit’ focused!
Photo Credit: Dreamer7112 via Compfightcc
