MATTERS MARKETING LOOKING THROUGH YOUR CUSTOMERS’ EYES

Why do your customers shop with you? It could well be that price isn’t the main driving force, so look at what you are offering them from their perspective

What does a good deal look like to a customer? Big savings on the recommended retail price? Cheaper than anywhere else? Buy one get one free? Something extra thrown in at no additional cost?

I’ve sat in countless marketing meetings over the years where we’ve worked with clients to come up with exciting offers. Before you know it, you’ll be agonising over the size of the discount – it needs to be significant enough to be irresistible, but not so big that you won’t make any profit. It’s all too easy to get fixated on various types of discount to entice people to buy now. The temptation to do this increases dramatically at times when sales are sluggish.

During these deliberations, it’s well worth pausing for a moment to ask what your customers actually want. Maybe price isn’t the main driving force in their purchasing decisions, but how do you work out what is? Here are a couple ways you might approach this task.

Try to put yourself in their shoes and think about what influences your decision to buy things. Do you always shop around for the cheapest option or are there times when other factors come into play? Speedy delivery, extended warranty or generous credit terms can all be more tempting than low prices, depending on the circumstances. Convenience – being able to buy something locally – and loyalty, either to a brand or to a business, (and the people in it), are also common factors. Then there’s stock availability and after sales

Try to put yourself in their shoes and think about what influences your decision to buy things

service, because sometimes you need the reassurance that you’ll be looked after in the future. This is particularly important when buying vehicles that will need require regular servicing. Might any of these matter more to your customers than bargain basement prices? Alternatively, you could create an avatar of the ideal customer. This has nothing to do with the sci-fi movie of the same name, so you don’t need to draw a picture of a blue person shopping! The idea is to imagine your

IN A NEW SERIES, best customers combined into one ‘super shopper’ and then consider their buying habits. Why do they shop with you? Which type of offer have they responded to previously? How could you attract more people like your avatar? The answer to those questions should give you a clue about the type of deals that will attract the most customers.

While you’re at it, look back at previous offers you ran that were successful. Were they all discount deals or did some involve alternative incentives? Could you repeat those?

There will be times when a discount is the best tool to increase sales, but before printing those “save £££s” stickers, you should be confident that you’ve chosen to have a sale for the right reasons and not because it was the only option you considered. 

We start a brand new series, tackling the really big marketing questions, starting with “Is my website working?”