Original post: Sunday, September 13, 2020.
If you want to run a proper business, probably some points of view should be considered.
Take a different approach to this article to review your reality in less than 3 minutes of reading. Come with us while we will talk about serious mistakes over pricing, commercial policies, and how it can destroy your brand's positioning.
Where the Blind Points start.
Every company has personal values and a lot of blind points under the daily operation. The main fault comes from the strategic gaps between the areas that should have been working closely.
Usually, this kind of disconnection can affect all results. Let's check some points and discovery how to put the company results back on track with actions that you can take a look now.
When the competitors taken your market.
This is a hard truth to face and if you are in charge of a company or just checking the reports. Probably you can feel it in the bones.
If the business healthy isn't the same as the golden days before, what is going wrong? There is a clear rule of the market: if the customers didn't buy from you, they bought from someone.
Blind Point of Business #1:
At this point, the first step is to observe what is happening in the sales arena, not only on the surface, but concentrate the efforts to try to understand what is compelling the customer's choice.
When we analyze the product and portfolio, there is a range of points to be considered based on real customer opinion researches.
Be sure about the 8 questions for product success:
- Is it relevant to solve a real necessity?
- Is it desirable beyond the use?
- Does it fit the customer's momentum?
- Is the formulation updated?
- Are the shape design and labels attractive?
- Has the price a clear market positioning?
- Do you really know your competitors? The real ones.
- Is the size of packages adequate with the category on stores or web?
- Are the products available for fast shopping beside the competitor brands on the market?
- Are the products delivering value and status to the customers?
We have here the touchable world that you can't ignore, and this is only the first step of this journey.
Blind Point of Business #2:
If you can't create and communicate value, the customer won't find it.
The 5 strategies delivered to the customer in the price tag:
- Positioning. Who are the enemies? Are you playing on the right space of market?
- Value. It is all about positive perception;
- Are the sales channels chosen reinforcing and promoting the brand speech?
- Communication and target engagement: What the public is talking about the brand? Can the quality supports the claims and commercial messages?
- Branding management. Considering the digital environment, did you check all touchpoints available? Are the customers satisfied? Did they receive the solutions for the requests?
All items above are combined in a simple price tag when the costumers decided to get or leaves it. Let's imagine that it's all ok (never is too simple), so it's time to go deep one time more.
Blind Point of Business #3:
Ask yourself if is the business model respecting the sales channels?
You can't believe how many conflicts rounds this beach like sharks waiting for the sleepy manager.
Control and feedback are all about communication and commercial policies to guarantee protection for the long run of brand value. How did you control your price when the goods are being sold by others? If you won't be able to handle it, the road ahead will be very difficult.
Once a time we knew a company that got the previous 5 years looking for the revenues numbers and letting aside the margin calculations, profits, and brand value. What they didn't see was that the branding value was sinking.
They did reach the point where the discount become the only way to get some sales. The problem was, their distributors decided to sell below the suggested prices presented on the official site.
When the business partner decided to use "their price" during a long period, the market and costumers got used to perceive the brand price just like that.
The definition of reputation is based on the message sent by brand, and the public understanding and how it will return to the market and companies.
In our example, we found a premium brand that started to be sold by any store for a cheap price. No one can play the customers like a fool.
We are starting to produce a series of conversational approaches over Branding 360º & Business Strategies to share how our experience can give offer the last milestone that you need to succeed.
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Fabrício Alencar Pereira is Head of Marketing & Branding Strategist helping national and international companies to work on market repositioning, e-commerce, new products and full digital strategies.
