I've heard new entrepreneurs blame customers, competition and even the weather for poor sales performance, when in reality their product messaging was off.
This is how a misaligned message can be the downfall of a product's success:
Poor messaging leads to poor product positioning, attracting the wrong group of customers and missing the mark on resonating with your target audience.
When you put your product out into the market, you have a choice to pick from a wide range of customer types. Each type of customer has different priorities and motivations, and companies often tailor their marketing and product offerings to appeal to a customer segment.
For the sake of this article, let's keep it simple and look at the segments from a spending perspective. Let's chunk them down into 3 areas: Brand-led, Value-led and Cost-led customers.
Now let's differentiate them:
Brand-Led Customers prioritize a brand's reputation and image over other factors, such as price or quality. They are willing to pay a premium for a product or service that is associated with a well-known, trusted brand.
Value-Led Customers prioritize the overall value they receive from a product or service, considering both quality and price. They are looking for the best combination of features and benefits at a fair price.
Cost-Led Customers prioritize cost above all else. They are primarily concerned with finding the lowest price and may be willing to compromise on quality and brand reputation in order to save money.
The big question is : which customer segment is your product pricing strategy focused on?
Wait, let's dial that back a bit... do you have a product pricing strategy to begin with?
See, chances are highly likely that if you do not have the right product promotion, placement, pricing or messaging strategy - that the market will choose the market segment for you and more often than not, that market segment is: the cost-led customer.
In the market place, you get whom you pitch for. Who are you currently pitching your product for?
About the Writer
Jan Okonji is an entrepreneur, speaker, coach, and Founder of the Pan-African accelerator BGS – Business Growth Solutions.
He is passionate about helping employees transition safely into entrepreneurship whilst turning their great ideas into profitable businesses and has helped entrepreneurs collectively grow their revenue to over $ 10 Million in the course of running BGS.