Today we are talking about Place strategy:
I want to give you a couple of ideas about how having decided on a place strategy can help you increase your marketing effectiveness, increase your positioning, and increase your sales.
Listen to today’s Podcast and tell me how you can improve your your place strategy.
In real estate and retail it is commonly said that is about location, location, location. I want to point out that in every business, location can really be a determining factor in the perception and profits of your business.
Why is that the case, because the location (place) of your product can build the needed trust, positioning, price point and screening needed to help grow your business.
In this post I will show you tips on how to choose an ideal place to showcase your business.
Place can build Trust:
There a few ways for a company to build trust. One is by becoming familiar. This is a go to strategy for many businesses that relay on institutional advertising and brand-building. The thought is, if enough people see my business logo or hear my commercials, and see my ad in the paper long enough they will trust me more, and that familiarity will lead to trust and that trust will lead to greater business and more sales. While it is true that familiarity builds trust, who is to say how long will a person need to see, or hear you before that trust is established. Familiarity is a proven model, but can take a long time unless you add a few tweaks.
Tweak #1. You want to target your visibility and aim to be most the most visible to people that are the most likely use your product or service once they are familiar with your best products.
Tweak #2: Increase your familiarity by appearing in multiple places that your customers are. If you have the appearance of omniscience then that can speed up your familiarity profile and the trust needed to make a sale.
– Application: If you are a local provider like a pest control company or a carpet cleaner landscaper, etc you can have your vehicle or yard signage visible in the areas or neighborhoods that would make good customers and client for your business. That’s tweak number 1 and number to would be sending postcards or flyers with offers or specials to the homes in the areas that just saw your business working at a neighbors home.
(I coached a landscaping client to leave a flyer or postcard offer on the surrounding homes whenever they got a landscaping job in a community and that clients was able to secure multiple clients in the same development which allowed for greater profits and less travel between jobs.)
Place can Build Position:
The location of where you product is available help establish its position. If you have a fashion company and your fashion is available at a truck show or at a fashion expo, it will be postponed a lot differently than if its as a flea market. The quality of the products may be similar, the designers may be similar but the location in which a prospect interacts with your brand or company positions it in a different category based on where you have decided to make your product ore service available.
The same is true online. I have worked with customers that wanted to get their products and services online. Some choose to list their products on Ebay, Some choose Etsy, some or strictly on their own website and others have chosen to partner with Amazon the 23 billion dollar company. Con you see how your product will be positioned differently on each of the following websites. The place in which your business is found can help or hinder your positioning.
Place can Build Profits:
I heard the story once of the jewelry salesman that sales jewelry at the race track. Before you ridicule him, this could be brilliant. People at the race track can be affluent which could match is target market, and because not many others are at the racetrack with jewelry he doesn’t have all the immediate competition like all of the other jewelry stores on the mall.
Another thing i want to point out is that price and affordability is highly relative. Is a $7,000 dollar ring expensive, Yes and No, well it depends. It is at the higher price range at Jared’s but not at Tiffany’s the lower range at Tiffany.com was $70,000. So the place in which people are exposed to your product or service can really have an impact on the profits that you can have in your business.
The Takeaway from this post is
1. Use a place strategy to put yourself in the location of your most ideal customer
2. Place your product or service in the place that best positions your product in the mind of your prospects
3. Choose a place that allows you to get the best price for your product or service, remember that it may be in a different location then everyone else.