AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY-A PROSPECTIVE

MARKETING STRATEGY- HOW TO ASSESS THE CUSTOMER NEEDS

In the previous article on Marketing Strategy, I highlighted the importance to first identify & understand the needs of customer before finalising a successful marketing strategy for the product.

Pl imagine that your product is just providing a solution to the potential customer to meet his demand, therefore you are offering soulutions in form of your product which become the real marketing. The big question is how to identify the needs?

There are many ways to identify and understand the needs:

1.Own Life Experiences leads to innovative ideas to develop.if you are convinced you will be able to convince others easily. it is like 'charity begins at home'

2. Learn from such customers who do not use your product or understand why your product is not meeting his demand and what is required to do. Be a good listener.

3. Observe the existing customer as how they are using your product, it is possible their usage may be different from that of you had envisaged, it will lead to either multiusage or realigning the product for multi usages. including even change of packaging which may not be user-friendly as offered by you.

4. Assess the emotional or social aspects of a customer and /or the market instead of only identifying the needs. Social aspects can adversely impact the brand preference eg in multi-religious society one need to be careful that the POP or the Communication should be respectful to every cultural or religious group.

It is well established that deep understanding of needs opens up new avenues of growth for the companies and also helps in building its brand loyalty.

UKJ