BuBul Business Bites

It's around this time of year that many business owners often think about increasing their prices. This is always a scary time so here are some tips to help you make sure your customers understand the value that you offer:

Making sure customers see the value of your product or service is a key element to making sales and retaining customers.

Value is not just about price – there are 7 elements:

• service
• responsiveness
• choice
• knowledge
• quality
• guarantee
• cost

Each of these have different levels of importance to different types of customer, so there are some key considerations when you want to make sure that your customers understand the value of your product or service to them:

1. Understand what value means to your each of your target customers

Value means different things to different people. It could be seeing a solution to a problem or challenge they have. It could be that they value convenience, quality or price. For some, it could be that they look to buy from businesses that are ethical.

Revisit your customer personas and try to work out which of the elements of value matter most to each one. If you have not completed your customer personas yet, you can get some hints and tips here. This understanding will help you decide what your key messages are to each target customer.

2. Be clear what your product or service does, focusing first on customer needs and then on features

This does mean that you will need to create different communications for different customer personas – it may not be a huge task though as often it is about the order in which you place the features of your product or service. For example, Customer A may value ease of use above everything else, whereas Customer B may value ongoing support and peace of mind first.

Here are some key questions to ask yourself:

• What is the purpose of each feature of my product or service?
• What customer needs does the product or service meet?
• What does the customer value?
• Why are the features of my product or service better than my competitors?

3. Understand how your customers receive and process information

This is partly about channel – which are their favoured channels for receiving information? It is also about what format they want to receive the information in. This could be visual (pictures, writing or video), audible (verbally) or a combination of these. Is your customer persona someone who takes time to make a decision and needs detail? If yes, then written communications are normally most effective. Is your customer persona someone who absorbs information quickly and is not interested in detail? If yes, then pictures are most effective. Think about the customer’s age as well – millennials are used to absorbing small blocks of information and tend not to take the time to consider a lot of information.

4. Design your marketing material around your customers favoured channels and methods of absorbing information.

You want to develop messages that resonate with each different section of your audience and call them into action. Keep your messages simple and consistent, make them stick by telling a story, use visuals, and evoke emotion to inspire and make your story memorable.

5. Monitor, measure and continuously improve

Monitor your results and keep looking to improve. You may want to measure response rates and/or sales. Ask for customer feedback and keep making adjustments – try to do one at a time per type of customer as otherwise it is difficult to assess what has worked.

6. Start to build brand ambassadors

Once you know you are communicating the value of your product/service to your target customers, encourage them to spread the word by referring you, mentioning you on Social Media etc. This builds sales and customer loyalty!

BuBul is the world's first software that can work out and deliver the non-financial advice a small business needs from a panel of 75 independent subject matter experts. It’s just ￡20 a month for a small business and you can book a demo here. ?We also offer accountant and bookkeepers their own versions of BuBul so they can give a wider range of advice to their clients - find out more and book a demo and free trial here.