Total Marketing Solutions

Setting the right price even in boom times is a hard enough task, but getting it right when times continue to be tough is even trickier. Many companies have reduced their prices over the past few months, offered discounts and further incentives to encourage their customers to buy. If the sales pipeline is still looking rather empty, now really is the time to take a long, hard look at your pricing strategy. Management consultants Accenture have produced a free report, which highlights the need for companies to outperform their competitors in a weak economy - and not just by continuing to drop prices. Instead, companies should take time to analyse their strategic focus by asking the following questions:

• Where in our product or service portfolio do we offer a significantly differentiated advantage? In other words, what do we do better than our competitors?
• Which services/products will still be essential for our customers when the dust settles after the economic downturn?
• Which services or products will most easily lead to sales of other goods or services?

In order to better manage the ongoing effects of this recession, focus on these products and the opportunities they provide. Aim to minimize the costs associated with promoting this product or service group and then, according to Accenture, price strategically around these products or services. As Marketing Consultants, it is this strategic approach to pricing which we find offers the best route to growth for our clients. A quick fix is just that - and will only bring limited results, compared to the more sustained impact of a strategic approach. Time and again we find that the key to developing a solid pricing strategy is to get the converation away from price and to focus on “value”, ensuring that your customers see the value you add above and beyond the products and services you provide. Once they understand the value you offer, it then becomes easier to lock customers in, whilst at the same time making it more difficult for them to suddenly switch when a slighly cheaper offering comes along.

There’s no getting away from the fact that it’s difficult to target the right set of potential customers with exactly the right offer, value proposition and, of course, price. The Internet now provides our customers with more information and more choices than ever. To be able to meet the challenges this brings means businesses need to continue to revisit and refine all elements of their marketing mix - including the thorny issue of price.  Take a look at Accenture’s free report here for further insight in how to get your pricing right - Accenture’s approach to pricing strategy

The Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK has recently published a paper on the future of marketing and how it can deliver results for businesses in what is now a very different economic landscape than this time last year. They have interviewed a wide selection of business and market leaders across a whole spectrum of industry to find out just what role marketing has to play in the future. They have identified five drivers for growth which can achieve greater marketing and business performance. The first of these capabilities is “The customer centric organisation.” They point out that the days of simply talking about adopting a “customer-focussed” approach - without actually implementing it - are now well and truly over. In the past, many companies claimed to have their customer at the centre of their business - without really understanding what this meant and sometimes without any real understanding of their customers.

Gaining an understanding of your customers and ensuring that understanding permeates your organisation at every level is now key to driving future growth and achieving value. This sits firmly at the heart of how we do business here at Total Marketing Solutions. As marketing consultants, we always use the customer as our starting point for any strategy development. If we can achieve a clear understanding of our clients’ customers from the outset, we can then develop an appropriate strategy. Without putting the effort in at this early stage, we avoid the risk of basing our marketing strategy development on assumptions. This crucial customer research forms the first building block in our overall strategy development, enabling us to develop robust strategies capable of delivering growth and value for our clients. To find out how we make it all fit together, take a look at our approach for building a customer-centred marketing strategy here.