Beat the Competition Next Year (Higher growth, profitability, innovation)

After the mid-year break – and this year it started way sooner thanks to covid-19 – most organisations get into their planning phase for the coming year in earnest. Do you know how you’re going to beat the competition next year? If not, then this article will set out some clear priorities.

Although business plans are usually developed and approved in the middle of the year before the vacation period starts, it is only afterward the seasonal break that the real work begins. So what have you promised your top management? Faster growth, increased profitability, or more successful innovations?

Whatever is in your plans, now is the time to review them and decide the very best strategies and tactics for meeting them. Let’s take a look at each of these objectives and see how best to meet them.

 

Higher Growth

As you know, there are basically only three ways to grow your sales:

  1. Get more people to buy
  2. Get people to buy more
  3. Get people to buy more frequently

What you may never have noticed before when reviewing these options, is that all three approaches include the word “people.” And it is only by understanding them better than you do today, that you will be able to grow your business tomorrow.

So, how well do you know your current and potential customers? Do you know what they think about your current offer? Do you understand their needs, desires and dreams? Do you recognise what they really want but can’t even themselves articulate? Uncovering these are what will give you a clear competitive advantage.

Of the three strategies, the first seems to be the one that most organisations immediately think about when looking to grow their business. They go out looking for new customers by increasing their distribution channels in the hope of getting more people to buy. But that costs a lot of money, doesn’t it?

[bctt tweet=”Most organisations try to get more purchasers to grow their #business. Be different! #sales” username=”Denysech”]

CPG (consumer packaged goods) companies on the other hand, frequently encourage their customers to buy more through promotions and discounts. This too takes a large portion of their budget.

However, it is now well documented that it is easier to increase sales amongst your current customers than it is to go out and attract new customers to buy.

A 2015 study by  Price Intelligently showed that a 1% increase in customer acquisition impacts your bottom line by around 3.3%. But improving your retention rate by 1% affects your bottom line by around 7%. In other words, it is twice as profitable to retain a customer than to acquire a new one.

“It is twice as profitable to retain a customer than to acquire a new one.”

Even if you replace every customer who leaves by a new customer who buys, you end up with the same number of customers—but lower margins–because it costs far more to gain a new customer than to keep the one … Click to continue reading

You’re missing out on A Free Communication Channel! (Any guesses what it is?)

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Are you as shocked as I am, to think that there is a free communication channel which most marketers are not using effectively today?

So what is this incredible channel? The Internet? No. Social Media? No.

OK, so everyone is excited about the web and have jumped on board the digital train. But some are already seeing that online advertising is not the “safest” way to communicate.

Take P&G for example. A recent AdAge article stated that:

Procter & Gamble’s concerns about where its ads were showing up online contributed to a $140 million cutback in the company’s digital ad spending last quarter… 

P&G didn’t call out YouTube, the subject of many marketers’ ire earlier this year, … but did say digital ad spending fell because of choices to “temporarily restrict spending in digital forums where our ads were not being placed according to our standards and specifications.”

Will others follow? I don’t know. But I would like them all to reconsider their total advertising spend in light of this underutilised but highly effective channel that I’m about to share with you. Have you guessed what it is yet? It’s packaging!

Think about it. Packaging communicates in-store, on the shelf as shoppers pass by.

[bctt tweet=”Packaging communicates in-store, on the shelf as shoppers pass by #Packaging #Instore #Retail” username=”Denysech”]

It communicates to users when they take it home and open it. Although for how long? See below for some developments in that area.

And it may also communicate when it’s used, whether it is snacks, drinks, breakfast cereals, cookies, pharmaceuticals or a whole load of other products which are consumed straight from the pack.

So if a pack has the possibility to communicate, why are so few marketers using it?

I believe it’s because they don’t see packaging as a communication channel, which is a serious mistake. After all, it’s free!

There are two very popular posts on C3Centricity on the topic, which you might like to read before continuing. The first is “How Communicating through Packaging is more Informative & Personal” which shares some great examples of how creative pack usage has become the basis of full media campaigns. Click the link above to read more.

The other is “Is your Packaging Product or Promotion?” which talks about why people don’t read instructions – until they need them – but they do read what’s written on packs. Click above to read more.

Both of these posts provide some great examples of companies which have used their packaging to communicate with their consumers. However they are a couple of years old now, so I wanted to update my thoughts on the packaging channel opportunities, as well as the examples I share.

After all, customers have become more demanding in recent years and want to know far more about … Click to continue reading

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