Want a marketing advantage over your competitors?

How can you stand out from the crowd and create loyal customers and brand advocates?

Who doesn't want some kind of competitive advantage or way to stand out from the crowd when it comes to your products or services?!

If you're working on a marketing plan, you'll be guided to consider the usual 4 or 7 or 8 or even 9 'Ps of Marketing'. But do they really help you stand out across today's cluttered and super noisy social media space?

Let's look at the 7 Ps of marketing:

Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Packaging, Position, People.

All very important! BUT...

...Customers’ expectations are increasing and our communication channels are diverse and many. Customers have the ability to easily and loudly give their opinion and influence their friends and family’s purchasing. Alternatives are readily available and it’s often hard to differentiate your products from your competitors based on any of the above Ps.

There are options to consider that don't start with P and here are my thoughts.

Customer Experience (CX)

I’ve read a huge array of stats on customer experience recently and they all point to this being a massive driver of purchasing decisions. Providing a great and memorable customer experience could be the advantage you need over your competitors. It also reduces time, energy and costs dealing with complaints. It creates a sense of pride with your employees and gives you a very real way to authentically connect your small business with your customers or clients.

There are stacks of reasons why providing a consistently great customer experience is the best thing you can do for your business.

Customer Loyalty

You don't have to have a 'buy 10 get one free' kind of loyalty program to show your regular customers that they are important. 

Recognising your loyal customers and encouraging their repeat purchases and advocacy should be an important part of your marketing strategy. Stats show it can cost as much as 5x more to attract a new customer than to retain an existing one so how much of your time are you spending chasing the new and ignoring the old?

If you can retain your customers and stop them going to your competitors then you have an advantage like no other PLUS there are a heap of exciting ways you can harness that loyalty to grow your customer base. 

Experience and loyalty

Creating an emotional bond between you and your customers could be the competitive advantage you need and often these changes require little or no extra money to deliver. If you have little or no marketing budget then you can turn your customers into your marketing team by showing them you care and by continuing to provide them with excellent customer service.

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What’s next? This blog is just for thought starters. If you’d like instruction and help building marketing or social media strategy, please get in touch, I would love to help you, your business or organisation to succeed.