Early and Growth Customer

Todays objectives
• Gaining an understanding of what marketing is
• Gaining the ability to address some simple points in marketing your business
• How to identify and choose the right customers for your business and its products or services
• Creating a persona for your ideal customers to understand them more effectively
• An understanding of the differences between features, benefits and advantages
• How to effectively and efficiently communicate benefits to your customers
• An understanding of the differences and difficulties in marketing a service
• How to plan your marketing communication.

What is marketing?
“Marketing is the analysis, planning, implementation
and control of programmes designed to bring about
desired exchanges with target markets for the purpose
of achieving organisational objectives.
It relies heavily on designing the organisational
offering in terms of the target market needs and uses
the effective pricing, communication and distribution
to inform, motivate and service the market”

What is marketing?
Who
What
Why
When
Your customers
Your product / service
Is there a pain?
Purchase occasion?

What is marketing?
How
How will your product be
used?
How will you let people
know?
How will people buy it?

Customer factory blueprint

Customer factory blueprint – early stages
• Questions to ask:
− How will you identify your first users?
− How will you reach your first users?
− What is the first value experience – this doesn’t need to be your first sale or a finished product!!!!
− How can you make money from these early users
• Coming later:
− How can you drive repeat usage?
− How can you drive your referral engine?

Finding your early customers
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Characteristics of Early Adopters
• Open and willing to try the new product and excited to be involved with a new innovation.
• Willing to pay a higher price than adjacent competitors, to be the first to access this new technology
• Open to trying the new product with limited or no marketed company presence
• Willing to tolerate some failures and willing to spend some time to work around minor problems and
configuration issues.
• Will be willing to break with trends and not accept the market norm.
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Who…….
• Has the most pain?
• Has the shortest sales cycle?
• Has the budget?
• Has the authority?
• Write a few bullet points about them

Where will you find them?
Inside referral
Outside referral
Event contact
Social media
Cold call

How will you approach them?
• Phone
• Email
• Networking
• Event
• Social media
• You decide………
• But try as many as you can

What do we approach them with?
Problem Answer Credibility Evidence
Next
steps

Next steps
Determine your best targets
Choose your approach
Refine your pitch

CROSSING THE CHASM

Remember this?

Identifying customers on the other side

Choosing customers
Consumer Segmentation
Behavioural Psychographic Profile
Benefits
Sought
Purchase
Occasion
Purchase
Behaviour
Usage
Perceptions
And
Beliefs
Lifestyle Personality
Demo
graphic
Socio
economic
Geo
graphic

Choosing business customers
Organisational Segmentation
Microsegmentation Macrosegmentation
Choice
Criteria
Decision
Making
Unit
structure
Decision
Making
process
Purchasing
Organisation
Company
Innovation
Company
size
Industry
Geo
graphic

Personas
Sample Persona: Executive Ed
Demographic information
● London, UK
● 35 years old
● Marketing executive at a
professional service company
● BSc in Business and Economics .
Quote
E.g. “We’re reaching the limits
of what we can achieve in
certain areas, and I need a
serious consultancy to step in
and help us take things to the
next level. Something’s not
right, and we need external
help to come and fix it.”
Psychographic information
● Likes to run marathons
● Volunteers for a charity
● Likes to watch the
latest series on Netflix
● Early adopter of new
technology
● Likes to do thorough
research before high
value purchases
Marketing messaging
● Keywords - marketing agency, award winning
digital agency, results focused marketing
agency, marketing agency London
● Channels - social media (LinkedIn), Google
search
● Call to action - “Download now”, “Improve
your tactics”, “Get more results from your
marketing”, “Increase conversion rates”
Goals
● Become a marketing manager in the nest
2-3 years
● Wants to show his worth through
innovative projects and initiatives
● Wants to get more leads in

Personas
Persona 1: Name
Demographic information
● location
● age
● education .
Quote
E.g. “We’re reaching the limits of
what we can achieve in certain
areas, and I need a serious
consultancy to step in and help
us take things to the next level.
Something’s not right, and we
need external help to come and
fix it.”
Psychographic
information
● hobbies and interests
● likes and dislikes
● lifestyle
● attitude
● fears
● values
● spending habits
Marketing messaging
● keywords
● channel
● language
● call to action
Goals
● what are their primary and secondary goals?
● what are their challenges?
● what are their objections?
● what can we do to help achieve their goals?
● what can we do to overcome their
challenges?

Customer profiling

Buyer roles
Buyer
Consumer
/ User
Customer/
Funder

Product
Core Product
− What core benefit does your product offer?
− Customer who purchase a camera are buying more than just the camera, they are purchasing memories
Actual Product
− All cameras capture memories. How do you get customers to buy yours?
− Branding, adding features and benefits which offer a differential advantage over your competitors
Augmented Product
− What additional non-tangible benefits can you offer?
− After sales service, guarantees, delivery (creating peace of mind)

Benefit building
Just a box on wheels, no
image or brand
gadgets
Sound
system
Big
engine
Big boot
Tangible
benefits
(Easy to copy)
Intangible benefits
(difficult to copy)
Well
known
Cool
status
Perceived
reliability

Features Advantages Benefits
Buy groceries online Saves going out to supermarket • Makes supermarket shopping possible
• Don’t face the ordeal of shopping with
toddlers
• Keep your limited leisure time for
yourselves
Twenty four hours a day seven days
a week
Can shop outside of normal hours • Shop when feel like it
• Concentrate when kids are asleep
• Sort out at weekend with no pressure
Remembers your previous list Can make amendments rather that
starting from a blank sheet
• Tend to need the same things
• Head start to make the job quicker
• Save lists for different occasions
Total price clear before getting to till Useful for budgeting • Save money –limited income
• Possible to delete a few treats
• Know exactly what’s going on the credit
card
Selling the benefits

Answer the little man
You said Little man asked You replied You elaborated
We use digital signal
processing in our hearing
aids
So what? Our product increases the
clarity of sounds
For example if you are at
a party you’ll be able to
hear what people are
saying to you
We provide 128 bit
encryption in a device in
a mobile phone
So what? Its harder to break into
our system
For example if you are in
a hotel room and want to
have a secure
conversation
A big name celebrity is on
our board
So what? What we are doing is
interesting enough to
attract top talent
For example she has
already opened doors for
us in the industry

Product as branding

Product as branding

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Hanger Tea

Page
Hanger Tea

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Moustache Paint brushes

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Note Headphones

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Service
Inseparability
Intangibility
Perishability
Variability

Service
• Intangibility
−Cannot be tasted, touched or smelled before they are bought
−Customer may find it difficult to evaluate before they purchase
−Display testimonials, case studies, referrals, brand consistency
• Inseparability
−Simultaneous consumption and production
−How service providers conduct themselves may effect future business
−The people are the company

Service
• Variability
−Service quality may vary depending on staff delivery
−Service faults (i.e. staff poor performance) cannot be quality checked and corrected between
production and consumption
• Perish ability
−Services cannot be stored for future use like a product, i.e. if a hotel room is empty for a night
its lost revenue. If a product is not sold it can be stored and sold tomorrow
−Service providers have the problem of being able to cater for peak demand and staff
appropriately

Price
• Price your product or service at the level which your customers expect to pay for the quality you are
delivering
−Does not mean high price means high quality
−Nor high quality will justify a high price
• Pricing directly affects sales revenue
−Relate sales revenue to costs – cost of sale, production, raw materials, transport and promotion
• Product – Price Mix
−Good after sales service or a brand well-supported with advertising may attract a higher price.

Promotion
When Purchase occasion? Promotion

Promotion
5 stages to promotional marketing
1) Determine the objectives
− What do you want to achieve?
− What are your SMART goals
2) Define the audience
3) Select the media
4) Design the message
5) Feedback

How? - promotion
Publicity
Direct Marketing
Personal
selling
Advertising
Sales Promotion
Internet/websit
e
Online
marketing
Face to face
(Trade
shows)

Examples - good

Examples - bad

The journey
Customer has
never heard of
me
Customer has
heard of me
Customer starts
to listen
Customer
makes decision
Customer buys

3 P’s of getting visitors
Pull
Blogging
Podcasts
Guides / Whitepapers
Infographics
Webinars
Presentations
Seo
Social Media
LOPA
Push
Purchase Ads
Promo swap
Affiliates
Direct Sales
Product
Network invitations
• Email
• Phone
• Social
Social sharing
API integrators
Backlinks
Incentives

• What are you going to do to attract
your customers?

Objectives / ideal results
Thinking about the journey can you create some
MEASURABLE objectives for any if your marketing
activity?

Pirates and goals
Acquisition
•Unique visitors, number of pages, number of clicks
•Time on site, visitors by source
Activation
•Unique visitors – sign up, sign up conversion
•New account creation, opt in conversion
Retention
•Email click through, multiple log ins, length of use
•Returns to complete profile, returns to share
Referral
•Shares via email, social media
•Invites, referral conversion
Revenue
•Paid conversion, Leads by source, leads to sale conversion
•Sales, revenue

Messages
• Which marketing messages can you remember?
• Consider why the may have been memorable?
−What words were used?
−What was your perception of the business?
−Did they use a catchy slogan, music or
imagery?

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The four elements of marketing
Marketing
Analysis
Planning
Action
Control

The four elements of marketing
Analysis
Building up a clear picture helps you focus your attention and marketing budget in the
right way.
Outside
• What outside factors could affect the
business?
• Who are your customers now, and who
could become customers?
• Who else could serve your customers, now
and in the future?
• What are your competitors up to?
Inside
• How can you best meet the needs of
customers?
• How much are you selling to each
customer?
• Does your advertising and promotion pay
for itself?
• Do you customers understand / appreciate
your strengths?

The four elements of marketing
Planning
Once you have analysed enough information, decide what you will do in both the long and short term
Decisions include:
• Who will you sell to?
• What will you sell them and how much
• Your image / brand
• What will you do to win and keep
customers?
• How will you stand out from the crowd?
• How will you keep ahead of your
competition?
• How will you communicate?
• How will you measure your success?
Plan
• Who will do what in each month, so it all
happens?
• What advertising and promotion will you do
and when?
• How will your products and services reach
your customers?

Planning
Objectives Stage Strategies Materials Goals
E.g. To gain
credibility and
leads
Awareness Networking
Blogging
Business Cards 100 visits on
website
1 customer
enquiry

The four elements of marketing
Actions
This is the best bit!! You’ll probably need a mix of different actions
• Actions that raise awareness of your business, such as networking and PR
• Actions that generate interest, such as advertising or creating a website
• Actions that make people want to buy such as selling and direct marketing
• Actions that keep your customers happy, like follow-up calls and promotional
gifts.

The four elements of marketing
Control
This often neglected part of marketing is measuring everything and using the results to make
adjustments to your plan
Questions
• Are you selling the right products and services to the right customers?
• Are their needs still the same?
• What are your competitors up to, and is it still working?
• Are your sales and profits on track?
• How will are you communicating with your customers?
The results of your measurements should complete the circle as they feed back into your analysis
and help you put together an even better plan next time.

Summary - top tips
1. Positivity – entrepreneurship isn’t war. Customers don’t care if you want to destroy the
competition. They want to know what benefits that derive from your company and its products or
services
2. Customer centric – Marketing is about what you do for your customers – not about what you
want to become. Announcing that you are the “leader” is focused on you NOT the customer
3. Self explanatory – Good ideas should be easy to explain – saving money, increasing revenue,
greater peace of mind
4. Specific – Target an intended customer – try not to do all things to all people
5. Relevant – ensure your core skills, your core products and services remain relevant to your
customers needs
6. Differentiated – Your marketing should not sound like your competitors – although you can learn
a lot from what they say