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If you haven't got a blogging clue about ... your offering.

I am feeling a little bit unsure about this one because surely you don’t need me to define what you offer, do you? I think it might be worth considering for a bit.

08th September 2010 published by Martin Henley

Marketing Offering Put very simply, and I don’t think I need a dictionary definition to support me on this, talking about your offering is simply a marketing shortcut for talking about all of the products and services that you provide. This shortcut came about because sometimes you need to talk about products and sometimes you need to talk about services and some times as a copy writer you are not sure so the easiest thing to do is lump it all together and call it 'offering.'

Good, no problems here then, everybody who is in business knows what they do, don’t they? Actually, no, they don’t.

There are two issues here because your offering has two faces, the one that customers see and the one that you see. If you are going to be effective in your marketing your offering needs to make sense both ways.

When you look at your offering you need to understand how it benefits you, ie. what is the most profitable thing that you offer? What is the most popular thing that you offer? What is the most reliable thing that you offer? What delivers the biggest customer benefit? What does your market most often need? What would your customers need to come back for? What is the real value of what you offer? What is the easiest thing to sell? The answers to these questions should inform how much energy you put into each of your products and services and what the return is likely to be.

When we are selling it is almost impossible to resist the urge to sell the customer the easiest thing to sell, rather than the thing that will really benefit them the most. The trouble with that is if they don’t feel a benefit they won’t be coming back, and they won’t be referring you. The next inevitable temptation is to undervalue your offering and sell it for what is is worth to you, rather than what is is worth to your customer. I recently visited a printer who was solving multi million pound logistical problems for the price of producing adhesive labels, and throwing out the baby with the bath water is a tough position to maintain.

The second issue is the way your customers understand your offering, and this is perhaps the most perplexing conundrum in marketing. Basically, if they don’t understand it they won’t buy, if they don't understand but still buy they won’t be back, and they won’t be referring you. If you are able to discern the needs of your customers and how you can meet those needs you are on your way to some really effective marketing. The challenge is that you don’t need the stuff you do, because you can do it and it’s often difficult to understand why your customers can’t do it for themselves, they of course are busy doing stuff for other people that they can’t do and hence the global economy.

So here is the answer to the most perplexing conundrum in marketing, ask your customers what they value, why they value it and how much they value it. Their obligation is to not tell you and keep the price down, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find out the answer to those three questions at all costs.

And of course all good salesmen know that customers value outcomes rather than processes, benefits rather than features. Remember when you sell a drill you are selling the ability to make holes, when you are selling accountancy you are selling mitigation and when you are buying a solicitor/lawyer you are buying time out of jail when your'e accountant messed up.

Which brings us rather neatly to customers, the most valuable asset in your business.

The next two posts will be about understanding customers starting next week with customer analysis.

So come in next week if you haven’t got a blogging clue about ... customer analysis.

I am feeling a little bit unsure about this one because surely you don’t need me to define what you offer, do you? I think it might be worth considering for a bit.

Delegates at one of our Internet Marketing Workshops talking about their experience of attending the course.

Inspirational speeches are cheesy, over rated, right? Lets see how you get on with forty in two minutes.

Come on, I couldn't leave Mungo Jerry out of this incredible summer extravaganza.

Nothing too difficult here, I am sure we are all familiar with market research, but why is it important and how do you do it?

Simon Birch of Solutions Inc. talking about the Telemarketing Training & Sales Management Training that we carried out with his team

It's taken six weeks but finally we have come up with something really meaty and unnecessarily complicated to get our teeth into ... situational analysis

Harvey Tuck from Kyoto Commercial Kitchens talking about the benefits of the Telemarketing Training that we did with his team.

Bill Hicks is a huge, late giant of comedy, he clearly didn't like marketing.

it's summer time and if you aren't on holiday give yourself five minutes of sheer, unadulterated brightness.

Wow this is a big question and the person that can answer it will probably make a lot of money, watch my back I am going in!

There are some fantastic stats that demonstrate that having a marketing plan is inextricably linked to business success. So why don't we all have one?

Here is the fantastic Mr Wilf Charles talking about the sales & marketing recruitment that we did for him and the ongoing sales management service we are providing.

I absolutely love this which is surprising because it's not really my thing, I am not big on advertising but this ad definitely does the job.

This is too funky to be current, isn't it?

Somebody recently put a book in my hand and said to me, "well done, you have just discovered your new favourite author."

Here is Lee Gold of Peewee's talking about the Social Media Seminar that he attended and the subsequent in-house training that we carried out with his team.

Here is a great example of how you own a sales team. I am not advocating you treat your sales team quite like this, HR may object, but this is a great performance. Includes offensive language.

Sometimes you just can't buy a lead, or convert a lead, sometimes the leads are good, sometimes they are bad but actually, what the hell is a lead?

Some more happy Effective Marketing Customers talking about their experience at one of our Social Media Workshops.

Here is a great example of what can be achieved if you can forget what's going on around you and really do your best.

Not exactly a blast from the past, more a gentle breeze.

Have you ever wondered exactly how effective Effective Marketing actually are? Well wonder no more because the answer is right here.

Here is a great example of what could happen if Dale Carnegie dynamite gets into the wrong hands.

The markets haven't been kind for the last two or three years but actually that may not be too bad a thing.

Here are some more happy Effective Marketing customers talking about their experience of one of our Internet Marketing Workshops.

Here is an amazing example of how telemarketing works, if you have a great offer, you get their attention and you use open questions.

You'll Never Walk Alone if you are walking with Elvis Presley.

Is it pushing the point too far to compare sales with American Football? For Effective Marketing it's the same, two silly games that mean nothing unless you take it really seriously. Check out Al Pacino and take a lesson in motivation.

Here's a little bit of Al green to put you in the mood on this beautiful Friday.

Closing is often considered to be the most difficult, and therefore, the most respected skill amongst sales people.

Of all the things that Effective Marketing have been involved in Young Enterprise has to be the most rewarding and the most beneficial.

It’s actually quite hard to explain how fond effective marketing have become of that cheeky little Mail Chimp.

You will love this incredibly creative and engaging presentation of some really important research into what motivates.

Not only have 37 Signals developed a fantastic tool for managing collaborative projects which is massively intuitive and simple to use, they also set the standard in how to do internet business.

We absolutely love it when people who win awards decide that they want to be working with Effective Marketing. This award is particularly rewarding for Jackie Keddy as the selection and voting was carried out by her peers, other coaches who are doing the job right now.

If you have spent anytime with Effective Marketing you will know that we are big on getting in the mood, perhaps not quite on the scale of The All Blacks but you get the gist.

Still not sure about Social Media, you had better make your mind up because it isn't waiting for you.

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