Marketers can sure get in our own ways when we try to create preference. We clap on and on about our great customer service and low prices but we don’t always remember to mention the problem we are solving. Our prospect, on the other hand, never forgets the problem they need solved.
Too often we celebrate the middle phase of our Journey of Unreciprocated Love by puking features all over the place. If this were about people, we would be hitting that first date about now. Unless things have changed since I last dated, puke is a contributing factor to dates that end badly.
The Preference phase is for persuasion, wooing, and being on our very best behavior. Marketers need to be driving a razor-sharp discussion of benefits, backed up by lots and lots of testimonials and real facts. We need to get out our crayons and create that picture of a future where the problem is solved and we are living happily ever-after.
Preference is a choice, not a predetermined destination. In the Consideration phase, the task for the customer is to eliminate the unworthy. By the time they get to Preference, the field is small, but it is not empty. We need to create a preference for our solution over the competition’s. Preference exists only when there is choice. Even if it’s between our product and absolutely nothing, we still need to get around the Preference Pylons.
If you have spent any time watching children’s hockey you know two things: otherwise competent adults can turn into screeching cockatiels and the kids who don’t skate well are referred to as pylons. Kids who are pylons in hockey, usually find themselves in piano lessons the next fall. In marketing, our job is to get our pylons into a more delicate sport or, at least help our Sales Squirrels skate around them.
Preference Pylons include your competition, your sales team and inertia.
The Competition Pylon:
If you have lured a customer to the Preference Party, it seems likely that your competition has taken notice. If it’s a big enough deal, they are probably making dinner reservations of their own with the same prospect. This is where we haul out that competitive matrix (I told you it would come in handy) and start working our prospect through all the real differences between us and our competitors. And none of that fluff about friendly service and, heaven help us, your value proposition.
No siree, it’s time for case studies, testimonials, worksheets, ROI calculators and the article about the time that analyst said a nice thing about your company. The idea is to get this pylon right off the ice by taking competitors out of contention as someone who can solve our customer’s problem. Do this right, and our prospect will be crawling out the bathroom window before the competition even orders the wine.
The Squirrel Pylon:
Just like an over-caffeinated hockey parent, marketing has to stop fussing with the tape and let the players get on the ice. This is called handing off the lead to sales. After all that bothering of people, all that nurturing, all that gentle nudging from awareness to consideration, the truth is, someone needs to get out there and actually close this thing.
Sometimes we get to do this online but mostly it’s going to involve a conversation with a sales person. Whether that happens in a golf cart, a store or a call centre, our Sales Squirrels have enormous Pylon Potential if we don’t arm them properly. Crappy sales people will screw it up every time and there is not much we can do but try to catch the leads as they fall out of the funnel. Good Squirrels need to be set up to succeed, however and this is where we give them that snappy talk track that demonstrates how we solve the prospect’s problem. This includes all those terrific facts, ROI stats, numbers of customers, examples of customers, awards and so on. If we don’t arm them properly, they will go straight to price and, you guessed it, Feature Puke.
Inertia
This is the worst pylon of all. This is the kid who should have been taking Irish dancing for years but keeps coming back to hockey and standing like a terrified traffic cone as the play roars toward them. Good Squirrels will quickly figure out why the prospect is stuck and not able to either say no or move forward. In a perfect world, they will motivate them to decide or disposition the lead as “has commitment issues” so we can all move on.
For the prospects who are teetering on the brink of chronic inertia, we can help by making sure we have communicated that pretty happily ever-after picture with the picket fence and the golden retriever named Dakota. For this, I favour those fun research reports about best-in-class companies, teamed up with a cracking good case study – it’s the one-two punch of aspiration and example. If that doesn’t stop the serial dating, punt them back to the nurture funnel.
In my view, the Preference phase is the biggie. If we can establish our product as a preferred solution to a problem the customer needs to solve, we create a bunch of opportunity. Even if we lose the deal in the Commitment phase, we have not lost the preference we’ve created, at least in the short-term. Just as it’s not a bad idea to stay friends with former suitors, building preference for your product gives you an edge if the whole commitment thing doesn’t work out.
Related Posts:
Unique Selling Propositions are a Myth
There Are No Emergencies in Marketing
Interesting Things I Found This Week
For those of us who have dripped shawarma onto our keyboards, this site will be a familiar place. Sad Desk Lunch is a community where you can share the misery of your used salad from the night before or the slimy pizza from the food court downstairs with the rest of us.
Speaking of consideration and preference, budget season is about to roll around again for many of us and it’s time to start making your list of all the toys you want to find under the Opex Tree in 2016. If a B2B automation tool is on your list, here is a great guide from the folks at Sirius Decisions.
BizMarketer is Elizabeth Williams
You can reach me at escwilliams@gmail.com
or follow me on Twitter @bizmkter
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