Advertising is normally used to bring awareness to products and services and to ultimately get them into the hands of your consumers.

Many strategies can be used to advertise yet there is a very simple truth that is not blatantly obvious at first.

No matter your advertising strategy, each one can be generally placed into one of two broader categories.

These strategies are more commonly known as “Pull” and “Push,” which originated from the economical concept of demand vs. supply.

Each strategy has the potential to hurt or help your brand as it affects consumers differently through psychological impact.

Knowing when it is best to use either strategy depends on the products or services you wish to sell as well as the standards you wish to maintain for your company.

Trusting gravitation

Pull marketing is used in developing advertising strategies that entice consumers to buy your products or services.

These would usually include the offer of immediate discounts or more attractive specials such as “buy one get one free.” 

Word of mouth and customer relationship management are also commonly used pull strategies.

A pull strategy draws consumers towards your brand by coercing them to take impulsive

action.

By creating a sense of urgency through the promotion of limited time offers your products and services are perceived to suddenly have increased value.

Consequently, this often leads to an influx of consumers flooding through your company doors. 

The main drawback, however, is that pull marketing does not easily allow you to predict or control how consumers will react to your promotions.

Thrusting force

Push marketing is the instance in which you develop advertising strategies geared towards your marketing and distribution channels.

More accurately, it involves marketing through wholesalers and distributors so that your messages reach out to consumers.

Unlike pull marketing, push marketing focuses more heavily on promotions and branding rather than making the actual sale itself.

Push marketing’s primary strength lies in its ability to help build brand awareness, which makes it easier to subsequently instigate a pull.

When applying push marketing you must do whatever it takes to ensure the consumer is aware of your brand at their point of purchase, hence the approach is more direct and forceful.

Tactics include use of trade show promotions, packaging design and directly selling to consumers face to face.

The best marketing strategies incorporate the right mix of pull and push, which coincidentally is the heart of a solid working idea.

And working ideas are the forces that drive the soul of Mical Marketing.

In advertising, profit generally comes from happy clients.

However, not all clients possess the same emotional level.

Some are easy to please, some are flexible and some are downright annoying to deal with on a regular basis.

As a marketing professional you generally cannot afford to pick and choose clients based on their most innate state of mind.

Your business thrives on these very clients and alienating them will only result in negative word of mouth that could tarnish the reputation of your business.

Therefore many mangers find themselves saying: “If the client is always right then what am I supposed to do?”

A friendly brief

Firstly, recognise that the client is NOT always right.

The question of “correctness” should always be based on the brief that is supplied by the client. 

The brief must be addressed according to its stipulations, and progressive actions must subsequently be taken by both parties.

However, regardless of the brief you should always listen to what your clients have to say and be slow to anger and confrontation.

Try to put yourself in the client’s shoes and ask yourself how you would like to be treated if the roles were reversed.

Always attempt to come to a mutual agreement rather than make things worst.

Never make the situation one that is about who is right or wrong.

Being right is worthless if all it does is cause you to lose your valuable client relationships.

Whenever conflicts arise it always does both parties well to refer to the brief.

Pleasing them

Why wait till something is broken to try to fix it?

Prevention is better than cure.

If you treat your clients well throughout the business relationship then they will be more inclined to forgive you should any mistakes occur.

On occasions offer them discounts on your bigger services or tactfully provide some of your smaller ones for free.

Also don’t always assume that it is your company name or brand that your clients are in love with.

In truth, many clients are drawn to your business because of their relationship with your employees.

Therefore by keeping your employees happy you keep your clients happy and ultimately the quality of your brand.

Like a working idea, the secret to maintaining healthy, long-lasting business relationships is to keep things simple and adaptable, which will inevitably ensure that they work. 

Such is the force that drives the undisputed workability of Mical Marketing.

Traditionally, advertising was only viewed from one perspective. 

The central idea was that an ad needed to be delivered either through the medium of television, radio or newspapers to be considered as a professional advertisement.

With the advent of the Internet the field has been steadfastly changing year after year with no signs of halting soon.

Constant change forces marketing professionals to “get with the times” else risk becoming obsolete in the marketplace. 

This leaves many professionals consistently attempting to stay abreast in the field and sustain theirs and their clients’ reputations.

Nonetheless, there is a most effective way to accomplish this.

In with the new 

Internet and social media marketing have become key forces to be reckoned with.

Emails, digital newsletters, promotional videos, instant messaging and blogging are now everywhere and it is now difficult to imagine life without them.

You must make every effort to understand these technologies and find the best ways to practically execute them within your marketing strategies.

Digital marketing is more speedy, cost-efficient, far-reaching and flexible than traditional marketing.

In addition, it can be swiftly implemented and gives you the ability to promote more information to customers at much less risk.

Case in point, with traditional printing if copy for a press ad is printed incorrectly in the newspapers there is no way to rectify the mistake on that particular print.

With digital advertising you not only have the potential to market your ad to the entire world but often the freedom to correct untimely mistakes in seconds.

Embracing the old

In today’s fast paced society “new” is almost always perceived as more advanced, capable, efficient and fashionable. 

However, it is unwise to sacrifice something old that possesses tried and true experience as oppose to what is relatively new and is still finding its way around.

Traditional advertising offers real world communication in that people can “touch and feel” the marketing.

Your messages are therefore seen as more personal and authenticated, and allow consumers to more easily connect with what you are promoting.

The biggest mistake people make in relation to digital marketing is forgetting that it is simply a tool out of a large marketing box, and a tool should never overwhelm its master.

Traditional marketing has and today still proves to be workable, so then why get rid of it?

The old can co-exist with the new.

As if backed by the concept of “working ideas,” like Mical Marketing, the foundation known as traditional marketing will indeed stand the test of time.

The most exhausted definition of marketing is probably that “it is the selling of goods and services.”

Such a statement is so rudimentary that it is possible that anyone who ceases to get pass this simple description will indeed flunk at marketing.

The basic concept of marketing is simple but becoming great at “professional marketing” is often more like traversing a mystical labyrinth filled with corridors that unexpectedly change on a whim.

To be truly successful at marketing you must possess more than just academic qualifications and field-related experience.

You must have a particular drive, a high degree of open-mindedness, and a knack for constantly staying abreast of changes in consumer tastes, new media, and in the marketplace.

Yet, you may have all of these things and still find yourself falling headfirst into the dreaded marketing pit.

Endless falls 

Many pitfalls exist to hinder your progress as a marketing professional, which are sometimes brought on by poor planning, lack of vision and bad management. 

Your mistakes affect not just your reputation but also the reputations of your clients.

One critical pitfall occurs when you fail to capitalise on the weaknesses of your clients’ competitors at the opportune time.

It becomes a missed opportunity to promote the advantages of your clients’ goods and services and the satisfaction of watching their rivals struggle to catch up with your cleverness.

Other falls include ignoring strategic alliances, applying excessive and unnecessary tactical procedures, wrongfully advising clients, and focusing too much on the details of what you need to sell rather than how the products and services will effectively satisfy consumers.

Staying afloat

Every fall you incur plummets your credibility and essentially makes it harder for you to stay afloat as a professional marketer.

Remember that clients respect you based on your reputation and integrity and that you must always keep them first in mind. 

Encourage clients to only market high quality products and services at a fair and competitive price.

Refrain from marketing any goods that jeopardise your own reputation.

Explain to clients the advantages of promoting greater interaction with their consumers.

Finally, remember that no man is an island. 

Collaborating with a professional advertising agency, like Mical Marketing, will ensure that brilliant ideas get merge with the revolutionary concept of “workability.”

As time passes, you will gradually find yourself soaring higher and higher as a marketing professional, which in turn will help safeguard your business from going six feet under.

Marketing wise, you will always remain once step ahead of the competition.

 

Under normal circumstances your brand identity is something you can control.

It remains a key consideration in advertising regardless of the many progressive changes that are inevitably made as the years go by.

Nevertheless, the effectiveness of advertisements have long been waning as the market is now flooded with a plethora of competitive ads, forcing consumers to partake in “active ad avoidance.”

Active ad avoidance means that consumers intentionally boycott advertising messages because they appear to be no different from the rest of the competition.

You must therefore find a way to bring your messages across to your audience in not just a unique manner but in a way that will perpetually stick with them.

Quintessentially, your messages must be engaging and memorable. 

Applying the foundation 

Applying effective communication and key messaging techniques is useful in getting your messages to stick with consumers.

The first rule is that you should keep your messages simple.

Complex messages take more time and energy for consumers to decode, thereby reducing the impact they will have on your audience.

Use the power of visual and mental imagery to swoon consumers into becoming attached to your messages, as seeing is more believing.

Also keep in mind that actions speak louder than words.

Conjure creative ways to prove the worth of your products and services through experiential marketing techniques such as staging product demonstrations and allowing consumers to test out your products and services free of charge.

Finally, try incorporating optimism into your messages.

Such messages easily reach out to consumers and stand a much higher chance of being favourably remembered, which will enhance your brand.

Within their minds

Memory is fickle and is highly selective per individual.

However, there is statistical evidence that proves that consumers remember some advertising messages more effortlessly than others.

Messages that evoke strong emotions, be it laughter or affection, subliminally coerce consumers to repeatedly pay attention.

Those that present new information and expand consumers’ intelligence are also less likely to be forgotten.

Additionally, consumers are always conscious of how much money they can save when making a purchase, so any message that promotes frugality will easily capture their interest.

It is imperative that you consult a professional advertising agency like Mical Marketing when it comes to promoting your brand, as it possesses the know-how in recognising and executing brilliant, working ideas.

The agency also has the professional awareness that the messages that stick with consumers do not necessarily have to be the ones executed the best. 

Open Gangnam Style, anyone? Yet it sticks.

Kevin Roberts is the inventor and promoter of “Lovemarks,” which is universally known as one of the most influential marketing concepts ever created.

Lovemarks defines the way in which people form relationships with products, services and entities. 

It is capable of generating sustainable growth beyond normal expectations and has the power to penetrate your customers’ minds so they remain faithful to your cause.

Attaining Lovemarks status sets you apart from nearly every other company and makes you a God in the marketing world.

Why the “L” word works

What do you get when you put an Iphone and a really devoted customer together?

You get a patron who might spend 9 days camping out in the snow just to purchase Apple’s latest phone on its release date.

An Iphone is arguably considered to be one of the most powerful agents of Lovemarks, thanks to the reputation of its manufacturer, Apple, which can be considered as the phone’s parental link to Lovemarks.

Apple understands its customers’ dreams, knows what they want, when they need it, and timely gives it to them.

Companies like Apple incorporate mystery, sensuality, and intimacy within their brand, causing many consumers to become obsessed with the company’s image.

A company that is highly loved and respected will keep customers lusting after its products and services.

Beyond the honeymoon

Only a select few companies in the world are considered Lovemarks.

For your customers to fall in love with you you first have to fall in love with whatever it is that you sell.

It is also about choosing to love every customer and non-customer who gives you feedback, good or bad, on the quality of your produce.

Attaining Lovemarks status allows you to sell to more customers, and at higher prices because you have built an exclusive relationship with them.

But the road to Lovemarks is not easy.

To increase your chances you must start with other marketing concepts that are smaller in scope, but bigger in terms of hands-on brilliance and workability.

After all, if Lovemarks is so rare it is almost like a dream, then it only makes sense to implement more practical “WORKING IDEAS” as a first step towards achieving your desired reality.

What mobile phones does your market use? How do they interact with these devices?

It is essential that you find out the answers to these questions before developing your mobile marketing strategy.

Blackberrys have been the preferred smartphone in our country for the past few years, however, some Trinidadians and Tobagonians now have Samsung Galaxys or Iphones and many citizens continue to use traditional cell phones.

Mobile apps are trendier than old-fashioned text messaging but are they really an effective way to reach your market?

Only smartphone users have access to apps and an app will not work on all smartphones.

An app has to be developed for each mobile platform.

Text messages, on the other hand, are universal.

Smart Decisions

Everyone who owns a cell phone can access SMS.

The majority of people who receive a text message will open it.

While SMS can be used to send a generic message to a mass audience, it will be more powerful if a message is tailored to the needs of a smaller group of consumers.

The text messages you send to your target audience should be personal.

Use SMS on an on-going basis to build relationships with your market.

Ensure that your timing is right.

Never send text messages when your audience is likely to be sleeping.

Send a message that your market needs at the time that it would be most useful to them.

For instance, if your business is a restaurant, you should send your audience messages about special offers before lunch or dinner.

Doing it Right

Do not bombard your market with text messages especially those that offer little benefit to them.

Mobile providers in this country are notorious for bombarding customers with text messages especially those that offer little benefit to them.

This is exasperating for customers who never signed up to receive the messages and do not have the choice to opt out.

While you may send valuable messages to your market at the best times for them, never send them messages without their permission and ensure that it is easy for them to unsubscribe from your service.

Always think mobile, do not use it as just another medium to propagate the same messages.

While each element of your marketing campaign should be unified, each medium should build upon each other, adding something new.

As the philosopher Marshall McLuhan stated, “The medium is the message.”

We touch them.

We carry them around in our hands.

We speak to them.

Many of us become worried or tense when we happen to be without them.

We have become personally attached to our mobile phones.

It is imperative that business owners and managers study consumers’ use of these devices in order to enhance the customer service experience.

Location-based advertising? QTR Codes? Apps … where to begin?

Optimising your Website

Many smartphone owners access a company’s website from these devices when they are on the go.

Some even use their mobile phone to access the web at home as it is usually closer to them than their PC and it is easier to pick up and turn on.  

While companies’ websites can be accessed by any mobile phone with a web browser and internet connection, they are designed for PCs and are not mobile-friendly.

These websites require users to pull-to-zoom in to the section of the page they would like to view.

Certain elements of the website might be missing and the website may take too long to load.

Considering your Customers

Try accessing your company’s website from your mobile phone.

Is it difficult to access the information that an on-the-go customer would require?

Are directions to your store missing?

Does finding the necessary information require a lot of clicking?

If the answer to these questions are yes, your mobile-savvy customers must be frustrated.

A mobile optimised website should be made for a mobile screen.

Endless clicking and pulling-to-zoom should not be required.

The information that is most relevant mobile customers need should be prominent.

The website should have a small file size so that it will load quickly, flash must be eliminated.

While out shopping, mobile-savvy customers check out the websites of other stores on their smart phone to review products and compare prices.

If your company provides a better offer yet your website is not mobile-friendly, you will lose out on sales.

Thus, optimising your website should be your company’s mobile marketing priority.

When a company advertises, it has the freedom to decide on the exact message it wants to send to its market.

The company chooses the medium to be used, the look and feel of the message and when it will appear.

With public relations on the other hand, a company does not have total control over what message is sent.

This is what makes public relations initiatives exceedingly valuable to a company.

People trust information received from the press while they are usually skeptical about advertisers’ messages.

Reaching the Target

Like advertising, press coverage requires media planning.

A company must find out what media their customers consume.

It should consider: what does the target market watch on TV … do they even watch TV? What websites do they use?

Once this is determined, a company that wants to advertise will create a media schedule which will list the company’s desired placements for its ads.

The company will have to pay for ad placements.

With public relations initiatives such as features and press releases, this is where the perception of ‘free’ comes in.

The company does not pay for press coverage.

It will instead look for writers who frequently cover topics related to the company’s industry.

A spray and pray approach to courting journalists will not work.

A company has to invest in building a relationship with the press as it does with its consumers.

This means the company should become familiar with a journalist’s work and pitches should be tailored to each reporter.

Just as advertising is not about a company’s wants but the market’s needs, press coverage is about the press’ needs.

Working Together

The press need people to read their magazines or view their programmes in order to attract advertisers and make money.

As such, the press need great content.

Journalists are like the consumers who view a company’s ads.

They will only respond to a company’s message if it attracts them.

A company should give a reporter a reason to talk about them.

It should pitch interesting, relevant and informative stories in order to capture a journalist’s attention.

While press coverage enhance a company’s credibility, advertising creates awareness.

Use them both an on-going basis as part of a strategic and holistic marketing campaign.

In marketing, as in business, there is always talk of prospective changes. But what of perspective changes?

All change implementation starts with taking a change of perspective.

As the Native Indians say, “Matter follows vision.” So seeing differently has to happen before anything can be manifested or recreated.

If your old marketing strategy is not working for you, for instance, the only way you can begin to formulate and execute a new plan — that may prove to be more advantageous — is you must first acknowledge that the old plan is not working.

Many companies and businesses are faltering for the simple fact that they keep applying the same unprofitable marketing schemes they’ve always believed in … though they have not worked so far. 

Chicken and egg 

When we believe something it formulates our perspective.

Yet, taking a different perspective can alter our beliefs.

It is like the chicken and egg argument: “Which comes first?” Belief, or perspective?

The fact is they work interchangeably.

For example: if we believe that everybody likes things priced cheap, then our perspective will be that products will sell once we cost them lower than the competition.

However, we might look from a different angle and realise that although the competitor’s products are higher priced, they’re still making far more sales.

This might force us to believe something else,

We might come to believe that success in marketing relies, not just on low low prices, but on customer service, quality product, market demand, branding research and a whole lot more besides. 

Eye, mind, motive 

Think of “vision” as perspective and “matter” as delivery.

What we deliver is often determined worthy by us first, before we put it out there for the market.

But it is the perspective of the market that we should really be concerned with.

You may believe your motives are entirely devoted to delivering fully excellent service to your target market.

If the market does not see it that way, then their minds will never be swayed in your favour.

Try to see your company, service, product from the other side — from the side of the people they are aimed toward.

That shift in perspective may be exactly what is needed to chart a new course into oceans of more effective marketing strategies. 

Trust is imperative for the survival of your business.

It is gained when you keep your promises.

You earn it when no one is looking yet you still do the right thing.

Trust is deserved when you’re honest even though you could have easily gotten away with a lie.

It is built when times are tough and you stick around.

For many managers especially those who take a tactical approach to marketing, trustworthiness is merely a veneer.

When managers take such an approach to marketing, they think short-term.

They might buy email lists and send spam to their market.

Their main aim is to cut costs.

They consider trust to be an expense.

In order to cut costs, they work on trustiness instead of building trust.

Trustiness takes place when trust is used as a public relations tool.

The discovery of trustiness will lead to customer dissatisfaction and loss of business.

Can’t trust

Tactical managers focus on getting away with as much as they can instead of working towards providing a better service.

They distract you with fancy graphics, hiding what you really need to know in the fine print.

They do not deliver their promises.

They might pay their debtors late even if there is money available.

Their customers receive poor customer service as the business is understaffed or employees are overworked and underpaid due to cost cutting.

They are always looking to save a buck, usually at customers’ expense.

But, think about it, who would really want to do business with an unreliable company they cannot trust?

This is why strategic managers invest in their marketplace.

Not cutting it

Managers who are willing to work for long-term success, build a good reputation for their company.

They listen to their customers and strive towards solving their problems.

The most effective way to earn customers’ trust, is to be honest and to give them the respect they deserve.

Be transparent.

Don’t make promises you can’t keep.

When interacting with customers be yourself, do not act like a salesperson.

Speak to them like they are your colleagues, have a real conversation.

Treat them like your family.

Let them know if your products and services may not be right for them.

This will show them that you really want to help and you truly care.

To do differently we have to see differently.

However, if we only see differently and do not let that motivate us to do differently then we cannot claim to even be seeing differently.

The Buddhists suggest that no man should claim to understand unless his actions reflect that understanding.

In the movie from the book by the same name, The Journey of August King, the protagonist says after an odyssey abounding with adjustment, “We cannot remain only what we were.”

From a strategic marketing outlook, this advice is pure gold.

Physical human adaptation, attitude alterations, migration, merging cultures, technological innovation and a host of other things, have worked in combination to change the world.

Would it make sense to presume that marketing, and all its motley elements would stay the same in such a developing world?

Applying adjustment

Consider how technology has altered the way we function day to day.

Facsimile, texting, Internet, E-mail, cell phones are things that leap instantly into the modern mind.

Well think about technology specifically from a marketing and advertising perspective.

The advent of things like neon lights, colour printing, radio and television altered advertising possibilities and execution.

But can you see how something like instant messaging and Apps could be equally used to effect?

Even as you enjoy the indulgence of Tweeting, you can’t wrap your mind around how this could be made use of to advance their business.

See, think, do

Too many service and product providers have made very little effort to “get with the programme.”

They still, by and large, refuse to savvy up to changing times, technology and thinking.

Strategic marketing requires thorough and involved, not merely abstract, understanding of what is happening in the world.

What is happening to and around the market affects the market.

Change in the world changes people in the world.

That in turn changes what people want, how they want to be spoken to and why they will be convinced to see, think, do anything.

By the same token, if you don’t see the changes in your market, you can never truly think like your market and, thus, you will never be able to get your market to do any of what you want it to do.

Many managers go to advertising agencies asking for campaign proposals.

The manager might be fascinated by the proposal but when they see the accompanying quotation, they run in the other direction.

It is imperative for an agency to know your company’s budget so that they can provide marketing solutions suitable to your company’s situation.

Your company’s marketing budget should be anywhere in the range of 1 to 10 % of sales depending on a number of the factors, including:

How long have you been around? – If your business has just started up, a larger budget should be allocated to marketing.

You should spend as much as possible on marketing, even up to 15% of your sales, in your company’s first few years.

This also applies to businesses that may have been around for a while but are not known in the market.

You can scale down your spending on marketing when your company becomes more established and profitable.

What industry is your company in? – What are your competitors spending?

Use industry standards to decide what percentage of sales to use for your marketing budget.

Investing what you can

What are your profit margins? - If profit margins are high, you should spend a high sum on marketing in order to ensure your company stays on your market’s mind.

How much can you afford? – While marketing should never be seen as an expense to be cut down on, if you really cannot afford to invest a decent amount of money on marketing, do not ask an agency to run a campaign that you would not be able to pay for.

Many agencies might refuse to work with you.

However, there are a few accredited agencies that would find ideas that work within your budget.

Cutting costs

What is the state of the economy? – As we have been going through a recession, many companies make cutting down costs their priority.

Unfortunately, the marketing budget is usually the first ‘expense’ to be scaled down.

Luckily for some companies, there a few strategic managers who understand that marketing is an essential investment.

They know that the only way a company will make money is if the market is aware of and reminded of the company’s product and its value.

These managers actually increase their marketing investment in order to survive during a recession.

Remember, your advertising budget is only a subset of your marketing budget.

Don’t forget to include related costs for market research, training and attending functions.

Complete the following sentence.                                                        

In order to achieve business growth, a manager should:                       

a)  inundate a mass audience with information about his company’s products and services  

or

b) conduct research on prospective customers and develop a specialized message targeted towards a controlled, handpicked audience.

While the latter option may have seemed like the obvious answer, there are still managers who take the former ‘spray and pray’ approach to marketing.

Such managers’ primary concern might be profitability.

However, they waste considerable amounts of money, time and resources broadcasting a generic message to as many people as possible.

Then, they wait, praying that the market will respond.

Making an Investment

Those of you who chose option b), on the other hand, understand that marketing requires making an investment.

Strategic managers like yourself, know that marketing takes time and that returns will not be immediate.

Investment marketing might involve providing prospective customers with free professional advice related to your industry before pushing a sales message.

This allows you to engage with your audience, building permission and earning their trust so that your company will be recognized as their preferred choice.

After a while, you may begin to pitch your products and services to them.

Really Connecting

Managers who are willing to make an investment, think deeply about how the company’s products and services can add value to the lives of prospective consumers.

Meanwhile managers who spray and pray do not take the time to get to know their marketplace.

They don’t invest in building a relationship with the people who can benefit from their products and services the most.

For them, marketing is merely about numbers.

Like on Facebook

The recent trend of social marketing exacerbates this issue.

Let us look at Facebook for example.

Firstly, you must ask yourself – is your market even on Facebook?

It is imperative that you clearly define your target market and the messages you send them and ensure that communication is direct targeting a specific audience with relevant information.

Additionally, how many of the thousands of a company’s Facebook fans are prospective customers?

How many relationships with the company will extend beyond liking its page?

If you focus on numbers, you miss out on making a meaningful connection with your marketplace.

Why prioritise the quality customer service experience?

If you need to ask that then your entire marketing strategy is in trouble.

Quality customer service experience (QCSE) attracts customers. What’s more, it retains customers.

QCSE generates word of mouth referrals: pleased customers can’t wait to toast your business to others.

Their “free press” is priceless, and it can be yours by just making sure your business supplies superior products and impressive service.

Sadly, many managers try to use commercials and gimmicks to drum up the kind of increased business profitability that can only be manifested by the key marketing component of keeping customers content.

Understanding Experience

Managers who understand that marketing is much more than advertising are continually working towards increasing the value of their products and service — aiming to be outstanding in fields full of mediocrity.

They step up to challenges and create and maintain competitive edge that boosts prosperity.

They know that all customers crave experience.

For instance, people can watch the latest blockbusters at low rate cinemas, or at home via DVDs or cable.

Yet, they pay premium prices to “have a movie experience” instead.

They are buying into the promise of a quality environment with people like themselves.

Noteworthy service

It’s challenging to stand out when there are a quite a number of other businesses offering the “exact same products” your company does.

That is why you need to define and execute a QCSE that is yours alone. Use it as a signature for your company.

Here’s some of what you can do:

Be guided by your own personal experiences as a customer.

Think about the last time you received service that was so noteworthy you made recommendations to your friends.

Try adopting that exceptional standard into your company

Transcend expectations. Make your product more useful, safer, more portable or more efficient, etc than the rest in your industry.

Train your staff. Treat them well

Elicit and respect their feedback. Staff can provide you with valuable insights, while happy staff are likely to work harder and provide better service.

Also encourage your customers to provide feedback.

Assure them that you welcome constructive criticism and you are willing to improve. 

Take their advice.