How to Increase Sales through Competitive Advantage
Introduction
Does your product have uniqueness over your competitors?
Is your product providing maximum benefits to the customers?
Do you want to know how you can increase sales through competitive advantage?
In this age of cut-throat competition and with the onset of online shopping platforms, forget doubling your sales, selling your product itself has become more challenging.
Does this situation panic you? Are you searching for a formula to increase your sales or say double your sales?
Then your wait is over!
Read the article to increase your sales through competitive advantage more than double.
Sales are 90% Conviction and 10% communication of your conviction.
What is a Competitive Advantage?
Every product has some unique features and some benefits. These two put together, may act as an advantage for you over your competitors.
But will this lead to increasing your sales? The answer is No!
It is by focusing on benefits that come attached to these unique features, you can double your sales.
So, focus on those features of your product that provide maximum benefits to your customer. This will act as an advantage for the customer over your competitors. And, this is what we call as a Competitive Advantage.
Let’s understand this with some sales strategy examples as given below:
Example #1:
This CASE pen is beautiful. This is the feature of the pen. But, if you want to sell, tell the benefits of the pen to the customer.
What is the benefit here?
This pen writes beautifully and it will help beautify your handwriting.
So, focus on the benefit to the customer.
Example #2:
The average mileage of Case Company- Back loader is good. This is the feature of the back loader.
What is the benefit here?
You can save Rs. 2 lac per year by purchasing it.
So, focus on the benefit to the customer.
Where to Focus?
In Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna says,
Na Anayatra Kinchit Asti Dhananjaya..
Sarvai gunai samasitai surah..
It means to focus on finding unique qualities to create a Blue Ocean strategy!
When applied to business, it would mean “Focus on those qualities which are not with anyone.”
And this is what we call as a Competitive Advantage.
If anyone has become a millionaire or billionaire, it is just because of competitive advantage.
But the question arises ‘Where to focus?’
You will get the competitive advantage not by addressing the objection but killing the objection in advance.
Don’t think about undercutting. If this is your focus, you will kill your gross margins.
An expansion without Gross Margin is committing suicide.
So, don’t focus on cutting down your gross margin, focus on competitive advantage. By doing so, you will kill the competition.
So, don’t focus on cutting down your gross margin, focus on competitive advantage. By doing so, you will kill the competition.
How to make your brand go viral with less investment?
It’s easy to make your brand viral by incurring huge expenditure on marketing and advertising. But, how to make your brand viral through ‘Organic Branding’ and ‘Economic Branding’?
In other words, how to make your brand go viral by spending less on marketing and advertising?
In this article 5, important tips are given to make your brand viral by spending less.
Let’s explore!
Tip #1: Feeling Vs. information
In your ads for branding and promotion, are you only talking about your product or trying to connect with the people’s emotions/feelings?
People Are Not Interested in Who You Are,
They Are Interested in How You Make Them Feel.
So, what kind of feeling your brand is able to generate is important for making your brand viral through organic branding.
Remember, all the ads that became viral had a great emotional touch with the audience.
Example:
Do you remember the ad of Samsung LED TV Repair?
If you had seen it you certainly would. Because it had a strong emotional touch.
In the ad, a Samsung mechanic drives through the curvy and rugged hilly roads to repair an LED TV in a Blind Student’s hostel situated at the hilltop.
On reaching, he finds that all the blind students were waiting for their TV to be repaired so that they can listen to their host elite friend singing in a reality show.
Effect of the ad : Samsung reported a jump in their sales of TV, that is, a J-Curve in Sales.
So, your Brand Recall Value depends on how you made the user feel through your advertisement, sales pitch, and promotional schemes.
Tip #2: Socially Responsible Emotional Story
To make your brand viral, you will not have to spend more on your brand’s advertisement, if you resort to ‘Organic Branding’ instead of ‘Paid Branding’.
You need to understand that buying behavior of consumers are influenced by emotion and not by logic
So, your advertisements and campaign should have a Socially Responsible Emotional Story.
Tip #3: Attention Seeking Potential
Earlier, the advertisers used to keep the end of an ad engaging so that users can go home with messages intact.
But with the coming of remote control operated TV sets, the user has more control over what they want to see.
So, your advertisement or campaign must be attention seeking from the very first second.
If this is not so, then the user can very quickly switch to other channels.
To get the attention of viewers, brands use advertisement techniques that invoke extreme emotions.
For Example:
In a Deodorant Ad, a man sprays deodorant on his body and girls get attracted to him from all the directions.
There are so many other ways of attention-seeking potential which can be handy for you and your product, so choose it wisely whichever suits your product.
The below methods will boost your understanding of how to make your brand go viral
A. Testimonial Route of Social Proof: Some advertisers and brands use reports and surveys to make customers believe that the product they are showcasing is one of the best. If you don’t use it, you are going to be disadvantaged.
Some examples of such brands are USHA, Fena, Colgate, Sensodyne, etc.
Moreover, many brands have this tendency to use a doctor’s coat to make people believe that the product is best for you.
B. Unexpected Expected Delightful Surprise: To avoid huge investment, instead of hiring an expert agency, many companies opt for someone with little hands-on making creative ads and they spoon-feed their ideas to the audience.
But it fails drastically because if you spoon-feed your audience, they will not admire the things they already know.
The audience likes unexpected ads with delightful surprises in the end.
The ad should be designed in such a way that leaves a smile on the faces of people.
Pidilite did many experiments in doing things like this; they made a few ads that left a smile on people’s faces and things that were unexpected.
The same thing happened with the ad of Royal Stag -Men will be Men, Airtel followed the suit.
Tip #4: Call for Action with a Jingle
Jingles are the most powerful way to make your brand viral. It catches the attention of the audience. It gets absorbed in the minds of people effortlessly.
This is because the human brain registers the jingles and music easily as compared to other things.
As soon as viewers watch such ads, they start singing or humming the jingles unconsciously.
Jingles have hidden commands for viewers. As they keep humming them, when they go to a shop, they purchase the same product.
For Example:
The jingles of Uncle Chips, Vicks, Mango-Frooti, Bajaj advertisements are so popular that it has increased the sales of these products drastically.
Tip #5: Exaggerate the Insecurities and Fear
As a tool of organic branding, over the last few decades, many brands have exaggerated the insecurities and fears in the mind of common people.
They keep on glorifying and amplifying it throughout the ad to convince the viewer that if they won’t take their product or service, they will be at a loss.
They generate a sense of compulsion and a sense of urgency among the audience.
For Example:
In the ad of hair oil, they show hair fall problem or dandruff issues.
In the ad of LIC policy, they show that an untimely death can happen to anyone and many more things like this.
Even Baba Ramdev, who runs an ad of hair oil where he shows that the other companies are using components that can cause cancer.
Given the 5 steps as above will help you understand how to make your brand go viral without increasing cost on branding and promotion.
Do you know why strategy execution fails in business?
Are you focused on Strategy or Executing the Strategy?
Do you want to execute your Strategies effectively?
There is a myth prevailing across the business community that if strategies are good, an organization will definitely work.
They solely rely upon ‘ideas and innovation’ to run their business and undermine the importance of strategy Execution.
Big corporates make many strategies, work on various innovative ideas by pumping billions of dollars.
Still, their failure to execute those ideas actually lead them to an unexpected demise.
Thousands of organizations are failing due to the improper execution of their business strategy.
Let us understand why strategy execution fails even after making world-class business strategies.
Corporates’ Failure to Execute Ideas
Even after being the first entrant into mobile phones, Research in Motion, the makers of Blackberry, and Nokia lost 85% market share to new entrants due to lack of efficient execution.
Even after having a powerful business strategy, ideas, and innovation they failed dramatically in execution. This led others to grab the market from them.
Ideas and Innovations are not Sufficient
Sole dependence upon the ideas is the prime reason why strategy execution fails even after pumping millions of dollars on innovation.
In present market conditions, it is utterly a myth that with an “idea” one can become “Crorepati” (millionaire).
An Idea is just a seed, but it needs Sun, Air, Water, Fertilizer, and Pesticide to become a big tree -which is called Execution.
Why is Execution so Important?
Such is the importance of strategy execution in an organization that accomplishing a plan without it is merely a myth.
Normally, an organization doesn’t figure out money-making models and fail to make efforts score, results score, and scoreboard.
Plans and policies can be made in a board room, but the execution is not a child’s play. It is a systematic way of turning cognitive ideas into reality.
Seamless execution on your inspiration can become even bigger than innovations.
Strategies and innovations are important, but without excellent execution, they are completely irrelevant.
Innovation can be purchased, strategists can be hired, but the execution has to be done by you only.
Be Fast Mover, Not First Mover
This is not the world of first movers but fast movers. Although Bollywood started making movies inspired by Hollywood, now, its revenue has surpassed that of Hollywood.
OYO Rooms launched an online hotel booking service in India by adopting a model of AIRBNB from abroad, but now, it has become so big that AIRBNB cannot even compete with it in India.
In the same manner, OLA Cabs began its operation after many years of the launch of Uber in India, and now, it has become larger than Uber in the country.
Get Inspired by Others
Xerox’s computer was not as bad as it now appears to be, but it lacked execution.
The emergence of Steve Jobs’s Apple and Bill Gates’s Microsoft in the world of the operating system did not leave the space for Xerox to breathe anymore.
There were many mobile operating systems like -Blackberry, Symbian, MeeGo, Palm OS, and Windows.
But, they left an inch of space in the market!
Seeing the space, Google launched the Android killing all competitors in one go. It created a single point ecosystem and open platform for mobile and software manufacturers, which no one could think of.
Failure to Execute
Thanks to their ability to undermine the importance of strategy execution, Nokia, Siemens, Blackberry, Motorola and Sony are no more a household name as they used to be.
Once, market leaders, they lost the race with the entry of Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi.
Though strategies and innovations are very important for an organization, but “ideation without execution is only illusion and delusion.
The entry of Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali has driven centuries-old organizations like P&G (Procter and Gamble), Dabur, Hamdard, and Unilever out of business.
The story is no different for Search engines. Web crawler and Lykos were launched in 1994, AltaVista and Excite in 1995, Yahoo and Dogpile in 1996, and Ask Jeeves and MSN in 1998. But they could not sustain the market to inexperienced Google, which was launched in 1998.
All these corporate failures are examples of failed execution even after having good ideas, strategies, and innovation.
Today is the time of not only innovation and ideas but taking inspiration from surroundings to execute business and scale it up.
Hence, why strategy execution fails could be well understood with the explanation as given in the article.
Do you want to retain your existing customers and create new customers for a lifetime?
Do you know how to increase sales?
Read this complete article to know tips on how to increase sales and create loyal customers. These ideas will help you retain your existing customers and create new customers for a lifetime.
Tip #1: Customer’s Name is the Sweetest Desert to Him
The first workable tip to increase your sales is connecting with your customers by knowing their names.
Customers love to hear their names from others.
If you are a small shop owner, you should give a personalized touch to your customers by greeting them with their names. Apply this little tip, you will get big results.
It is psychologically proven that every individual loves to listen to his name.
In a survey of 100 people, it was found that the waiter’s tip increased by 14% when he gives a good-quality mint along with the bill at the time of clearing.
When there were children along with the customers, waiters bring candy for kids instead of mint and this increases their tip to 27%.
Though it won’t cost much, if you give your customers some specialized, personalized and customized service, they will come to you again and again, which will help you increase your brand value, brand equity, and sales.
Tip #2: Co-Creation of Innovation with your Customer
Whatever changes you are planning to bring in your products or services, you should take extensive feedback from your customers. Your customer should feel that he/she is also part of the innovation. This model is called the ABCDE model.
A- Analyze the needs of the customer.
B- Brainstorm the actual requirement of the customer.
C- Co-create; involve your customer in the product’s creation.
D- Deliver
E- Evaluate
This is one of the reasons for Subway’s success, as the customer creates its own customized meal. Co-creation empowers the customer and if the sandwich does not taste good, then also the customer doesn’t mind as he himself was involved in creation.
Do you know to know what makes a franchise successful?
Franchise is one of the easiest and fastest ways of expanding a business. If you want to know how to build a successful franchise business, you need to first clear about different franchise business models.
Once you are clear with the franchise business model, you can look forward to investing your money in an established brand or even can set up your own franchise chain.
Before getting into the details of how to build a successful franchise business, let us first understand why businessmen are more interested in expanding their business through franchise business.
Why go for Franchise Business?
One of the reasons that people go for a franchise business is its increasing success rate and decreasing failure rate.
In franchise businesses, the startup cost gets minimized because the working model is already made, and you don’t have to invest in various combinations to make your business come on track.
In this business, you get a master franchisor that helps you in developing the skills to run and expand the business.
There are many advantages as well as disadvantages in the franchise business.
Let us first discuss what makes a franchise successful.
Advantages of Franchise Business
1. In this business, you get a proven trademark, logo and an established brand name.
2. An established working business model.
3. You get the customer’s ready footfall.
4. Everything is already defined be it the content, context, training, or print.
5. A system to train your manpower.
6. In some brands, you also get the support of the national marketing team as well. This saves the investment of your extra money and time because the marketing is done by the team for you.
Disadvantages of Franchise Business
1. Higher Entry Cost and Ongoing Cost
If you want to know how to build a successful franchise business, then you should understand that taking up the franchise of an established and popular brand will cost you a lot. You have to invest a good amount of money.
On the other hand, if you start your own burger shop the cost reduces to almost 10% and the profit also increases.
There are several franchisors that will give you their own infrastructure, software, database, and computer but in return, they will:
Keep a tight eye on what you are doing; you will be under strict surveillance.
Check the standard of the place, the database and everything, regularly.
Not support you as you would have expected.
All they are interested in is royalty.
2. Lack of Flexibility
Do you want to jump into a business where the possibility of bringing in some other product becomes zero?
In this case, you will not be able to bring in any new ideas or variations.
You will just have to stick to the basic standards and follow them.
Big brands standardize their processes and products as this is what makes a franchise successful. However, this restricts the franchisee.
The bigger the brand the stricter will be their rules and norms because they already have a large customer base.
So, choose wisely before you join hands with someone for kick-starting a successful franchise business.
3. Thorough Research
Thorough research of the brand whose franchise you want to take is one of the important factors of how to build a successful franchise business.
If you are willing to take the franchise of a brand, then do check that what it’s market status is because your brand will also be known with the parent brand.
If your parent brand is not going well in the market, your reputation will also be hampered irrespective of the efforts and money you invest in it.
So, you should do the following:
Check the brand’s product, positioning, and pricing.
Go and meet the other franchisees of the brand and ask them about:
1. Gap between what they expected and what is deliverable.
2. Gap between commitment and achievement.
3. Support from the company.
The above points are the factors that make a franchise successful.
4. Check the Failure Rate
Now after meeting the existing franchisees, you must go and search for some of the franchisees who have been shut down.
Go and have a word with them to get an insight and the problem due to which they were forced to close down.
You have all the right to know that where was the problem, was it with the franchisor or the franchise.
Check on the internet and decide only after you have satisfactorily done your research.
5. Franchisor Controls all the Cards
After finalizing the brand you want to work with, the documentation is the next most important part of how to build a successful franchise business.
Before you sign the papers, get assured that they are benefitting you as well.
Let your lawyer read the terms and ask him for guidance.
Carefully go through the agreement before signing and if needed negotiate things with the franchisor.
6. Consider Doing it Yourself
It is true that joining with a big brand will give you big business and will demand big investment but on the other hand, sometimes things can go well for your brand as well.
Who knows the brand you built that is low on business and investment could boom up and become a bigger brand.
Business is not rocket science; it needs possibility, passion, a business mindset, and some analytical ability.
Hope these points will prove to be helpful on how to build a successful franchise business.
how to develop your personal effectiveness, increasing personal effectiveness
Introduction
Are you a manager trying to become a leader?
Do you want to develop personal power or positional power?
Do you know how to develop personal effectiveness?
Every manager in an organization someday wants to become a leader of an organization.
But do you know, what matters the most in becoming a leader? It is ‘people skills’.
“The higher you go in an organization, 90% is people skills and only 10% is technical skills.”
If you want growth, develop your technical skills. If you want to grow more, then develop your managerial skills. For unlimited growth, develop your people skills.
So, you have to develop people skills for growing from managerial positions to leadership positions.
But before dwelling into how to develop ‘people skills’, let’s understand the difference between ‘personal power’ and ‘positional power’.
Personal Power vs. Positional Power
Let us take an example to understand the difference between personal power and positional power, and how to develop personal effectiveness from them.
For Example
Mahatma Gandhi had personal power while Rahul Gandhi has positional power. Similarly, Amitabh Bachchan has personal power while Abhishek Bachchan has positional power.
So ‘personal power’ means ‘ability to influence masses by virtue of their own charisma. On the other hand, ‘positional power’ means ‘deriving power from the position, and it may or may not influence the masses’.
Which kind of power would you like to develop?
According to Verse 3.21 of Bhagavad Gita:
yad yad acharati srestha tad tad evetaro janah
It means ‘जैसा जैसा, वैसा वैसा’, that is, ‘Leading by Example.’
To put it simply, the way a leader does anything, the followers will also do the same.
However, it is not necessary that followers will obey everything instructed by the leader.
Leadership is not by positional power, it is by personal power. Leadership is not by instruction; it is by inspiration.
So, before developing interpersonal effectiveness, you need to work on increasing personal effectiveness to be a successful leader.
Below given are some of the tips on how to develop your personal effectiveness:
Tip #1: Don’t See Things Worse Than They Are
In an organization, various things happen around you, don’t see things worse than they actually are.
You don’t behave based on what has happened to you, you behave based on what you feel has happened to you.
When you feel bad about something, you behave badly. When you do so, it creates a Negative Cyclic Reciprocation.
When you feel negative, you deal negative.
Tip #2: Try to See Things as They Are
When you try to see things as they are, you give benefit of doubt to a given situation. This, in turn, enables you to see things with a newer perspective. So,
When you change the way you look at the things
The things you look at they change
For Example
If you clicked pictures of a mountain, ocean, or a building and the picture taken is not looking good, then what you will do?
Do you shift the position of mountain, ocean, or building? No, you cannot.
You have to shift your vision to take a better picture. So, change your vision to look at things that are where the need arises to increase personal effectiveness.
Tip #3: Try to See Things Better Than They Are
When you see things better than they are, then you will behave better and develop people skills. It will also help you to develop great relationships.
Beyond a particular point, it is not your technical skills that help you grow; it is your people skills that help you grow. Hence you need to focus on increasing personal effectiveness, not positional effectiveness.
You have to feel better if you want to deal better.
Are you a student who aspires to achieve the set goals?
Are you not able to achieve your goal due to difficulty in memorizing?
Do you want to improve memory and concentration?
Yesterday, when you went out, you would have seen a lot of vehicles, people and many more things. But how many of those you still remember? None, am I right?
Why did this happen? It is because your subconscious mind didn’t register them at all.
Now, let us understand why did this happen. If you are able to understand all the facts here then you can easily improve memory and concentration more than ever before.
Let’s see three tips to improve concentration and memory.
Tip #1: Unusual Gets Noticed
If you see something weird, unusual or different from others, your subconscious mind captures it and registers it. Like, a baby of a monkey playing with a tiger cub or a car moving in a river.
This creates an image in your subconscious mind, later; your conscious mind can easily derive the information from it.
So, if you want to learn something and remember it for a long time, then give it a different name something very unusual or picture it in an old fashion.
Tip #2: Extreme Emotion, Good or Bad
People tend to remember something that is related to their extreme emotion be it good or bad.
People remember the extreme cold, extreme summer, extreme happiness, and extreme sorrow. Something that is very good or bad will also be remembered for a long time.
There is a cycle that is created from this picture which results in action and action again sows the seed of a new picture.
Tip #3: Passionate Conscious Goal Statement
A powerful goal statement is key to improve memory and concentration.
Whenever something new goes inside your mind, it registers and stores only what is fruitful to you.
If the data does not help the mind in achieving any goal, then it will leave the data. The conscious mind will take its own decision when you hold the goal statement.
For Example
If you as a student want to learn a subject and you have an interest in it, then you can easily learn it.
On the other hand, if you read something that is uninteresting, then you will have to learn it forcefully.
There are two patterns of thinking ’ Structured Pattern and Accidental Pattern.
In accidental pattern of thinking , your data is not structured and your mind faces a lot of problems while taking a decision.
In structured pattern of thinking , all your data is in a well-structured form and the mind does not have any problem in registering things and then finding it.
If you will use any of the above three tips to improve concentration rigorously then you will certainly be able to achieve your goals successfully.
Consumer behavior plays an important role in the positioning of your product. So, before launching a product it is certainly inevitable to understand consumer buying behavior.
Variety Seeking Buying Behavior vs. Habitual Buying Behavior
You need to ascertain whether your consumer is exhibiting a ’variety-seeking buying behavior’ or ’habitual buying behavior.
A consumer exhibiting ’variety-seeking buying behavior’ is always looking for buying something new or options. He can never be your permanent consumer.
On the other hand, a consumer exhibiting ’habitual buying behavior’ is not looking for any options. He has developed the habit of buying your products only.
So, whom to focus on? Naturally, the second type of consumers.
But, do you know how to convert a consumer from ’variety seeking from buying behavior’ to ’habitual buying behavior.
Let us take some case studies to understand consumer buying behavior.
#1: PepsiCo
Indra Nooyi, the global CEO of PepsiCo, has earned so much esteem that she was once the part of the advisory team of the American president.
But, when it comes to the products of her company, she goes to the malls and checks all the products with respect to ’Shelf offtake’ and understand consumer buying behavior.
Shelf Off-take means ’How the product is looking in the shelf and how much the customer is interested in buying it?’
She is not just making product innovations, but also bringing innovations in the product designs.
Why?
Because: Designs have a significant effect on the consumers’ buying behavior.
For Example
Indra Nooyi once found that the size of ’Sun Chips’, a product by Pepsico, was much bigger than the bite-size making it difficult for the consumers to eat it.
She not only changed the size of the Sun Chips but also brought changes in its packaging, form, functions, design, and layout of the product.
#2: Coca-Cola
One of the most selling products of Coca-Cola in America is Diet Coke but in India, the scenario is completely different.
In America, sugar is one of the biggest health issues and regular coke contains a good quantity of sugar.
So, Coca Cola came up with Diet Coke that does not contain sugar and is successful in America.
However, in India, a huge population is still malnourished, so, even if they consume more sugar in the form of regular coke nothing will happen to them.
So, after understanding the consumer needs and their behavior, TKK Krishnakumar, the Indian Head of Coca Cola, decided not to take the Diet Coke beyond tier 3 cities.
#3: Nike and Adidas
Both these companies deal in sports gear, wear, accessories, and shoes. They faced a lot of problems when they entered India.
Later, they understood the behavior of Indian consumers and promoted their products accordingly.
For Example
In the North-western states of India, cricket is a popular sport; people here are a huge fan of Sachin Tendulkar, whereas in the South-Eastern as well as North-Eastern states football is the popular game and everybody wants to become Maradona.
Based on this consumer behavior and preferences, Nike and Adidas have positioned and promoted their products in different parts of India.
#4: McDonald’s
When McDonald’s entered India, it failed. Later, they studied the consumer behavior of India and found that Indians use potato as a snack in one or the other form.
So, they introduced Mc Aloo Tikki, which got highly successful in India.
#5: Health Drinks
In India, all the health drinks related to lactating and pregnant mothers failed but children health drinks got highly successful.
Why?
Because: Indian mothers are more concerned about their children’s health than their health.
So, they buy a drink that helps their children to grow well.
#6: Johnson & Johnson
Johnson & Johnson studied the behavior of urban mothers in India. They found that the Indian urban mothers are alone at their homes.
There is nobody to advise and help them with what they should do to grow their children well.
After understanding this, Johnson & Johnson launched the ’Best for a Baby’ campaign.
As part of the campaign, they provided content about everything that could help a mother to keep their babies protected and safe.
They also gave many problem-solving videos on their YouTube channel.
With this, they created their recall value among the Indian urban mother before positioning their product.
Do not introduce any of your products before studying consumer behavior, otherwise, you may get fail.
With these consumer buying behavior examples, you can ascertain the market need and integrate the requisite changes in your product.
Are you an entrepreneur who wants to become a game-changer in the market?
Are you planning to run an ad campaign for your product in a new market?
Do you know the importance of consumer behavior in business?
Launching a product in a new market is not a big thing. But, launching it without understanding consumer behavior of that market is certainly a big thing.
It may boomerang and lead to devastating results for the concerned business!
The consumer’s behavior understanding should be the top priority for any businessman. In fact, it should precede your nature & type of product, it’s launching, it’s pricing, and its positioning into the market.
So, let’s understand importance of consumer behavior first.
Understanding Consumer Behavior
The behavior of a consumer in buying a product depends on various factors. Depending on the factors, a consumer wears different hats or what we say ‘Buying Roles’.
To study the consumer’s behaviour you have to prepare profile of your target consumers on the basis of following factors: Age, income, gender, marital status, education, location, race, ethnicity, religion, occupation, industry, values, social class, personality, mindset, urban/rural, lifestyle and aspirations.
Having understood the importance of consumer behaviour, now we will showcase some case studies pertaining to consumer behavior.
#1 Pulse Polio Campaign
The Pulse Polio Campaign was launched by the Government of India in association with World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1995. Amitabh Bachchan was made the brand ambassador of that campaign.
In the campaign, he was seen requesting people to get their babies immunized at Polio booth on given dates.
However, in the first five years of the launch, the campaign failed to drive the mothers to the Polio booths to get their babies immunized from this crippling disease.
Shocked from the campaign’s failure, they decided to go door to door in small towns and villages to understand people’s behavior; “why are they not coming at Polio booth to get their babies vaccinated?”
After studying people’s behavior in the village for months, they came to know that in rural areas, elders were responsible for taking important decisions of household, while babies’ mothers and fathers had little control over it.
Portraying Amitabh Bachchan as requesting people to get their babies vaccinated, had no impression on the minds of elders because they had an image of Amitabh Bachchan as a young angry man.
It led them to change their strategy by portraying Amitabh Bachchan as an angry young man, rebuking people for not taking their babies at Polio booth.
It left a long-lasting impression on people’s minds, and the campaign has been successful in eradicating polio from the country.
#2 Cadbury’s in Early 1988
Cadbury until 1988 used to target children as 78% of their target consumers were children. But they used to leave eating chocolates after growing up.
The result was; Market saturation for the Cadbury in early 1988! They were struggling to retain the market.
In 1990s, in order to sustain and expand their market share, they took a bold decision to “remove children from their ads”.
Cadbury re-directed their campaign strategy to target youths by launching “Kya Swad Hai Zindagi Me” campaign.
Since then, Cadbury gradually moved from “children to youths to the family” with advertisements like Shubharambh and Kuch Mitha Ho Jaye.
They influenced the buying behavior of people of all ages through repositioning their brand by changing their campaigning strategy frequently.
#3 Gillette
Before launching their Gillette shaving razor vector in India, Proctor & Gamble (P&G) did a study on Indian students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for analyzing the buying behavior of Indians.
They thought that the “Made in USA” brand will be enough for their product to be successful in India.
However, they tasted failure! Why?
Because they perceived Indian consumer’s behavior from the angle of Indians in the United States (US).
Never launch a product without having an understanding of consumers’ behavior of the target market.
Realizing their mistake, they brought major changes in their product as per the “needs of Indian consumers” after understanding consumer behavior in India.
Their repositioning brought them seamless success over the years. Today, it is the number one brand in the men’s grooming sector in India.
#4 Maruti Suzuki
Have you heard of Maruti Suzuki’s Alto car? It is one of the world’s highest-selling cars.
Do you know that even after 15 years of the launch of Maruti Alto, it is being sold at the same price?
Even inflation is not able to alter the Maruti Alto’s price!
But how it is happening?
Because Maruti Suzuki kept on repositioning it’s Alto as per the consumer’s behavior and needs.
Maruti Suzuki does a lot of study and research before launching each and every edition of their cars.
These case studies along with the understanding of consumer behavior will help you make your campaigning strategy successful.
Do you want to bring transformation in your company?
Do you want to increase the productivity of your company?
How can you improve the performance of employees with the skill will matrix?
If you are a million-dollar company, you can become a billion-dollar company just by practicing the Skill Will Matrix. This matrix can bring a complete change in your company.
Skill Will Matrix depicts four kinds of people working in your organization. These are:
Monkey
These are the people who have recently joined your organization.
they have a high will and low skill .
They do not know- what to do, why to do when to do, where to do and how to do. They want to do something great in the organization.
Star Performers
These are the people who hold important positions like department heads and senior and old people in the organization. They have high skill and low will.
They know what to do, why to do when to do, where to do and how to do. They do not want to do anything due to the long vintage in the organization.
Parasites
These are the people who join an organization and start identifying the employees who have good authority in the organization and take shelter from these employees.
They neither have the skill nor will.
They do not focus on identifying what to do. They do not want to do anything in the organization.
Visionaries
They are the top people of the organization including CXO, CEO, and other senior people. Do they have high skill and high will.
They know everything and work very hard for the success of the organization.
Identifying Most Dangerous People for your Organization
Star performers are the most dangerous people for your organization. Why?
The reason is simple!
Star performers are the oldest people in the organization. They know what to do and how to do but they do not want to do.
Parasites take shelter under star performers and they also do not want to do any work.
As a result, a negative political nexus is formed in the organization.
When new employees go to the star performers to learn something, the departmental heads neither tell them nor encourage them due to some insecurity.
As a result, the enthusiasm and confidence get low. They stop taking initiatives in the organization.
What should Visionary do to change the Organization?
Start the evaporation and purification of star performers.
Start coaching and counseling of star performers.
Ask some of the star performers to leave the organization. This will destroy the negative political nexus build between the star performers and the parasites. Some parasites will also leave the organization and others will start moving towards visionaries.
Start training the monkeys or new employees. They have the will, if you give them skill, they will become the visionaries.
In Vedic scriptures as well, it is written:
tatra laulyam api ekalam mulyam Janma-koti-sukrtair na labhyate
The intense desire to perform something is the only one qualification needed by a man to actually grow and bounce back in tough times.
Start recognizing people with high skill will matrix and ownership taking ability, give them promotion and take them up and train them.
Though strategies and innovations are very important for an organization, but “ideation without execution is only illusion and delusion.
