Marketing Strategy Prerequisites: Part 2

[Aryeh Powers]

After your business has a clear mission statement and a solid understanding of what it is that you offer to the consumer, the next thing to consider is how your product or service will enhance the lives of consumers or contribute to the efficiency of a business (value proposition). When describing your value proposition, it is important to identify the type and amount of competition your brand is facing. For example, if you have a product which offers something that no other brand offers, than you should want to describe your value proposition in very different way than a company that offers a widely available product but offers something specific in addition to their product.

Let’s take a look at the proposed value propositions for Google and Pet Smart.

Google’s value proposition is simply that they are the best search engine. Google's competition is other search engines that offer similar products to consumers. For Google, since they have positioned themselves as the best search engine, a more relevant challenge for them is to give customers the message that their products are easy to access and have a high ROI that can be easily measured. This can be seen in how Google advertises their AdWords services.

The value proposition of Pet Smart is that they offer a plethora of pet supplies, have excellent customer service and offer a customer friendly experience to their shoppers. Pet Smart’s competition is other location based pet stores and online pet stores. For Pet Smart, being one pet store among many, their marketing message is more focused on how they specialize or are more focused on particular aspects of their pet product selling. Pet Smart’s marketing message include phrases such as “we love to see happy, healthy pets”, which give customers the message that Pet Smart has friendly sales agent’s that care about pets and are not just a regular sales person.

Whereas Google is the “best” at what they do, Pet Smart is not. Pet Smart is not the “best” pet store and doesn’t claim to be. When you can identify more clearly what you offer and how you differ from your competition, than you can begin to be clearer about how to portray your brands marketing message and value to your clients.

 

Click here to read Marketing Strategy Prerequisites: Part 1.