Pivot and Shift: How Brands Can Shift Focus From Price

The E-tail space is extremely price competitive, but some smart brands find a way to shift the focus from price in order to establish premium value.

How Brands Can Shift Focus From Price

“Only one-third of consumers are purely hung up on price, while the other two-thirds are open to at least hearing your argument, says Tom Reilly, an author and value-based shopping expert.”  

 

Every brand related article mentions, “knowing your audience” and that’s really what it boils down to when leveraging values in order to sell a product at premium.

 

Know Your Product and Your Audience:

 

Many online retailers make the fatal mistake of trying to sell to everyone, but smart online retailers identify with a much smaller group on a much deeper level. The benefits are the ability to sell at a higher price to a group of people that are typically much more loyal to their brands.

 

If a brand really knows their audience then they can build a perception of value and superiority. A great example of a brand that effectively implemented this strategy is Tide, you know, the laundry detergent.

Tide Pods

When Tide introduced their “Tide Pods”, a three in one liquid tablet to the marketplace they were able to capture a significant portion of the market at a premium price.

 

Know Your Value

 

How did they do it? They created an impeccable value proposition; “Just one dose of Tide Original Liquid helps remove food stains better than an entire 40-load bottle of the leading liquid bargain brand.”

 

Research by MarketingExperiments indicates that the key challenge companies have is identifying an effective value proposition, followed by communicating it clearly.

 

Tides Value Proposition wasn’t just a claim or a slogan it was backed by consumer experience making it the “smart” purchase when compared with cheaper brands.

 

Tide has so effectively defined their value; they didn’t attempt to hide their higher price, they simply helped their customers understand why their prices were higher.

 

Creating a Premium Online Experience

 

I think that genuinely good branding involves an examination of every single way the brand, the product, and the experience is viewed. Everything that you do, everything you release, everything you say — everything is the cumulative expression of your brand. Stanley Hainsworth ~ VP of Creative Starbucks

 

When your trying to establish a premium priced product, the entire experience has to be better including the online experience. Elevating the user experience and maintaining your brand’s value message is essential.

 

To create such experiences, you first need to understand the “experience attributes” your customers value most. To do this you must reach your customer on a personal level, and when you get it right, you attract profitable new customers, keep your best customers, boost your profit margins, and command a price premium over competitors.

amazon personal shopping experience

Susan M. McPartlin lists these 5 experience enhancers as the most important influencers for brand experience in her Forbes article, The Key to Customer Loyalty: The Total Shopping Experience;

 

1.    Focus on Shopper Experience
2.    Create Brand Embassadors
3.    Help Consumers Overcome Psychological hurdles
4.    Make it Easy for Your Customers Anytime, Anywhere
5.    When Something Bad Happens, Fix It

 

According to Forrester research, ¾ of consumers said Amazon offers the best personalization experiences.

I don’t think any of us would disagree. Since its launch, back in the 1990s, Amazon has sought to be the most customer-centric online store in the world.

 

Does that mean you have to ‘be an Amazon’ to nail shopper experience? Of course not; my point is that consumers want to do business with companies that ‘know’ them.

 

As a brand, the ability to shift focus away from price is about creating a personal connection. Brands that can do this successfully are better at building customer loyalty and separating themselves from competition and the battle over whose product is cheapest.