True Value

Insight

Sometimes companies lose sight of what really drives their bottom line. It is important, as a business, that you take a fresh look at your customers and distribution to assess the value you actually deliver. Sometimes market forces are breaking your channels and hindering your ability to communicate and deliver value through your channels. You can’t capture the value you create if you can’t clearly define that value and be sure it is superior to the customer’s alternatives.

Want to increase the value you offer? The issue is to identify what part of the value equation you should fix – benefits or costs?

Should you increase benefits? If so, what benefits are meaningful to customers? Are there groups of customers that value different sets of benefits? Or, should you reduce costs?
Deciding the right changes to make quickly become complex. On top of this, the trap most marketers fail to consider is the interdependency.

The question in cutting internal costs is simply, “Will this change reduce or increase the value the customer perceives? And, will it change the value positively enough to change the customer’s behavior?” The answer to these questions comes from an in depth understanding of the customer’s perception of value.

Perceived Value

Perceived Value is what the customer thinks he gets. The value the customer perceives is not only a function of the product, but also of the services associated with that product and the relationship/trust the customer has in the product and the supplier. Therefore, you also must see value from the customer’s perceptions.

One of the key questions for marketers is, “Which of the perception problems do I have?”

• Am I not effectively communicating my value?
• Have I not understood the customer well enough and therefore designed a value proposition that he sees as inferior?

Designed Value

Designed Value is the value you plan to deliver to customers. Assuring you meet the design value in each dimension can’t be left to chance – you need market feedback that validates customers perceive the design value you targeted. And, most critically, you need to be sure the feedback is coming from the customer group you are targeting with this design.

The Bottom Line

Assessing your own designed value and understanding your customer’s perceived value will allow you to design products and services that provide customers value that is superior to their alternatives.

To further define your goals, you can use the tools provided by QDI’s Value Management Workbook™, which helps sales and marketing teams quantify their internal perceptions of the value they and their competitors provide customers. Remember, capturing value requires presence to your target customers, effectively communicating your value proposition, and then using pricing and your marketing programs to seize the economic value.

QDI’s Value Management Workbook™ is used by clients to grow their businesses through target benefit marketing. The workbook helps:
• Develop and align product benefits for specific customer segments
• Validate and better communicate your real value to each customer segment

Click here to listen to what Steve Bassill has to say about Value and how organizations use QDI ‘s Value Management Workbook™ to turn benefits into Marketing and Sales Goal by avoiding 3 common failures.

For a limited time, by clicking this link, you can obtain a free copy of QDI’s Value Management Workbook™ to help you create value in your business.

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