Food for thought – differentiating in a commodity market
A quick story about fresh food and little Aussie battlers.
In Australia the groceries business is largely controlled by two players, Coles and Woolworths. There are many things wrong with that. For example, you can imagine the negotiating power these guys wield over their suppliers. Or their motivation to give you the best products possible.
As a consumer, I care mostly about the quality of what I buy and the price I pay for that quality. Woolworth and Coles are falling over themselves to tell me that they are fresh food people (just like me, the recently told me in an ad). But I don't see it.
Then we discovered (through word of mouth) that there is a crowd called Aussie Farmers Direct, who decided that there may just be an alternative to dancing to the tunes of the big boys. 
They believed that there was room in the market for an old fashioned milkman, who delivers not only milk but juice, bread and fresh vegetables. We've started using this service and now get a weekly delivery of all the stuff that you need to get fresh. The only proviso is that they select the fruit and veg that go into the box, but if you like variety, that's ok. At pretty much the same price as the supermarket, but at superior quality.
Who would have thought that while they are taking the last remaining bit of service out of the supermarkets (they now want you to scan your own stuff), there is a good business in home delivering high quality produce?
So what are the magic marketing ingredients?
Good model – cut out the middle man, direct to the consumer
Good positioning - "Helping the Australian farmer" - "The Milkman is back"
Differentiated offering – home delivery, no more lugging the heaviest part of your groceries
Quality – no more good-looking but crappy tasting fruit and veg..
Word of mouth promotion – as a result of all of the above
Who says you can't differentiate in a commodity market?
Youtube tells you what part of your video people like
I haven't used Youtube very much, but I suspect I will use video more and more in the future as it will become increasingly popular in B2B marketing.
My use to date has been to post little video's of my kids. I had a bit of fun and dubbed "Dance little lady, dance" by Tina Charles over a video of my (then) 3 yo dancing. It's had about 3,000 views (because of the title, I presume).
I had a look at it again last night, and I noticed some options to the right of the screen for "video owners" one of which was "insights". I clicked and got to a dashboard of analysis tools:
The next thing I clicked on what the "hotspots" button, which allowed me to see which part of my video people found more interesting than others:
Imagine how this can help you improve your communication over time? It tells you what people like with their actions, without having to provide any feedback. It allows you to continually improve your video, based on what people like and don't like. I must be dreaming. Awesome.
Social media in B2B – who is reviewing your product?
If there is one thing unique about B2B purchasing, it is the time and resources people devote to evaluating a potential purchase.
Now imagine you are launching a new product. A good launch is one of those rare moments when you can get the media's attention and a good launch will probably play a significant role in your products' success. So you target the right media, you write compelling stories hoping they get picked up by those hard to reach technology writers. If you represent a big brand, you're company may even advertise in the media you are hoping to get favourable reviews from them...
But of course they are not "the media" anymore. There are an increasing number of "other" media outlets. The people that create this "other" media tend to write out of passion or to demonstrate their thought leadership and generally share a couple of important characteristics:
- They don't get paid by a media company that relies on advertising
- They are often very passionate
- They are often not generalist "technology" writers but people with a very narrow interest/specialization
They are free to write what they like, they are likely to know what they are talking about, and they probably have a narrow group of readers who are equally focused and who are looking for unbiased, knowledgeable critique.
A real world example
Here is an example of such a product review by Stephen Few, from Perceptual Edge, a consultancy assisting companies "design simple information displays for effective analysis and communication."
The blog post is called " Xcelsius Present – Fast Track to Nowhere"; a 1,700 word review of the latest version of Excelsius from Business Objects. Now, I have no idea if he is right or wrong, but this is a little piece of the conclusion:
"Business Objects is a leading business intelligence vendor (based on sales), but its products consistently demonstrate that they don't understand analytics and haven't a clue about data visualization. A vendor that claims to be the best, which Business Objects unabashedly claims (just like every other major BI vendor), should be ashamed of selling such moronic products."
Ouch. Not exactly what you're hoping for. But the difference with traditional media is that it doesn't stop there. The conversation is about to start.
44 comments and a great discussion
There are 44 comments posted, and it is a lively discussion including an exchange with what appears to be a representative from Business Objects (although not identified as such). Either way, good on them for participating, as it provides potential buyers of the product not just one take on the product, but many.
Now Google "excelsius review, business objects".
So just before you start to believe that social media is just about Twitter, (and I don't blame you) it is the fragmentation of media and the increasing number of very narrow, niche blogs, wiki's etc that increasingly will come to the top of the search results when potential customers do their product evaluation. Search "excelsius review, business objects" and the review by Stephen Few is on the first search page, just under ZDNet. If I was in the market to buy, I'd probably read it. Rightly or wrongly.
So what can you do?
Without pretending to write a strategy, here are a few simple things you could do.
- Know who the people are outside the "traditional media" that publish on your subject.
- Engage with them. Maybe give them an opportunity to preview your product and ask questions. It won't mean you'll get a positive review, but you might just be able to ensure there is no misunderstanding about your product (which there seems to in this particular example)
- Participate in the discussion, using not only the comment section of their blog, but also your own. (What do you mean, you're company doesn't have a blog?)
What else would you do?
Syndicate
Subscribe to this site's RSS feed.