It’s all about relevance
WHAT DOES ‘RELEVANCE’ MEAN?
It doesn’t matter what business you are in it is truly about being relevant. You could be in the accounting industry, a hotelier, a butcher, a property developer, a retail outlet, a motelier, an architect, a doctor, a builder, a fast food outlet…… You get what I mean. You can be in any industry in any location. It doesn’t matter. In other words the world is moving so fast today and we have such little spare time so it is getting harder to capture people.
The world used to be a much simpler place. You just had to be in business or have a shop front and as they say you were in business. People had far fewer choices than they have today. If a business had a good story, product, or service, that was typically enough to earn a sale.
No one would describe the world as simple today. It’s complex and getting more complex each day. Businesses face a new and difficult challenge. Consumers have an expanding universe of options and new ways to select them. There are zettabyes of information at their fingertips, and networks upon networks to discover their friends’ preferences and experiences with the things they are considering. Remember as well we now also have less spare time.
The increasing speed at which we all operate in today’s new world explains why such an old concept—relevance—is suddenly so important.
It is certainly true that what you are offering must solve a customer need and do it well. But increasingly, that is not enough. Customers are becoming progressively fickle, as well as spoiled. They expect superior outcomes from you. That is the price of entry, and unfortunately not something that will guarantee a long-term relationship. A slip, an encounter with someone who does what you do slightly better, has better customer service, a feeling that you don’t care (called perceived indifference) when actually you do care or even a lower price, and your consumer’s relationship with you could be over.
And that is where the emotional part of relevance comes in. If your product, service, or idea resonates with a customer, if it means something to them then the relationship will be deeper, longer lasting, and more profitable.
Remember, the question at the start. What does relevance mean? In simple terms, relevance is that which provides meaning in our lives. Relevance is the full experience of a product, brand, or cause that we can relate to; it’s an experience that not only changes minds, but, importantly, changes behavior—and sustains that change.
So how can we be relevant to ensure we capture people’s attention, their imagination and in turn their trust and confidence?
FIVE STRATEGIES FOR RELEVANCE
How do you become relevant? There are five different ways, and you need to employ all of them:
1. Segment Your Marketing
You cannot be all things to all people. But you can be relevant to all people based on some aspect of your offering. You can find out which aspect will resonate by dividing your marketing by very specific categories—age, income, gender, education, geography, life experience, interests, politics, whatever. Then determine how you can make what you have relevant to people in each of those categories. This is a very targeted approach and will help ensure that your customers actually get what they want and in turn you will get what you want.
2. Understand Intangible Drivers
There are four components that will affect consumers’ responses to your offering, though often on a level they can’t articulate: thinking, sensory appeal, community, and values. Understand and take advantage of these drivers.
3. Consider the Three Cs
Relevance depends on three circumstances—content, context, and contact. The content of communications is the primary vehicle for delivering relevance to an audience. Context, by which we mean time and space, is another factor. Contact is the third factor; relevance depends on the communication’s source, as well as the medium itself.
4. Ensure your Customer Service Leaves Them Wanting More
You must do all you can to really leave a positive impression with your customers. Make sure you find out what they want, when they want it, how they want it and what they thought of how you delivered all of that. 80% of businesses believe they deliver a superior customer experience, but only 8% of their customers agree.
So we must engrain this into our business that most importantly people do not buy a product or a service!! We sell an outcome, a result, a benefit or lifestyle!! We actually sell or provide an EXPERIENCE. I reiterate: Stop selling a product or service and start ‘solution’ selling. When it comes to EXPERIENCE people look at and consider “Are their processes intuitive, user friendly and efficient”?
5. Ensure you are Tech Savvy
The Times they are a-changin’ – Bob Dylan said many years ago.
What are you doing about the technology changes? In regards to TECHNOLOGY people relate it to their lack of time. So the more we can do to allow them to gain time (a precious commodity) the better they look at us and the relationship – “Do they use technology to make it easier and faster for me to deal with them?” What are you doing about using the myriad of mediums to communicate and contact people via website, social media, applications, google adwords, search engine optimisation, multimedia, big data and 3D printing (this is the next revolution)? It is now the age of prediction. What are you doing to predict what will impact your business and what people will want and how you can give it to them?
Some scary facts:
- 90% of the total data in the world was created in the last 2 years
- Every minute – 204 million emails, 2 million google searches, 48 hours of YouTube video is watched, 700,00 items shared on Facebook
- In 2012, 2.8 Zettabytes was created which is 2.8 trillion GBs
- In 2020 predicted to be 40 Zettabyes created (40 trillion GBs)
- A gigabyte is a lot of data!
WHY IS RELEVANCE IMPORTANT?
Relevance focuses on results. Relevance is about the ultimate goal—triggering the desired behavior.
People have so many choices about where to spend their money and place their loyalty. If you aren’t relevant, they will go somewhere else. We must therefore be relevant to survive and thrive in the World today.
Our business camp is all about making you even more relevant than you are today. Join us at the next Global Business Camp on the Gold Coast from the 14th to the 16th of March 2016. You will hear from speakers that will move you and your businesses towards being more relevant in these fast moving times. You will also work ON your business and not in your business to create the future you want.
