Rise Above Price Competition

Obviously, price plays C C California Sleeve Tee important role in how current and potential clients or customers compare you with competitors. However, there are several factors that can reduce the role price plays, allowing you Da Nang Silk Top maintain or increase your current pricing, even in a competitive marketplace.

Perceived Superiority

If one sandwich Alice Olivia Tee delicious and another tastes like a piece of leather stuck between two shingles, people will not hesitate to pay more for the Bejeweled Sweat Pant one. If one consultant has a reputation for giving valuable advice, and another is known to make odd recommendations that often fail, companies will be more than willing to pay the first consultant a significantly higher hourly rate than the second.

Just having a superior product or service, however, is not enough. If your C C California Sleeve Tee members do not know or believe that you are in some way superior, you'll still be forced to compete on price.

Please note: Perceived superiority does not need to be all that real. You simply need to emphasize the strengths and benefits of your product or service in a way that implies superiority. Sometimes, your product or service might offer the exact same features and benefits as your competitor's, but Bejeweled Sweat Pant you're the first to say it, or you say it just the right way, audience members will believe that you're the only one that offers such a great thing.

Your product or service superiority can even be superficial, but it must be relevant. You can play up color, packaging, sex appeal, or some specific positive experience, if you can make these features and benefits relevant to your potential customers. No one will care if your disposable camera has a shelf life of ten years, because no one keeps a disposable camera for ten years. However, they might believe your product is superior thanks to its easy-to-pour container, because it will make their life cleaner and easier.

Additional Services or Products

An added service makes your product more valuable, and an added product makes your service more valuable. Not only will these added products or services help you win if you're competing against someone that's comparably priced, it also will enable you to charge more for what you're offering.

Let's just pretend for a moment... Two auto manufacturers are selling extremely similar cars. Manufacturer A offers 100,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty, plus free oil changes, tune-ups, rental cars, and car washes for the life of the car. Manufacturer B offers a 30,000-mile warranty and none of that other stuff. All of those added services could make potential customers less concerned about the couple thousand extra dollars Manufacturer A is charging.

Or... Two accounting firms offer virtually identical services through professionals with nearly identical skills, training, and experience. Accounting Firm Y does all the work correctly, files all the right documents on time, makes solid recommendations for business improvements, and does everything else you'd expect from a good accounting C C California Sleeve Tee Firm Z does all of the above, but also gives the client a series of printed and bound documents on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis that recap all of the activities, recommendations, trends, and anything else that may be relevant or helpful. Suddenly, Firm Z is offering more, and many clients will be willing to pay more for it.

Brand Loyalty

Brand loyalty is created when a product or organization has consistently satisfied a client or customer. The customer comes to believe that there's no reason to even consider a competitor. When brand loyalty exists, price shopping stops - unless prices become way out of whack.

Satisfy your customers every time, and few if any will start comparing your prices.

Brand Image

The most intangible of all factors that go into reducing price sensitivity is brand image. If people attach some level of prestige or superiority to your product or service, they'll pay more for it. If people believe it's an honor to work with your consultants, you can price accordingly. If people are proud to Da Nang Silk Top off their high-priced automobile, you better make sure it's high priced. If people think any other brand of beer of soda is far less cool than yours, you can charge twice as much as those other guys.

Brand C C California Sleeve Tee can be built through a number of different factors - from endorsements to clever commercials, from packaging to guerilla marketing, from the right celebrity wearing your T-shirt on The Tonight Show to brand loyal customers touting your praise, from viral marketing to elitist pricing. Yes, sometimes, just having the audacity to price your product or service high will make people think it's worth it.

Buying Process

The better the buying process and "shopping experience," the more you can charge for a product or service. And most of the time, a better buying process is a quicker, easier one.

If your store is in a better location or has more convenient hours... If customers can make a purchase decision with one trip to your location instead of three... If your website has an intuitive navigation system and an easy-to-use checkout function... If clients can get a firm price without having to go through a bunch of back-and-forth steps, they'll be less price sensitive and more likely to pay your asking price.

On the flip side, if customers feel rushed or pressured, or that not enough attention is being paid to them, that too can be detrimental to maximizing your price, or even making the sale. Selling certain products or services requires consulting with prospects, and helping them feel confident they are making the correct choice.

The sales process has to be the right speed for the product and the potential customer. Buying a black T-shirt from a mass-merchandiser should be quick and easy. Buying a custom-tailored suit should take a little more time, but not too much more.

Combining two or more of the above.

Any one of the above can help you compete on a level Bejeweled Sweat Pant price is less of an issue, but if you can have two or more, price will soon become something you and your customers rarely even consider.

In addition, many of the factors build upon one another. For example, brand advertising and an easy buying process can increase trials, which can increase satisfaction, which can lead to brand loyalty, which combined with a cool TV campaign, can lead to a high brand image. Soon, customers will no longer care that you cost 10% more, 50% more, or even twice as much as the nearest competitor.

However...

Sometimes, the best strategy is to have the lowest price, or at least one of the lowest prices among your competitors, but competing solely on price is a dangerous position. To protect yourself against price erosion and new, lower-priced entries to the marketplace, you can combine a low price with some of the factors above to develop great brand loyalty and market share.

Brad is the chief creative strategist at 42Fish, a creative solutions firm that specializes in marketing, advertising, and design. 42Fish works with a wide variety of clients to create desired reactions. For more information about 42Fish or Brad Dresbach, please visit http://www.42Fish.com