For enterprises, making money is actually a by-product and a natural result after creating customers. It doesn't matter what an enterprise thinks its products are, especially for its future and success. What the customer thinks he bought and what his "value" is have a decisive influence.
The starting point of enterprise success is not business model, but opportunity and demand. What kind of needs and desires users should meet is the source of a successful business model. We should fully observe our customers and find their vague and potential needs. Any unsatisfied demand and insufficient service are the basis for developing new business.
A large number of investigations have found that there is a strong positive correlation between customer-centered and enterprise income growth. Enterprises with increasing income often have three characteristics:
1: it will provide users with a consistent and meaningful experience at any customer contact point, whether online or offline;
2. It can meet the changing needs of users;
3. The team of this enterprise will always take insight into users as the growth engine of the future lifeline of the enterprise.
These three characteristics are all related to customers, and insight into users is mainly analyzed from the following six points.
When it comes to market segments, people often describe them by age and income. Real market segments are not divided by demographic characteristics such as income, region, marital status, family and age. It refers to a group of people with similar needs and interests. Others subdivide products and say that I am a boutique or an ordinary store, which is not the correct way to subdivide the market.
In short, it is the biggest mistake not to consider the needs of users. Market segments are made up of featured customers, not products and services. Only by clarifying the needs can we continue to talk about the characteristics of this group of people with similar needs, such as age, income, marriage or not.
If your position is to sell to white-collar workers, are 67 white-collar workers and 33 non-white-collar workers among 100 customers sold to white-collar workers? In the end, there is only one point of no return, low price and daily promotion. But if 67 white-collar workers are divided into five categories, the situation is different.
The first is high brand loyalty. Some white-collar workers are born to buy international brands, but they will not buy domestic brands anyway.
The second one is very sensitive to price. No matter what brand you are, you won't buy it if it exceeds 500 yuan (not necessarily 500 yuan, but the psychological endurance of consumers), no matter how good your quality and service are;
Third, quality pursuers can pay attention to fabrics and styles instead of brands;
The fourth is service seekers, such as Haidilao, which is not necessarily delicious but the service is in place;
The fifth is the pursuit of convenience, such as online shopping can be delivered directly to home.
Are these 67 white-collar workers Class I or Class V? Traditional thinking is a kind of people, but now thinking is to treat it as five types of customers and do it in different ways. Different customers, different products, different marketing, different channels and even different teams. As long as the customer is uncertain, nothing can be decided, and everything will be biased.
How to segment the market?
There are four main criteria.
1) Population, social and economic income
If you ask entrepreneurs who their target users are, they will often say that the users are white-collar workers aged 25-35, and their income is about 1 10,000. The inherent disadvantage of this statement is that you can't judge whether users will buy it. The target group described in this statement has nothing to do with future purchase behavior, but the advantage is that it is easier to quantify.
2) Behavior consumption standard
What to buy, when to buy it, when to use it, the quantity at a time, the way to buy it, who to buy it for, whether to buy it regularly or occasionally, and so on. This is the so-called code of conduct. Scene marketing, which is very popular recently, is the focus of this field.
3) Product brand attitude motivation
Brand motivation is often category, price, style and category, that is, what is the motivation behind users buying products.
4) Lifestyle and cultural trends
The lifestyle of users determines their shopping motivation. For example, if you are a person who pursues freedom and has an independent mind, the decisive factor of your shopping may not be brand awareness, but a personalized brand that pays attention to quality. The self-advantage of many brands mainly stays in the functional level of products, such as quality and style, but in fact, these are difficult to distinguish, because they are easy to copy, and the brands that are truly deeply rooted in people's hearts have reshaped their lifestyles, such as American dolls, Harley, Gaole and so on.
In addition, there is another problem to consider. Do you want to catch big fish in a small pond or small fish in a big pond? The fish in a small pond are often the same. You can catch them with the same hook. Although there are many fish in the big pond, it will be very difficult. Your hook, time, object and bait are all different. For example, "selling to white-collar workers" means digging all kinds of white-collar workers in a big pond. Is it easier to sell to specific white-collar workers? What kind of business should I do? This requires careful consideration.
Even if you buy similar products, the needs of customers are different, and users should be average. Products that satisfy all customers are often a waste of resources. It is necessary to launch products and services that meet the needs of different customers.
Boston Symphony Orchestra in the United States is a classic case. Their concert hall is beautiful, with exquisite playing skills and intoxicating music. The biggest problem is that many people will never come again after they come. What should we do?
Boston Symphony Orchestra classified the audience, that is, de-averaging. Through data analysis, they found that the audience is different: for example, there is a core audience who often comes, accounting for 26% of the total number, but contributes 56% of the total income, and each person contributes an average of $5,000 in five years; The other is the trial audience, who only heard it once, accounting for 37% of the total number, but only contributed 1 1% of the income. These people have the largest number and the biggest loss; There are other categories, such as two or three times a year; Others have participated many times, but they have protected their privacy and have not registered their personal information, and so on.
With data analysis, the American symphony orchestra has done a lot of research on the main contradiction-"trying to listen to the audience who come only once." The results show that most people don't come because they don't understand, because the level of performers is not high, because the brand has no prestige, because the building is not good, but because they can't stop when they come from the suburbs. So they put forward a solution: find a nearby parking lot to help the audience stop smoothly. According to the experimental data of the experimental group (new parking policy) and the control group (unchanged), the income of the experimental group is five times higher.
Later, the band did other things, such as finding that the average age of the audience of classical music was close to 60 and the number of families was very small. They hope to lower the average age of the audience and increase the number of families, with the focus on attracting people under 40. In order to achieve this goal, they have made many attempts, such as: providing seats suitable for families and holding children's daily concerts featuring short music; Provide special ticket customization service for high school students and college students; Offer discount tickets to listeners under 40; Give priority to young people in the front row ... Finally, the number of registered families increased from16,000 to 45,000, the average age dropped from 58 to 48, and the income increased by 9 times.
But I personally suggest that this kind of market activity is best to change one variable at a time. To be on the safe side, don't change so many at the same time. For example, being a child this season and being an old man next season, it is best not to carry out various activities for different groups of people at the same time.
In the classic book Crossing the Gap, the author divides users into several types: 5% are innovators, who prefer the concept of innovation, don't care much about the quality, service and even price of products, and pursue coolness and freshness; 10% are early adopters. For example, people who buy Apple phones are early adopters, and those who buy from 1 generation are also early adopters. Most of them are mainstream people, divided into early majority and late majority, which have higher requirements on product performance, quality and service; The last one is laggard, and products will follow suit when they enter recession.
There is a case in the book "Needs", which is about Caremore, a medical institution in California, USA. It has done a very good job in tapping the pain points of customers. For example, they found that one-third of the elderly patients did not see a doctor according to the appointment time, and analyzed the reasons and found that 40% of the elderly could not drive because they lived alone, so they could only call the emergency number; For another example, they found that the amputation rate of diabetic patients is high, and many of them are caused by small wounds, but there is no special clinic in the hospital to deal with small wounds, and so on. The founder of this hospital gained insight into the pain points of users and the reasons behind them from the lack of industry services, and finally did many things that competitors were unwilling to do. For example, they take the elderly to the hospital for free, set up clinics to deal with minor wounds, and so on. On the surface, it seems to increase the cost, but it increases the income.
Because of solving the problems that competitors are unwilling to solve, the patient recommendation rate of Caremore is 80%, the overall doctor-patient cost is lower than that of the industry 18%, the hospitalization rate is lower than that of the industry, and the average hospitalization time is lower than that of other hospitals by 28%. Therefore, it makes more money than any hospital. What its founder said is worth pondering by every entrepreneur: we should reduce the troubles of users, not reduce costs. If we can put the importance of people before profit, we can make a profit.
Great companies are people who solve pain, and the key to success is the pain of users, not the products and services themselves. Three questions should be asked to users:
Why do you need this product?
Why you need to buy your product;
Why do you need to buy it now?
Remember, when users buy your products, you should not directly promote your products, let alone discount them first. You should first ask him what his demand for this product is, why he wants a car and why he wants a mobile phone, instead of saying how good my mobile phone is, and now it can be discounted. Only from the perspective of users' needs will we forget ourselves and truly implement differentiated innovation of products and services from the perspective of users' needs.
Customer life cycle is also a new thinking dimension of customer segmentation. If the same user is divided according to life cycle, it can be divided into seven types: suspicious, potential, new customers, repeat customers, mainstream customers, dormant customers and lost customers. Different personalized products and services should be implemented around different life cycles of users.
Whether doing customer relations, products, pricing or branding, if the theory is divorced from the user life cycle, it will be useless. For example, customer relationship, for new customers, may only be filing; But for an old customer, you have to do data modeling and data cleaning, because it is likely that he used different mailboxes and different addresses, but it is actually the same person.
Another example is to choose different promotion methods around the customer's life cycle. It is useless for a new customer to recommend a lot of products to him. He just wants to buy a product to try. At this time, it is enough to drain with a suitable product, which may be cheaper. For old customers, recommend related products to him; For the lost customers, don't push drainage products or related products, because if you don't have new products, he won't buy them any more.
Many brands don't care about data, but make decisions based on experience and intuition. Both big data and small shopping data of enterprise users can help us better understand users.
Finally, what is a truly rigorous and scientific user insight method? First, ask the question, what is brand confusion? Then, to do industry background research, you can first establish a hypothesis. For example, suppose that Shangxin can solve the problem of low brand conversion rate now. Then we need to do experiments to verify the hypothesis and build the process, such as how many samples to do the questionnaire and so on. After you have the correct process, you can do data analysis and form a conclusion. If the verified results and assumptions are wrong, you should give up the assumptions, that is, you can't do this thing or pat your head.
What good teachers and experts? It must be when he tells you something is good and reminds you of the restrictive conditions. For example, this conclusion only exists in the clothing industry, which does not mean that it can be used in the cosmetics industry, or this conclusion is only drawn when the sample number is 300, which does not mean that the same conclusion can be drawn when the sample number is 3000. This is a rigorous, scientific and responsible expert.
First, don't segment customers only by age income, but remember the four criteria of market segmentation.
Secondly, customers should lower the average level and launch products and services that meet their needs around different customer groups.
Third, focus on supporting early customers, start lean business, and then copy.
Fourth, the starting point of business is to try our best to find the unsatisfied needs and service deficiencies of users. The starting point for the future success of your new career is that your opponent didn't see this opportunity and problem, but you did.
Fifth, the same user should have different products or services in a fixed life cycle.
Sixth, customers use data to assist decision-making when they have insight.