When designing a product or service, businesses must consider not just what features and benefits consumers will appreciate but also how much the customer will value these features and benefits. Value is a key component of any successful business, but entrepreneurs often overlook it when launching a new venture. If you’re not familiar with the term, you’re not alone. That’s because most people don’t understand how it relates to their company and its products or services. However, if you pay attention to your market, listen to your customers, and read between the lines of their feedback, you can uncover insights that indicate which types of value your target audience will demand from your business.
The most important aspect of your business is understanding the customer value you deliver. This knowledge will provide a key driver in how products are designed, developed, and marketed. Understanding customer value is imperative when creating new products or services. For example, suppose you have a new product idea that requires a significant change in manufacturing costs. In that case, it’s best to focus on the customer value that consumers will receive from your product rather than developing a new design to reduce costs. If you keep customer value in mind during product development, you’ll be able to create products with an eye toward what customers want and need instead of what can be done for the lowest cost.
Detecting Trends in Customer Value provides insight for product developers: You must consider customer value trends to create a product or service that your customers will value. It could mean looking at trends in the market, understanding consumers’ feedback, and determining which options your target audience is looking for. When you examine your current and potential customer demand for certain types of value, it’s easy to see the opportunity for success. For example, if your company offers digital marketing services and you find that the average spend per month on search engine optimization was $10-20 before the end of 2016, then it would be wise to consider increasing your prices in 2017.
Understanding your customers’ markets offer guidance for trend development: As you establish your company and its products or services, you must understand what your customers want. You can do this by tracking your competitors, reading industry publications, listening to customers and observing their behavior, and communicating with people with a similar demographic profile. By doing these things, you will discover trends in the market that may not be obvious from a broader perspective. For example: If you’re launching an online personal shopping service that caters to women between the ages of 25-40 with an annual income between $75,000 – $100,000 per year. You would likely find that most of these women use e-commerce sites such as Amazon and Wayfair to purchase household goods. This information is important because it helps you determine where to compete in the market by creating a unique value proposition based on those insights. With Amazon and Wayfair offering unlimited shipping on orders over $35 and sales tax exemptions, online businesses like yours need to provide a similar benefit to stand out among competing companies.
Uncover hidden value patterns by categorizing data from customers’ markets: One way to uncover hidden value patterns is by categorizing data from customers’ markets. This method will help you understand the value your target audience will demand from your business. To do this, you must complete a market research study and analyze the information you gathered. You should use demographic data to identify the most important features and benefits that are most valued by your target audience. This will help you determine how valuable these features and benefits are to customers in different segments of their market. For example, suppose your target audience consists of single African-American women between 20-35 years old who make at least $50,000 per year. In that case, they might be looking for products or services with a specific type of value from the company, including a certain style or level of comfortability. It will also be important for company managers to understand what type of value their employees need to feel satisfied with their job. Understanding what values your employees require as part of their job duties could make it easier for them to prioritize tasks daily and align those tasks with customer needs.
Build customer scenarios to create probable, plausible, and possible futures: To understand what value means to your customers, you need to develop scenarios that show the future and include what you think could happen if your customer were satisfied. Developing these scenarios will help you identify customer desires and needs that your product or service can meet. This includes identifying possible outcomes for customer success, including whether they reach their goals or are satisfied with the performance, how they will perceive your product or service, and how many customers will stay with your business over time. The more skillful and successful you develop these scenarios, the better equipped you will be to shape a product or service that has value in the marketplace.