It can be difficult if you are asked to market products:
- that the custgomers cannot see / inspect / experience before paying
- whose effect / benefit comes very late or sometimes not at all
- whose outcome is uncertain.
- Life Insurance Policy : you can never see its benefit when you are alive
- Lottery : you know that only a few will get the benefit
- Anti Acne treatment in a beauty salon : benefit comes later, if at all
- Medical treatment of a doctor : you do not know if and when you will get cured
- Educational course : Will you get a good job and salary at the end of it?
- Consultancy assignment : will the recommendations be new ? feasible ?
- A longer-lasting paint coat for a car : who will remember how long it lasted ?
In such cases, you need to market a "surrogate"
Life Insurance Policy
- Tell people the large number of customers you have
- Visible and prominent offices
- People and vehicles and evidences are visible and easily identifiable
- People need to feel you are not going to run away overnight.
- The building should look solid
- Overall aura of trustworthiness
- Sponsored by the state government ( UP Government Lottery )
- For a good cause ( For improving irrigation in the state )
- The degree of the doctor hanging on the wall
- The locality of the clinic
- The quality of the interiors and upkeep of the clinic
- The type of other customers who come to the clinic
- Whether the doctor and employees dress and behave well
- The location and look of the campus, buildings and interiors
- The quality of the faculty
- Other students who come to the same course
- The number and type of alumni who have passed out
- What the employers talk about the course
- The reputation of the consultant
- The client list of the consultant
- The quality and relevance of the experts that the consultant can provide access to
- The intellectual capital : patents, publications
- Certifications provided by expert organizations
- The client list of the company
- The quality and relevance of the experts with the company
When people cannot see or feel what you are marketing, you need to focus on the seller as being trustworthy. Consider the following 17 ways
- Give an impression : number of people are associated with you
- Make your offices and places visible and prominent
- Make your people and vehicles visible and easily identifiable
- Make your buildings look solid : stone, pillars
- Sponsored / Chartered by State / Government / Known Institutes
- For the benefit of a well known and good cause
- Signs of expertise like a degree of on the wall
- Your address and location should be respectable
- Good quality of the interiors and upkeep
- The type of other customers who come to your location
- Well dressed and well behaved employees
- What do the ex-customers and ex-employees say about you
- Your reputation
- Your client list
- The quality / relevance of experts you bring to the assignment
- Your intellectual capital : patents, publications, magazines
- Certifications provided by expert organizations
15 comments:
so in short, this applies to all service providing firms or businesses.
Excellent.....any tips for selling in sceptive sectors like real estate
Love your style of posts - crisp to the point, leaving more to imagination & provoking thoughts & insights.
This is for Urvi. This is true for all services to the extent that you cannot sample service first and then buy it. Hence there is always an uncertainty regarding purchase of services. Hence reference of someone you know and trust becomes far more important in services. But most difficult to sell are those services where you really do not know if service has been rendered. Surgery : the doctor cut you but, inside, did he really do what he was supposed to do? You will never be able to find out. Hence surrogate product becomes important.
Real Estate is interesting. The location, looks and space is visible and it is not completely invisible product. But its market price is always uncertain and a matter of "testing" through transactions. To that extent it is invisible.
Yes. It is really a challenge marketing such products. We are fortunate & glad that you enlighten us with various aspects of marketing. I work very closely with professionals who market such "invisible" products & services & can feel their challenges. I will share this article with them.
I really appreciate your taking time out for writing such good comments. None of your points are contradicting mine except one. Almost all services - at the time of purchase - are invisible. For example, if I want to open an account with a Bank X or Bank Y; I would not know which bank gives better service till I open my account. Till then, the only way I have of choosing between the two are "surrogate" products like location, size, interiors etc. I am writing this because you initially seemed to disagree with me but then all the points you made later are exactly what I also made. So it seems to me we are more in agreement than in disagreement.
On 8 March 2012 11:40, wrote:
Prof. Palekar,
Wish u very happy holi.
I have gone through your observations on marketing. sometimes I have different views, as I have also worked 4 times Branch Head in different area of Bank.
Insurance is not a blind product at all. Sometimes back I read an article stating IRDA in India is not powerful and becuase of this PVT insurance companies are rejecting their 70% claims. LIC/GIC and now SBI are public sector companies have constant history of ownering their claims in time. Suggestion was that IRDA should mandatory for each product to disclose previous rejection percentage.
Regarding Medical, personalised services by doctors are most important marketing factor. Now OT are also under video recording so hospitals can not hide their faults. Take example of Dhirubhai Kokilaben hospital where doctors are not permitted for private practices. Hospital is well recognised for their personalised and professional service. This is under our Bank's approval list I have visited many times for my friends. I wish u should allot for case study to your MBA students.
Regarding education, alumni are the brand embassador of institute. St. stiphen in Delhi is not famous becuase of its location or heritage but becuase of its students. U will find them in all fields of the world.
No prodcut is invisible and no short cut can help u in selling any product.
Young and highly qualified Indian consumers believe in strong professionalism and open discussion on the pros and cons of the product. I was Branch Head in Jaipur one NRI doctor wanted a housing loan of Rs 5.00 crs. He asked that he does not have time so can I give him comparison of SBI home loan scheme with one of the best home loan of other Bank and suggested SBI is the second best at that time (5 years ago). He opted SBI becuase of our transperancy and honest feedback. Later on I got USD 20000 deposits from his family.
Regards,
P C Saboo
Asstt. General Manager
SBI, CC Mumbai
EMP/17
Marketing invisible products:
Information and examples given are verymuch useful and interesting to practice.
G.DURAIRAJ
PGEMP31
I would say, same applies to a person looking for a job. The salary he is demanding from the company has to look justifiable since the output will only show later.
This also applies to a person looking for a job, since the salary he demands or the salary the company is going to pay him, the output is not going to show until a few months, hence its an investment into someone or something not readily visible.
This is an excellent for the invisible products. How about selling a project...some of these concepts would apply there.
Would you like to through some light on selling a project ?
Project is also an invisible product. It is customized so you have nothing to put on the table when you meet for the first time. Hence you show surrogate products like your client list, expertise of the people on your payroll, the prequalifications you have acquired from the industry bodies, what your clients say, your ability to understand RFP and in fact add to it.. etc
Dear Sir,
I liked the points. Do most of these match with the 7Ps required in selling services or do they go beyond it ? I see that most are talking about the People and Presentation part of the 7Ps. Is my understanding right ?
Kalpesh
EMP21
Kalpesh, these points are essentially about the 3 additional Ps ( People, Process and Physical Evidence )which are more relevant is services marketing because service is essentially intangible.
The ways to sell recommended are interesting and give a very simplistic view of the impression you want to give to your customer as a marketer. The crux of it is to sell an invisible product, you have to sell the seller.
Would be more interesting if there was a few underlying principles which could be applied to sell the product per se rather than the presenter. How can a marketer make the customer get a "feel" of the product?
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