One of the main problems of some brands is that they fall into a short-term tacticism that does not help the global strategy of a company. The tendency to a certain improvised speed in a search for solutions confuses the market, the current consumer, the potential consumer and, above all, destabilizes the strategic path of a brand, in addition to paralyzing the creativity of lateral thinking that in many cases is the solution. in the pause and in rethinking the business in a differential way.
From the reality of “insights” we can define some steps that I list below, which I consider essential to escape this short-term tacticism.
Step 1: Segment your current and potential customers.
Define their needs and motivations through different behavioral patterns and focus on those segments where you can add value as a brand. Going to all segments is not an option nor is attacking unrealistic segments no matter how much potential they have. Do not attack what you cannot propose to the market. This segmentation will help you define your brand and your brand portfolio if you have several territories to attack.
Step 2: Segment your competition.
Do you have a segmentation map of your competition? Do you know who they are attacking? Your value proposition? Your positioning? Who are your competition's current clients? And the potentials?
Step 3: Identify your macro competence environment
It is key to identify any product or service that could become a substitute for yours, whether it is close or far from your defined competency “mindset”. One of the big mistakes of brands is to think about their closest competition and not about substitute or parallel marketing elements that are a real threat in your market.
Step 4: Identify the “Pains”
Identify those key points of improvement in the definition of the entire purchasing and consumption experience of your product or service. With each element of improvement you will be able to isolate the experiential strategy and focus on what is truly important.
Step 5: Look around you, what is being done well in other sectors?
Do not focus solely on your sector, analyze the “best practices” of other sectors that serve as inspiration to complete the purchasing and/or consumption experience, definition of key segments or analysis of brand positioning and communication.
Step 6: Involve your entire team with potential
As we do with competition, it is interesting to involve middle managers with potential in problem solving. That the vision is not only of “top management” but extends to part of the organization with less strategic contamination.
Step 7: Create a long-term framework
Strategy, strategy and more strategy, don't stay in the next 3,6 or 12 months. Design a business plan of potential segments to cover their needs, define the product and service strategy for this and get ahead of others.
Step 8: Ask yourself what is missing in your company
Going through human resources with necessary profiles, to marketing tools that are not being used, to Kpi's that are not being measured. Define all the arsenal that your company lacks to generate information value and with enough talent to solve it.
Step 9: Use Decision Making tools
Whether through segmentation and clustering tools, own decision tools such as Conjoint Analysis, Turf, MaxDiff. Kano Drivers Analysis, Trade off Modeling or prediction tools like Neural Networks, Bass Difussion Model, etc.
Step 10: Do “A/B testing” with solutions
Once the solutions are defined, perform as many A/B tests as necessary to optimize your value proposition.
These steps are only a reflection on the decision-making structure and how, through market research, we can help define it together to optimize the process. We are in an era of acceleration, but strategy must continue to be part of the analytical ability to find out if we are solving the right problems for the brand. Let short-termism neither win nor convince.
Jordi Crespo
Decision Making, are you solving the right problems?
