By Mike Schultz and John Doerr
Occam's Razor: Plurality should not be posited without necessity.
How We Make the Intangible Even Less Tangible
Have you ever been asked to purchase a service based on ad copy that looked something like this?
The Gold Special Service is a unique, dynamic, customizable solution that efficiently and effectively meets your needs. The Gold Special Service has helped many emerging and Fortune 500 companies in your industry to increase their revenue, employee satisfaction, cost structure, cash flow, profitability, and, most importantly, shareholder value. Not only is the Gold Special Service this special, if you buy it from Gold Special Corporation, you'll be amazed at our intense client service levels and unyielding dedication to client satisfaction. Gold Special - A Firm You Can Trust.
We've all read this ad in one form or another about IT services firms, market research firms, financial consulting firms, law firms, and a host of other service companies. While the services and the companies that offer these services may, indeed, be great, we have no way of knowing how great they are from their marketing copy. Nor do we have any idea what they do.
Do you think this is an exaggeration? Here's some copy we came across yesterday:
From small business to large corporations *company name omitted* has the people, tools and experience to meet your organization's needs.
Since 1998 *company name omitted* has provided web-services for business. By forming long-term relationships with our clients, we provide them with time-efficient, cost-effective solutions that provide results. *Company name omitted* solutions now extend beyond the web, with a wide range of services meeting today's business needs.
While this copy is all too common and most unfortunate, we understand its origins. It is the result of 20 years of being steered away from selling product and service features, steered toward selling benefits, and (dare we say) solutions.
Along the way, many marketers have lost focus on an important aspect of marketing communication: letting our clients and prospects know clearly what we do and how we do it - along with the solutions and benefits that the services and our firms provide.
We have forgotten how to tangibilize.
Why Tangibilize
Services are intangible by nature. You can't see, touch, smell, or taste them before you buy them. This intangibility often makes services difficult to depict in clear and meaningful ways. Many companies' inability to depict their services tangibly leads to the following symptoms and conditions:
- Difficult to conceptualize: Clients and prospects have difficulty picturing, in their mind's eye, the services process and outcomes.
- Difficult to evaluate: The difficulty in conceptualizing leads to difficulty in evaluating the service.
- Uncertainty and perceived risk: Without a clear evaluation framework, the client level of uncertainty and perceived risk rises. Added uncertainty and risk is anathema to selling services, especially in new client generation where trust has yet to be established.
- Difficult to promote the offering: Difficulty conceptualizing also leads to difficulty in creating focused marketing communications (from the firm's perspective) and difficulty selling the services internally to colleagues (from the client's perspective).
- Difficult to control service quality: The less tangible the process and expected outcomes of a particular service, the more difficult it is to measure the service quality. And, as we all know, what can't be measured can't be managed or controlled.
- Difficult to set prices: 1. The less we know about the actual service delivery process, the less we understand the cost-basis of providing the service. 2. The less tangible the delivery outputs and expected business outcomes, the less we can establish the business value of the service. Thus, it's difficult to set price on either a cost-plus basis (#1) and/or a value basis (#2).
Obviously, no one intentionally seeks the above six conditions when marketing, selling, and managing our services. But it happens. Once we tangibilize our services we can promote them clearly, control service delivery quality, set prices, and minimize the client risk (both perceived and actual) of engaging our services. Our clear depictions of the service tangibles will help our clients and prospects to conceptualize, evaluate, and promote the offering internally.
Uncovering the Tangibles in What We Offer
The first step in tangibilizing our services is making explicit the core of what we actually do. Usually the best, most tangible aspects of our services are those aspects that are the simplest aspects most familiar to us. While they may seem simple and banal to you, they're often just what the client needs to really make a decision about working with you.
Here are a few examples of how common jargon might be translated into tangible descriptions that will help us communicate to the marketplace: Marketing Speak
We offer efficient and effective customer and business needs-focused IT and networking solutions.
More Tangible - We fix complex and difficult computer problems well
- We keep your networks up 24/7 so your people can work all day and not lose productive time
- We cost less than a full time staff person and we never call in sick
- We keep up with the latest technology and explain it in terms that both the COO and the IT staff can understand and evaluate
Marketing Speak
HR solutions to help you attract, retain, and develop your key staff.
More Tangible - We deliver classroom and e-learning based management and leadership development seminars
- Our payroll service gets your employees' paychecks right all the time, on time.
- Our employee 401k plan comes with free financial planning from certified financial planners
Marketing Speak
Innovative, efficient, and reliable logistics and supply chain solutions.
More Tangible - We deliver 99.9999% of our overnight packages on-time - as rated by an independent 3rd party
- We've saved our consulting customers an average of 8.3% of their annual freight bills by reorganizing their supply lines
- We ship raw materials from their source to your manufacturing facilities on our established rail and truck routes
Getting Tangible Results
When crafting your marketing messages and campaigns for services, you usually only have a few seconds to grab your clients' and prospects' attention. Most readers quit reading if they are forced to sift through paragraphs of bloated marketing-speak before they get to what you really do. So focus on communicating the often simple and familiar tangible aspects of your services...and communicate them early.
Once you can articulate the tangible aspects of your services you can better promote them, control service delivery quality, and set prices. |