Monday, November 3, 2008

Delivering Value

Been thinking a lot recently about the key words "value deals". As a lot of businesses are now undergoing a slowdown of sales, I've noticed recently that there has been an increase in most retail outlets using value deals as part of their marketing promotions to reach out to customers.

This is primarily happening in most if not all food service businesses. You see a lot these days on value meal promotions where restaurants are pushing set meals (i.e. lunches, tea time, dinner) which they hope the customer will see as good value deals and thus make the decision to come in to have a meal.

Now this is not necessarily a bad thing but what surprises me is this, companies are using this method more frequently now then before. I mean when times were good, I would rarely see established restaurants or business using value promotions. Most would rather just throw their money into advertising or worse still, act as if customers will visit their store because they are an established brand.

So my question is this. Is delivering value to your clients only important when times are tough? My advice to my clients is that delivering value in their products and services should be carried it irregardless of whether times are good or bad. The reason I advocate this is because, when a business is seen as delivering value in its products / services this creates a message to the consumer that the company

1) Stands for giving its customers the best possible quality product / service it can.
2) It creates the notion that although this business exists to make profit, this business has principles and one of these principles is that all its products are priced fairly and of good value.

Not matter how much advertising budget you may have, you just cannot buy perception like the above. If your products / service already has this perception in the minds of your consumers then good on you. If not, perhaps its time to start thinking of implementing this "value deal" promotion into your business?

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