In an increasingly competitive market, companies are constantly looking for ways to differentiate themselves and attract more customers. One strategy that has proven to be especially effective is to focus on customer value rather than simply competing on price. This is an important focus that is being widely addressed in every sales course. But what does selling based on value mean and how can you implement it in your company?
Selling based on value is, at its core, understanding and communicating how your product or service solves problems, satisfies needs, and provides benefits to your customers. It’s not about being the cheapest, but about being the most valuable.
But while the idea of value-based selling may seem simple in theory, in practice it can be quite challenging. How do you highlight the unique value of your offering? How do you communicate effectively with your clients? How do you overcome price objections when you’re not the cheapest option?
In this post, we will analyze the main mistakes you may be making when communicating the value of your products and services and we will provide you with 10 strategies to sell effectively by focusing on customer value. These strategies will help you highlight the value of your offer, attract your ideal customers, and close more sales.
Whether you are looking to differentiate yourself from the competition, attract more customers, increase your sales, or increase your profitability, these strategies will be of great help to significantly improve the performance of your business. So, if you’re ready to start value-based selling, read on…
Common mistakes companies make when trying to sell for value
If your customers think your product is too expensive, you may be making one of these mistakes:
- Not fully understanding the customer: If you don’t deeply understand your customer and their needs, you may not be communicating the value of your product or service effectively. If customers don’t see how your offering meets their needs or solves their problems, they may perceive your price as too high.
- Lack of differentiation: If your product or service is too similar to your competitors, customers won’t see why they should pay more for what you offer.
- Not adjusting communication to the customer: You may be communicating the value of your product or service, but if you don’t do it in a way that resonates with your customers, they may not see that value.
- Set prices solely based on costs or the competition: If you set your prices based only on your costs or what the competition is charging, you may miss the opportunity to capture the value you are providing. It is important to consider the value you provide to the customer when setting your prices.
- Not properly handling price objections: If a customer objects to the price, you need to be able to communicate the value your product or service offers. If you can’t do this effectively, the customer will likely see the price as too high.
Now that we know the problem, what is the solution?
Strategies to sell by value and not by price
Below, we present 10 strategies for value-based sales that we have prepared for you…
Let’s get started!
1. Define precisely who your ideal client is
The first thing you must understand is that not everyone is your client because not everyone understands your value proposition, which is why it is essential to clearly define the profile of your ideal client and focus on it. No matter how good your product is, if you’re targeting the wrong customer, you’re always going to wear yourself out twice as much and in the end, you’ll only detract from your business. The ideal target client appreciates your added values, is willing to pay you what you are worth, is profitable for your business, and, in addition, recommends you to other potential clients.
Your ideal customer is the person or company who will get the most benefit from your product or service and who will appreciate its value. Your ideal customer should be more than a demographic description; You must also take into account factors such as their behaviors, needs, challenges, goals, and how your product or service can help them.
These are some questions that will help you better know and understand your ideal target customer:
- Who are they?: What is their age? What is your gender? Where do they live? What is your ethnicity? What is your level of education? What is your marital status? What is your consumer behavior?
- How do they usually buy products or services similar to yours?: Do they prefer to buy online or in physical stores? How much are they willing to spend? How do you do your research before making a purchase? What influences your purchasing decision?
- What are the most important factors for them when purchasing a product or service similar to yours (price, quality, brand, opinions of other customers, etc.)?: Do they trust recommendations from friends and family? What role do social media and online reviews play in your purchasing decision process? What are your needs and desires?
- What problems are they trying to solve with your product or service?: What are their expectations when using your product or service? What do they value most in a product or service like yours? How do they interact with brands and ads?
- What communication channels do they prefer to use (email, social media, text messages, etc.)?: How do they feel about personalized ads? What type of advertising content do you find most attractive or compelling? What are their perceptions of your brand and your competitors?
- How do they perceive your brand and your product or service compared to your competitors?: What are your strengths and weaknesses from their point of view? How can you differentiate yourself from your competitors in a way that is meaningful to them?
These are just a few of the questions you can ask to begin understanding your target customer but remember, the more you know about your customer, the more effective your marketing strategy will be.
We also recommend using tools such as the Empathy Map, which helps us “put ourselves in the customer’s shoes” to understand them better and thus be able to create better products and better strategies.
2. Focus on the benefits for your customer, not the features of the product
Customers don’t care as much about what your product does as what it can do for them. You must understand what motivates your customers to buy.
The characteristics of a product or service are the technical details, specifications, or capabilities. For example, if you’re selling a mobile phone, features could include things like screen size, amount of memory, processor type, battery life, etc. While these features are important and can affect the purchasing decision, in and of themselves they do not necessarily convey the value of the product.
Benefits, on the other hand, are what those features mean to the customer and how they can improve their life. Returning to the mobile phone example, one benefit could be the ability to watch high-resolution videos on a large screen, making train journeys more entertaining. Another benefit could be the ability to store thousands of photos, ensuring that the client’s most precious memories are never lost.
By focusing on benefits, you move from talking about what your product “does” to talking about what your product “does for the customer.” Instead of simply listing features, you’re explaining how those features meet needs, solve problems, or improve the customer’s life.
This benefits-based sales approach is particularly effective because it connects with the customer on a more emotional level. Customers don’t buy products or services, they buy results and solutions to their problems. By showing customers how your product or service can provide those results or solutions, you’ll be communicating value that goes beyond price or technical specifications.
Therefore, when selling, it is important to remember: don’t sell what your product does, sell what your product can do for your customers.
3. Personalize the sales experience
Personalizing the selling experience refers to the practice of adapting and adjusting your selling approach to meet the individual needs and preferences of each customer. This can be done through various methods and techniques and can have a significant impact on customer satisfaction and sales conversion rates. Here is in detail how to do it:
- Understand your customer: To personalize the sales experience, you need to understand your customer. This involves knowing their needs, preferences, purchasing behavior, and history of interaction with your company. You can obtain this information through market research, customer data analysis, and direct conversations with customers.
- Tailor your communication: Personalization is also about communicating with customers in a way that resonates with them. This may involve using a tone and communication style that fits the customer’s preferences, personalizing the marketing content they receive, or even adjusting product recommendations based on their past purchases or browsing behavior.
- Personalize the customer journey: This could include offering customization options for products or services, providing recommendations based on the customer’s previous purchases, or even adapting the sales process to make it more convenient for the customer (for example, offering flexible shipping options, multiple payment methods, etc.).
- Provide exceptional customer service: Excellent customer service is itself a form of personalization, as it involves responding to individual customer needs. This could involve solving problems quickly and efficiently, going above and beyond to meet customer needs, or even anticipating customer needs before they arise.
Personalizing the sales experience can be incredibly effective in improving customer satisfaction and building customer loyalty. By showing customers that you understand their needs and are willing to go the extra mile to meet them, you can build deeper, more meaningful relationships with them, which can translate into greater value for your company in the long term.
4. Highlight your unique value (Differentiation)
Highlighting the unique value of your product or service is a crucial strategy to differentiate yourself in the market and attract your target customers. Here we explain how to achieve it:
- Identify your unique value: The first step is to understand what makes your product or service unique. What do you offer that your competitors don’t? How are your features or benefits different or superior? This could be related to quality, design, functionality, innovation, customer service, sustainability, or even your company’s history or mission. Every product or service has something that sets it apart, and your job is to identify and understand that unique value.
- Communicate your unique value: Once you have identified your unique value, the next step is to communicate it effectively to your customers. This means incorporating it into your marketing and sales message and making sure you’re communicating it in a way that’s easy to understand and resonates with your target customers.
- Demonstrate your unique value: It’s not enough to simply tell customers that you offer unique value; you also need to prove it. This could involve offering tangible proof, such as customer testimonials, case studies, and product demos, or even offering a money-back guarantee so customers can try your product or service risk-free.
- Remain consistent with your unique value: Once you have identified and communicated your unique value, it is important to maintain it in all your interactions with customers. This helps build trust and credibility and ensures that your customers always know what to expect from your product or service.
In short, highlighting your unique value is a way to show customers why they should choose your product or service over all others on the market. By doing this effectively, you can attract more customers, increase your sales, and gain a competitive advantage.
5. Optimize the appearance of your products or services
The visual presentation of your product or service significantly influences the customer’s perception of value. If you want your customers to value you, you must take care of all the visual aspects of your value proposition, from design and packaging to branding and general aesthetics. These are some points to keep in mind:
- Product Design: The design of a product plays a crucial role in its perception. An attractive and functional design can increase the perception of value, while a poorly executed design can decrease it. The design should be not only aesthetically pleasing but also functional and easy to use.
- Packaging: Packaging is often the first physical interaction a customer has with a product, and can have a large impact on the perception of its value. High-quality, attractive packaging that reflects your brand identity can increase the perceived value of the product.
- Branding and overall aesthetic: Your brand’s colors, fonts, images, and other visual elements should be in line with the value you offer. For example, if your brand focuses on sustainability, it could be beneficial to use colors and designs that evoke nature and the environment.
- User experience: Beyond the physical product, the appearance of your website, the interface of your application, or even the appearance of your physical store, can also influence the perception of value. A clean, modern, and easy-to-navigate design can improve the customer experience and increase their perception of value.
- Visual consistency: Make sure all of your brand’s visual elements are consistent across all platforms. This helps build recognition and trust in your brand, and create a consistent, high-quality customer experience.
The appearance of your products or services is an essential part of the perception of value. By investing in high-quality design, you can increase appreciation of your product or service, improve customer experience, and differentiate yourself from your competitors.
6. Offer exceptional service to your clients
Providing a high-quality customer service experience is essential to adding value to your product or service. How to achieve it? Keep these points in mind:
- Availability and accessibility: Customers should be able to contact your company easily when they have questions or problems. This may involve offering multiple contact channels such as email, phone, live chat, social media, etc., and ensuring your customer service teams are available and accessible.
- Quick response: In a digital world where everything happens quickly, customers expect quick responses to their queries or problems. Response time can greatly impact customer satisfaction.
- Effective problem resolution: Beyond responding quickly, it is crucial to effectively resolve customer issues. This may involve offering solutions, providing refunds or replacements when appropriate, and always working to ensure the customer is satisfied.
- Clear and friendly communication: Communication with clients must be clear and friendly. Customers should feel that they are being heard and understood and that their business is valued.
- Exceed Expectations: To provide exceptional customer service, always try to exceed customer expectations. This could mean going above and beyond to solve a problem, going the extra mile to make a customer happy, or even surprising customers with unexpected gestures of gratitude.
- Make improvements based on feedback from your customers: Regularly ask customers to provide feedback on their customer service experience and use that feedback to continually improve.
Exceptional customer service can add great value to your product or service. Not only can it solve problems and keep customers satisfied, but it can also help build long-term relationships, foster customer loyalty, and improve your brand reputation.
7. Apply the science of persuasion
Robert Cialdini, a renowned social psychologist and author of the book “Influence: The Science of Persuasion”, identified six key principles that can be used to persuade others, which are also applicable in sales. What are those principles? Here we explain each one:
- Reciprocity: People tend to return a favor, so if you offer something of value to your customers, such as useful information or a free sample, they are more likely to feel obligated to do business with you in return.
- Commitment and consistency: If someone verbally or publicly commits to an idea or goal, they are more likely to be consistent with that commitment due to the pressure to be consistent with the image they project to others. Therefore, getting customers to commit in some way, no matter how small, can lead to a higher likelihood of them completing a purchase.
- Social proof: People tend to do what they see others doing, especially when they are undecided. Providing customer testimonials or highlighting how many people have already purchased your product or service can be an effective form of persuasion.
- Affinity: People are more likely to be influenced by people they like. Therefore, it is important to build positive and trusting relationships with customers. This may involve finding common ground, demonstrating empathy, and treating customers with kindness and respect.
- Authority: People tend to obey authority figures. Showcasing your experience and knowledge in your industry can help establish that authority and persuade customers to listen to you.
- Scarcity: People value things that are scarce or could be lost. Highlighting the exclusivity of your product or service, or pointing out a limited-time offer, can motivate customers to act quickly.
By integrating these principles into your sales strategy, you can more effectively persuade customers to see the value of your product or service and decide to do business with you.
8. Optimize your communication
A great challenge when selling for value is to communicate effectively so that the client understands why they should take our proposal, even if the competition charges less. To achieve this, you have to be very careful with elements such as the message you communicate in your marketing strategies and the channels you use to interact with your customers. These are some important keys to optimizing your business communication:
- Clear and concise message: Your communication should be direct and easy to understand. Avoid jargon and technical language whenever possible. Focus your message on how your product or service solves problems, meets needs, or improves the lives of your customers.
- Customer-centric: Make sure your message focuses on the customer and their needs, not your product or service. Explain how what you offer can help the client achieve their goals or overcome their challenges.
- Call to action: Every message you send should include a clear call to action. Whether you want the customer to visit your website, make a purchase, or subscribe to your newsletter, make it clear and easy for them.
- Effective communication channels: Use communication channels that reach your ideal client. This may include email, social media, blogs, online advertising, traditional advertising, etc. Choose the channels that are most effective in reaching your target audience.
- Consistency: Maintain a consistent message across all your marketing channels. This helps build brand recognition and trust.
- Test and adjust: Conduct A/B tests and analyze data from your marketing efforts to see what is working and what is not. Adjust your communication based on this data to improve its effectiveness.
Effective communication is essential for customers to understand the value your product or service can provide them. By optimizing your communication, you can attract more ideal clients and convert them into buyers.
9. Educate your clients
This strategy refers to the importance of providing customers with the information they need to fully understand your product or service and its value. Here are some important keys to consider when educating your clients:
- Product information: Customer education begins with basic information about the product or service. This includes what the product is, how it works, what features and benefits it offers, and how it compares to other similar products on the market. Product information should be easy to understand and accessible to the customer.
- Demonstrations and tutorials: Some products or services may require a more detailed explanation or demonstration of how they work. This could be through video tutorials, live demos, step-by-step guides, or even training sessions. The goal is to help customers understand how they can get the most benefit from your product or service.
- Industry and market education: In addition to product-specific information, it can also be helpful to provide customers with information about your industry and the market in general. This can help customers understand the context in which your product or service exists and why it is valuable.
- Continuing education: Customer education does not end with the initial sale. Offering ongoing educational resources, such as blogs, webinars, newsletters, and more, can keep your customers engaged and well-informed. This can increase customer satisfaction and encourage long-term loyalty.
- Interaction and questions: Be sure to offer opportunities for customers to ask questions and participate in education. This could be through question-and-answer sessions, discussion forums, or even social media.
Customer education is an integral part of value-based selling. By providing customers with the information they need, you can help them see the value in your product or service, which in turn can lead to greater engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty.
10. Build long-term relationships
Instead of focusing on short-term sales, look to build long-term relationships with your customers to provide and receive ongoing value. These keys will help you build solid, long-term relationships with your clients:
- Constant engagement: Maintain regular contact with your customers even after making a sale. This may include email communications, follow-up calls, personalized offers, newsletters, etc. Consistent engagement helps keep your brand top of mind and strengthens the relationship.
- Surprise your customers: Exceeding expectations can be a great way to build strong, long-lasting relationships. This can be something as simple as sending a personalized thank you note, or something more elaborate like offering an unexpected gift or a special discount on an important day for the customer. Customers remember and appreciate these positive surprises, which helps deepen the relationship.
- High-quality customer service: As mentioned above, excellent customer service is essential for building long-term relationships. Make sure your customers feel heard, valued, and satisfied in all their interactions with your company.
- Rewards and loyalty programs: Consider implementing rewards or loyalty programs that reward customers for their continued business. This can help foster long-term loyalty and give customers a reason to continue choosing you over the competition.
- Listen to your customers: Customer feedback is a valuable resource for understanding and improving the customer experience. Make sure you give your customers multiple channels to express their opinions and concerns and show that you are listening to and valuing their feedback. Whenever possible, act on that feedback to improve your product or service, and let them know that their words have had an impact.
Building long-term relationships with customers can result in greater engagement, loyalty, and ultimately more sales. By treating customers as valued partners rather than one-time transactions, you can create significant value for both them and your business.
Conclusion
We have explored together a path through the fascinating world of value-based sales, with its opportunities and challenges. There is no doubt that adopting a value-based sales strategy can be a transformative change for any company.
Each of the 10 strategies we’ve examined – from the importance of focusing on benefits rather than features, to the importance of building long-term customer relationships – are key aspects of successfully selling by focusing on customer value. customer. But beyond these individual strategies, there is a common theme that remains constant: understanding and meeting your customers’ unique needs and wants is at the core of value-based selling.
Remember, it’s not about being the cheapest supplier. It’s about providing the most value to your customers and communicating this value effectively. Make sure your customers understand not only what you are selling, but also why it is the best option for them. By focusing on the value you bring, you will not only increase your sales, but you will also build stronger, longer-lasting relationships with your customers, which will benefit you in the long term.
We hope this post has provided you with some useful ideas and strategies that you can implement in your business. Avoid the common mistakes we mentioned and always remember that value is a perception, and as such, it can be shaped and improved.
Don’t worry if everything doesn’t work the first time, value-based selling is a journey and every step you take brings you closer to your goals. So keep going, keep adjusting your approach, and keep providing exceptional value to your customers.
Have you applied any of the strategies presented in your business? What other strategy do you consider important to take into account to achieve effective sales based on customer value? Leave us your comments and contributions about the topic!
FAQs
Q1: Why do some customers believe your product is too expensive?
A1: Customers may not recognize the full value or benefits provided.
Q2: How can I convince customers that the product’s worth the price?
A2: Highlight unique features, superior quality, and long-term cost savings.
Q3: Can offering special discounts help overcome the price objection?
A3: Yes, but ensure the focus remains on the product’s value proposition.
Q4: How can testimonials from satisfied customers combat the price objection?
A4: Positive experiences shared by customers can validate the product’s value.
Q5: Is educating customers about the product’s value a useful strategy?
A5: Absolutely, by explaining how it solves their problem
