Packaging services

Marketing Magazine today reported that UK supermarket chain Sainsbury’s are launching a press campaign to promote price reductions across their ‘Basics’ range of budget products.

(See http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/news)

The range, which includes shower gel for ten pence, is in direct competition with other chains, including Tesco’s ‘Value’ range and ‘Essentials’ from Waitrose.

Now I have tried Sainsbury’s Basic shower gel and it was pretty terrible, but many of the other products in the range are pretty good. Certainly, most supermarket chains clearly find that having a low-cost range within their offering is a crucial part of their strategy.

Along the same lines, I am taking a trip next week and have just booked the last couple of hotel rooms I need. One of them is really just to give me a break from driving, so I used the word ‘budget’ when Googling and came up with somewhere to catch up on some sleep.

These two developments – the introduction of supermarket low-cost ranges and the growth of budget hotels – demonstrate the importance of a few things:

* Segmentation and targeting – understanding similarities between a number of potential customers and offering them something suitable.

* Positioning – finding a way that customers can identify you as occupying a certain space among your competitors.

* Packaging – this is a given for products, but for services it can make what you offer more tangible. (Please excuse my ham-fisted marketing theory summaries!)

So with the boring theory out the way, let’s think about our own organisations. If we are a service provider, do we understand people’s different needs and package our services accordingly? Or do we just have a bunch of services and expect customers to work out which is for them?

Often in services marketing anyway there is little positioning or packaging. On the organisation’s website, it talks about what it does, not who it does it for or how much it costs. This can make it hard for potential customers to quickly see whether the service is right for them, and they may disregard it as a result.

As for me, I think I understand who I can help pretty well but I certainly don’t reflect that well enough in my service descriptions. That’s why I am now working on packaging what I do with a number of options.

It’s started already in fact. The English refresher course I launched a few weeks ago is pretty well packaged (even though I need to come up with a better name for it). The fact that it’s a one-day programme at a fixed price made the buying decision pretty easy for everyone who has made a booking so far.

Of course, packing and positioning our products or services doesn’t just mean offering a low-cost option. Most supermarket chains have a high-end range too, such as ‘Finest’ products at Tesco. So I’m going to better explain how I can work for small businesses with tight budgets as well as bigger organisations looking to invest more.

My goal is to package one new service a month for the rest of the year. Would you benefit from setting a similar goal for your organisation?