So what is Value? The five B2B buying motivators
Here’s a couple of definitions of ‘value’ from the Encarta Dictionary:
- To rate something according to its perceived worth, importance, or usefulness
- An amount expressed in money or another medium of exchange that is thought to be a fair exchange for something
In these definitions, two phrases stand out for me: ‘perceived worth’ and ‘thought to be’. So, value is all in the eye of the beholder. Fair enough. But what is being ‘perceived’ or ‘thought to be’?
Value is not intangible. It can be defined and it can be measured.
In the B2B environment, Value has Five Factors: Response, Service, Time, Quality and Price.
These are the individual components that combine to produce Value within products, services and processes.
Simultaneously, they are the five reasons that motivate B2B buying – the real drivers of buying decisions. The Big Five.
The Five Factors of Value
1. Response
- Continual communication with customers: listen to how you affect their success
- Identify and meet changing customer needs
- Speed of problem solving and solution delivery
2. Service
- Accessibility: an open and reassuring organisation
- Clear product information and project status
- Pro-active and innovative
3. Time
- Competitive lead times
- Dependable
- Consistent delivery format
4. Quality
- Consistent products, services and processes
- Meets the brief or specifications: fit-for-purpose
- Achieves the customer’s operational goal
5. Price
- Competitive
- Rational
- Structured
Measuring Value Performance
A revealing and rewarding exercise for any B2B company is to examine the performance of their products, services and processes in relation to each of the Big Five.
This exercise is one of the first steps in Value Marketing – a sort of value audit or ‘Value Mining’.
Value Mining is a structured process that delves deeply into individual products, services and processes to identify and measure how they create Value in relation to Response, Service, Time, Quality and Price.
Value Mining is a powerful marketing tool because it defines how Value is being created and it highlights performance in terms of the Big Five buying motivators.
However, it does not fully-define what your customers Value. To find out more about that, you may want to take a look at these posts:
Understanding what your market is buying
Leveraging B2B buying motivators
Back to The Long Hello: making B2B marketing work for the bottom line
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