What Is a Marketing Strategy for Services?
An effective marketing strategy for services identifies an organization's key product and people strengths and creates a customer offer based on leadership in knowledge, skill and sector experience. The aim is to differentiate the organization's services and demonstrate their strategic value to the customer.
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Portfolio
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Build a services portfolio that matches customers' needs throughout the life-cycle of a product. For example, an organization providing equipment services could offer consultancy, planning, design, installation, training, maintenance and upgrade services to the same customer. This creates a long-term revenue stream and strengthens customer relationship. Fill any gaps in the portfolio by developing new services or working with qualified service partners.
Segment
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Structure services to meet the needs of different market sectors. Organizations with specific industry experience or skills can structure their services by vertical market. The industry insight provides a differentiator that competitors may not be able to match. Service organizations can offer customers different levels of service, such as gold, silver or bronze. Customers can choose the level of service that meets their operational needs and budgets.
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People
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Run ongoing training and development programs for customer-facing staff. Provide access to knowledge bases and collaborative tools to enable staff to enhance skills and deliver a high-quality service to customers. Consultant Deloitte operates a social networking site for employees that enables them to share knowledge and access skills from any location in the firm's global network.
Leadership
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Use thought leadership tools such as conference speaking, articles and white papers to build credibility in the marketplace. A survey by the services marketing consultancy Rain Group, How Clients Buy, found that 79 percent of decision makers used referrals and information gathered from sources such as articles, blogs and case studies to identify potential service providers.
Awareness
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Make customers and prospects aware of the benefits of services to their business. Develop educational program to teach customers how services can improve their own business. Use financial tools to demonstrate the potential Return on Investment from services. Technology consultancy, for example, can help customers make informed decisions about their future technology investments. Maintenance services can help customers run their operations more efficiently with less risk of disruption.
Knowledge
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Develop knowledge-based relationships with customers. Capturing knowledge from employees and service delivery projects provides a basis for a portal that customers can use to get answers to simple service queries. The knowledge base improves customer convenience and helps strengthen relationships. Author Ross Dawson argues that the growing commoditization of services will make knowledge-based relationships essential to the future success of service organizations.
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References
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