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Small Medium Enterprises are clueless on the possibilities that VoIP opens for additional application delivery and communications convergence. Thanks VoIP service providers, you managed to sell customers on price, and now all of us have to suffer. According to The Register, a report polling 181 UK small medium enterprises, found that of the 57% of companies that were already using VoIP, approximately 10% had no clue what convergence meant, while 40% thought convergence meant one bill for all communication services. Talk about a lack of customer education by VoIP service providers!
VoIP service providers certainly did a great job selling them on the cost savings of VoIP (most respondants were utilizing VoIP for this reason), but it makes me cringe to think of the difficulty these same providers are going to have selling additional IP applications once their VoIP subscription growth plateau. As usual, by selling and marketing price, service providers are creating a market place in which customers view the service as nothing more then a cost saving commodity. Their strategy was great for the short term “land grab”, but at what cost to future ancillary service sales?
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Sizzle
Benefit – Price = Value.
To sell any product or service you need a value proposition. You must identify the benefits that are intrinsic to your product or service and measure those benefits against the price you charge. The more the benefit exceeds the price, the greater the value.
Too many marketers try to increase value by simply lowering the price. This strategy is typical when selling a commodity like the PSTN , where there is little or no product differentiation. Telecom is migrating off of the PSTN to packet switched networks. The danger in placing the same old telecom products over a packet switched network is that the change adds no value; the transport is transparent to the consumer.
Restaurateurs have known for years that the sizzle sells the steak. VoIP promises to create a boon for telecom revenues by offering a host of new features that sizzle. To differentiate VoIP from POTS , sell what matters to the customer. Do not focus on the good qualities of the network or the lower price; focus on the customer benefits that the network provides.
VoIP has the potential to radically change how we communicate and do business. But remember it is the applications, not the network that adds the value to the customer. To sell the technology, you must sell efficiency and productivity. CEO’s and CFO’s want to know how the new technology is going to produce measurable benefits.
Focus your marketing message on what your product does to benefit the customer. What product features make their life or job easier, more efficient, or makes them more money? This message will be different depending on your audience. The IT professional needs a different message then the soccer mom or the road warrior. So, identify your market, understand what they want and need, find out where they are, and hit them with your sizzle.
jim@mcshome.com
http://www.mcshome.com
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