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NetFaqs in This Article
• Noticeable Difference
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HOW GOOD DO YOU HAVE
TO BE?
What Prospects Look For
When
Choosing Your Product, Service, or
Idea.
...you
are more than covered presenting your products or services
with your site from TheWebsiteDistrict and quite affordably
too!
by Dr. Kevin Nunley
How good does your product
or service have to before prospects start to notice?
You probably can point to several ways that your business
is better than your competitors.
But is that difference in
quality big enough for the general public to notice?
Marie spent a lot of time
learning how to design her own web site. The project
had its frustrating moments, but in the end Marie had
a fine looking site that promoted her business. Her
friend George had more money to spend and paid a web
designer $4,000 to design a web site for him.
Marie could see some big
differences in their sites. Just having spent a month
getting aquatinted with web design, she immediately
noticed George's custom graphics, forms, and nifty columns--features
that she could not figure out how to create.
Imagine Marie's amazement
(and secret delight!) when a customer noted her site
looked just as good as George's.
"Wow!," Marie thought. "Customers
don't notice the difference between my 'pretty good'
site and George's spare no expense' site. I just saved
$4,000!"
Psychologists spend many
research hours studying this sort of thing for major
corporations. They call it "Just Noticeable Difference."
When researching a new product or service, they ask,
"How much better than the competition do we have to
be before people start to notice?"
The answer, of course, is
that sometimes you have to be MUCH better than the other
guy before the average customer (who may not be an expert)
starts to notice the difference. One example of this
are the radio stations in your town. Chances are they're
all holding contests of one kind or another right now.
To the people who work at those stations, their contests
are all very different, some better or more exciting
than contests on other radio stations.
I'll bet that you, as an
average listener, don't really notice the difference.
All contests start to sound the same. Studies have shown
that the people who win those contests can't even remember
which station they won from a year down the road. There
isn't enough noticeable difference.
On the other hand, Just Noticeable
Difference can work the other way. It costs Marsha $10
to produce a chair. I've just discovered that I can
make a chair not quite as good as Marsha's for $5. As
an expert on chair manufacturing, I know that my chair
isn't as good as Marsha's, but my customers don't really
notice the difference.
Guess who comes out ahead
on profits?
Now this whole concept is
very upsetting to some people. Even though American
business is smartly based on not putting any more quality
into the product than the customer demands, a lot of
people will claim that your customers somehow intuitively
know the difference.
Not so! When developing a
new product or service, or revamping an old one, run
your own marketing test. Have a few unbiased, but honest
people compare your product with one that is better.
Then have them compare yours with one that is worse.
At what point does the customer notice the difference?
Keep these three points in
mind when thinking about Just Noticeable Difference:
1. If prospects don't notice
your improvements, then your improvements aren't big
or obvious enough. This is the case even if they seem
plenty big to experts in your field (like you and your
associates).
2. Look for the ways that
your product or service is much better than your competitor's.
Make your marketing accentuate those better features.
3.Also look for ways that
you can save by cutting back on expenses that buyers
don't notice or care about.
Keep an eye out for areas
you spend lots of time and money on, but those areas
don't attract comments from buyers.
Kevin Nunley provides marketing
advice and copy writing for businesses and organizations.
He can be reached at www.DrNunley.com. Click
here to promote your business to thousands of Media!
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