KamTip: When the buyer relies on ‘gut instinct’…

We’ve all been there… You’ve tried your best and presented a sound proposal for a key listing, but the buyer is picking the rationale apart using their gut instinct:

“Our customers aren’t interested in that kind of thing”

“It’s a minor brand. Customers won’t have heard of it”

“I don’t like the packaging. It doesn’t appeal to our market”

“Our customers won’t pay that much”

“Sure, you’ve done some research, but our customers aren’t like everyone else”

What can you do?

If you’re going to get the buyer to change their subjective view, you need to show them quickly what their customers actually say.

• Believe it or not, retailers spend vast amounts of time and money trying to understand their customers’ needs and putting them first. Many have extensive research programmes that extend down to store level.
• Therefore, showing that you’ve understood their customer and put them first can be a compelling reason to list your product.

Today, you can do this quickly and inexpensively via online research, in 3 easy steps:

1.    We carefully select a sample of that retailer’s main shoppers who buy your category, from a pool of over 250,000 registered panel members

2.    We design a questionnaire that investigates the buyer’s key objections and then gather actual feedback from their real category buyers

3.    We feedback easy-to-digest charts that makes customers’ views clear, and decision making easy

Here’s an example of what your buyer might need to see, if they are relying purely on gut instinct:

Getting important feedback from your customer’s customer has never been so simple and cost effective, whether in the UK or any European or developed world market. Information that used to take weeks to gather now takes just a few days, and is typically affordable from account specific budgets.

For further information, or a quick quote, please contact
Barney Byfield at POW Marketing Ltd on 020 7993 6137 / 0113 322 6454

Date article published: March 2010