The Five Types of Utility in Marketing
How do prospective consumers spend their money? What matters to them when they make decisions about how much to spend, where to spend it, and which company earns their business?
This is the role of sales and marketing teams in your organization: Designing and deploying consumer campaigns to showcase the unique value proposition of your product or service so you stand out from the competition.
The challenge? It’s not easy.
Customer preferences are constantly evolving in response to both external market forces and internal financial constraints. As a result, the reasons around how, when, and why consumers spend money are never static — companies must find ways to understand and articulate the value of service or product offerings in a way that both captures consumer interest and convinces them to convert.
Here, the concept of utility-based marketing is markedly useful. In this piece, we’ll explore the basics of utility in marketing, why it matters, and then dive into five common types of utility in marketing.
What is utility in marketing?
Put simply? Value.
While in a non-economic context the term “utility” typically means “usefulness”, the marketing-driven definition speaks to the specific value realized by consumers when they spend on products or services. Understanding utility in marketing can help companies both better-predict spending habits and design campaigns to capture consumer interest.
Why Marketing Utility Matters
Historically, marketing efforts have focused on making an impression. It makes sense — if consumers notice and remember your print, email, or television ad campaign, you’re better positioned to capture their spending when they see your brand again in-store or while shopping online.
The problem? With so many companies now competing for consumer interest both online and in-person, market saturation is a significant concern. Even more worrisome? As noted by a New York Times article, “people hate ads.” Oversaturated and overwhelmed by ads across desktops, mobile devices, and in-person, prospective buyers are now tuning out enterprise efforts to impress.
Instead, they’re looking for utility. This is the goal of utility-driven marketing: To offer consumers functional and useful products or services that provide a specific benefit or can be repurposed to serve multiple functions.
When done well, utility marketing can create stronger bonds between customers and companies, and drive increased brand loyalty over time. It’s a slow-burn process rather than a quick-spend process and one that serves a different purpose — connecting customers with brands based on value, not volume.
The Five Types of Utility in Marketing
Despite our definition, the notion of “utility” in marketing remains fairly nebulous. That’s because trying to identify the exact value offered by your products or services to a specific customer segment, and how best to communicate this value effectively, is no easy task.
As a result, utility in marketing is often broken down into different types, each of which can help inform better ad building and effective sales outcomes. Depending on how specific — or how generalized — your marketing approach, …read more
Source:: HubSpot Blog
