THE EXILER (your search for true brand attributes ends here!)

With the advent of new marketing strategies and techniques, many theories have sprouted up telling you many ways to impress your target customers and make them buy your product. But when it comes to practical implementation of the theories, most of them fail, or give partial results because they are based either on buying behavior of customers or extensive surveys

When the customers choose to buy a product they look only into very few features of product / service which are vital for their selection. A semi literate customer (or even a highly educated customer for that instance) never substantiates his choice based upon extensive surveys or consumer behavioral theories. The big players being unable to notice these simple facts spend large sum of money in the name of market research. Let's probe into facts and find out what the customer really wants!

I strongly believe there are four key characters which a customer takes into consideration before buying a product or availing a service. If customer is satisfied with these four aspects, only then he feels a strong urge to buy, if not he shall never buy that product/ range of products what ever promotional campaigns might say. In most of the cases promotional schemes are only ephemeral in inducing him.

Let me name these four key characteristics as key brand attributes. These KBA's determine the success of the product in the market. Now we shall discuss about them in detail.

First of all is AFFORDABILITY. Customer may be induced by the advertisements and other promotional campaigns to buy the product but what matters most at the end while buying is whether he can afford to buy the product or not. If he can't, there is no point in compelling him to go till the stores. So it is very important that the product pricing should be compatible with customer's budget for that particular product.

Second KBA is QUALITY. According to customers quality is not zero defects. They perceive it and tend to measure it relatively as "the comparison of particular product with other products of same kind in terms of amenities, aesthetics, image of brand, utility and usage patterns." So better the quality, more are the chances of sale.

Third KBA is DURABILITY. Once the customer checks for quality and affordability of the product, he inspects durability of product. Customer can employ various methods to find out the durability of the product like, checking for product specifications, looking for warranties, guarantees, or by simply touching the product physically.

If he finds more than one product is meeting all the 3 criteria, he selects the best one out of them based on single attribute called VARIETY. Variety is how your product is positioned as different from other products. More variety the customer perceives, more are the chances of your product being sold.

These 4 KBAs will have the significant influence on the sales volume of business. They might not appear in the same order always, since they often differ with age group, gender and nature of product, but on the whole these are the only factors which have the greater impact on the sales volume of the business. Hope you discovered the elixir for success in your business by now.

Please post your comments and suggestions on this article to abhilash_ponnam@yahoo.com