Products services and causes change. There are many reasons for making changes to your offer, for example:
- you discover new aspects or approaches.
- you make changes as you get to know your market and respond to its needs.
- offers might change on a seasonal basis, locally sourced fruit and vegetables for example.
- things change with fashion or even set the fashion.
If something sells well, it may not be urgent to change it. However it may be possible to anticipate the market and introduce a change when sales begin to dip. Anticipating changes in the market and knowing how to respond is something you increasingly understand with experience.
External and Internal Pressures
Change might be driven by internal or external pressures. External pressures drive change in your offer over which you have little control. Fashion or changing seasons might be examples.
Internal pressures are changes you undertake as your offer evolves and you learn more about the market. The market itself does not change but you identify changes that better fit your market’s needs. There may be good times to introduce these changes but overall they are not dependent on external events.
Sometimes changes have little impact on marketing. A consultancy service might change its offer but the consultant reveals the details only when making an offer. Such a service sells through reputation and not so much through the detail of its offer.
A shop selling large numbers of products might plan seasonal campaigns or occasional promotions of one product. They may launch new products at certain times of year based on their experience of seasonal changes.
Like everything else, this is worth considering even if changes to your offer are likely to happen after long periods of time. Everything changes and it is worth knowing when and how your offer might change, so that you prepare for when changes need to happen.
This is part of a post sequence about the second element of the circuit questionnaire, products services and causes.