The Need/Frequency Matrix
A Need/Frequency matrix can be super-useful when planning our marketing strategy. By plotting products and services on the matrix, we can identify the nuances of our marketing funnel and tweak the plan accordingly.
If we study the matrix, it’s clear that marketing toothpaste would involve a very different approach than a Rolex watch – from target audience, to messaging, to creative to KPI’s to repeat sales, up-selling or cross-selling.
The examples I’ve provided in the matrix are just a few ideas for each quadrant. I’m sure you can think of many more!
Infrequent want products
I will cover all 4 quadrants of the matrix in separate posts. In this post, let’s focus in on the bottom left quadrant. The low need, low frequency products. They are “infrequent want” purchases in the sense that people typically buy them as desirable or nice-to-have items and, once they’ve bought them, they typically won’t buy again for quite a few years. They are often luxury products like:
· Flat screen TV
· Yacht
· Luxury watch
· Luxury cruise
If you’re marketing an “infrequent want” product, your goal is to achieve 3 things:
1. Grab the attention of target consumers who may not necessarily be in the market to buy and convince them they should buy
2. Target consumers who are in the market to buy and seal the deal
3. Create a belief in your brand values and connect with a niche clientele of ‘elite club members’ in order to convert them into brand loyalists
The operative words here are “target” and “niche”. You can use demographic, interest and life event targeting to focus in on the correct audiences. Hopefully, you already have business data on your buyer profile as well as a list of existing customers that you can use as lookalike audiences.
Sell the lifestyle or the dream by telling a story. That may sound cliché, but here’s what I mean.
Tap into high-tier human needs
Source: https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
Humans all have basic physical needs and higher-level psychological needs. Maslow’s Basic Hierarchy of Needs identifies 2 basic human needs tiers that comprise the need for:
· Food
· Water
· Warmth
· Rest
· Security
· Safety
Since “infrequent want” products do not fulfill any of these needs, we need to tap into the higher Psychological and Self-fulfillment needs when we engage with this type of audience.
Higher-tier human needs are harder to communicate and persuade to, so it’s important that we use language that will invoke “higher-level” emotions.
To do this, we want to help our audience understand why and, more importantly, how our product will give them a feeling of esteem or love/friendship (psychological needs) or a feeling of self-actualization (self-fulfillment).
Get in their head
Conveying the quality, the custom characteristics or craftsmanship of the product is a big part of this strategy.
If we can paint a picture of how their life will change as a result of purchasing the product, really make them experience the sensation, get a taste of the emotions, feel like they’re special and take them to a place they normally don’t go in terms of self-esteem or prestige, then we’re able to provide justification for making the purchase.
What we’re doing is assisting our prospects to take the time to imagine they’ve purchased our product by conveying a very real, tangible image to them. This is something they may not have otherwise been able to do on their own. Think of it as switching on a lightbulb in their mind or transporting them to a highly desirable place.
This Rolex ad checks both boxes of the Self-actualization and Esteem needs by depicting one of the highest achievements in history and implying that this kind of prestige will be yours if you buy the watch. Sir Edmund Hillary wore a Rolex on his wrist when he became the first man to summit Everest, and they use his legacy to tell a story.
This ad for a Sony Bravia OLED TV hits the nail on the head for fulfilling the Self-actualization need. It speaks to realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences. It fuels the desire “to experience everything one is capable of experiencing”.
Nurture with personalized content
Moving down the sales funnel to where a prospect already knows they want this type of product (is already in the market) and is now in the phase of researching which brand or model they want to go for, our messaging should tell the same story but can also be more informational.
At this stage, we can start listing the benefits of the product, providing a competitor analysis, offering a discount (keeping in mind, discounts may not be viable for some ultra-luxury items). We can also start to gather leads for our database and begin nurturing them with a drip email campaign to keep them engaged and our brand top of mind. Prospects who are searching for us or have been retargeted can be upgraded to an active lead in our CRM.
*Capture leads and lead attributes with highly relevant and focused landing pages.
Since “infrequent want” purchases often have a longer sales cycle because they are high-ticket, high-consideration items, we should craft a detailed content marketing strategy that will guide and educate our leads into making the purchase over their period of consideration.
I can’t stress how important quality content is here. The middle of the funnel is an often-neglected phase of the buyer journey. Again, colorful story-telling which places the prospect as the hero of the story with us, the brand, acting as the mentor, is the order of the day. Whether this be personalized email marketing, blog content or retargeting via social, video, display or search, we are making sure we stay top of mind for this niche audience who has been forthcoming enough to share their information with us or has spent time on certain pages of our website.
*Score your CRM leads and then nurture them further with customized messaging.
After the sale
Your customer database is a goldmine of opportunity as you now have happy clients with whom you can continue engaging. “Happy” is the operative word here. As long as they’re delighted with your product and service (that’s a discussion for a whole other blog post), they are worth more to you now than they were as prospects. Talk up the elite club they are now members of, send them content, articles and offers that will keep them hooked, embrace them and retain them as brand loyalists.
In return, they will tell other people about you, which will get you referral business. They will come back and purchase again. They will engage with you on social media and spread the good word organically.
This is where your economies of scale really kick in. Repeat and referral business has a much higher ROI. Understand your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Don’t forget about this crucial segment of your audience.
So, there you have it. An overview of how to market a luxury item that nobody really needs, but that almost everybody wants.
Please comment and let me know what you think!
