Many businesses succeed by strategically simplifying their offerings. This principle can also benefit businesses seeking to differentiate themselves and optimize costs. Traditionally, engineers designing new products often “over-feature” in an attempt to please all users. Think about your TV remote—how many buttons do you actually use? Businesses that refine their products by stripping away unnecessary features and observing customer reactions until nothing unnecessary remains.
Established businesses frequently face the challenge of attempting to serve every customer with a one-size-fits-all solution. This approach, often lacking proper customer segmentation, results in inefficiencies and wasted resources. For instance, offering the same benefits to commercial customers as residential ones misses the mark.
Here’s a scalable strategy for honing your offerings:
1. Begin by listing all the features of a particular product or service. In the case of furniture sales, features might include free delivery, in-stock items, colour selection assistance, decor matching, and 90-day payment terms.
2. Identify a specific customer segment and the features they value most.
3. Assess your list to identify features this segment does not prioritize.
4. Develop a tailored product or service offering by removing these undesired features for that specific segment.
This method helps you discover whether you’ve “over-featured” your offerings and saves money as you allocate resources more efficiently. Crafting focused packages for different customer segments provides another advantage: a more targeted marketing message.
Instead of announcing, “We can do everything for everybody,” your message evolves into, “We offer a specialized product that meets your specific needs and priorities.”
Aim to design offerings that reflect what each customer segment truly values, removing excess features they don’t benefit from. We’d love to hear how this approach works for you.
