Marketing Plans, 8th Edition

Chapter 4 THE CUSTOMER AND MARKET AUDIT PART 2: Understanding customer needs and developing value propositions

SUMMARY

1. Customers never have been and never will be rational
2. How to understand customers’ needs and wants
3. How to harness all this knowledge to make a better offer to customers
4. What a value proposition is
5. How to quantify value propositions
6. Exercises to turn the theory into practice

INTRODUCTION

This chapter continues to spell out the essential components of a customer and market audit.

Nonetheless, as the purpose of the audit is to provide all the data and intelligence necessary for the strategic marketing plan itself, once again we repeat in Figure 4.1 the contents of the plan. This chapter will enable you to complete the section headed ‘SWOT analyses’ (of segments).

Customers have never known what they want, so don’t ask them!

Figure 4.1: Hierarchy of planning. ...