Ed's
AV Handbook
Batting practice for the AV Professional
and primer for the novice
Chapter
10 Page 2
AV Business & Marketing
The 4 P's
Refocus and adjust your business & marketing scope
to the spheres of business that you can
and must control. They are the
4P's of marketing: place, product, price, and promote. The 4P's frame your business strategy & implementing tactics.
Trade Area:
Where are your customers?
Map the geographical boundaries of where your customers reside.
Trading Area:
Where do your customers trade?
Map the sites where customers trade in the trade area.
Location:
Map the address of your proposed site in the trading area.
Can customers find you?
When they do, what will they find?
Handbook Note: Page 7 offers, 9-steps to place, a comprehensive location analysis.
It defines trade area boundaries, locates trading areas, compiles trade area demographics, and selects a brick-n-mortar home.
2. Product The 2nd P of marketing
Define your product or service.
What are its competitive edges?
4P's of marketing: place, product, price, and promote. The 4P's frame your business strategy & implementing tactics.
The 4 P's of Marketing
1.
Place
The 1st P of
marketingTrade Area:
Where are your customers?
Map the geographical boundaries of where your customers reside.
Trading Area:
Where do your customers trade?
Map the sites where customers trade in the trade area.
Location:
Map the address of your proposed site in the trading area.
Can customers find you?
When they do, what will they find?
Handbook Note: Page 7 offers, 9-steps to place, a comprehensive location analysis.
It defines trade area boundaries, locates trading areas, compiles trade area demographics, and selects a brick-n-mortar home.
2. Product The 2nd P of marketing
Define your product or service.
What are its competitive edges?
You are
also a product
You are
an AV Pro who delivers and installs toe-tapping
mesmerizing audio and video experiences derived from a
knowledgeable mix of physics, technology, acoustics,
light, music, and film. Essentially you are the lead product. 3.
Price
The 3rd P of
marketing
What will your customers pay for your product or service?
What will you charge?
Screen
As an AV professional, your knowledge and skills place you in a fortunate position. You can target prospects that will pay a premium price for premium products and services. Promote this competitive edge to screen those who cannot afford to pay for your services.
Survey says
I was involved in a customer survey that revealed selection followed by price were the predominant concerns of customers. They wanted enough selection to make an informed choice. They also wanted to ward off having a neighbor tell them they could have purchased their box for less elsewhere.
The tactical bundle
The following recommendation alleviates customer selection-price concerns while easing AV Pro price-apprehensions with a bundle of selection, price, and you.
Selection
Do not hide inventory in the back room. Place it on the sales floor. Customers will assume there is still more in the back room.
If feasible, place empty boxes on high shelves. They will appear full to customers.
Similar to the boxes-in-view tactic, offer one up/zero back. That is, display at least one unit of many AV brands. It will be assumed you carry the entire line of each brand displayed.
A room full of one-ups, a crowded floor of inventory, plus the empty-assumed-full-boxes, can diffuse customers concerns regarding selection.
If you do not have a retail location, you are at a promotional disadvantage. However, as part of your presentations, use a binder or tablet with photos of your favorite installations and products. That may be enough to support an appearance of selection.
Price
Address the concern of price via an advertised big-box-price of one essential high profile box such as a large screen UltraHD TV. Highlight this item in your proposal. This price serves as your declaration of competitive pricing, which in turn gives your customer their negotiating win. Price the balance of the project at normal-profitable margins. It's a win-win.
Account for yourself
You are not in the business of selling 'big-box fast-food' audio and video cartons. You offer customized musical and cinema experiences. Account for your knowledgeable mix of product, physics, acoustics, light, music, film, and experience in your proposals. Add yourself as a line item, or at least remember to factor your skill within your price.
What will your customers pay for your product or service?
What will you charge?
Price strategy
Price
is an apprehensive bipolar subject for
many AV Pros. Many fear customers will walk if they
don't offer deep discounts. They fear they won't
be able to pay their bills if they do. Quell
price apprehensions with the following strategy.Screen
As an AV professional, your knowledge and skills place you in a fortunate position. You can target prospects that will pay a premium price for premium products and services. Promote this competitive edge to screen those who cannot afford to pay for your services.
Survey says
I was involved in a customer survey that revealed selection followed by price were the predominant concerns of customers. They wanted enough selection to make an informed choice. They also wanted to ward off having a neighbor tell them they could have purchased their box for less elsewhere.
The tactical bundle
The following recommendation alleviates customer selection-price concerns while easing AV Pro price-apprehensions with a bundle of selection, price, and you.
Selection
Do not hide inventory in the back room. Place it on the sales floor. Customers will assume there is still more in the back room.
If feasible, place empty boxes on high shelves. They will appear full to customers.
Similar to the boxes-in-view tactic, offer one up/zero back. That is, display at least one unit of many AV brands. It will be assumed you carry the entire line of each brand displayed.
A room full of one-ups, a crowded floor of inventory, plus the empty-assumed-full-boxes, can diffuse customers concerns regarding selection.
If you do not have a retail location, you are at a promotional disadvantage. However, as part of your presentations, use a binder or tablet with photos of your favorite installations and products. That may be enough to support an appearance of selection.
Price
Address the concern of price via an advertised big-box-price of one essential high profile box such as a large screen UltraHD TV. Highlight this item in your proposal. This price serves as your declaration of competitive pricing, which in turn gives your customer their negotiating win. Price the balance of the project at normal-profitable margins. It's a win-win.
Account for yourself
You are not in the business of selling 'big-box fast-food' audio and video cartons. You offer customized musical and cinema experiences. Account for your knowledgeable mix of product, physics, acoustics, light, music, film, and experience in your proposals. Add yourself as a line item, or at least remember to factor your skill within your price.
Not all prospects are
customers
Your proposal is a bundle of products and your professional services. Some may insist on an unnecessarily detailed itemized proposal in an attempt to have a competitor 'cherry-pick' and beat your price. Tell them no and walk away if they insist. If they do not value your professionalism, then do not allow them to divert you from customers who do.
The bottom price line.
Employ 'the tactical bundle' to resolve the surveyed obstacles of price and selection that expunge the apprehensive symptoms of price.
It is a tactical bundle that exploits your competitive edge of delivering mesmerizing toe-tapping audio/video experiences, not attainable in a box of any size. Customers will pay your price.
Your proposal is a bundle of products and your professional services. Some may insist on an unnecessarily detailed itemized proposal in an attempt to have a competitor 'cherry-pick' and beat your price. Tell them no and walk away if they insist. If they do not value your professionalism, then do not allow them to divert you from customers who do.
The bottom price line.
Employ 'the tactical bundle' to resolve the surveyed obstacles of price and selection that expunge the apprehensive symptoms of price.
It is a tactical bundle that exploits your competitive edge of delivering mesmerizing toe-tapping audio/video experiences, not attainable in a box of any size. Customers will pay your price.
4.
Promote
The 4th P of marketing
Tell customers who you are, what you offer, and close the sale.
Compose a concise promotional
message that
emphasizes your
competitive edges outlined
via product, price,
and place.
Write
the message with the assistance of this classic
advertising acronym - AIDA.
-
Get your customers Attention
(scream & wave),
- Then their Interest (highlight their want),
- Create Desire (offer a taste),
- And request Action (ask for the sale).
Confirm that you are what the message claims. You will be perceived as dishonest if you're not. At best, that will forfeit sales and profit.
At worst, you will kill your effort. Therefore, carefully reevaluate and revise your message until it is authentic, relevant, clear, and concise.
You
have established a compass heading -- your
customer.
You have scoped the economic/market landscape and produced a marketing plan.
Now put your plan into action.
Tell customers who you are, what you offer, and close the sale.
The Message
- Then their Interest (highlight their want),
- Create Desire (offer a taste),
- And request Action (ask for the sale).
Confirm that you are what the message claims. You will be perceived as dishonest if you're not. At best, that will forfeit sales and profit.
At worst, you will kill your effort. Therefore, carefully reevaluate and revise your message until it is authentic, relevant, clear, and concise.
Promote tactics
All promotional activities - advertising, point-of-purchase materials, promotional events, and personal sales - must include your message.
All promotional activities - advertising, point-of-purchase materials, promotional events, and personal sales - must include your message.
Commit a fixed % of your projected
sales to a promotional budget. Then
allocate your budget among the four promotional options that
follow.
1. Advertising -- Tell your story via a website, email, social media, direct mail, newsletter, billboard, print or broadcast media.
2. POP -- Tell your story via point of purchase displays, literature, invoices, etc. Keep POP consistent with your promotional message.
3. Promotions -- Tell your story via events, clinics, seminars, public speaking, publicity.
4. Personal Sales -- Your sales and installation team is the face of the business. Coordinate all promotional activities with your team.
They must be prepared to tell your story and confirm the claims of your promotional message. They must conclude the business of
your market plan -- close the sale.
Handbook Note: The sales/install team payroll is a stand alone promotion budget expense.
1. Advertising -- Tell your story via a website, email, social media, direct mail, newsletter, billboard, print or broadcast media.
2. POP -- Tell your story via point of purchase displays, literature, invoices, etc. Keep POP consistent with your promotional message.
3. Promotions -- Tell your story via events, clinics, seminars, public speaking, publicity.
4. Personal Sales -- Your sales and installation team is the face of the business. Coordinate all promotional activities with your team.
They must be prepared to tell your story and confirm the claims of your promotional message. They must conclude the business of
your market plan -- close the sale.
Handbook Note: The sales/install team payroll is a stand alone promotion budget expense.
Promotional calendar
Allocate the annual budgeted promotional choices to quarterly calendars.
Allocate the annual budgeted promotional choices to quarterly calendars.
Business & marketing
plan status
You have scoped the economic/market landscape and produced a marketing plan.
Now put your plan into action.
Ed's AV Handbook
Copyright 2007 Txu1-598-288 Revised 2024
Sponsored By
Architectural Speaker Tuning System
for
in-wall/ceiling custom installed speakers.
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Table of
Contents
Handbook Chapters
1 AV
Terms
2 AV Physics
3 Sound Reproduction
4 Video Reproduction
5 The AV System Sequence
6 The Room, Speaker, & TV
7 Acoustical Strategy - Small Room
8 Home Theater by Design
9 AV Sales Training
10 AV Business & Marketing
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