The Five Types of Utility in Marketing

How do potential consumers spend their money? What is important to them in deciding how much to spend, where to spend and which company is making their business?

This is the role of the sales and marketing teams in your company: designing and delivering consumer campaigns to demonstrate the unique value proposition of your product or service and to stand out from the competition.

The challenge? It is not easy.

Customer preferences are constantly evolving to respond to both external market forces and internal financial pressures. As a result, the reasons for how, when, and why consumers spend money are never static. Businesses need to find ways to understand and articulate the value of a service or product offering in a way that both engages and persuades consumers to switch.

This is where the concept of utility-based marketing is extremely useful. In this piece we will explore that Basics of value in marketing, Why it mattersand then dive in five common types of benefits in marketing.

What are benefits in marketing?

Expressed in a simple way? Value.

While the term “utility” typically means “usefulness” in a non-economic context, the marketing-driven definition speaks for the specific value that consumers achieve when they spend on products or services. Understanding the benefits in marketing can help companies better predict their spending habits and develop campaigns to keep consumers interested.

Why Marketing Utility Is Important

In the past, marketing efforts have been focused on making an impression. It makes sense: if consumers notice and remember your print, email, or television ad campaign, you will be better able to track their spend when they see your brand again in store or when shopping online.

The problem? With so many companies now competing for consumer interest both online and in person, market saturation is a major concern. More worrying? An article in the New York Times stated, “People hate advertising.” Over-saturated and overwhelmed with ads on desktops, mobile devices, and in person, prospective buyers are now optimizing the company’s efforts to impress.

Instead, they search usefulness. this is that The aim of usage-oriented marketing: To offer consumers functional and useful products or services that offer a specific benefit or that can be used for multiple functions.

When done well, utility marketing can create stronger customer-business ties and increase brand loyalty over time. It’s a slow process rather than a fast one, serving a different purpose: connecting customers to brands based on value rather than volume.

The five types of benefits in marketing

Despite our definition, the term “benefit” in marketing remains rather nebulous. This is because figuring out the exact value your products or services will offer a particular segment of customers and how that value can best be effectively communicated is not an easy task.

As a result, the benefits in marketing are often broken down into several types, each of which can help achieve better ad formation and effective sales results. However, depending on how specific or how generalized your marketing approach is, it’s possible to identify anything from a massive utility model to hundreds of smaller types of care for each consumer segment.

To streamline the targeting and campaign creation process, we’ll examine five common types of utilities used in marketing.

1. Use of time

This is the “when” component of the utility: is your product available when customers want it? Will it arrive quickly and without complications? Consumers want to wait as little time as possible for products to arrive in stock or at their home. Therefore, the use of time is crucial to capture customer conversion when needed.

The time usage also takes into account seasonal changes in purchasing habits. For example, sales of boots and gloves increase in winter, while there is greater demand for ice cream in summer.

Some products are staple foods and are therefore time-resistant – such as B. Groceries – but must still be in stock and delivered on time. As a result, time-based marketing efforts are inherently tied to inventory and delivery systems to ensure that results meet consumer expectations.

2. Use of the place

Place utility refers to the ability of consumers to get what they want, where they want it. The usefulness of the place is often applied in brick and mortar stores and is paramount for customers looking for familiar items that are easy to source.

In a world now driven by digital marketing efforts, place offers a competitive advantage when companies can demonstrate their ability to keep certain items in stock at all times. And as improved logistics chains reduce the time between order and delivery, e-commerce operators can leverage the convenience of locations as a differentiator for the market.

3. Benefits of possession

The ownership service speaks for the actual act of product ownership – for example, for consumers who drive a new car from the parking lot or have furniture delivered to their home. It also highlights the relationship between possession and purpose.

Consider plastic storage containers. While they may be sold in the “kitchen” of an online or brick-and-mortar store, consumers are free to reuse the items at their discretion once they are taken, increasing their overall usefulness.

4. Take advantage of form

While some companies offer lower prices by shifting assembly responsibility to the consumer (e.g., the new dresser you bought and delivered but still need to assemble in your own time), ready-made forms are for Customers are often more valuable.

Consider complex products such as vehicles or electronic devices. By highlighting the finished form of these items, companies can lower potential barriers to buying by making it clear that consumers are getting full-featured products that don’t add the complexity of self-assembly.

5. Use of information

The information service is a new addition to this list, but in a world where the competition for basic goods is now global, information can mean the difference between successful sales and failed conversion efforts. The information utility addresses any data that helps consumers make purchasing decisions. This includes product details on e-commerce sites, targeted marketing campaigns and well-trained call center and in-store agents who can answer customer questions.

Simply, the right information at the right time improves market value and increases the chance of sales conversion.

Create customer benefit

The ultimate goal of any marketing strategy is to create customer value. While not every campaign requires full implementation of all five utility types to improve conversion and customer satisfaction, general knowledge paves the way for implementation to add value on a large scale.