Imagine a teacher who might want to buy your product.

26/08/2008 by Tony Attwood.

In this scenario the teacher will have one question.  If you can answer that question to the teacher’s satisfaction then all will be fine.  If you can’t then the teacher is liable to drift away and buy elsewhere.

Which makes the question rather important.

In fact if you were to analyse the promotions to schools that have worked particularly well in the past few years you’ll find that most of them deal with this one simple question: why should I buy this product from you?

When that question is answered very clearly at the very start of a promotion it pushes the promotional material in a particular direction.  However it is a fact that many companies struggle to provide an answer to that question which speaks directly to the teacher’s needs rather than the features of their product or service. 

Fortunately there is a very simple way of finding out what sort of answer to this question will really impress teachers.

What you do is ask a few hundred teachers which product or service they use to teach a particular issue, or solve a particular problem.   As in, “what products are you currently using with KS2 children who have dyslexia?”

Then, as a follow up question you would ask, “Do you have any problems with this product?  Is there anything you feel that is missing, or which could be done better?  Or would you recommend it wholeheartedly?”

You then take the results of this survey, and look for two things.  One – search for ways in which your product is different from those highlighted by the teachers you questioned.  Two – look at the areas where teachers note that the competitor products fall down, but where you think your product scores.  For example if the respondents say, “the only problem is that after a few weeks the children tend to get a bit bored – there’s not enough variety” you can then stress the high level of variety offered by your product.

Put all that together, and you have an advertising campaign that can be at least twice as effective as a campaign built without such research.

The cost of such research is normally around £400 – a fee that includes not just undertaking the research, but also guidance on the questions to ask, a full analysis of the answers, and suggestions on how the results can be turned into sort of copy that will transform your next advertising campaign.

If you would like to take this idea further, please do give myself or my colleagues a call on 01536 399 000 – or you can email me at tony@hamilton-house.com

Tony Attwood

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