Form utility is the incorporation of customer needs and wants into the features and benefits of the products being offered by the company. Companies invest time and money into product research to pinpoint exactly what products or services consumers desire. From there, company executives strategize on the development of the product with the goal of meeting or exceeding those needs to create form utility.
Form utility might include offering consumers lower prices, more convenience, or a wider selection of products. The goal of these efforts is to increase and maximize the perceived value of the products. Time utility exists when a company maximizes the availability of a product so that customers can buy it during the times that are the most convenient or desirable for them.
Companies analyze how to create or maximize their products' time utility and adjust their production process, logistical planning of manufacturing, and delivery. Creating time utility includes considering the hours and days of the week a company might choose to make its services available. For example, a store might open on the weekends if customers typically shop for that product at that time. Time utility might also include hour availability for a product or the company's customer service department through a phone number or website chat function.
Place utility refers primarily to making goods or services physically available or accessible to potential customers. Examples of place utility range from a retail store's location to how easy a company's website or services are to find on the internet.
Companies that have effective search engine optimization or SEO strategies can improve their place utility. SEO is the process of increasing a website's availability to internet users through their searches on the web. Increasing convenience for customers can be a key element in attracting business. A company that offers easy access to technical assistance offers an added value in comparison to a similar company that does not offer a similar service.
Making a product available in a wide variety of stores and locations is considered an added value since its more convenient. For example, Apple Inc. Businesses use marketing utility on a product level by highlighting the different ways each product can enhance a consumer's life and on a brand level by associating the company itself with certain types of usefulness.
When developing a marketing strategy, it's important to understand the type of utility your brand or product can give to customers.
To appropriately market a product to an audience, you need to be able to develop a value proposition , which explains the unique benefits a product can provide to consumers. Utility in marketing helps businesses guide their marketing plans based on how customers use their products. Knowing the types of marketing utility can help you identify the specific ways a product or brand can connect with their target audience. Good utility marketing can have a range of business benefits including:.
To effectively use a utility-based marketing strategy, you first need to understand the different ways customers can gain value from a product or service. A marketing utility model can address a single type or combine multiple aspects of a product's utility to target various market segments. There are a few primary categories to consider when determining a product's potential utility:.
Form utility refers to how the physical state of a finished product can provide value to customers. A final product that is fully assembled typically offers more value to consumers than one that comes in individual components because the customer doesn't have to put effort into putting the product together before they can use it.
Products that are fully ready to purchase offer form utility to customers. For example, a customer could purchase all of the parts required to build their own computer and spend time putting them together themselves. This requires the customer to not only have knowledge of building computers, but to dedicate their own time to making the computer. The average consumer would likely prefer to buy a completed computer because it provides them with form utility.
Related: What Is Usability? Time utility is the idea that a product is accessible to customers whenever they need them. Furthermore, consumer demand for products varies depending on the season.
For instance, sales of coats spike in the winter. On the other hand, ice cream is popular during the summer. Of course, the demand for some products — such as groceries — is the same throughout the year. Businesses only need to ensure they are available and delivered on time. Place utility refers to the value customers put on where they purchase products or services.
This is an important utility for those looking for items that are usually easy to obtain. Convenience stores facilitate the whole process, enabling customers to purchase items on the spot instead of having to drive to a factory or warehouse.
Consumers find what they need in a place near home, school, or work. As you can see, place utility has to do with convenience. This is a component that is becoming increasingly important to busy customers.
You can create place value by opening stores in convenient locations. You can leverage this utility as a marketer differentiator that will make you stand out in the industry. Possession utility in marketing describes the satisfaction customers feel when they buy a product or service. They experience this value when they drive a new car off the lot or when a brand delivers their order to their home. There are many ways to promote products or services in a way that makes them more appealing to customers.
Information utility used to be neglected in the past, but more and more marketers have started to add it on their list. These values can be the Unique Selling Points for the products or services and they can be marketed. The utility of place is quite similar to the utility of time.
It refers to the availability of the product or service at a given location when it is required. It is the ease of availability at a certain location that pushes the buyer to opt for a product or service. The utility of place is the convenience of a product or a service availability offers to the consumer.
Placing your physical products in multiple stores at multiple locations or providing them at their place so that customers must not look for the product is the utility of place.
The customizable SaaS product that can integrate with multiple applications in one place is also the utility of place that makes it convenient for the user to manage all through one channel only. Owing something is the reliability and stability that one can have. To give your customer possession for a product or service is providing them the utility of possession.
It is not associated with upfront cost only. If you are an automobile manufacturer, car leasing is the utility of possession. If the customer wants to own a house, the mortgage is the utility of possession.
If you are a SaaS services provider, the subscription plans to own a platform that can be customized as per the customer needs is the utility of possession.
It is the latest edition in the utility list. It can be understood as the convenience of getting the right information at the right time in the oversaturated, overwhelmed, and over-competitive market.
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