Merchandise + Service + Story

You recall my discussion about Clarity (click here).

I have enough clarity now to structure discussions around what I call "Merchandise + Story + Service".

In other words, we have our three ladies:

• Judy, now 61 years old.
• Jennifer, who just turned 45.
• Jasmine, who is 29 years old.

The way we market to Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine is fundamentally different. We all know this, intuitively, in spite of everything we read that tells us we must do everything for every customer to be successful. We know Judy doesn't care about Foresquare, we know Jennifer likes Amazon, we know Jasmine doesn't care about catalogs.

So let's simplify the message.

Above, I outline what I call the "MineThatData Strategy Grid". We have our three ladies (Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine). And across the top, I outline what continually comes up in my projects ... Merchandise + Service + Story.

Merchandise, of course, is what we sell. Too few of us even bother to think about it, but I assure you, customers think about it. Merchandise is probably responsible for 70% of our success. It probably gets 7% of our mental bandwidth. In my projects, the merchandise purchased by Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine is fundamentally different. Perform a demographic overlay, and discover this truth for yourself.

Service is all about how we take care of the customer. Live chat, your social media response team, the call center, not sending catalogs to Jasmine, not forcing an app upon Judy, how you price merchandise, everything about taking care of your customer folds into the Service category.

Story is critically important. If you sell the same merchandise that Amazon sells, and you can't beat Amazon's delivery options, then Story is the only thing you've got. By the way, the Story that motivates Judy is fundamentally different than the Story that motivates Jasmine.

In 2014, we're going to talk a lot about Merchandise + Service + Story, especially as it relates to Judy, Jennifer, and Jasmine. Your job is to fill the nine squares in the image above, crafting your strategy for each cell.