6 takeaways from Customer Camp with Kate Bourgoin

Nova Scotia Business Inc., in partnership with the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) and Venn  Innovation held a Customer Camp workshop with Katelyn Bourgoin on September 19th.

Here are six helpful takeaways from that session:

1. Conducting research into what motivates your customer to buy informs your messaging, product development, advertising, pricing strategy — basically everything related to your business.

2. There are many ways to conduct customer research, but listening and engaging with your customers by far gives you the best results.

3. A great value prop… 

• Is clear — easy to understand
• Is succinct — one to two sentences
• Communicates specific (and relatable!) results to the customer
• Explains why you’re different
• Has an emotional hook

4. It costs 55% more to acquire a new customer today than it did five years ago.

5. Businesses that actively incorporate customer research and intelligence are more successful.

6. A Snickers bar for breakfast doesn’t do as good a job as a milkshake. [Watch Clayton Christensen, professor at Harvard Business School talk about understanding the job.]

Workshop participants collaborated and helped each other rewrite and evaluate their current value props. Here are a few before and afters:

Book Atlantic

Before: Study in Atlantic Canada

After: Open the world to your child. Send your child to study abroad. We’ll take care of all the details as if they were our own.

Shine Turbine

Before: Power using wind. World’s first portable wind turbine charger

After: Power Freedom, Day or Night. World’s first portable wind turbine. Go off-grid without going off-line.

If you are interested in attending the next session of Customer Camp, please contact Jessica McCall, Export Development Executive.

What people are saying:

• “Loved the workshop! I enjoyed working on improving my value proposition and found the exercise with the sticky notes very helpful. Thanks again.” — Stacy Fredericks, Waypoint Creative Services
• “Really glad to have participated in this workshop!  Fast paced, Fun, and of High Value with take-away resources as things evolve.” — Rob MacKenzie, Aramax IP Services Ltd.
• “What a wonderful and insightful workshop we have attended today!” — Otro Games