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In a highly competitive environment, it is extremely important to know the motives of customers, as this directly affects their choice of product.
For example, an entrepreneur doesn’t need a generator. He needs his business to function under any circumstances. That is, customers don’t buy a product, they buy a solution that will best fulfill their request.
This is the basic principle of the Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) method of proposal development. Instead of focusing on the characteristics of a product or service, JTBD puts the need that the client wants to solve first.
This approach creates true value for consumers. And it brings profit to businesses. Everyone wins!
And now to the point: how to create an offer using the JTBD method? We will tell you in this article.
The Jobs to Be Done method
The concept was developed by Tony Ulwick in the 1980s. JTBD focuses on understanding the real tasks that customers are trying to accomplish instead of just buying products. To make it easier to understand, let’s describe the idea behind this method. Just as an employer hires a person to perform certain tasks, consumers “hire” products or services to achieve their goals or solve problems.
The key question here is: What does this customer really want?
At the same time, it is important to understand that the answer to this question is not easy to find out. Consumers don’t always know what they really want and how to satisfy their needs.
JTBD is the way to look at the product through the eyes of the customer. Based on this method and having a product description, you can refine this description so that the client sees it as the solution they need.
Examples
A monobank is not just a bank. It’s a bank without branches, where you don’t have to stand in lines to get a card or increase your credit limit. Because the owners know that everyone is tired of complicated applications, boring restraint, and queues. Customers want to receive and send money quickly, have access to quick loans and installment payments. They want to receive something now and pay later.
OKKO is not just a gas station. Because when you are driving on the highway for a long time, you want to see an island of civilization where hot food will be waiting for you. That’s why OKKO is a gas station where you want to stop for a hot dog, because you always get an appetite on the road.
Philip Kotler also said that a business should sell holes, not drills. Therefore, the whole concept of JTBD is aimed at understanding what holes the customer needs and why they need them.
So, if your product isn’t selling as well as you’d like it to, it could be because of the way you’ve formulated your offer. Use JTBD to find the points of intersection between your product and customer needs.
How to implement JTBD in your business?
1. The first thing you need to do is clearly define who your customers are and in what context they use your product.
2. Knowing your audience, you can move on to identifying customer tasks (Jobs to Be Done). For this purpose, various data collection methods are used, such as in-depth interviews, surveys, behavioral data analytics, as well as analysis of customer and competitor feedback.
If you choose the path of in-depth interviews, you need to formulate research questions, in particular:
- What problem does our product solve for the customer?
- What goal does the customer want to achieve by using the product?
- What emotions does the customer experience when making a purchase?
- In what context, i.e. why does the customer use the product?
- What alternatives is the customer considering?
- What prevents the client from achieving their goal?
- What products or services have they used in the past to achieve a particular goal?
- What is missing from your current offerings to meet the need?
You can keep adding to this list until you find a way to fulfill the needs of your target audience in your niche and with your product.
3. And when the questions are formulated, you need to select respondents for the study. You need 10-20 of them for an interview or 100 or more for a survey. The number depends on the field of activity.
4. The next step is to conduct a survey using the Jobs to Be Done method.
During the interview:
- Ask open-ended questions. Questions that can be answered with a “yes” or “no” will not help you to get to the bottom of the client’s request. Instead, open-ended questions will encourage the customer to describe their situation, needs, and feelings in a broad way.
- Listen carefully. Do not interrupt the client and do not try to confirm your assumptions. Record the conversation so you don’t miss anything important.
- Observe the client’s body language and intonation. This can provide additional information about their emotions and motivation.
- Analyze customer stories, look for repeating patterns and keywords.
5. After completing the research and analyzing the results, create Job Stories. A Job Story is a detailed description of what the client is trying to achieve. In fact, we study his motives in detail. The structure of a Job Story can look like this:
I, as [audience segment], when [in a certain situation, with certain needs], want [purpose of purchase, request] to [result that the consumer wants to get].
For example: As a small business owner, I want to continue to serve my customers during power outages so that I don’t lose customers, profits, or my business.
5. The generated Job Stories will be the basis of your new hypotheses that need to be tested. This can be done in focus groups.
6. Create new offers.
If the hypotheses prove to be true, develop a new product or refine an existing offering or add features that will help customers do their jobs more efficiently.
7. Repeat the research cycle.
JTBD is not a one-time process. The market is constantly changing, customer needs are evolving, so it’s important to conduct regular research and make appropriate changes to your offer.
Using this guide, you will be able to effectively apply the JTBD method and create offers that will become indispensable for your customers.
At Solve Marketing, we focus on thoroughly researching the product, target audience, market trends, customer feedback, and factors that influence our target audience’s choices. This comprehensive approach allows us to draw conclusions and create offers that effectively convey the JTBD in company communications, ensuring that customers’ needs are met more accurately and increasing their loyalty.
JTBD usage cases
Let’s support this article with well-known cases:
1. Snickers: “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry”
In 2009, sales of Snickers began to decline, and Mars was looking for a way to restore the brand’s position in the market. They used a JTBD approach to understand why people buy Snickers.
Instead of thinking of Snickers as just a chocolate bar, the marketers focused on what function it serves for consumers. And it turned out that people often buy Snickers when they are hungry and need a quick snack, energy boost, and focus.
As a result, the campaign “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” was created to accurately reflect the consumer experience. The campaign was a resounding success. Sales of Snickers increased significantly, and the brand became a household name as a hunger-quenching snack.
2. Airbnb: Transforming the home booking experience
When Airbnb was just starting out, the founders faced the problem of low user trust. At the same time, the entrepreneurs realized that their service was not just about helping people find accommodation, but also performing other tasks related to the travel experience.
So the founders of Airbnb decided to apply JTBD and identify the underlying motivations. They wanted to find the answer to the question “Why do people choose to rent a home through this platform instead of traditional hotels?”. They realized that users are looking for more than just a place to stay. Travelers want to have a unique local experience, feel at home, and travel like a local.
This insight influenced Airbnb’s product design and marketing strategies, which emphasized the unique features and experiences of different places. This has helped the company gain trust, attract new users, and grow to become one of the leading platforms in the world.
Conclusions
JTBD is an approach that allows you to understand the deep needs of customers and create an offer that perfectly meets their needs. To achieve maximum results, it’s important to combine JTBD with other research methods and complex analysis.
At Solve Marketing, we go beyond the JTBD method. Our experts conduct detailed analytics of the market and your business, develop strategies that take into account both rational and emotional aspects of customer decision-making.
And most importantly, we have an author’s approach to studying the target audience by choice factors. We create the most comprehensive list of factors that influence the purchase decision so that you can take them into account when creating an offer. More details about this are described in the book “Digital Marketing Department”, which you can download for free, by the way.
