The FCB Matrix to Understand Your Marketing Strategy

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The FCB matrix is ​​an excellent tool to better understand which marketing strategy to apply to your product or service. It is very little publicized but in fact it is indispensable to understand more easily the functionality/emotionality and importance of the decision in the eyes of the potential customer. It is essential here's why...
TABLE OF CONTENTS
What is FCB matrix.
The FCB matrix and involvement.
The FCB matrix: how to apply it.
Orange dial.
Red dial.
Green dial.
Blue dial.
Conclusions
What is FCB matrix.
The FCB matrix is ​​one of the most important and perhaps whatsapp number list least publicized diagrams, but it is very useful for better understanding how to approach the customer using the most suitable marketing strategy.

Have you ever wondered why perfume commercials on TV are so different from toothpaste commercials? Or how much more features and functionality are emphasized when advertising budget cars, while emotion, feeling , or belonging are emphasized when advertising more expensive, exclusive premium cars ?

It all comes from the involvement that a product gives you with respect to the functionality that it must have for you. When we talk about involvement we always talk about the mind of the consumer: it is to the thought of the potential customer that we must address to develop our marketing.

The FCB matrix and involvement.
Understanding how much a product engages the user versus how functional it needs to be to solve the problem is described in a Cartesian axis called the FCB matrix, developed by Richard Vaughn in 1980.



The FCB Matrix to Understand Your Marketing Strategy

The FCB matrix is ​​composed of 4 quadrants and concerns the emotional or rational involvement of a person to buy a product and the importance of the purchase decision (high or low) in the mind of the consumer. Inside each quadrant, the products are inserted and this then determines the ways to advertise them.

4 types of combinations are created which are summarised in the 4 quadrants:

ORANGE : low importance of the decision, low emotional involvement
RED : high importance of the decision, low emotional involvement
GREEN : high importance of the decision, high emotional involvement
BLUE : low importance of the decision, high satisfaction
The FCB matrix: how to apply it.
Vaughn's FCB matrix is ​​therefore one of the useful tools to identify the best communication strategy. But to better understand what we are talking about, let's take a few practical examples that you can see in the following image.

FCB Matrix to Understand Your Marketing Strategy - Examples

Orange dial.
In the ORANGE quadrant, for example, we have products for everyday use, with a lot of choice and little differentiation.

For example, for a widely consumed good such as water (with similar characteristics from one source to another and with a flavour that is almost unrecognisable for a large part of the population), user involvement is decidedly low.

Water is in fact a commodity and it is difficult to enter the mind of the consumer and convince him that ours is better than that of the competition.

Usually the choice of purchase depends only on the price. Only a few brands have managed to create a brand that has differentiated them and made them become premium products with higher prices than the average.

Red dial.
In the RED quadrant we have products or services that involve us because they are more important (for example because they are more expensive and long-lasting) and that are functional to our needs.

Here rationality is the master, so we will be much more mentally involved in choosing a washing machine or a PC. This is because we are talking about durable goods and before purchasing we will accumulate as much information as possible to understand if the features, prices and reliability are functional to our needs.

As sellers we need to reassure our customers by offering as much information as possible because they plan to spend money to purchase goods that will last for many years.

Green dial.
In the GREEN quadrant we find goods with a high emotional impact and high involvement. They are usually luxury and exclusive goods. Even the choice of a perfume, although it has a lower involvement, enters this quadrant. In fact, perfume advertisements are not very descriptive, very emotional and are often presented by famous people so that you can "feel a bit like them".

Another small insight that can be seen in reading the products is in the differentiation that we also have between the same product categories. For example, buying an economic car will always be very engaging but more rational/functional than buying a sports car.

Going into detail, rational involvement increases in the decision to buy an electric car. It is certainly an emotional purchase for its green idea and for the zero emissions of the vehicle, but it becomes even more rational for the difficulties related to autonomy, the times to refuel and the availability of charging stations.

Blue dial.
In the last remaining quadrant, the BLUE one, we have products or services that offer emotions but have a low rational involvement and little importance. For example, buying a fizzy drink serves for personal satisfaction and the action is done without thinking too much. Drinking a cola or an orange soda is not a difficult decision to make, but we buy it because it certainly makes us happy at that moment (emotional quadrant).

High-involvement products, for example, require many more elements to make a purchase decision, so if you offer professional or expensive products, your strategy will have to lean more towards providing as much information as possible.

It is therefore essential to study your individual product or service and understand what context it will be part of, thus moving in the right direction.

For example, an architect will have to do more emotional marketing by inserting images of his complete and exclusive projects, while a dentist, who will have the task of straightening teeth, will have to give information that tends towards trust and rationality.

Conclusions
The FCB matrix is ​​a great tool, but like any other it must be used with great care and by interpreting the information it provides. It is always necessary that you are able to identify your target by understanding as best as possible what their choices and purchasing actions are.

This tool will help you characterize your message taking into account different parameters, so if for example you sell youthful, trendy and cheap clothes, then you will probably have to focus on emotionality with low involvement (blue quadrant) knowing that young people want to feel good about themselves and show others how beautiful they are.

If, on the contrary, you are an institute accredited for the ISO 9001 certification of companies, you will have to focus much more on rationality, attention to your customer and skills acquired over time.