Marketing

Marketing is what is a smart business owner or entrepreneur does before and after a sale occurs. The objective of marketing is to increase customer awareness and deliver a message about the benefits of your product or service while the objective of sales is to solicit and obtain customer requests for those offerings.

Strategic marketing is a detailed plan to communicate frequently with your customers. The process brings ideas, goods, or services to the marketplace through planning, pricing, promoting, selling, and distribution.

Successful marketing reflects management's ability to meet the requirements of the target market as a measurement of achieving sales goals.

Marketing gets your company's name and message to a large number of people and it requires resources, time and strategies. Consumers expect to learn about your offerings from websites, brochures, and flyers, advertisements in newspapers and magazines and public service announcement on the radio or television. They also expect to see you at certain networking functions or tradeshows.

Do not develop marketing strategies based merely on the number of people you plan to reach; make sure the marketing message is reaching the right people: your target market.

Please note, a badly designed website, or brochure, or a poorly written advertisement may be worse than no marketing efforts at all, so use your time and money wisely to develop good copy. Estimate that it will take nine (9) exposures to a marketing message before someone even notices it; so get the word out as often as possible.

Market size and trends

To develop a marketing strategy you must first understand the size of the market. The marketplace consists of all potential customers, including those who are currently doing business with your competitors and those who do not yet know that they want what you have to offer.

It is important to know approximately, how many consumers currently use the same or similar type of product or service you provide. You want to make sure your customer base is large enough to maintain your business venture. If your market is too small you will not have enough sales to establish and maintain a business venture while a market that is deemed expansive is often associated with deep pocket competition and require expensive and ongoing marketing campaigns.

Prospective investors want to know the size of the market to ensure that your company can achieve growth and profitability, and therefore provide a lucrative return on their investment.

Small business owners should learn more about the size of the market place using the simple method of observation, developing brief surveys and facilitating informal focus groups make up of family and friends.

To find statistical information and demographics of the marketplace research is required. Begin researching data on population, geographic distribution, sales and other information from local, state and federal government agencies including the U.S. Census Bureau, Small Business Administration, and Department of Commerce.

Read trade journals and industry related magazines and business newspapers. Trade associations, offering important data, often publish survey results reflecting industry trends. Read the annual reports of competitors for valuable information. Get in touch with the Chamber of Commerce for local statistics. Contact industry expects for brief information interviews. Use local business directories and the "Yellow Pages" too.

Defining existing, target and niche markets

Your existing market consists of all customers who currently use your type of products, goods, or services, whether buying from you or your competitors. They are all potential purchasers.

Your target market is that segment of the marketplace that is attainable based on your resources and those most likely to make a purchase compared to others within the overall market. The target market has similar characteristics (lifestyle, demographics, purchasing patterns etc), is large enough to sustain your business, is located within a specific geographic location, and is the intended recipient of the marketing message. They often have common concerns; specific yet similar needs and seek the same benefits from you service or product.

The more you know about your target market, the more accurately you can develop your marketing strategy.

Your niche market is a small, specialized segment of the target market where consumers share similar needs and for which the company, product or service has a strong and unique appeal as compared to competitors. The niche market has characteristics that are even more similar then a target market and therefore with precise marketing strategies, is a segment of the market that can provide increased profit with minimal efforts.

The best niches are those where:

• There is weak competition
• There is strong appeal for your products and services
• You are likely to have a lead in positioning yourself in the marketplace
• Where there is good growth potential

Once you have defined the characteristics of your target and niche market, you must then assess the size of this market and evaluate the trends likely to influence both market size and customer behavior in the near future.

Marketing Strategies, Tactics, Action plans

1. A strategy affirms the marketing objective and the general method you will use to achieve a goal, such as "add new customers."
2. A tactic spells out a specific method for carrying out the strategy and quantifies the ideal result, such as direct mail marketing to gain 10 new clients;
3. An action plan details the specifics used, such as create a catalog and mail it to 3,000 prospective customers.

Considering the following checklist to determine how you will employ various marketing strategies in your business.

Our professional consultants in the fields of strategic planning and budgeting, graphic design, packaging, direct sales, advertising, video production, public relations and web site design are seasoned marketing experts. We bring clarity and focus to developing a strategic marketing campaign because we help you to create a performance plan detailing the essentials as follows:

1. specific objectives;
2. the general method you will use to achieve your marketing goals;
3. tactics required for carrying out the best marketing approach: and
4. quantifying the desired result.

The marketing plan is important because it illustrates the planned method of communicating with your targeted clients, creatively and effectively. It is a plan designed to increase customer awareness and to motivate them to spend money for your service or product. It also shows just how much you know about the demographics, and psychographics of the target, if a niche market exists, the size of the marketplace, and the potential market share that you have staked out for your company. The market plan also describes the types of strategies you propose and how they translate into sales. It exemplifies the types of strategies that are most successful for your industry or which new ones you will employ that are considered innovative tactics. Implementing new marketing strategies costs money, and requires other resources including time and personnel. So, unless your money is unlimited, plan this segment very carefully. Be certain about the message you want to convey about your products, services, or company.

The operating expense associated with the marketing plan must be included in the financial projections with an addendum explaining how the company will generate sales based on the methods used. It is important that your sales techniques are apt for your business and are capable of generating the revenues necessary to sustain the company. Also include an analysis of the competition and how their strengths and weaknesses compare to your company and what advantages you have over the competition.