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Marketing
written by : William F Bryant Marketing is a truly an undervalued, possibly overspent, departmental conflicting and misunderstood necessity in business operations. This is often even true for those that are in marketing departments. The more time spent examining marketing methods, case studies and research the stronger the exclamation put on this realization.
Marketing takes money. To a business, it can seem to take more investment than the return in sales is worth. In many cases, the return, if any, may not be quantitatively measurable (unless structured to provide a method). Budget-wise, it can feel as though money is being poured into a bottomless hole. If this sounds familiar, it may be a good idea to rebuild your marketing structure and understand some basics. First and foremost, marketing is not simply marketing a product or line, any strategy is always also marketing your company. This includes everything in your strategy, including your mix of the 4 P's (Price, Promos, Product, Placement). Know your business. Know your vision for how you want to be perceived. Second, know your target customer. If you have ever passively suggested everyone wants, uses, enjoys your product, then any marketing budget you put forth will be mostly wasted. Know your customer. Understand what they are purchasing. Understand their buying behaviors. Understand how to most effectively communicate with them. Third, know your competitors. The more you understand about your market, your competitors and your competitions' products the better your understanding of why their products are purchased. Remember, successful competition is best achieved through an area of differentiation. Lastly, for this brief list, research, record and analyze. I can not stress this enough. Buying is behavioral. Behavior is often patterned, cyclical, seasonal or trending. This is easiest to see if you find a way to tabulate data. But, benefits of research does not stop here. There are many, many free databases of information that could assist your company. As an example, I will attach a market segment analysis for a product prototype, as approximation for a new, niche product for the fitness industry using readily available data from the U.S. Census bureau, the CDC and additional, published research papers that correspond to a target segments demographic and psychographic information. |
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