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Successful businesses focus on getting the basics of marketing right. Marketing is based on identifying and satisfying customers’ needs - profitably. It encompasses market research, pricing, promotion, distribution, selling, customer care, and much more
Basic marketing objectives
Every marketing activity you undertake should help you to achieve at least one of the four results below - which, in turn, will lead to increased profitability:
You retain your existing customers, provided they contribute to your profitability
Your customers make larger purchases
Your customers purchase more products from your range
You win new customers
The market
Understanding the market allows you to target promising segments which suit your strengths:
Who are the users of products like yours?
What do the users value most in products like yours?
How can you reach the customers? Or, put another way, how do your customers purchase your product?
What size is the market? Is it expanding or declining? What are the key trends?
What is the competition doing?
What other factors influence your business environment?
SWOT analysis
SWOT analysis reveals your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It is a good way of summarising your position in each key market segment vis-à-vis your competitors:
Identify the critical success factors for you and your competitors. Give each factor a weighting (out of ten) according to its importance
Score your business for each factor and multiply the score by its weighting. Then repeat the process for each competitor
Identify opportunities and threats by using two headings:
- organisations (and individuals) that directly affect your business
- the broader business environment,
e.g. new technology, tax, legislation
Your marketing strategy
Successful strategies take a deliberate step-bystep approach, focusing on a limited set of welldefined objectives:
Which market segments, and which individual ncustomers, will you target?
What adjustments will you make to your product range to increase sales and profitability?
How will you price each product?
How will you distribute each product?
How will you promote each product?
How will you sell each product?
How can you improve customer service?
How will you fulfil the orders?
How will you measure the effectiveness of each marketing activity?
Marketing audit
Your marketing audit pulls together key information. It gives you a clear understanding of your market, how you fit into it, and how effective your previous marketing has been:
Analyse each market segment you sell into
Rank your customers in order of their importance to your business
Rank which products (or parts of your business) are the most profitable
Analyse the reasons why customers buy from you, and from your competitors
Review every marketing initiative you undertook in the previous period, to see what worked
Marketing action plan
Your marketing action plan takes each element of your marketing strategy and allocates detailed budgets, responsibilities, targets and deadlines:
Include a communication calendar that prompts you to contact each customer regularly
Focus on being visible to your hottest prospects
Get to know the purchasing cycles of customers
Plan your promotions for the yea
