Author: Tove Rasmussen

Understanding your target market will give you the information needed for an effective promotional plan.

Your target market needs and buyer behavior are the basis for the plan. The market needs dictate your positioning and possible competitive advantage while buyer behavior will determine who you need to sell to and where you need to have a presence.

Who is your target market?
So, it is important, first, to know who your target market is. The target market needs to be narrow enough that they generally behave similarly. However, it cannot be so narrow that you do not have enough potential customers. Marketing, as always, begins with the target market.

What are your target market needs?
The target market needs will determine the strengths you need, and the competitive advantage you select. Try to understand which needs are more important, and whether there are any needs that have not been met – that will be a good source of competitive advantage.

The target market buyer behavior will dictate your promotional plan.

What qualities does your market look for in a supplier?
You need to understand the qualities your market is looking for in a supplier. Some of these might be confidence, knowledge, skills, quality (which would need to be defined), and more. Do they want a hard sell or a soft sell? This will determine your positioning in the marketplace. For example, if your market is looking for a soft sell, and you give them a hard sell on your website, it won’t work.

Who makes the buying decision?
The key person to sell to is the person who makes the buying decision. So, understanding who makes the decision is key. However, sometimes it is a group decision. There can be many stakeholders in the product or service that is used, and they generally have a say, and an opionin.

Even if there is a sole decision-maker, ofter there are influencers ie someone the decision-maker will ask for input prior to making a decision.

You will want to scope out who the decision-maker is, who the stakeholders are, as well as the influencers. When selling, then, you will want pay attention to the interests of each of these people.

Where does your target market hang out?
You will want to know what your target market reads, the websites they look at, the associations they belong to. This gives you the information on where to place your ads, your articles and the associations to join. It also gives you the information on how much to pay for the ads or associations. If the decision-makers don’t read the publication or get involved in the association, just how much do you want to pay?

Of course, sometimes you find out whether your market is there through trial and error. However, market research can go a long way towards finding out, as well as the questions you ask on sales calls, or in any interaction with your customers.

Stay tuned: the next blog will expand on getting the information you need on your target market.

As always, feel free to let me know any topics you would like me to cover.

Have a great week-end!

Photo credit: weegeebored

For more resources, see the Library topic Business Development.

Implementing a marketing strategy is a multi-faceted activity. A good marketing stratetgy is driven by a clear, simple positioning statement. This makes it clear to your employees and market, where the company is superior to the competition. The marketing strategy encompasses the product or service offering, pricing, promotion and distribution – or delivery of the product or service to your customers.

So, the marketing strategy is all-encompassing. It drives product features, time from order to delivery, logistics, research and development, customer services — in short, it drives what is key for all facets of the business.

Consequently, implementing a marketing strategy involves so much more than marketing. It involves the whole company.

How you implement the marketing strategy depends who you are in the organization. Are you the president or the marketing director? If the organization has developed a marketing strategy, both need to be aligned with the strategy, on-board and enthusiastic.

The implementation of the marketing strategy can begin with the development of the marketing strategy. The organization can be involved or informed of the status of the development of the strategy. The input of operations, regulatory and sales can be part of the information that is used to develop the strategy.

Or the strategy can be developed by the management team, and rolled out to the company once it is completed. The extent to which each approach works, depends a lot on the issues involved with the strategy development, the culture of the company, and the buy-in to the plan by the company as a whole.

If, for example, operations was asked for an opinion, it is very important to close the loop, and let operations know what happened to the input. How it was used in developing the plan and, if possible, how the input affected the final strategy that was developed.

If the plan is being rolled out with no input, then it is critical for the department heads to consider the expected response from their teams, and to ensure the potential issues will be addressed. If unexpected issues are raised, it is critical to research these issues and respond to them. However, the key is to effectively demonstrate how the plan is in the interest of each department, in particular, the growth of the company. Information that provides confidence in this result is essential to provide, and an inclusive, enthusiastic, confident tenor of the meeting is important.

However, it is much more than one roll out meeting, or several roll out meetings. Implementation includes the informal discussions in the hall, during chance encounters, in regular meetings. People will absorb the information, and come up with excellent questions that need to be taken into account.

There is, of course, the formal implementation of the strategy as well. It will translate into objectives for performance evaluations, possibly organization shifts and changes.

As the company moves through the changes, focus on gaining some small wins first. This increases confidence in the new strategy and increases momentum. Keep it forefront in the company, stay positive and flexible.

Photo credit: Avinashkunnath

For more resources, see the Library topic Business Development.

The key to successfully growing your business is effectively implementing an effective marketing strategy. Of course, there are a lot of other pieces – the financing, developing the product or service, producing the product, internal accounting controls, legal HR policies, for example.

However, a successful marketing strategy brings in customers and profitable sales. Without sales, you don’t have a business. Growing sales make a growing business.

So, what is the core of a successful marketing strategy? One that will grow your sales and your profits. Simply put, it is competitive advantage.

Competitive advantage (assuming good customer service exists) is the surest safeguard to ensuring your customer list will continue to grow, and your revenues will continue to grow. It will also give you more freedom in your price point.

To be clear, competitive advantage is offering a service or a product feature that your competitors don’t offer or don’t equal. This service or feature needs to be something that your market really cares about. It needs to be important to them.

So, how do you do this? First, you need to know what your target market is and what your product or service is. If your target market is too general, you will not be able to find a service or feature that matters to all of them.

Second, you need to really understand your target market. You need to really know what matters to them. Perhaps there are some market needs that are not being met right now. Keep your ear close to the ground to find these out. . Talk to customers often. Perform regular market research – there is a free SurveyMonkey tool that you can use for this. And, you can put a survey on your website to get critical information. The bottom line is: Know what is important to your target market when it comes to your service or product.

Once you find an unmet need, then consider how easily competitors can replicate the service or feature. The more difficult it is to create the service or product offering, the more difficult it is for a competitor to emulate it. Consider a strong branding initiative. Consider a patent, if applicable. You want to get a return on your advantage, before your competitors can copy it.

Or, it is possible to develop a strategy of being the fastest to create new service or product features. Then, you need to have a constant source of unmet needs to fill, and a streamlined process for delivering them to the market. This is an equally viable, if challenging, strategy.

This has been synopsis of the keys to developing an effective marketing strategy. Next, I’ll discuss implementing an effective marketing strategy. In the meantime, please feel free to ask questions, so I know the topics you would like me to cover on the Building a Business blog.

Photo credit: Steve Jurvetson

For more resources, see the Library topic Business Development.

I’m Tove Rasmussen and I’m the host of this blog. You can read more about me next to my picture in the sidebar. This blog will be about various aspects of starting and developing a business, and will focus especially on practical tips and tools in posts published at least once a week, including posts from guest writers. You can learn more about this blog by clicking on the About link just under the header.

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For more resources, see the Library topic Business Development.