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Take Stock of your Marketing Strategy for 2007
A very Happy & Prosperous New Year to all! 2007 brings new opportunities to every business owner. January is a slow month for many industries, with smaller businesses usually baring the brunt. However it's not all doom and gloom.
Quiet dips can be used to take stock of your marketing strategy, promotions and campaigns. Ask yourself, do my current marketing operations promote my business effectively? You may have a great service/product, ethos and company identity, but no means of efficiently conveying this to your customers. Good marketing is crucial to a brands success, and every business owner should periodically review their marketing activities.
Customer Focus
Remember to focus on your customer, identify the benefits your customers are seeking. If you have a diverse customer base, it may help if you divide them into groups to identify the needs of each group. Some customers have similar needs, or share similar behaviors, these are what's known as 'segments'. Different marketing techniques maybe required to reach these diverse groups.
Marketing Mix
You should also review how you deliver the benefits to your customers. This is what's known as the 'marketing mix'. The 'four Ps' or 'marketing mix' elements are price, place, product and promotion . Depending on the source, the elements may vary to include people, proccess and physical process. The marketing mix is a vast subject, and requires its own article, therefore I will not be discussing the concept in great detial here, but I am happy to do so upon request. The concept is simple, think of a cake recipe and how the final result can be affected by the volume of indgredients. The concept shares similar charaterisitcs as the offer you make to your customer can be altered by varying the mix elements. This proccess will help to define the unique selling proposition (USP) of your product or service. What sets you apart from your competitors? Use this hook in all of your marketing activities.
Communicate the message to customers
When you have identified your audience/s and what they want, the next stage will be to communicate the message to each customer or segment. The way you communicate the message may have to be adapted for each segment, as they may require different benefits. The best communication channel depends upon your customer characteristics and needs. Communication methods include media, such as brochures, or electronic media, such as websites and email. You may decide that your customers require a combination of communication channels. For example, monthly email campaigns and a website optimized for search engines to compete in the market space.
Document your findings
Once you have identified these key marketing factors, Document everything! This way, you have it on record for future employees, investors, bank managers and external marketing agencies. It will also be a key asset to your business. A marketing plans lifespan may last between a few months to 5 years, but it can always be adapted to evolve with your target market and business.
Measure, Adjust, Control
Your marketing plan will allow you to measure performance and success. You will be able to evaluate PR and advertise spend against sale revenue, customer base, stock price and enquiries from new customers. You can then fine tune the marketing strategy with this data, and control your marketing operations much more effectively.
Competitors
Always keep an eye on the market space, investigate your competition and current marketing trends in your sector. This can be a great way of measuring target audience activity and customer needs.
Customer Feedback
One of the most important factors in all aspects of business is to listen to your customers. As we all know, happy customers are the fundamental factor of a sustainable business, and my time spent at Babson College only reiterated the fact. Ask your customers for feedback about your current marketing activities. They may have suggestions on how you could improve communication of company messages. They will only appreciate your efforts to improve the overall service of your company.
Contact Cyonix if you would like us to help you effectively market your business on the Internet.
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