Marketing
“Marketing is everything and everything is Marketing.” This is one of the most impactful quotes in marketing and it essentially boils down to this: Without the proper marketing strategy, there is no business. You could have the greatest product in the world, but if nobody knows anything about what you’re selling, you’ll quickly find yourself running straight out of business. Sales are what drive growth, and you’ll need to figure out how to place your product in front of your prospects in order to generate those sales; and that’s where the Marketing Strategy comes in.
Marketing is all about exposing your product to people who would be interested in purchasing it. Basically, this means grabbing their attention. But not just general attention, you need to capture the right attention. This is a highly limited asset, and the only way to get the right amount of attention is by developing a marketing strategy that targets the right prospects by understanding their pain points. When you discover the audience, whose problems can be solved by your product, that’s when you know you have an effective marketing plan.
Marketing is all about exposing your product to people who would be interested in purchasing it. Basically, this means grabbing their attention. But not just general attention, you need to capture the right attention. This is a highly limited asset, and the only way to get the right amount of attention is by developing a marketing strategy that targets the right prospects by understanding their pain points. When you discover the audience, whose problems can be solved by your product, that’s when you know you have an effective marketing plan.
Marketing Strategy Development
The entire marketing process operates as a circular function. The marketing plan will undergo many changes until all parts are internally consistent and mutually supportive of the objectives.
Step 1: Consumer Analysis
Here we must determine our consumer’s needs. We must identify specific segments or groups to be able to direct our marketing efforts specifically towards them. We need to know who is buying versus who is using the product? This must be clear if you want to drive sales. Understanding the buying process will allow us to reach buyers, and always trust your own observations and intuition over your investigative market research.
Awareness => Information Search => Evaluate Alternatives => Purchase => Evaluate
We can use a consumer behavior matrix to help us better understand the significant differences related to involvement levels.
Once all the data is gathered, we can then focus on geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral segmentations. Once we accomplish this, the segmentation analysis is complete.
Step 2: Market Analysis
While segmentation analysis focuses on consumers as individuals, market analysis takes a broader view of potential consumers to include market sizes and trends. The key takeaways from this analysis will be these 3 questions:
What is the relevant market?
This involves finding a very specific niche focus for the product that you are selling. Once market relevance has been identified, then you must analyze and justify whether the market is large enough to devote resources to pursuing marketing efforts. Here, the key is to create a marketable product, since that’s how businesses make money. Market research will be conducted to test market relevance.
Where is the product in its life cycle?
This involves understanding where the product is currently and is it affordable; or, ahead of its time. One current example is electric cars. The first model was created in the 1920's, but they are just now becoming popular and affordable.
To help in understanding the product life cycle (PLC), let’s discuss the different stages. Stage 1 is an introduction and defines the product. Stage 2 relates to growth, and asks the question, “Where can I get it?” Stage 3 involves maturity and reaching the market that is ready to buy and consume the product. Finally, Stage 4 is the popularity decline and resulting price decreases because of competitors in the field.
What are the key competitive factors in the industry?
This comes down to five main factors for which companies will compete against one another. They are Quality, Price, Adverting, Research & Development, and Service. Each industry will have a different focus on one of these five factors. Please don’t ignore these when creating a competitive marketing plan.
Step 3: Understanding Competition and Self
The best way to reflect on either ourselves or the competition is by utilizing a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Here, S and W represent the internal factors within the business, while O and T are external factors that impact the business. To learn more about SWOT, please visit the Wikipedia Page.
Step 4: Understanding Distribution Channels
Choosing the correct distribution channel will help you optimize the price of your product. If constructed appropriately, you will quickly realize higher profits. Here are 3 simple questions to ask yourself related to distribution.
How can my product reach the consumer?
How much do the players in each distribution channel profit?
Who holds the power in each of the available distribution channels?
Some commonly used channels include wholesalers, distributors, sales representatives, sales forces, and retailers. The internet is itself a powerful channel in distribution, and it follows the Four C’s of Internet Marketing: commerce, content, customer care, and convert leads.
Step 5: Marketing Mix & 4P’s
The Marketing Mix is known as the, ‘The Action Plan.’ It is commonly referred to as the 4P’s of marketing: Product, Place, Promotion, Price. If you alter one of the ‘Ps’, then you must adjust the other 3 ‘Ps’ accordingly. All Ps function in harmonious synchronicity with one another while in action.
Product:
To fully understand your products, look at the features, fit, styling, reliability, packaging, sizes, service, and brand naming. You should think and choose how to differentiate your product from your competitors. By being creative with your advertising and promotions, a business can create brand equity. An established brand equity allows a business to use product positioning to select a niche or segmented market with a specific targeted consumer. Market and Consumer analysis will then have to be done thoroughly for this defined niche.
Place:
Simply put, a marketer must choose an appropriate channel to fit with the product and the intended buyers. Choosing a strategy to be exclusive, selective or intensive would be your next focus of analysis to determine the best placement into the market. The place of sale largely affects the perception of your product and can have a significant impact. Next, the placement of your product will also need to utilize the correct distribution channels.
Promotion:
Everything related to advertising and selling efforts involves promotion. Understanding your ‘Why’ or ‘Mission’ will help control your promotional budget for your specific product. You can learn more in the business mindset course.
Price:
Most businesses base their prices on psychological conditions and current market trends. However, there are 8 major pricing methods and strategies that are commonly used to correctly price a product. You can find them here in this blog post and the list below.
Understanding Marketing Economics
You should always evaluate the economics behind the marketing costs, check your break-even point, and determine the time frame in which your investment will pay you back. This is when you crunch the numbers to ensure you have a high return on investment and your company will realize profits from the initiatives. Based on this, you can revise as necessary and restructure a complete marketing plan if needed.
The entire marketing process operates as a circular function. The marketing plan will undergo many changes until all parts are internally consistent and mutually supportive of the objectives.
Step 1: Consumer Analysis
Here we must determine our consumer’s needs. We must identify specific segments or groups to be able to direct our marketing efforts specifically towards them. We need to know who is buying versus who is using the product? This must be clear if you want to drive sales. Understanding the buying process will allow us to reach buyers, and always trust your own observations and intuition over your investigative market research.
Awareness => Information Search => Evaluate Alternatives => Purchase => Evaluate
We can use a consumer behavior matrix to help us better understand the significant differences related to involvement levels.
Once all the data is gathered, we can then focus on geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral segmentations. Once we accomplish this, the segmentation analysis is complete.
Step 2: Market Analysis
While segmentation analysis focuses on consumers as individuals, market analysis takes a broader view of potential consumers to include market sizes and trends. The key takeaways from this analysis will be these 3 questions:
What is the relevant market?
This involves finding a very specific niche focus for the product that you are selling. Once market relevance has been identified, then you must analyze and justify whether the market is large enough to devote resources to pursuing marketing efforts. Here, the key is to create a marketable product, since that’s how businesses make money. Market research will be conducted to test market relevance.
Where is the product in its life cycle?
This involves understanding where the product is currently and is it affordable; or, ahead of its time. One current example is electric cars. The first model was created in the 1920's, but they are just now becoming popular and affordable.
To help in understanding the product life cycle (PLC), let’s discuss the different stages. Stage 1 is an introduction and defines the product. Stage 2 relates to growth, and asks the question, “Where can I get it?” Stage 3 involves maturity and reaching the market that is ready to buy and consume the product. Finally, Stage 4 is the popularity decline and resulting price decreases because of competitors in the field.
What are the key competitive factors in the industry?
This comes down to five main factors for which companies will compete against one another. They are Quality, Price, Adverting, Research & Development, and Service. Each industry will have a different focus on one of these five factors. Please don’t ignore these when creating a competitive marketing plan.
Step 3: Understanding Competition and Self
The best way to reflect on either ourselves or the competition is by utilizing a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Here, S and W represent the internal factors within the business, while O and T are external factors that impact the business. To learn more about SWOT, please visit the Wikipedia Page.
Step 4: Understanding Distribution Channels
Choosing the correct distribution channel will help you optimize the price of your product. If constructed appropriately, you will quickly realize higher profits. Here are 3 simple questions to ask yourself related to distribution.
How can my product reach the consumer?
How much do the players in each distribution channel profit?
Who holds the power in each of the available distribution channels?
Some commonly used channels include wholesalers, distributors, sales representatives, sales forces, and retailers. The internet is itself a powerful channel in distribution, and it follows the Four C’s of Internet Marketing: commerce, content, customer care, and convert leads.
Step 5: Marketing Mix & 4P’s
The Marketing Mix is known as the, ‘The Action Plan.’ It is commonly referred to as the 4P’s of marketing: Product, Place, Promotion, Price. If you alter one of the ‘Ps’, then you must adjust the other 3 ‘Ps’ accordingly. All Ps function in harmonious synchronicity with one another while in action.
Product:
To fully understand your products, look at the features, fit, styling, reliability, packaging, sizes, service, and brand naming. You should think and choose how to differentiate your product from your competitors. By being creative with your advertising and promotions, a business can create brand equity. An established brand equity allows a business to use product positioning to select a niche or segmented market with a specific targeted consumer. Market and Consumer analysis will then have to be done thoroughly for this defined niche.
Place:
Simply put, a marketer must choose an appropriate channel to fit with the product and the intended buyers. Choosing a strategy to be exclusive, selective or intensive would be your next focus of analysis to determine the best placement into the market. The place of sale largely affects the perception of your product and can have a significant impact. Next, the placement of your product will also need to utilize the correct distribution channels.
Promotion:
Everything related to advertising and selling efforts involves promotion. Understanding your ‘Why’ or ‘Mission’ will help control your promotional budget for your specific product. You can learn more in the business mindset course.
Price:
Most businesses base their prices on psychological conditions and current market trends. However, there are 8 major pricing methods and strategies that are commonly used to correctly price a product. You can find them here in this blog post and the list below.
- Cost Plus
- Meet Competition
- The Price/Quality Relationship
- Perceived value to the Consumer
- Skimming
- Penetration
- Price Based on the Price Elasticity of the Buyer
- Meet Profit Goals based on the Size of the Market
Understanding Marketing Economics
You should always evaluate the economics behind the marketing costs, check your break-even point, and determine the time frame in which your investment will pay you back. This is when you crunch the numbers to ensure you have a high return on investment and your company will realize profits from the initiatives. Based on this, you can revise as necessary and restructure a complete marketing plan if needed.
