photo/Dominka Roseclay
photo/Dominka Roseclay
Marketing strategy refers to the overall plan and steps designed by a business or company to target potential consumers and convert them into long-term customers. Marketing has gone digital, hence marketing strategies have also been adjusted to help your business thrive online. Small businesses can employ the services of a digital strategy agency to help them in mapping out effective strategies. When people hear “marketing strategy” they limit it to just sales promotion. However, marketing strategy is basically categorized into four components; product, price, distribution, and promotion.
Product: This covers the variety of goods or services, their features, quality, brand name, and packaging.
Price: This includes the actual price of the product, discounts, payment methods, payment period, and credit terms.
Distribution: This covers the distribution channels, inventory, locations, logistics, and transportation.
Promotion: This includes public relations, advertising, sales promotion.
Before a company maps out her marketing strategy, it is paramount to conduct market research to enable them understand their target audience, and get the opinion of the potential customers regarding the product. Market research also updates the company on the market trend in your industry, suggests new products to be included and how to improve already existing products, and suggests the best sales promotion strategy to use, amongst others.
Here are tips on marketing research that will help you perfect your marketing plan or strategy.
The market survey involves getting information about the market, products, and feedback directly from the consumers or prospective target audience. You can do that via oral interview, using questionnaires, or digital tools such as Google Form, Google Analytics, amongst others. The method of market survey you use is dependent on the nature of your target audience. For example, if your target audience is not many literate people, an oral interview would be best because they will express themselves better when talking than in Writing.
Study the past trends in the industry that covers your business, find out the things that made them thrive, and the reason they were displaced in the market. Also, study the current trends in the industry. Make sure to find out the elements that spice them up, and the potential loopholes in their trending.
Study the general population of the place, find out the population of your target audience, and study the geographical setting of the place. This will give you a cue in planning effective distribution.
Your competitors are other businesses producing or offering the same or similar product or service as you. Study them, find out the strategies they employ in getting their products into the market. Information gathered from here gives you a clue to what you are up against. It gives you an idea of the best marketing tools to use, and how best to go about using them.
Your target audience are your prospective customers. Carry out a study on them to find out their likes, dislikes, and preferences. This will give you suggestions on how to improve the quality of your products, making new products or making a variety of products.
The tips listed above is a concise guide on how to carry out effective market research that will yield information useful in mapping out marketing strategies for small businesses. Practice using them and see the effectiveness of your market strategy.