MARKETING FOR DUMMIES A SELECTION OF TIPS TO GET STARTED IN MARKETING
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Small companies should focus on marketing their products properly more than ever nowadays. The competition is harder, and therefore an adequate marketing strategy is vital in order to achieve successful outcomes. Events like the Technology For Marketing & Advertising taking place in London on 28-29 February are designed to help companies with their marketing and advertising strategies. If your company is struggling with its marketing plan, here are some tips that will help you achieve your goals and objectives.
1.
Consider what you are doing now
Take a look at what you are currently doing on your marketing plan, most of these things are probably right and you should go on doing then. However you should also consider some activities that might improve your current plan. Start by doing some research on what your market sector wants. You need to define basic things like why, where or when your related customers buy. Do some benchmarking and consider your current competitors and why their products appeal to the customers Decide what the objectives of your marketing plan are going to be. Make sure your market sector is fully defined, this should be your target and all the marketing actions should focus on it. Put your plan into action and start selling and promoting your services and products to customers. Find the appropriate distributors and agents, develop strong relationships with them and monitor the effectiveness of your plan by considering aspects like profit and customer satisfaction.
2. Put your focus on the customer Your customers need to be the focal point of your marketing plan. You need to understand them and know what they want and what they expect from your products and services. Create a good problems related you know what customers don’t business, then it improve them.
customer service, try to solve their your products and ask for feedback. If you are doing wrong or what your like about certain aspects of your is easier to focus on these and try to
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3. Establish a marketing team Make sure everyone in your company is involved with the marketing plan to a certain level. Your employees need to be aware of your marketing decisions so their actions are related to your plan. The following people in a company need to play an essential role in the marketing strategy:
The managers: they need to allocate budgets for marketing activities and coordinate activities. The sales force: they need to have a frequent contact with the customers and keep updated of the market needs. The marketing and communication team: they are obviously the part of the company directly linked to all the marketing activities. The external marketing agencies and specialists: they are all the people from outside the company that are also related to your marketing plan. Researches, graphic designers and printers are a few of the roles that can be included in this group.
4. Create different groups for your customers Once you have completely determined your market sector then create different groups for each kind of customer. Study how these customers behave and separate them in segments. Study the segments and find about the common characteristics in each of them, you will need to use different marketing techniques and approaches in order to reach every segment.
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5. Identify the customer benefits After having defined your market segments, you can identify why these customers buy your products or services and what they are looking for when they approach your business. This can help you target your existing and new customers in a better way with specific products and services. The tools you use in the marketing trade are commonly known as ‘marketing mix’. The basic elements of the marketing mix are:
Product: what you are selling. Price: what the customers pay for your products or services. Place: where the customer can purchase your products or services. Promotion: how the product or service is promoted.
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Apart from this basic elements there are three other aspects that should also be considered in the marketing mix:
People: the people you employ for selling your products or services. Process: how your business operates. Physical evidence: the material part of the product or service. It considers aspects like packaging, web pages, graphic design or even uniforms used by your employees.
6. Stay updated and informed If you want to succeed you need to be aware of all the new marketing techniques that area available for your business. Consider for example email marketing or social media marketing, activities that are fairly new compared to more traditional marketing techniques. Read marketing blogs on a regular basis and try to stay informed on any new activity that might be beneficial for your company.