GREAT MARKETING STRATEGIES

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In previous blog we discussed about the important things we should consider to attract more customers in which MARKETING is an important step to persuade customers. In early era, marketing was done through traditional way like newspaper, radio and television. In 21st century the advertisements and promotions are done through different resources of Media. However, word-of-mouth was the common resource in every era but still it is hard to rely on this resource for sales. In real world business plans commonly use the following promotional strategies to persuade customers:

ADVERTISING MEDIA 

Advertising is defined as the attempt to persuade through mass communications media. The question rises here is “What Advertising Medium Might I Use” which leads us to consider the market segment of our business. You do not need to pay to all advertising media sources as it will be more expensive for new business. Choose the best sources which will help you to persuade your potential customers. There is different variety of advertising mediums as follow:

Internet Advertising: Many young entrepreneurs, typically people highly familiar with the Internet, assume that Web will be the best avenue for promotion. It is described as the variety of evolving promotional options through the medium of World Wide Web; still relatively lacking in data as to cost- effectiveness for small firms. It is the growing medium in every sector which is least expensive and increase sales really quickly. It is recommended medium for the new beginners and specifically for young entrepreneurs.

Direct Mail: A form of advertising that communicates individually with large number of potential buyers through postal or electronic mail. This advertisement is basically done by following the postal track, customer lists, subscription lists and compiled lists. Through these lists marketers send promotional, regular mails to potential customers. It is expensive medium of advertisement and it is not commonly referred by customers.

Newspaper: For small businesses, it is too expensive for daily circulation of newspaper. However, community newspapers can be helpful for promotion as it is a smaller-circulation newspaper targeting a specific geographic area, often published weekly. In addition, there is a specialty newspaper can be used too as it’s a smaller-circulation newspaper targeting customers who have a particular interest or are of a particular ethnic background. But to choose the newspaper medium, you should consider your market segment of your business.

Magazines: However, the newspaper and magazines are almost similar when it comes to promotion. It is expensive too but the advantage of promoting your business through magazine is that your ad will be there for your customers for three months. In addition, the most important magazines for small, new specialty businesses are trade journals which are written for people involved in specific industries.

 Directors: these are the published lists of supplies for particular gods and services; for example a trade directory, an antique dealer’s directory, a directory of professional actors. It is useful if it is published in online versions of directories. It can be useful in search engines to promote but it can be wasted depending on the search engines used to promote your business. It is not too expensive but it can be wastage of money if you business do not need to get searched often.

 Outdoor Advertising: Visual promotion aimed at passing vehicle and pedestrian traffic. For example posters, handbills, vehicle lettering, sandwich boards. It can be used if you have a business like real estate but your most significance piece of advertising is business sign. Illuminated store signs are expensive, so plan to have that sign for a long time. Don’t forget, the sign will often be the first impression potential customers have of your business.

ADVERTISING CONTENT

 The advertisement content is the one of the important part where marketers need to think a lot as it should grab attention, project the right image and get action. In your business plan, you should explain the media you chose for advertising and promotion and the reason for choosing this media; will it work effectively and how you will know you spend your money wisely. To track the advertising effectiveness you should include activity, sales and profit to keep records of media.

 PUBLICITY

 It is describes as promotion by spreading information about a company, product/service without directly paying for the use of media space or time for example, campaign including letters, clippings, brochures, free t-shirt.

ONE-ON-ONE SELLING

It is also named as personal selling which described as promotion of services/products through person to person interaction between the supplier and the potential customer. Many new entrepreneurs are afraid of the fact of being a salesperson but selling is required in every career of life. There are few steps that should be considered in selling i.e. prospecting, approach, qualifying, presentation, and closing. After the deal is done the last step is to manage objectives.




SALES PROMOTION 

It is a collection of techniques for getting customers to buy goods or services. These techniques do not fit into any of the more discrete categories of advertising, publicity, or personal selling. It can be preceded through giveaways, coupons, premiums, events, trade shows, displays, and free samples. In conclusion, the blog describes all the marketing strategies which are greatly influenced by small business owners and others too. However, Internet has be the cheapest among all in the terms of expense.

HOW WILL I GET CUSTOMERS?

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In Business World, Entrepreneurs execute an image of the plan before they execute the plan into reality. To have a great image in the market, the company needs to plan the tactics to promote the product or service to customer. A good brand image always attracts more customers, branding is not relatively considered with the product or service. It is considered with the marketing and how the marketers can bring bulk of customers to company. The following are the questions which need to be seen before an Entrepreneur sign an ad agency for full service:

·         How will I become a specialist?

There are three ways to become a specialist and developed strategies to get customers. One is the projected image which is considered as the impression of your business created in the minds of potential customers by everything that you do. Second is the name of your business, before you choose a name for your business you should aim for getting attention, be easy to remember and project the image you want through the name. Last is the market strategy which includes the marketing mix i.e. product, price, distribution and promotion.

·         What combination of things I should sell in the market?

The specialization product/service is a good criterion for starting stage of the business as your business needs to have customers rather than variety of products/services in business. But when the business has enough capital to invest it into expanding of business then it is the time to manufacture and introduce more variety of products/services in the market. For example, if you are a web designer which is your specialization and you earned enough capital from web development that you can introduce web course trainings and seminars, it will become a combination of products/services through same business.

·         What should be the price?

According to marketers, low pricing is a good strategy for a new business to start with rather than having high pricing without having high quality and branding name. Low pricing attract more group of customers but it can increase the selling quantity of product/service. However, there should be a limit to lower the price. In addition, there is also a competitive pricing strategy where price id same as your competitors. It is really competitive if you have same price as competitors because the business should stress more on marketing mix.

·         How will my products or services get to the customers?

The answer is through distribution channels which are defined as legal or contractual elements of how a service or product gets from the producer to the end –users.

·         How I should promote my product/service?

Promotional strategy is the approach a business users to inform and persuade its customers, including techniques of advertising and selling. Business history is full of contests between entrepreneurs with superior products versus entrepreneurs with superior promotion. Superior promotion mostly wins; it is the best way to actively promote the business plan that projects your objected image. The common promotional strategies are as following:

• Advertising media
• Advertising content
• Publicity
• One-on-one selling
• Sales promotion.

These are the most important ways to judge your business on the basis of why customers choose you business as one of their choices. 

Try it and then Apply it!

HOW MUCH BUSINESS WILL MY FIRM GET?

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The answer is SALES FORECAST which is a critical component in business plan. SALES FORECAST is an estimate of how much money a business will bring in over a given period. Typically, a business plan included at least three years of annual sales forecast to determine the sales. The process of developing your sales forecast will be closely associated with the work to determine market potential and should follow the same principle of using secondary sources first.

Quick Note: Market potential provides information of how much money a group of potential customers will spend on a particular product or service.

However, the sales forecast can provide more accurate result if we use more sources of information to prepare the forecast. The following sources are the most likely which can be used:

·        Industry Statistics

Library information on specific industries that used to determine market potential can be used to understand correlations of sales which is describes as a known facts about an industry that can be expressed as a ratio of the industry’s sales.

·        Customer buying intentions

With help of primary research as questionnaires for the market potential, you can basically intent customers to be the potential customers and offer the service or product with particular price.

·        How long it takes to get new customers

If your business is new, you will be aware about how many hours of selling or how many calls it takes to generate single new customers. However, the test marketing which is a process of trying to sell product or service to a limited number of customers and carefully measuring factors like customer feedback and how long it takes to make a sale. The investors are more likely interested in how easy you can get a new customer with your product or service which shows the speeding operation of your company in the market. But the fact is that it takes more time to make a new customer than serving the existing one.

·        Expert opinion

The other best way is to confirm the expert’s opinion because interviewing several people who have expertise in your particular industry can help you to guess the sales forecast range for you business plan.

·        How much business the competition gets

The idea is to monitor the sales forecast of you direct competitor for the same particular industry. It will give you an idea of your estimate sales forecast as you have same potential customers.

·        All the business out there

This explains the idea of all the business in the market related to your industry can also help you to estimate the sales forecast of your company.

·        The amount of business the firm can handle

Usually the most business can handle 100% of their capacity which helps keep other people estimating about your sales forecast in perspectives. Mostly the capacity is determined by the fact is the firm can handle the expenses to grow his industry.

HOW DO I KNOW MY IDEA WILL WORK?

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LOCATION

A successful business needs a great entrepreneur to handle all the decisions related to business and profit. Sometimes entrepreneurs with great ideas do not get as successful as potential their ideas are. To start a business, passion and ideas create a vision of business but to make it real, entrepreneurs need to be realistic towards every decision they make. However, there are few concepts related to location of a business which I prefer to cover up in this blog.

·         Do you think Market Research is important before you finalize the location?

Yes, it is important technically as it depend where you up the business. To finalize the location you should ask yourself below questions.

·         How important is the location to the success in my business?

·         How close the location is to your customers?

·         Is it convenient for customers to approach?

·         What site do I prefer for my business?

·         Does my business need a great image according to site? 

The main considerations for location are usually closeness to customers, transportation, supplies, and various services. Generally, your business location should be close to your potential customer or services but it does not matter if you are starting any online business because you deliver your service or product through online. So you physical location does not matter anymore in online business. For manufactures like in –house publication needs to be located near their suppliers as if publisher do the writing, creating and design but the printing is done by supplies, so its prefer to stay close to your supplier as often the number one priority so that you can have a checking proof on you printings.


However, site issues are different from location as it can be defines as a specific place where business is conducted, expressed as a particular block, address, suite, or part of a building. The main considerations related to site are traffic, visibility, parking and neighbouring business.
Ask yourself:

·         When might too much traffic be bad for your business?

Traffic can be either the automobile or pedestrian varieties. To analyze your traffic, you should identify the time period your potential customers pass by your business. Again, it depends on the selling of product or service or who you are selling to? If you are selling frequently purchased products to a broad consumer market, then the trick is that you find a site where a lot of potential traffic of walking or drive by for example convenience stores.

·         Will the sign be noticeable and readable from the stream of traffic? Will the entrance be obvious?

Visibility includes the ability to see into your place of business. If you rely on the high volume of traffic passes by from your place, your need to make them enter your place and let them see your products visible through windows which will lead traffic curious about your place for example, beauty salons.

·         What parking problems will bother you the most?

To solve the parking problems, you need to identify enough space for your customers to park and come to you even in peak time. For example if your store is sited in mall and at evening there is not enough parking for customers to park and shop, they might neglect to come to you and find your competitor who situated in a plaza with his own parking only for his customers to park free under his name.

·         What if your neighbouring business is a complementary business or competition?

If you are neighbour with complementary business means who sell different product or service to same potential customers. It is good site for your business as you will gain more traffic from your neighbour. For example, a discount shoe store suited beside a discount clothing store. Whereas, being a neighbour with your competitor is not a good idea as your potential customers get shared with your competitor and lose and also you face challenge of becoming specialized in ways that will make you slightly different from your competitor for example, restaurants.