Marketing Strategy - if your Looking to Grow You Need One

Marketing Strategy

In today's very competitive marketplace a marketing strategy will insure a consistent approach to presenting your company, product and service that will outsell your competition is crucial. However, in conjunction with defining your marketing strategy you must also have a well defined marketing plan for the day to day implementation of your strategy. It is of little value to have a marketing strategy if you lack both the resources and expertise to implement it.

The two major components to your marketing strategy are:
• How will you address the marketplace?
• How will you implement and execute your day to day operations?

The creation of the strategy must start by deciding the overall objective of your business. In general this falls into one of four categories:

1. The market is very attractive and the business is one of the strongest in the market.
2. The market is very attractive but the business is one of the weaker in the market.
3. The market is not especially attractive, but the business is one of the strongest in the market.
4. The market is not especially attractive and the business is one of the weaker in the market.

Having selected the direction for the overall business next is to choose a strategy that will be the most effective in the market.

1. Low Cost Strategy is based on the concept that you can produce and market a good quality product or service at a lower cost than your competitors. These low costs should translate to profit margins that are higher than the industry average.

2. Differentiation Strategy is one of creating a product or service that is perceived as being unique throughout the industry. The emphasis can be on brand image, proprietary technology, special features, superior service, a strong distributor channel or other areas that might be specific to your market.

3. Focus Strategy may be the most sophisticated of the generic strategies, in that it is a more intense form of either the cost leadership or differentiation strategy. It is designed to address a focused segment of the marketplace, product form or cost management process and is usually employed when it isn't appropriate to attempt an across the board application of cost leadership or differentiation. It is based on the concept of serving a particular target in such a manner, which others cannot compete. Usually this means addressing a substantially smaller market segment than others in the industry, but because of minimal competition, profit margins can be very high.

Pricing

Having defined the overall offering objective and selecting the general strategy you must then decide on a variety of closely related operational strategies. One of these is how you will price the offering. A pricing strategy is mostly influenced by your requirement for net income and your objectives for long term market control. There are three basic strategies you can consider.

1. Skimming Strategy - If your offering has enough differentiation to justify a high price and you desire quick cash and have minimal desires for significant market penetration and control, then you set your prices very high.

2. Market Penetration Strategy - If short term income is not critical and market penetration for market control is your goal, then you set your prices very low.

3. Comparable Pricing Strategy - If you are not the market leader in your industry then the leaders will most likely have created a 'price expectation' in the minds of the marketplace. In this case you can price your offering comparably to those of your competitors.

Promotion

To sell your offering you must effectively promote and advertise it.
There are two basic promotion strategies, PUSH & PULL.

Push Strategy maximizes the use of all available channels of distribution to push your products or service into the marketplace. This usually requires discounts or promotions to achieve the objective of giving the channels incentive to promote the offering, thus lowering your need for advertising.

Pull Strategy requires direct contact with your customer. Use of channels of distribution is minimized during the first stages of promotion and a major commitment to advertising is required. The objective is to pull your prospects in creating a demand the channel cannot ignore.

Advertising

There are many strategies for advertising an offering. Some of these include:

Product Comparison - In a market where your offering is one of several providing similar capabilities, if your offering stacks up well when comparing features then a product comparison ad can be beneficial.

Product Benefits - When you want to promote your offering without comparison to competitors, the product benefits ad is the correct approach. This is especially beneficial when you have introduced a new approach to solving a user need and comparison to the old approaches is inappropriate.

Product Line - If your offering is part of a group or line of product that can be of benefit to the customer as a set, then the product line ad can be beneficial.

Corporate - When you have a variety of product and your audience is fairly broad, it is often beneficial to promote your company identity rather than a specific product.

Distribution - You must also select the distribution method you will use to get the product into the hands of the customer.

These include: On-premise Sales involves the sale of your offering using a field sales organization that visits the prospect's facilities to make the sale.

Direct Sales involves the sale of your offering using a direct, in-house sales organization that does all selling through the Internet, telephone or mail order contact.

Wholesale Sales involves the sale of your product using distributors to distribute your product to dealers or retailers.

Self-service Retail Sales involves the sale of your product using a self service retail method of distribution.

Full-service Retail Sales involves the sale of your products through a full service retail channel.

Of course, making a decision about pricing, promotion and distribution is heavily influenced by some key factors in the industry and marketplace. These factors should be analyzed initially to create the strategy and then regularly monitored for changes. If any of them change substantially the strategy should be reevaluated.

The Prospect

It is essential to understand the market segment as defined by the prospect characteristics you have selected as the target for your offering.

Factors to consider include: The potential for market penetration involves whether you are selling to past customers or a new prospect, how aware the prospects are of what you are offering, competition, growth rate of the industry and demographics.

The prospect's willingness to pay higher price because the offering provides a better solution to their problem.

The amount of time it will take the prospect to make a purchase decision is affected by the prospects confidence in your offering, the number and quality of competitive offerings, the number of people involved in the decision, the urgency of the need for your offering and the risk involved in making the purchase decision.

The prospect's willingness to pay for product value is determined by their knowledge of competitive pricing, their ability to pay and their need for characteristics such as quality, durability, and reliability, ease of use, uniformity and dependability.

Likelihood of adoption by the prospect is based on the criticality of the prospect's need, their attitude about change, the significance of the benefits, barriers that exist to incorporating the offering into daily usage and the credibility of the offering.

The Product/Service

You should be thoroughly familiar with the factors that establish products/services as strong contenders in the marketplace.

Factors to consider include: Whether some or all of the technology for the offering is proprietary to the business.

The benefits the prospect will derive from use of the offering.
The extent to which the offering is differentiated from the competition.
The extent to which common introduction problems can be avoided such as lack of adherence to industry standards, unavailability of materials, poor quality control, regulatory problems and the inability to explain the benefits of the offering to the prospect.

The potential for product obsolescence as affected by the businesses commitment to product development, the product's proximity to physical limits, the ongoing potential for product improvements, the ability of the enterprise to react to technological change and the likelihood of substitute solutions to the prospect's needs.

Impact on customer's business as measured by costs of trying out your offering, how quickly the customer can realize a return from their investment in your offering, how disruptive the introduction of your offering is to the customer's operations and the costs to switch to your offering.

The complexity of your offering as measured by the existence of standard interfaces, difficulty of installation, number of options, requirement for support devices, training and technical support and the requirement for complementary product interface.

The Competition

It is essential to know who the competition is and to understand their strengths and weaknesses.
Factors to consider include: Competitor's experience, staying power, market position, strength, predictability.

Your Business

An honest appraisal of the strength of your business is a critical factor in the development of your strategy. A SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) is critical in determining were the business is today and were it can go and prosper.

These include: The Businesses capacity to be leader in low-cost production considering cost control infrastructure, cost of materials, economies of scale, management skills, availability of personnel and compatibility of manufacturing resources with offering requirements.

The businesses ability to construct entry barriers to competition such as the creation of high switching costs, gaining substantial benefit from economies of scale, exclusive access to or clogging of distribution channels and the ability to clearly differentiate your offering from the competition.

The businesses ability to sustain its market position is determined by the potential for competitive imitation, resistance to inflation, ability to maintain high prices, the potential for product obsolescence and the learning curve faced by the prospect.

• The prominence of the business.
• The skill level and experience of the management team.
• The adequacy of the business infrastructure in terms of organization, recruiting capabilities, employee benefit programs, customer support facilities and logistical capabilities.

The freedom of the business to make critical decisions without undue influence from distributors, suppliers, unions, creditors, investors and other outside influences.

Marketing/Sales

The marketing and sales organization is analyzed for its strengths and current activities. Factors to consider include:

Experience of Marketing & Sales manager including contacts in the industry familiarity with advertising and promotion, personal selling capabilities, general management skills and a history of profit and loss responsibilities.

The ability to generate good publicity as measured by past successes, contacts in the press, quality of promotional literature and market education capabilities.
Sales promotion techniques such as trade allowances, special pricing and contests.
The effectiveness of your distribution channels as measured by history of relations, the extent of channel utilization, financial stability, reputation, access to prospects and familiarity with your offering.

Advertising capabilities including media relationships, advertising budget, past experience, how easily the offering can be advertised and commitment to advertising.

Sales capabilities including availability of personnel, quality of personnel, location of sales outlets, ability to generate sales leads, relationship with distributors, ability to demonstrate the benefits of the offering and necessary sales support capabilities.

The appropriateness of the pricing of your offering as it relates to competition, price sensitivity of the prospect, prospect's familiarity with the offering and the current market life cycle stage.

Customer Service

The strength of the customer service function has a strong influence on long term market success. Factors to consider include: Experience of the Customer Service manager in the areas of similar offerings and customers, quality control, technical support, product documentation, sales and marketing.
The availability of technical support to service your offering after it is purchased. One or more factors that causes your customer support to stand out as unique in the eyes of the customer. Accessibility of service outlets for the customer. The reputation of the enterprise for customer service.

Conclusion

After defining your strategy you must use the information you have gathered to determine whether this strategy will achieve the objective of making your business competitive in the marketplace.

Small Business Marketing as The Economy Recovers

As the economy starts to recover, small businesses need to find new and more efficient ways to get their message to consumers in order to grow the business without dipping too deeply into marketing funds. If you have a marketing plan my best advice to you is to revisit it and re-think how you’re promoting your business. Yellow pages and print ads are expensive and can’t target the demographics as specifically as on-line options. Today you would be prudent to narrow the focus and keep closer records on your return on marketing investment (ROMI). Technology offers many options to reach your target market which until now were unavailable to most small businesses. The benefit of using web technology is you can track specific details on who is accessing your information, allowing you the opportunity to follow up and promote your brand or products. Additionally, if you see something that is not working as well as you would like, you can instantly change or stop your promotion and ad spend.

Content is king, make sure you’re blogging, e-mailing, sending out press releases, and using news articles. Social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, allow you to instantly and inexpensively bring your message to a large group within your demographic. Recently a new breed of on-line marketing and sales tools have become available that is consolidating the management of your web site, blog, social media and sales force. This new breed of marketing and sales tools are starting to emerge to handle the move to from a static web site to an interactive web site were you are able to see how your company is performing on all on line and off line fronts so, you can modify you marketing and sales campaigns instantly. I have found an excellent product called Knovila that will handle this and I feel it’s worth a good look.

So, in closing make sure you’re marketing and sales teams are in sync with your off line and on line marketing efforts allowing leads to be instantly passed to your sales force for immediate follow up. Before you make decisions on any of the options available to you, take the time to educate yourself on what’s available to you on line; search the internet and check your competitor's sites. Small businesses that thrive through this difficult time will be those who do their homework and stay abreast of the new options available to them.

This article was written by Joe Mediate Business consultants providing Executive Sales, Marketing knowledge & leadership to small to medium size companies looking to define their sales strategy and implement a marketing plan to increase their companies’ market exposure and generate additional sales dollars.

Your Marketing Efforts Must Start with a Solid Strategy and a Plan

Marketing plans are an essential tool in laying out all the functions and tactics so that anyone involved in your marketing efforts can understand what they are expected to do. Because it’s been planned out in advance, you will have less surprises and everything will work together.

Business Strategy, Vision and Goals are the Foundation of any marketing program. They’re based on a solid understanding of your business’s strategy, vision, mission and goals. If you don’t take the time to ask a few simple questions, what do we do, who are we and what do we stand for and who are we selling to? Your marketing program will not be effective.

A large number of businesses fail to clearly identify their strategy, vision, mission, and goals. They also fail to understand the marketplace, their competition and position the company accordingly. Most companies think that marketing means creating a brochure here and an ad there with no consideration as to how integrated or in sync the different messages are.

To build a solid foundation for your business’s marketing efforts, you need to perform the appropriate market research and then develop a strategic marketing plan. By analyzing your market place, client base and competitors, you will develop a marketing strategy that provides you with a competitive advantage that allows you to leverage your strengths.

Once your strategic plan has been developed, you can begin to tell your company story by creating effective marketing materials that will include a logo, stationery, brochures, websites, presentation templates and event or trade show booths. This basic marketing collateral is used to promote your company and its products or services. If your company’s marketing strategy is strong the marketing collateral will be strong as well.

Marketing collateral, by itself, is static and will have limited results. That’s why, on top of your marketing collateral, you must conduct direct marketing campaigns. Elements of this campaign carry the vision, mission, and goals, and also reflect the look and feel of the logo, stationery, brochures, web site, and other materials. javascript:void(0)

Direct marketing campaigns are targeted to different target markets customized to a specific audience. Direct marketing campaigns are an extension of your business’s marketing collateral. Direct marketing activities include direct mail, advertising, online marketing events such as email campaigns, events and trade shows, as well as articles written by an executive in your company that gets printed in a trade publication.

Public Relations is an on-going branding activity that protects a company from deterioration of its image, including losing marketing identity and crumbling to the competition.

On going public relations and branding protect the rest of the marketing program ensuring that the life of your marketing program is as long as possible.

On going branding and public relations activities include event sponsorships, press in trade publications or blogs, and seminars that educate the public or your clients.

Make sure your marketing has a strong strategy and plan and you will find your business results will be that much greater.

About the Author; Joe Mediate, is a marketing executive providing Executive Marketing knowledge and leadership to small and medium size companies looking to define their marketing strategy and implement a marketing plan to increase their companies market exposure and generate additional sales dollars. You can contact Joe at 404-597-3869

Interim CMO the Next Big Trend in Marketing

For most small to medium size companies the need for a strategic marketing plan and a roadmap for execution are more important now then it has ever been in the past. The fact is what’s happening to the marketing world is the breadth of marketing has grown so wide, and companies needs are changing so quickly, if you’re a smaller company, you can’t afford to have all that expertise on staff.
As the economy moves into recovery the need to market your company has becoming a necessity just to stay in business and couple this with all of the cutbacks that every business has endured over the last 24 months. The Chief Marketing Officer is the one leadership resource that will save companies at a time when they need sales growth and profitability the most.

Which leads me to the most important part, how are we going to control and understand all of the new ways to market as we move from a traditional marketing environment to an online one? Should I invest in social networking, pay per click, e-mail marketing, facebook, LinkedIn, twitter, blogs, mobile marketing, or personal URL’s. So, what do I do.

I see a new trend happening in the marketing space and I’m calling them interim CMO’s or CMO’s for hire. Top caliber executives who have started and sold companies or have been a Chief Marketing Officer for a corporation. They will work on a project or fractional bases to help start a companies marketing program. This allows anyone to hire executive marketing talent for only one to ten days per month giving smaller companies an advantage they never had in the past. It all comes down to big time marketing results for less money. This solves the need for marketing strategy, planning and product innovation at a cost that is easily affordable allowing companies to continue their growth path by investing in an area historically only served at a tactical level.

Never before has a company been able to get a ‘rock star’ CMO for a fraction of the cost to hire one on full-time. With the interim approach you get a talented CMO with the experience to move your business forward. Utilizing your vision and business plan to deliver a strategic, measurable marketing plan.

Contact - Joe Mediate for details on how to hire him as an Interim CMO.