methods of placing your products\services in front of your target consumers

You must  select the distribution method(s) you will use to get the offering 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 offering using intermediaries or “middle-men” to distribute your product or service to the retailers.
• Self-service Retail Sales involves the sale of your offering using self service retail methods of distribution.
• Full-service Retail Sales involves the sale of your offering through a full service retail distribution 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.

factors to consider when measuring your marketing\sales growth

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 (prospects, distribution channels, media), 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.

promotion

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

• The PUSH STRATEGY maximizes the use of all available channels of distribution to “push” the offering into the marketplace. This usually requires generous discounts to achieve the objective of giving the channels incentive to promote the offering, thus minimizing your need for advertising.
• The PULL STRATEGY requires direct interface with the end user of the offering. 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” the prospects into the various channel outlets creating a demand the channels cannot ignore.

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

• Product Comparison advertising
  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 advertising
  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 Family advertising
  If your offering is part of a group or family of offerings that can be of benefit to the customer as a set, then the product family ad can be of benefit.
• Corporate advertising
  When you have a variety of offerings and your audience is fairly broad, it is often beneficial to promote your enterprise identity rather than a specific offering.

enviromental factors to consider when starting your business

The Environment
Environmental factors positively or negatively impact the industry and the market growth potential of your product/service. Factors to consider include:

• Government actions – Government actions (current or under consideration) can support or detract from your strategy. Consider subsidies, safety, efficacy and operational regulations, licensing requirements, materials access restrictions and price controls.
• Demographic changes – Anticipated demographic changes may support or negatively impact the growth potential of your industry and market. This includes factors such as education, age, income and geographic location.
• Emerging technology – Technological changes that are occurring may or may not favor the actions of your enterprise.
• Cultural trends – Cultural changes such as fashion trends and life style trends may or may not support your offering’s penetration of the market

5 tips for prospecting in sales

The Prospect
It is essential to understand the market segment(s) 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 your 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, 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.

simple marketing tips for starting your business

 

Just as investments are only a part of a financial plan, a marketing plan is only part of your business plan. Marketing is the means and methods that get your name out to the public; advertising is only a part of marketing. Initially, you should have a plan for at least the first year of operations on a month-by-month basis. With a new business, your marketing is about building a presence, name recognition, and credibility through various methods. 

1. Have a logo, business cards, letterhead, and a brochure designed and professionally printed. Steer clear of perforated, self-printed business cards. Image is important and you don’t want clients thinking you were up late the night before printing your business cards.

2. Send a press release to all newspapers (local dailies and weeklies) in your area announcing the opening of your new business. If you’ve got a niche, stress it. Keep the press release short, double-space it, and make sure it’s grammatically correct. A typo in a press release is like cutting your own throat.

3. Get a Web site. Have it professionally done and make it an extension of your advertising and print materials. Prospective clients should be able to go to your site for more information than what they see in your print ads or get from your brochure. Revisit your website regularly to update and improve it. You don’t need a counter on a website, but make sure your web hosting company provides a means for you to check traffic so you can monitor your marketing efforts.

4. Get your name in the paper. Write letters to the editor and send out regular press releases that include a professional press photo (readers love to associate a face with the name they’re reading about). If you are do something new, such as publish a newsletter for clients, join a board or professional organization or volunteer, use it as a tool to communicate with the press.

5. Advertise in your local or regional newspapers. Here’s the key to successful advertising: size isn’t everything–frequency is. Don’t place the biggest ad you can afford if you can only afford to run it for two months. That won’t do it. While in real estate, it’s location, location, location, in advertising, it’s repeat, repeat, repeat. Of course, your message has to solve a problem for the consumer or invite them to call you, but it should be regular. Always use your web address in your newspaper ads and remember point three above: your website is there to give more information. Advertising doesn’t have to be display ads; simple classified ads are also effective as long as they are repetitive.

6. Join the Chamber of Commerce and go to meetings, luncheons, and fundraisers. Meet the business community and let them know what you do. Networking is your best advertising.

7. Volunteer to join the library board, the arts council, or the school board. Get involved and get your name out there. It’s the best way to meet people.

8. Compile a list of centers of influence and send them quarterly newsletters or problem-solving tools.

9. Write articles and send them to business editors. Business journals are often looking for usable articles. If you can write, do it. You’ll get your name in the paper as a credible source, which is a lot more beneficial than any size ad you can pay for. Even with an aggressive and comprehensive marketing strategy, it will probably take two to three years to build a business from scratch, but it will be worth it!

marketing your organistion’s services

 

Establishing Your Marketing Goals

 

Once the team has clarified a market niche for your organization, it should establish goals for the marketing program. The marketing goals you set should be realistic and feasible within the desired time frame. Marketing goals include action goals and image goals related to attracting target populations.

 

Action goals. Action goals identify the specific, measurable results that you want and will allow you to measure progress toward achieving them within a given time period. Action goals for marketing usually concentrate on:

 

• increasing the use of services by a specific group of clients;
• increasing the use of specific services by existing or new clients;
• introducing a new service to a new or existing group of clients;
• gaining access to new sources of funding.

 

Sample action goals: Increase from 42% to 60% the percentage of pregnant women served by our clinic who have at least three prenatal visits in the next three years. Increase the percentage of revenue collected for services so that the percentage of costs covered from fees increases from 20% to 35% in the next three years.

Image goals. Image goals identify how you want your organization to be seen. You can measure progress in achieving these goals through focus groups or market surveys. Image goals often concentrate on:

 

• helping your organization become more widely known;
• improving your organization’s public reputation;
• gaining public recognition of a change in your services.

 

Sample image goals: Become known as the organization that provides the best counseling in family planning over the next two years. Change the public perception of the organization from a family planning provider to a full-service primary health care provider in the next two years.

Establishing goals gives you the opportunity to determine what you want for your organization. Next, you need to look at where your organization currently is along the way to achieving those goals.

 

modern marketing strategies

Development of an overall marketing strategy with both long and short-term goals and action plans should be a crucial element in any company’s plan to boost sales and strengthen its image. Perhaps the most important facet to any effective plan is consistency.
Until recently, product, brand, service, markets and consumers were the key components of a marketing strategy. Integrating these areas with an electronic communication network will very soon be one of the most important and necessary elements of any marketing concept. With the discovery of electronic communication marketers can now create their own network of information and communication. The Internet is only the tip of the iceberg and only one (but major) element of this new fantastic revolution. We are now talking about erasing borders, about networking on a worldwide scale.
The airline industry have shown us the way some 50 years ago when they realized they could not survive without creating their own communication network. They launched the SITA network which is today the most important private network in the world. Belonging to more than 550 airlines, SITA covers 162 countries with 723 access gates.
The banking industry is way ahead of the travel world in this field. Cashing money from an ATM station with a credit card takes only seconds regardless where you do it. This process which looks so obvious and easy relies on only a few worldwide electronic networks to which all major banks are connected.

The travel industry is trying hard but at this stage there is no worldwide coordination. Hotels are using hundreds, if not thousands of different and incompatible electronic system to run their business (back and front office, reservations,…). Car rental companies, cruise lines, railway companies have also developed their own and incompatible communication, information and reservation network.
Companies that will understand the urgent necessity to link, round the clock and round the world their employees, customers and suppliers will win the competition. They will make a giant step ahead and will own one of the most valuable, if not the most valuable tool they have ever used.
You need to keep your company in front of customers, industry organizations, media outlets, etc. and you need to be out there with strong, unique ideas that capture your audience and get them to understand what you are all about. Whether it includes a website, brochure, event, mailing, market research, or any of the many other critical marketing strategies, your completed plan can be your blueprint to an impressive bottom line.

make money online(without spending a dime)

 

Make Money Online (Without Spending a Dime)

Even with no product and no Web site, you can get paid for what and who you know
Making money online used to pretty much require you to have your own Web site, products to sell and some marketing savvy. But a new generation of dot-coms have arisen that will pay you for what you know and who you know without you having to be a web designer or a marketing genius.

But it’s hard to tell hype from the real deal. I did a search on “make money online” and “making money online”, and much of the information out there is just promoting various infoproducts, mostly about Internet marketing. I see why people sometimes ask, “Is anyone making money online besides Internet marketing experts?”

So I put together a list of business opportunities with legitimate companies that:
· Pay cash, not just points towards rewards or a chance to win money
· Don’t require you to have your own Web domain or your own products
· Don’t involve any hard-selling
· Aren’t just promoting more Internet marketing
· Give a good return on your time investment

In the interest of objectivity, none of the links below are affiliate links, and none of them have paid or provided any other consideration for their presence here. These are legitimate companies with business models that allow you to get paid for a wide range of activities.
Help friends find better jobs.

Sites like H3.com and JobThread connect employers with prospective employees, many of whom are already employed and not actively job-hunting, via networking – the people who know these qualified candidates. Rewards for referring a candidate who gets hired range from a few hundred dollars to as much as $5,000 – not chump change. This is a great way to break into the recruiting business with no overhead. JobThread is intriguing in that they can set up a job board for your site or your organization (you don’t even have to have a web site) at no cost to you — no merchant account required. You determine the posting fees and split the revenue with them.
Connect suppliers with buyers.
Referral fees are a common practice in business, but they haven’t been used much in online networking sites because there was no way to track them. InnerSell provides that. Vendors set the referral fees they’re willing to pay, then when a deal happens, you get 70% of the referral fee.
Provide business contact information.
One of the greatest challenges in sales is getting accurate contact information about prospective customers. A growing number of services have launched in the past couple of years to help address this, but most rely on members to maintain their own contact information. Jigsaw, on the other hand, pays members to help keep information up-to-date on the people they know, not just themselves, and pays them to do so ($1 for each unique new qualifying contact you put into the system). According to Jigsaw, in their first payout after launch, the top ten point-earns each received more than $750.
Become a semi-pro reporter.

Creative Reporter is a new program from Creative Weblogging that lets just about anyone become a paid reporter/blogger. They’re looking for people to create original, but non-exclusive, blog posts / articles of 250-500 words on topics including parenting, celebrities, travel, mobile technology, and more. Pay is $10 per 1,000 page views on your posts (that’s excellent pay for Web writing, although there’s no telling how much traffic/money you’ll actually get).
Related: Professional Blogging

Write your own blog.
You don’t have to have your own Web site, or install blogging software, or even figure out how to set up the advertising. At Blogger you can set up a blog for free in less than five minutes without knowing a thing about web design, and Blogger even automates setting up Google AdSense so you can make money off your blog by displaying ads and getting paid when people click on the ads. To make even more money from it, set up an affiliate program (see below) for books, music, etc., and insert your affiliate links whenever you refer to those items. You’ll have to get a lot of traffic to become a six-figure blogger, but pick an interesting topic, write well, tell all your friends, and you’re off to a good start.
Related: Monetizing Your Blog

Advertise other people’s products.
If you already have a Web site or a blog, look for vendors that offer related but non-competing products and see if they have an affiliate program. Stick to familiar products and brands – they’re easier to sell. To promote those products:
· Place simple text or graphical ads in appropriate places on your site
· Include links to purchase products you review or recommend in a blog, discussion forum or mailing list you control
· Create a dedicated sales page or Web site to promote a particular product

They all work – it just depends on how much time you have to spend on it and your level of expertise with Web design and marketing.
Related: How to Really Make Money on the Internet With an Amazon.com Affiliate Site
The above list is by no means comprehensive, but it highlights some of the new and interesting ways to make money online without investing any money, without having a product of your own, and without having expert sales and marketing skills. Most of all, unlike taking surveys or getting paid to read e-mail, the potential return on your time investment is substantial

From Scott Allen

having the eagle’s eye for your market

Knowing Your Market Even the most skilled entrepreneurs will fail if they don’t understand their market or enter a market too thin to support their business. So how do you research and analyze the market? In an already competitive market, how do you find a niche to create your own market? And how do you create a marketing plan that will increase your selling potential? The following information is designed to help you identify strong markets, tailor your product to meet market needs, and create marketing strategies guaranteed to strengthen your marketing presence! Analyzing your market You probably conduct market research without even realizing it. Locating competitors’ products, comparing prices, and identifying differences between products are all forms of market research. Many small businesses believe conducting a market analysis is a daunting task—something they don’t have the time or the money to do. After all, how can you possibly find out what people in America are buying or wanting to buy? The great thing about starting a small business is that you don’t have to answer that question…yet. Starting out small and analyzing your local market is smart business. You aren’t going to immediately start selling your product to the entire country, so there is no need to analyze their needs. Start out by analyzing the customers in your local area, and let them be the target of your marketing plan. The two major things you need to bring into focus during your market research are: Understanding who your customers are: demographics, needs, patterns and preferences, and how to reach them Understanding who your competitors are: products offered, strengths and weaknesses, and market share owned By understanding your customers and your competitors, you will be able to tailor your product effectively to fit the needs of your target audience while not duplicating products already on the market. :: What to know about your customers: Demographics—knowing the age, sex, income, and location of your customers will help you estimate the size of your potential market. For example, a new discount razor might target low-income men ages 25-49; on the other hand designer purses might target high-income women in the same age bracket. Needs—understanding the needs of your customers is a major component to reaching them effectively through your product. For example, products targeting children would need to be easy to use, catchy to the eye, unbreakable, and engaging; products targeting busy parents would need to be quick, reliable, mess-free, hassle-free, and time-savers. Patterns and preferences—recognizing patterns and preferences of your target customer base will make reaching out to them easier. Look for patterns such as where they shop and what newspapers they read. Preferences would include whether they tend to buy in bulk, appreciate specialty products, or go for name-brand items. For example, individuals who tend to buy the store brand are more interested in cost than brand name; customers reading a certain newspaper are more likely to purchase items advertised in that paper, especially if coupons are included. How to reach your customers—paying attention to what your customers are exposed to will help you identify prime advertising methods. Look around your local area to identify how your competitors advertise. For example, billboards along a major interstate might grab the most attention; an ad placed in a specialty magazine, however, might be more useful in reaching your target audience. :: What to know about your competitors: Who they are—knowing who your competitors are is the first step to properly determining your potential market share. Do you have a lot of competitors or just one? Sometimes multiple competitors can be easier to overcome than just one competitor who has built up customer loyalty. For example, if you want to open a diner in a town where there is one very popular diner, it may be tough to attract customers away from their regular eating establishment; in a town with lots of diners and similar options, however, customers may be used to bouncing around, may have little loyalty toward one particular place, and may be more likely to try your diner. Products—understanding the products your competitors offer is key to determining what product you will offer. What are the similarities between products and what are the differences that distinguish each product from the next? For example, when comparing cough medicine, you can note that nearly all of the leading cough syrups contain the same primary ingredients; you notice, however, that some brands have added flavors, some are designed for children, some include additional medicine for flu symptoms, and so on and so on. Noting the similarities and differences of each product will help you identify potential gaps and opportunities for your product! Strengths—Identifying the strengths of your competitors is critical for making realistic assumptions about how your product will perform. If there are currently two competitive products on the market, one of which is significantly cheaper than the other, its obvious strength is low cost. You must decide whether your product will compete with the low cost option or will be a higher quality product offered for a slightly higher price. As you look at the strengths of your competitors, keep in mind your own strengths and where you are able to compete. Weaknesses—Knowing the weaknesses of your competitors will help you determine where your product fits in. If all of the products share a common weakness in an area where your product will be strong, you will be in good position to take a percentage of the market share, assuming that your customers have a need for that strength. For example, if your competitors’ products guarantee results in two weeks, and your product can get results in two days, people will jump on the opportunity; if, however, your competitors offer results in three days, the one day you save customers may not be important enough to convince them to try your product. Market share—Determining the market share of your competitors will help you determine your own market share. If your competitors share the market equally, do you have something to offer that will take customers from both? Will you be able to dominate the market or merely become a third competitor for a limited customer base? If one competitor dominates the market over all others, do you have something to offer that will make customers choose your product instead? Be sure to look realistically at how your competitors are doing and what you can offer in comparison, and always make sure your customers are in need of what it is you have to offer! Finding your niche Once you have identified the needs of your customer base and the weaknesses of your competitors, you may be able to find a niche for your product. Small companies generally cannot serve the needs of an entire market. By specializing your product, however, to fit a small group of needs, you can play a role in a niche market, catering exclusively to customers with specific needs and dominating market share in that category. For example, you want to start a company that makes laundry detergent. You can’t possibly overtake some of the major name brands and there is no room for another generic product. Instead, you make a special detergent designed specifically for people with a certain allergy triggered by most detergents. By catering to this group, you pull them away from other detergents on the market and become the exclusive provider of allergy-free detergents. You have created a niche market! Creating a niche market eliminates direct competitors by targeting specific customers with a product geared entirely toward their needs. By organizing the information from your customer research and competitor research, you can identify overlaps, gaps, and needs that are not being met. Creativity and innovation can help you identify your niche and design a product to fit your target audience. A word of caution about creating a niche market—sometimes entrepreneurs can get so caught up in creating a tiny niche market that they eliminate their entire customer base. A specialty store that makes expensive, elaborate cakes for festive occasions may be a welcome change if only grocery store sheet cakes are currently available in your area; a store that makes only wedding cakes, however, will limit its potential market and drastically reduce its volume of sales. Developing a marketing plan Now that you know your competitors, you know your clients, and you know your product, it is time to develop a marketing plan! A marketing plan is critical to entrepreneurial success because it tells you who you need to reach and how you are going to reach them. Without customers, you have no business. The good news, you have already done most of the work needed to write your marketing plan! Your plan should answer the following questions: :: How will you position yourself in the marketplace? In this section of your marketing plan, you should define your business and the product and/or service you are going to sell and create an overview of your market area. Identify your competition and the products or services they offer, what you can offer that the competition does not, and how you will attract customers away from the competition. Include the price of your product, how it compares to the competition’s price, and why you can offer it for less money or how you plan to attract customers despite a higher price. Finally, give an overview of how you will sell your product or service (online, face-to-face, etc.) and how that relates to the competition’s sales methods. :: Who are your customers and what are their needs? You have already done all of the work necessary to complete this section! Define your customers, including their demographics, needs, patterns and preferences. Describe the size of your target market and what they will find attractive about your product opposed to products currently on the market. How does your product better respond to their needs and preferences? :: What is your marketing strategy and how will you reach customers? You have already done the first part of this section! Define the patterns of your customers, how your competitors reach out to them, and what the best way for you to reach them is. Second, define your marketing strategy by identifying the methods you will use to market your product to your customers. Will you advertise only on television? Will you place ads in the newspaper or local periodicals? Would billboards be appropriate, or should you send out bulk mailings? Include in your strategy whatever ways you see appropriate to reach your customer base, and identify what percentage of your total marketing dollars you will dedicate to each marketing method. :: What is your marketing budget? The hardest part of figuring out your overall marketing strategy is creating your marketing budget. These costs will be included in the overall start-up costs needed to run your business. Effective marketing is critical from the first day; otherwise, no one will know about your business! You can’t rely simply on word of mouth, so plan accordingly. Research marketing costs in your area. If you plan to rent a billboard on the main interstate for three months, find out exactly how much it costs. Do not guess on marketing costs—research and determine the exact numbers it will take to market your product to your target audience. If costs seem too high, eliminate high-cost options or look for marketing strategies that target fewer people overall but a higher number of people in your targeted customer base. Your marketing plan will become part of your overall business plan that you present to lenders and investors. By doing the work involved to write a researched, thorough marketing plan, you are one step closer to having a complete business plan in hand! For more help with marketing your product or writing a marketing plan, check out the following TVC eLearning courses: Kauffman Planning The Entrepreneurial Venture Kauffman First Step FastTrac The Knowledge Institute 10 Step Self-Employment Model Cluster Learning Express Business Writing Skills Cluster Learning Express Writing Fundamentals Cluster Skills Tutor Writing Course Technology Business Solutions Business Communications Cluster Or, check out TVC’s Virtual Veteran Business Incubator, a one-stop resource for Veteran entrepreneurs!   Featured Links: