Sound Marketing for Uncertain Times   (part 2)

Welcome back.  When we last left, we were discussing the basics of marketing and how marketing is much more than the "idea du jour" (for a review of our last issue, feel free to click here .  

And while marketing is all encompassing, gaining the information necessary can be downright overwhelming.  Go to a bookstore website such as Amazon and type in "marketing" and you will find over 470,000 matches.  But instead of becoming inundated with a plethora information, we need to first figure out how to establish a marketing foundation for your business...but where to begin?

INVEST WISELY
First, we put ourselves into a particular financial mindset when it comes to infusing funds into our marketing.  Most small business owners spend money on marketing instead of investing their money in their marketing.  What's the difference?  By definition spending is different from investing.

People spend money on their marketing without any rhyme or reason simply because they feel they have to.   When they don't immediately receive the results they want, they try something else, again forgoing any plan, strategy or methodology.  The results are often regrettable.  Meanwhile, those who invest their money in marketing have a mentality that marketing, like any investment, is designed for the long term.  

Although benefits can be realized in a relatively short time, patience is indeed a virtue for our business owners when it comes to seeing a quality return on their marketing investment.  

STOP, LOOK, AND LISTEN
Most small businesses, especially in this economy, cannot afford to run one strategy haphazardly let alone two or three at a time.  It can get confusing as to which strategies to utilize, and it can get absolutely overpowering if you utilize more than one.  So how do you know which disciplines, strategies and tactics will be best for your business?
 
Start by taking a good look at your business.  A careful assessment of your business will give you a good understanding as to not only the type of marketing you want to do, but when you might want to do it and where to focus. 
 
This means you might need to stop whatever marketing you are currently doing. Strange for a marketing consultant to tell you to stop your marketing, but while most small businesses are using whatever marketing strategies that happen to sound good at the time, they are often continuing failed campaigns, throwing bad money after good simply because they feel that they "need to do something".

Instead, focus on which strategy will be best suited for your company, not your industry.  There are several ways of accomplishing this task:

Be Objective  

Don't look at your company as the owner, CEO, Principal, etc., but instead look at your company as if you were your optimum target market.  Allow yourself to be brutally honest in determining what your company can offer its clients.  Do some homegrown market research by asking some of your clients frank, candid questions.  Expect honest answers.  You might like some answers and dislike others but that is okay.  Better to find out for yourself where your weaknesses are before your customers...or competition...find out. 

Take a Look at your Top Clients

What constitutes a top client for your business?  Be careful not to mistake your "biggest" clients with your "top" clients.  The amount of money a client makes for you does not necessarily constitute a "top" client.  For most companies, large clients might be considered a necessity to pay bills, but they can be just as big of a headache.  A manufacturer whose client is a Fortune 500 company may request large orders but because of their leverage might take as long as 3 to 6 months to pay.  In the meantime, said manufacturer will have to pay out of pocket for materials, employees, etc. 

Instead, your decision could be determined by who pays their bills on time, is complementary to your own industry, who you enjoy working with, plus other factors.  You will start to see similarities to industries, geographic locations, and other subtle particulars.  As you determine who your "top" clients are, begin to market your company by focusing on these similar characteristics.  In some cases companies have found niche markets that have been underdeveloped and thus quite profitable.  After a while your "top" clients and "biggest" clients will become one and the same.

Define your core target market

You will notice that when I talk about a company's optimum market I don't call it a target market, but a core target market.  Think of a dart board with your core target market as the bulls-eye and your target market as the rest of the board.  If you just aim for the board and miss, you will hit nothing.  However, you aim for the bulls-eye and miss, there is a strong possibility that you still hit some part of the board, or in this case your target market.  In order to make sure you hit your board you want to become intimately familiar with your core target market by doing extensive research.  In the end, you want to determine who would be the optimum client based on the following factors:

Demographics:   Demographic data refers to objective and measurable characteristics of current and potential clients that include age, sex, income, educational level, size of household, home ownership, number of employees, annual sales, (to name a few) as well as its trends and changes over time.

Psychographics:   Just as demographic data refers to the objective characteristics of current and potential clients, psychographic data are the attributes relating to current and potential clients' subjective characteristics such as personality, attitudes, political affiliations, and lifestyle choices evidenced by types of magazines being read, the television shows that are watched as well as favorite activities which assists in customer purchasing behaviors.

Becoming thoroughly familiar with your core target market will assist in a better understanding of current and potential clients.  New markets will begin to emerge along with potential niches that may not have revealed themselves in the past. 

By following the above concepts, we're on the right path to establishing the beginnings of a quality foundation for your business marketing.  The next step will be to put it all in writing and create a comprehensive yet easy-to-follow plan...but alas that is for another issue.