An Overview of Marketing
How can marketing help my business?
Without customers you don't have a business. Satisfying customers' needs whilst making a profit should be the central drive of any business - you have to produce what the customer wants. Matching the wants of your customers to your company's capabilities should achieve the objectives of both parties.
When people buy products or services they do not simply want the products, they also want the benefits from using them. Products and services help to solve a customer's problems - it is the solution to these problems that customers are buying.
If your company understands consumers it can develop products that appeal to them. An understanding of marketing techniques allows you to serve your target audience better than your competitors do. You can use promotional techniques to differentiate your product from competition and in doing so provide competitive advantage.
What is marketing?
The term 'marketing' is widely used as a concept, a process and to cover a series of techniques.
Marketing as a concept
The marketing concept is the attitude that business decisions should be based on what the consumer wants, rather than simply selling what your business has to offer. There are three key elements:
- Understanding customer needs
- Matching your company's strengths to market opportunities
- Segmenting your market to direct your efforts
Marketing as a process
This views marketing as a management process that co-ordinates the above approach. The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as follows:
Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.
This process calls for management decisions on product, pricing, distribution, promotion and personal selling, and in some instances customer service. These elements are known as the 'marketing mix'.
Marketing as a series of techniques
These techniques make the process possible. Some of these techniques are detailed below:
Why plan?
You may have considered starting up your own business for many years. Alternatively it may have happened by sheer chance, with a great product idea, or simply finding yourself in the right place at the right time. Whatever your reasons, life can be very chaotic for a small business. At the back of your mind you probably know that for your business to survive and prosper you need to be organised. Simply committing your ideas and plans for your business down onto paper gives you a framework around which to organise those ideas, and provides a sanity check in the meantime.
Your business cannot stand still. You need to develop new ways of serving existing customers, finding new customers, seeking out new opportunities and driving the business. The new economy - the world of e-commerce and the internet - can offer even the smallest business opportunities for growth and success. And you can be sure that if you don't keep up with the pace of change, your competitors will.
Writing a marketing plan will help you to keep ahead of that competition. It provides the opportunity to set objectives and create plans to meet them - using information about the present to shape the future.
If you are producing a business plan to raise money or structure your business, the marketing plan makes up a key element in that process.
How long do I plan for?
The time frame depends very much on how fast moving your market, and how long it takes you to develop new products. It is suggested that you write two plans. One should be written at a strategic level and cover a period of around three years. You can then create a mini plan with tactical action plans detailing your actions for the following year.
Remember, the marketing plan is not written in stone. It is a tool to help you. As market conditions change and your business prospers you can revise it again and again.
How much should I write?
It is very unlikely that you will be able to sit down and write your marketing plan in one go. Whilst it is a good idea to pull together the facts and figures you need before you start (see checklist below), the planning process will itself generate ideas and pose problems that demand a solution. Often you will need to walk away from the plan and return to it after having thought through an idea or action plan.
The amount of detail and the length of your plan is a very personal matter. Sometimes the one-year mini plan ends up a longer document than the three-year strategic plan, simply because of the amount of detail contained in the action plans.
The important thing to remember is that the plan has to be sufficiently thorough and to have enough detail to act as a useful tool. You need to be pragmatic and accept that if the information you need is not available then you simply cannot include it. If, however, you have taken a short cut or skimmed over an area of the plan, you may find that you miss a factor which ends up ultimately to be crucial to the success or failure of your business.
Before you write you plan
Before you can plan where you are going you need to have a clear idea of where you are. You need to produce a complete audit of your current market situation - identifying trends within the economy and society that may affect you, as well as demonstrating an understanding of markets, customers and competitors, and where you fit within this framework. This can be a fairly lengthy process, but it is invaluable as it can help you identify your target market segments, the size of the segments and how they are growing/changing. The audit itself does not appear in your marketing plan - it is used only to produce the market overview.
It is suggested that you gather as much information as you can from the following:
| Checklist | |
| Details of any changes in taxation that will affect your business | |
| Any information you can find on economic trends | |
| News clippings on social trends | |
| Relevant developments in computer technology or other new technology | |
| Any market research you have carried out or been able to source | |
| Changes in the law that directly affect your business | |
| Details of your market (size, competitors, trends, forecast) | |
| Details on your competitors (turnover, activities) | |
| Competitive products (specifications, prices, distribution methods) | |
| Information on your and your competitors' customers (age, sex, social class) | |
| Detailed breakdown of your own sales figures, market shares and profit margins |
The Marketing Audit
The Marketing Audit must be completed before you start to plan