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Chamber U - Marketing
Article Archives
Advertising Checklist
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Here are some guidelines for creating memorable advertising that really sells:
Coupons and Rebates
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Many small businesses use coupons as part of their promotional programs. The more common ones entitle the bearer to some benefit, such as a price reduction on a particular product or service. Others reward frequent customers for their loyalty. For example, a coffee shop may give each of its customers a card that is punched when a pound of coffee is purchased. When the card is completely punched (perhaps after 10 or 12 pounds), the customer gets a free pound. Be sure that your pricing supports the cost of this type of promotion.
Don't forget that only a small percentage of coupons are actually used. Newspaper coupon redemption rates in the grocery, drug, and mass merchandise industry average between 1 percent and 5 percent. Redemption rates for other coupon delivery methods (e.g., mail, magazine, newspaper four-color inserts) vary widely, but still amount to less than 10 percent for most products.
Coupons attached to the product itself are the ones that are most likely to be used, with redemption rates of 20 to 50 percent. However, these coupons tend to be redeemed by existing customers, so if your intent in distributing coupons is to get new customers, find another way to get them to your targeted audience. One good thing about coupons is that it's easy to monitor the results: you'll see every one that comes in.
A coupon should be good for at least 10 percent off the retail price of the product to attract buyers' attention and increase sales, with a 25 percent discount off retail considered more effective for mass market disposable consumer goods.
TIP!: Coupons come in many forms, but the one thing they must have in common is an expiration date! If you forget this, you'll live to regret it.
Advertising Age magazine keeps up with these trends and a host of other topics which may be of interest to you as you think about advertising and promoting your business. If your local library doesn't have a copy, you can get one by writing to Crain Communications at 360 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60601.
A rebate is similar to a coupon, except that it is not honored at the time and point of purchase. Instead, the customer must complete and submit the rebate form, generally by mail. Rebates on automobiles are not, in fact, true rebates in this sense of the term. If you had to send a proof of purchase form to the auto manufacturer to get the $600 "rebate," that would be a true rebate.
Building a Successful Marketing Plan
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Every business, small or large, will be more successful with a business plan. And the key component of a business plan is the marketing plan. A good marketing plan summarizes the who, what, where, when, and how much questions of company marketing and sales activities for the planning year:
The financial projections contained in your business plan are based on the assumptions contained in your marketing plan. It is the marketing plan that details when expenditures will be made, what level of sales will be achieved, and how and when advertising and promotional expenditures will be made. Here are the major elements of a marketing plan:
Press Releases
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Press releases, if you make them newsworthy, can lead not only to great free publicity but to valuable reprints you can use in your ad efforts.
For example, a simple story (and perhaps product samples) about the company's background, founders, and products can be written and sent to editors of local newspapers, magazines, TV, and radio stations. If the subject is of sufficient interest to editors, they may call to interview and run a free editorial story reaching thousands or millions of people.
The best places for a small business to get free publicity are in the niche media area — school papers, shoppers, local cable channels, and local radio stations.
Research on names and addresses may be only as far away as the local telephone book Yellow Pages. Or, a list of industry publications and electronic media can be compiled from secondary data research or industry associations and experts. Local, regional, and national news services may also be valuable.
Matching Distribution to Your Goals
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A small company must work harder at focusing limited resources, especially with distribution and sales force options. In some cases, the only sales force option is for the owner to do it himself or herself, as in a small retail shop, or consulting/service businesses.
Some distribution channels and sales force options may be attractive, but off-strategy for the small company. A list of all possible distribution channels and accompanying sales force options should be matched against company marketing objectives.
For example, a company selling gourmet cooking equipment has many options for distribution and sales force representation, including:
The company's products are positioned as the highest-quality cookware, used by celebrity chefs and guaranteed for the life of the end user/buyer. Target end users/buyers are upscale, well-educated, urban consumers who read upscale food magazines (e.g., Gourmet, Food & Wine), dine out at gourmet restaurants, drink wine, travel, drive expensive cars, and spend heavily on luxury purchases. Ideally, the company wants their products distributed through every upscale channel that caters to this exclusive target group.
Because of the positioning of the gourmet cookware, the company believed that hardware stores and direct mail were not consistent with the image and reputation that they were trying to establish with their positioning. Company retail stores, while desirable, were financially risky and too expensive at the early stage of development. Distributors were also eliminated because of the time and knowledge required of distributor sales personnel, coupled with the belief that distributors could not be encouraged to learn enough or devote enough time to the product line. In addition, the estimated 35 percent to 40 percent discount with shipping expense to distributors was financially unattractive.
The company decided the best distribution channels were direct sales to specialty stores and upscale department stores such as Marshall Field's, Bloomingdale's, and Nieman-Marcus. Their sales force consisted of three regional managers with professional cooking experience, who also did demos in stores with the cookware. In addition, the company had the extra margin available to afford this highly trained and motivated sales force since distributors were not utilized.
Signage: Your Voice on the Street
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You’ve probably received a lot of helpful advice on writing your business plan, getting a loan, how to comply with the law, and even how to handle customer relations. But, until now, you probably haven’t received any information about why you need a sign for your business or how to get the sign you need.
Surprisingly, the value of on-premise signage has not been fully realized by the small business community. Most owners barely think of signs at all. If they do, they are an afterthought, a necessary expense but one that is rarely part of the budget.
By contrast, merchants who do understand the value of signage view it as an investment that will pay a return many times over. They know that a well-designed, well-placed sign can generate huge profits. And when signage is part of an overall marketing strategy, the increase in revenue is even more profound.
In fact, the U.S. Small Business Administration says signage is the least expensive, yet most effective form of advertising available to you. It can be responsible for half of your customers - that’s right 50%. And many loan companies think signage is so important that if they don’t see it included in the budget, they won’t issue a loan.
So, what are the elements of good signage? What do you need to know before buying a sign? Where do you get one? How can you reap the benefits signage offers? Most importantly, how can you maximize those benefits for your business?
First and foremost, signage can no longer be an afterthought. Businesses can’t afford to just “hang up a shingle” or throw up some plywood with painted letters. In order to compete in today’s competitive marketplace, you must think of your sign as a sophisticated, powerful marketing tool. It should work for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, creating the first impression of your business, telling people who you are, where you are and what you offer.
In short, your sign is your voice on the street, communicating with passing motorists, convincing them to come through your doors and do business with you.
E-mail Tips for Keeping Customers: Paying Attention to Details Counts
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The little things really do count. That extra attention you shower on a customer and the attention you pay to details can mean the difference between a sale and a lost customer.
With the prevalence of electronic communications, it's easy to type a few thoughts and send them along. But if your correspondence or marketing isn't appropriate for the customer, you've damaged all hope of making a sale. Following are some common e-mail mistakes to avoid:
Typos in proposals or follow-up e-mails— Typos, poor grammar, and/or misspelled words indicate that the person doesn't care enough about me or my business to pay attention to details. Recently, I discounted two companies that sent me proposals because they misspelled the name of the main product they were selling along with other words that could easily have been picked up by spell check.
Too casual in tone—Even though e-mail tends to be more casual in tone, if it's a business communication, it should be treated as such. Specifically, this applies to the presentation of business proposals or communications to senior management.
Unsolicited e-mail with attachments—Are you offering your product to potential customers, but don't yet have a personal relationship with them? If so, then don't send your proposal as an attachment. Your e-mail could be blocked by firewalls, or recipients will delete it without opening it because they assume the e-mail could contain a potential virus. If the recipient is expecting your information, sending an attachment is acceptable.
Company domain names—You'll have less credibility with your potential customer if you send your communication from a personal e-mail account instead of one with a company domain name. Even if it's your business, sending from an account that is not affiliated with your company's name (e.g., yourname@yourcompany.com) doesn't carry the weight it otherwise would. There are many low-cost vendors that can help you set up a basic e-mail program.
Bulk e-mail with headlines in all caps—If it looks like spam to the recipient, then it probably is.
Prompt customer response—I deliberately left the most important point for last. E-mail is an instant medium. By not answering customer questions promptly or at least acknowledging receipt of that e-mail, your customers will likely become irritated. It's easy to set aside answering difficult requests or complaints—but what sets successful organizations apart from their competitors is their ability to answer difficult questions correctly and swiftly—and the fact that they pay attention to details.
Analyzing the Market Environment
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Conceptually, all of marketing is based on the idea that you must thoroughly know the environment in which your business operates in order to successfully promote and sell your product or service.
You may have developed a unique business idea, but why do you believe your idea will be successful? Is it based upon discussion of the idea or presentation of a prototype product or plan to friends and associates? If your business has been operating for a while, you've probably thought about branching out with new product lines, side businesses, or additional locations. How can you be sure the odds are with you as you pursue new directions?
Ultimately, your idea must fulfill a need for your buyers and must do so in a way that's somehow superior to the competition, however you define it. If you want to be sure that your idea will do these two crucial things, you need to know as much as you can about the following:
SWOT Analysis - A Picture of Your Business
A SWOT analysis literally means reviewing
Strengths and weaknesses are factors that you can control. They are issues that need addressing within your business. You and your team members have control over each and every one of these items. An example of strength could be the experience of your team members; a weakness could be poor record keeping or lack of qualified team.
Opportunities and threats are factors that are external to your business and over which you have no control. For example, opportunities would be issues like new markets opening up for you or access to new products or services. Threats would be people like you. That's
Once identified, strategies or ideas can be developed to build on your strengths and maximize your opportunities. They also can be developed to correct weaknesses that could be barriers to your success, and to minimize the effects of threats.
Here are some issues to review internally:
Strengths and Weaknesses
Sales and Performance
Personnel
Physical Resources
Financial Resources
Potential for Growth or Improvement
Opportunities and Threats
Economy
Competitors
Technology
Social patterns
Environmental/legal issues
Physical factors
Website Strategies
In today's business world having an online presence is as important to the success of your business as is the printed material you would hand them about your company. A professionally designed website is the most convenient way to provide potential clients with product and service information, contact resources, word docs and other forms of electronic files, your location, and hours of operation, schedules/calendars, feed back forms, questionnaires, surveys, and much more.
Whether it be a static website or a database driven ecommerce shopping cart, a sound strategy of the functionality of your website is essential. Taking advantage of today's technology can increase sales and customer satisfaction with minimal cost. Advertising is a key part to running a successful business. A website can provide a global location for customers to get the most recent information about you and your company.
That said, having a website that is under par can be damaging to your business as well. Many small businesses attempt to save money by creating their own website, and in the end turn customers away due to poor presentation. First impressions go a long way and a professionally design website is an affordable way to present yourself in an attractive informative manner.
My advice to business owners is to be sure that your website be built by a professional developer with experience and creativity. Just as you would design a printed brochure for your company, your website should market your business in a similar look and feel. There are many advantages to having a website that is functional and informative.
Purse Power
Targeting an audience for marketing efforts makes sense in a competitive business environment. Looking for an opportunity to reach a large audience? Seek out the women.
When it comes to sales growth, market share dominance and profit improvement, women should be the primary targets of marketing efforts. Why? Consider that women are:
Women are deeply integrated into the workplace, are more educated on average than men, and often earn as much or more than men. The result is the power of the purse that comes from earnings.
So how should businesses target women? First, recognize that women have different drives and aspirations than men, and respond to a different marketing strategy.
Research has found that women are much more interested in people than in statistics and features. Creating a marketing piece, brochure, or ad featuring people means that it is much more likely to get a woman's attention.
Women are not just busy, they are time starved. While they've taken on a role in the workplace, their roles within the home have not changed as quickly. Most women still handle the majority of household chores, child care, shopping and cooking. For today's working woman, a hold up of ten minutes causes far greater irritation than it did ten years ago. How does this relate to marketing efforts? Focus on how your product or service will make a woman's life easier. Make the pitch to the point. Women don't care about reading bullet points on features, they care how your product or service will work for them. Because women are relationship-oriented, they respond to advertising messages that take a story telling approach. "My son is going to college this fall, and so I… "
Targeting your audience and tailoring your marketing message to that audience will result in greater market share.
Developing and Refining Your Product
New businesses are always in a rush to get new products to market. But how many new products or new businesses fail because the concept is never quite executed correctly for the intended target buyer? When a company doesn't take the time to do it right in the first place, it somehow always has to find the time to correct it later, often at great cost in unnecessary spending, lost time, lost sales, and lost market share.
The fastest way to go out of business is to introduce a great idea, but to never completely deliver the features or benefits that were promised. People who initially buy and then reject a new product are almost impossible to interest in trying the same improved brand again. Small companies who use the real marketplace to develop and refine a new product may never realize the sales potential of the product without a conscious plan for success.
It is estimated that over 40 percent of new packaged consumer products fail. Some 20 percent of new industrial products fail. And 18 percent of new service products fail. If line extensions of current products are included, the failure rate for new packaged consumer products increases to 80 percent, according to Philip Kotler in Marketing Management.
A typical new product development path used in large companies (such as Procter & Gamble, Kraft/General Foods, Nabisco, etc.) can also be modified for new products by smaller companies:
Small Business Matters: To Trademark or Not: Why You Should Protect Your Business
No one knows how hard you work to make your small business a success -- except perhaps your competitors. One way to differentiate your business from the competition is to trademark your company’s slogan or logo. That way, even the most enterprising competitor can’t steal your customers with the same catchy jingle, slogan, or other identifying mark.
What is a trademark?
A trademark is a word or symbol as well as a phrase or tagline (e.g., “The Pause that Refreshes”), an arbitrary sound (long-distance dialing tone), a smell (rose-scented yarn), or a color (pink fiberglass) that identifies one person (or company) as the source of the goods or services sold with that trademark.
Why should I protect my trademark?
A trademark protects a valuable company asset -- your business’ identity as the source of those products or services. If more than one company were to use the word “Cadillac” for different brands of automobiles, for instance, there would be confusion in the market.
How do I protect my trademark?
A trademark is created by use -- not by registration. Therefore, you do not need to apply for trademark registration, but registration protects your exclusive rights to the trademark and constitutes constructive notice to others of your rights. If another company adopted the mark and didn’t know about your use of it, it could acquire lawful rights in a separate territory, blocking your expansion. Federal registration prevents this from happening.
How can I obtain a trademark registration?
A federal registration is obtained by filing with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and enables you to use the well-recognized symbol ¨. An alternative to federal registration is to register in individual states. State registration tends to be less expensive, but it does not allow you to use the ¨ symbol, nor does it protect you from a company in another state using the same symbol, business name, or slogan.
To file a registration with USPTO, decide what symbol or slogan you want to use to identify your products and learn as much as you can about the trademark process by visiting the USPTO website. Search the agency’s database (the Trademark Electronic Search System) to determine whether anyone else is using the mark that you want to protect or seek professional assistance.
Remember, trademarks come with benefits as well as responsibilities. State and federal registrations must be maintained and renewed at regular intervals, with accompanying fees, to remain enforceable
Increase Sales, Advertise Online: Reaching Your Customer Base Is Key
As consumers grow more comfortable with shopping online, the Internet has become a popular and essential way to reach potential customers. Because Web sites lend themselves to niche audiences, advertising on the Internet might be an inexpensive and easy way to reach the core group of consumers most interested in the product or service you sell.
Being a savvy online vendor, however, first requires becoming familiar with the dot-com lingo. Each time your ad appears on a Web site, it’s called an impression. Success in online advertising is measured by a click-through rating—calculated as the number of times customers click on your ad per every 1,000 impressions. Advertising online varies in price. Most agencies charge for a preset number of click-throughs.
For years, banner ads remained standard and identical. They came in only one size, 468 x 60 pixels, and almost always appeared at the top or bottom of a page. Online users became so accustomed to seeing such ads that over time click-through rates plummeted. As a result, online advertising agencies have begun experimenting with new kinds of eye-grabbing ads.
Sidebar Ads. Unlike standard banners, sidebars stress the vertical over horizontal dimension of an advertisement. Not only do they defy conventional expectations, but they also run beside news articles as opposed to above or below content, thereby increasing the odds that a given Internet user will click-through.
Pop-Up Ads. A pop-up ad opens a new window in front of the page you are attempting to visit. Dreaded by Internet users everywhere, pop-ups have nevertheless proven effective at generating business. They force readers to at least momentarily review the ad and cost a premium. One thing to consider is that tech-savvy Web surfers have begun using programs to block pop-up ads.
Keyword Ads. Instead of forcing people to watch ads that they might not care to see, search engines have taken a different approach. They allow small businesses to buy short text ads that are only displayed when certain keywords are entered. That way, businesses are most likely to attract people already interested in their products.
So what do you do once you’ve decided to advertise online? There are many Internet advertising agencies that link content providers with businesses that wish to have their banner ads displayed online. Alternatively, larger sites such as Yahoo! or Google have their own advertising representatives.
If used properly, online advertising can be an extremely effective and fairly inexpensive way of reaching people who already have an interest in buying what you sell.
What's Your Unique Business Idea?
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Intuitively, or based on sound research, you believe your business will succeed because you are doing something different from some or all of your competitors. The first test of any business, small or large, is its uniqueness when compared to its competitors.
Now, that doesn't mean you can't borrow a good idea from some other company and build a successful business around it. For example, every town needs a certain number of dry cleaning operations, and most of them look very much alike. However, if you examine the more successful dry cleaners in your area, you'll notice that each one tends to emphasize and promote something special. It may be lower prices, faster service, better cleaning, a drive-up window, or more frequent coupons in the local shopping news. Some of these business owners undoubtedly borrowed their ideas from other companies they've dealt with, or promotions they many have noticed when traveling in other cities. The point is, successful businesses find ways to make their products or services stand out from the crowd, or at least the crowd in their immediate geographic area.
If your business provides a product, sources of uniqueness can range from pricing, packaging, distribution method, or feature differences, to the mere perception of a difference that may or may not exist. For example, granulated white sugar is difficult to differentiate from one supplier to another except in pricing, packaging, or amount of advertising. But white sugar substitutes like aspartame (e.g., "Nutrasweet brand") or saccharine (e.g., Sweet 'n Low brand) have important product feature and benefit differences that help determine consumer purchase decisions.
There are two main issues to consider here:
Boost Your Online Presence: Don’t Stay Lost in the Crowd - Feb 06
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On any typical day in 2004, 23 million Americans were online either making or researching a purchase, according to the Pew Internet & American Life project.
With more than 8 billion Web pages available on the Internet, just having a Web site for your business isn’t enough to get you noticed. To boost your online presence, make sure that your Web site is listed with the major search engines, including Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. Creating a basic listing is an easy, free, and highly effective way to make certain that your site can be found during searches.
Part of creating an effective listing is to submit your business information to the correct category on each search engine. The point of these listings is to ensure that your business appears in the results of those searches where people are looking for what you’re selling.
Local (geographic) searches are the newest option being offered by search engines, and this is another area where you can reach your target market. The local search option allows searchers to limit the results they receive based on specific geographic criteria, such as city, ZIP code, or street address. This is an especially important development considering that 60% of U.S. businesses report that 75% of their customers come from within a 50-mile radius.
Unlike standard Web searches, which check only for relevant content available on the Internet, geographic search results are compiled from many different sources—some of which may be outdated.
You should do a search for your type of business in your area to see if your company is listed and if the listing is current. If the listing is not current and accurate, you should submit the correct information, although it may take awhile for it to be updated.
To maximize the number of places your information can be found besides the major search engines, look for industry-specific or chamber and association member directories where you can be listed.
You wouldn’t run a business without a phone, and the same notion applies to having an online business presence. Even if you’re not using the Web, your customers probably are—and using it to find your competition.
With an online business presence, you make it easier for your customers to find you. Sometimes all that’s needed to find you online is a single Web page with your business name, location, phone number, and hours of operation. You can get this basic online presence, along with your own business domain name, for around $10-$20 per month.
Get your business online, and once there, make sure you get noticed.
Developing a Mission Statement - Sept 06
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A company mission statement can be a powerful force to clearly define your company's purpose for existence. In the beginning, your company was formed to accomplish something that did not exist in the marketplace, or to do a better job than existing companies. What was that special purpose? Small companies seldom take the time to discuss or write out their company mission, but they should. It will pay measurable financial dividends over time.
The commitment to formulating a company mission can be critical to your company's success. It helps keep management focused on preserving or strengthening the company's unique competitive niche. It can also prevent panic and unwise marketing or spending responses to meet an indirect thrust by competitors into your market.
The most successful company missions are measurable, definable, and actionable project statements with emotional appeal that everyone knows and can act upon. For example, a mission to "be the best health-care provider in the world" for a multi-national HMO organization sounds good. But a simple mission statement from Honda — "beat GM!" — is better because it's a project statement that can be measured every day by every employee. Mission statements can also affect company strategies and tactics. If Honda Motors were to change its mission to "Beat Toyota," different strategies would be called for, along with different geographic tactics in sales, advertising, and distribution of cars.
How important is it to define your company's mission? Consider a famous U.S. refrigerator manufacturer whose sales were growing only at the rate of new home-building during the 1950s. They undertook a years-long project to define whether they were in the business of building refrigerators to preserve food or in the business of food preservation. They decided they were in the business of food preservation, which got them eventually into new product and business areas such as artificial atmospheres (e.g., nitrogen for fresh fruit preservation, freeze-drying technologies) and increased their sales from hundreds of millions of dollars to several billion dollars by the 1980s.
Creating a workable company mission. A "call to action" mission statement provides key attributes that are often missing in other company mission statements:
A company's mission statement is also influenced by:
Mission statements can be difficult to write. Companies spend months and years attempting to clearly define the best mission statement for current circumstances. Companies that have a clear "vision," and management that can articulate it and communicate it to all employees, have the basis for a call-to-action mission statement.
A good mission statement provides vision and direction for the company for at least 10 to 20 years and should not have to be revised every few years with changes in the company's environment. But the company mission statement must be revised if it is no longer appropriate or has lost significance or relevance..
Packaging and Pricing Your Product - Nov. 06
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Packaging and pricing represent a very concrete way to communicate with your target market and express the positioning of your business.
Package design is more than just the look of the physical wrapper or outer container that a product comes in. Packaging can be the way in which services are bundled together for an intermediate buyer or end user. For physical products, the package label or wrapper may represent the product's entire business positioning, list of features and benefits, advertising, and promotion, especially for smaller businesses.
Pricing must reflect not only your costs to produce the product or service at the expected volume, but also the value your customers place on what you offer. What's more, price is a way to differentiate your business from others, especially in the consumer market.
Market Research - Jan. 07
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Today the world is defined by the term "information age." All businesses require accurate and timely information to be successful. Whether your company is large or small, the right amount of financing, equipment, materials, talent, and experience alone are not enough to succeed without a constant flow of the right business information.
Many large companies make market research into a very sophisticated and lengthy process, so that they can find out everything possible about their customers. For example, Philip Kotler, author and economist, writes in Marketing Management, "Coke knows that we put 3.2 ice cubes in a glass, see 69 of its commercials every year, and prefer cans to pop out of vending machines at a temperature of 35 degrees . . . We each spend $20 per year on flowers; Arkansas has the lowest consumption of peanut butter in the United States; 51 percent of all males put their left pants leg on first, whereas 65 percent of women start with the right leg; and . . .P&G once conducted a study to find out whether most of us fold or crumple our toilet paper. . ."
While you probably won't be able to afford a separate marketing research department to gather and monitor all the information that could possibly help you, all successful business owners must know their markets, competitors, customer wants and needs, and "what it takes to be competitive." It is not enough to know the answers to what, where, when, and how questions about our businesses. We also need to know why people buy our products and services. You should expect to budget at least a minimal amount of time and money for research, especially if you are starting a new business or branching out into a new direction.
Determine your market research needs and objectives. The first step in doing market research is to decide what you really need to find out. The kind of information you are seeking should determine the type of research you will do (although of course budgetary constraints will play a part in your decision).
Do you need to obtain a general feel for how key target buyers think about your product category and its various types of items, brands, and buying occasions? If so, interviewing groups of target buyers in focus groups may be the way to go, even though this type of research indicates only directional trends and may not be statistically reliable. Or is the confirmation of general trends in your industry sufficient? In that case, reading information from outside information services, industry trade associations, and industry experts may be all that you need to do.
You may wish to conduct blind tests of different formulas before finalizing recipes for a new product. In that case, you can do "laboratory" tests, where brands, packages, and names of products are not revealed to the test subjects, and achieve statistically reliable results at the 90 percent to 95 percent confidence level of predictability. Or perhaps you have completed extensive product development and testing and are now ready for a field test of your prototype products.
Market research procedures. Generally, market research procedures break down into the following categories:
Market research possibilities for small companies. As you can see in the chart above, there are many market research techniques available. However, some may not be affordable or appropriate for your company. Managers of smaller companies may have to be more creative and proactive in:
Who Is Your Target Buyer?
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Do you know precisely who your customers are? You may know many of them by name, but do you really know what type of people or businesses they are? For example, if you sell to consumers, do you have demographic information (e.g., what are their average income ranges, education, typical occupations, geographic location, family makeup, etc.) that identifies your target buyer?
What about lifestyle information (e.g., hobbies, interests, recreational/entertainment activities, political beliefs, cultural practices, etc.) on your target buyer?
This type of information can help you in two very important ways. It can help you make changes to your product or service itself, to better match with what your customers are likely to want. It can also tell you how to reach your customers through advertising, promotions, etc.
For an obvious example, a company that sells athletic shoes may know that its typical customer is also a sports fan. Thus, if it can build shoes good enough to be worn by professional athletes, it will have a convincing story about quality to tell. It can also benefit by using well-known athletes as spokespersons in its advertising, and by placing advertisements in sports magazines where its customers are likely to see them.
How can you refine your understanding of your own customer base? We suggest that you look at the issue from two angles:
By Thomas Arrison
and the external environment:
By Ken Wilson, Dynamic Site Design
Written By Patricia Thorpe, VP Marketing
North Middlesex Savings Bank
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By Edward Colbert, Partner, Kenyon & Kenyon
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