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Marketing Your
Business
What is Marketing, How to Create a Marketing Plan, Social Media
Contributors: U.S. Small Business Administration | DC Small Business Development Center
In order to successfully grow your business, you need
to attract and retain a large base of satisfied customers.
An effective marketing program can help you achieve
this goal. Many think marketing is just advertising and
promotions, but it comprises the entire process companies use to maintain their customer base. A successful
marketing program can be advantageous for your business to promote awareness of your products and build
strong customer relationships.
What Is Marketing?
The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines marketing as “the process of
planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas,
goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational
objectives.” Marketing is the area of business that involves:
•
The determination of customer needs/problems
•
The development and offering of tailored services and/or products that have
been developed to meet those needs
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Marketing Your Business
•
Capturing customers’ perceived value of product/service through optimal pricing
strategies
•
Marketing Plan
Outline Snapshot
likely to reach a business’ target market and stimulate purchase
•
1.Executive Summary
2.Situation Analysis
The development and implementation of the promotional activities that are most
Identifying the ideal point of contact for customers to access a business’ products and services
Marketing activities are numerous and varied. They include everything necessary
•
Industry Analysis
•
Company Analysis
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Customer Analysis
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Competitor Analysis
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Designing a product to appear desirable to consumers
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Collaborators
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Performing market research and pricing
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Keys to Success
•
Promoting the product through public relations, advertising, marketing commu-
to get a product off of a sketch pad and into the hands of consumers. Marketing
includes activities such as:
nications, and sales and distribution
3.Marketing Strategy
•
Marketing Objectives
Marketing takes time, money, and a lot of preparation. One of the best ways to
•
Financial Objectives
undertake marketing for your business is to develop a solid marketing plan. A strong
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Target Market
•
Market Segmentation
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Positioning Strategy
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Marketing Mix
4.Financials
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Break-even Analysis
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Sales Forecast
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Marketing Expense Forecast
5.Controls
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Implementation Milestones
•
Marketing Organization
•
Contingency Planning
marketing plan will ensure you’re not only sticking to your schedule, but that you’re
spending your marketing funds wisely and appropriately.
How To Create A Marketing Plan
A marketing plan is a business tool that outlines how a company will attract, acquire
and retain its target market. An executable and effective marketing plan consists of
the following:
•
Identifies the best customer profile (i.e. those individuals who are most willing
and able to purchase your products)
•
Identifies a business’ optimal niche market (area of specialization)
•
Links sales and profit goals to marketing efforts
•
Provides an action plan for accomplishing sales and marketing goals (e.g. brand
awareness, increase in market share, product line extensions etc.)
•
Can substantially increase sales and company value
Conducting Market Research
Successful marketing requires timely and relevant market information. An inexpensive
research program, based on questionnaires given to current or prospective customers,
can often uncover dissatisfaction or possible new products and services. Market research
will also identify trends that affect sales and profitability. Population shifts, legal developments, and the local economic situation should be monitored to quickly identify problems
and opportunities. It is also important to keep up with competitors’ market strategies.
Conduct Research:
90
•
Products/Services
•
Industry size ($) and projections
•
Industry trends
•
Major players/competitors
© 2012 Washington, DC Economic Partnership
What is Marketing, How to Create a Marketing Plan, Social Media
•
Market share
•
Target market characteristics, size, willingness and ability to pay
Research Sources:
•
•
Primary research: surveys, interviews, focus groups, suggestion cards, competi-
WDCEP Tip
tive assessment, etc.
Washington, DC Small Business
Development Center works with their
resource partners, other SBDCs, a market research service, and the U.S. Small
Business Administration to offer free
market research assistance. For more
information, contact the Washington,
DC Small Business Development Center
at 202.806.1550.
Secondary research: DC Small Business Development Center, U.S. Census Bureau, FINTEL, Bureau of Labor Statistics, EDGAR, MEDSEEK, IBIS World, public
libraries, etc.
Creating a Marketing Strategy
A marketing strategy identifies customer groups that a particular business can better
serve than its target competitors, and tailors product offerings, prices, distribution,
promotional efforts, and services toward those segments. Ideally, the strategy should
address unmet customer needs that offer adequate potential profitability. A good
strategy helps a business focus on the target markets it can serve best.
Target Marketing
Most small businesses don’t have unlimited resources to devote to marketing; however,
you can still see excellent returns while sticking to your budget if you focus on target marketing. By concentrating your efforts on one or a few key market segments, you’ll reap the
most from small investments. There are two methods used to segment a market:
1.Geographical segmentation: Specializing in serving the needs of customers in a
particular geographical area.
2.Customer segmentation: Identifying those people most likely to buy the product
or service and targeting those groups.
Managing the Market Mix — The Four Ps
Every marketing program contains four key components:
1.Products and Services: Product strategies include concentrating on a narrow
product line, developing a highly specialized product or service or providing a
product-service package containing unusually high-quality service.
2.Promotion: Promotion strategies focus on advertising and direct customer
interaction. Good salesmanship is essential for small businesses because of their
limited advertising budgets. Online marketing is a cheap, quick, and easy way to
ensure that your business and product receive high visibility.
3.Price: When it comes to maximizing total revenue, the right price is crucial.
Generally, higher prices mean lower volume and vice-versa; however, small businesses can often command higher prices because of their personalized service.
4.Place/Distribution: The manufacturer and wholesaler must decide how to distribute
their products. Working through established distributors or manufacturers’ agents
is generally easiest for small manufacturers. Small retailers should consider cost and
traffic flow in site selection, especially since advertising and rent can be reciprocal: a
low-cost, low-traffic location means spending more on advertising to build traffic.
The nature of the product or service is also important in citing decisions. If purchases
are based largely on impulse, then high-traffic and visibility are critical. On the other
DC Doing Business Guide 201291
Marketing Your Business
hand, location is less of a concern for products or services that customers are willing
WDCEP Tip
For more information or to obtain free
one-on-one consultation on developing
your marketing plan, contact the Washington, DC Small Business Development Center at 202.806.1550.
to go out of their way to find. The Internet makes it easy for people to obtain goods
from anywhere in the world, so if you’re worried about reaching a certain market, selling your product online may do wonders for your business.
Measure Your Success
After implementing a marketing program, entrepreneurs must evaluate their performance. Every program should have performance standards to compare with actual
results. Researching industry norms and past performances will help to develop appropriate standards.
Entrepreneurs should audit their company’s performance at least quarterly. The key
questions to accomplish this are:
•
Is the company doing all it can to be customer-oriented?
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Do employees ensure the customers are satisfied and leave wanting to come back?
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Is it easy for the customer to find what he or she wants at a competitive price?
Keep an Eye on Return on Investment
It is important to create a plan to measure your spending and return on investment.
Consider what impact certain marketing activities have had on your revenues during
a fixed period, such as a business quarter, compared to another time period when you
focused your efforts on other tactics. Consider the tactics that worked as well as those
that didn’t work. You don’t have to cut the tactics that didn’t work, but you should
assess whether you need to give them more time to work or whether the funds are best
redirected elsewhere. Some tactics may be hard to measure but are impactful for your
target audience, such as print collateral (e.g. brochures, sales sheets, etc.).
Marketing plans should be maintained on an annual basis, at a minimum. But if you
launch a new product or service, take time to revisit your original plan or develop a
separate campaign plan that you can add to your main plan as an addendum.
Integrating Social Media into your
marketing plan
Small businesses are increasingly taking advantage of popular social media channels
to market their businesses. According to the Social Media Examiner’s 2012 Industry
Report, the top benefits reported by businesses are “increased exposure, increased
traffic, provided marketplace insight, generated leads, developed a loyal fan base,
improved search rankings, grew business partnerships, reduced marketing expenses,
and improved sales.”
The top five social media networks used by businesses are:
1.Facebook | www.facebook.com
2.Twitter | www.twitter.com
3.LinkedIn | www.linkedin.com
4.Blogs
5.YouTube/video sharing
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© 2012 Washington, DC Economic Partnership
What is Marketing, How to Create a Marketing Plan, Social Media
Steps to Create a Social Media Strategy
1.Understand your audience. What social media platforms does your target audience use?
2.Define your goals. Building awareness, customer retention, improved search
engine rankings, reputation management, etc.
3.Choose your metrics. Reach, sharing behavior, monetization.
4.Open accounts on the platforms your audience uses.
5.Listen to what your audience is saying on those platforms.
6.Respond to their concerns.
7.Provide content that they value.
8.Measure the results.
9.Repeat steps 1 through 8.
Social Media Marketing Resources
Social Media Examiner,a free online magazine that is designed to help businesses
discover how to best use social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to
find leads, increase sales and generate more brand awareness. View their Getting
Started with Social Media: A Resource Guide webpage for more information on how
to effectively integrate social media into your marketing plan.
www.socialmediaexaminer.com/getting-started/
2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Reportis an annual report by Social Media
Examiner that examines how marketers and businesses are using social media to
grow their businesses.
www.socialmediaexaminer.com
Additional Resources
Washington, DC Small Business Development Center (DC SBDC),is an outreach
program of Howard University, working in partnership with the U.S. Small Business
Administration (SBA), other District of Columbia universities, and community organizations, to provide free management and technical assistance and affordable training
in all phases of business development to District of Columbia based small businesses.
www.dcsbdc.org
U.S. Small Business Administration| www.sba.gov
SBDCNet | www.sbdcnet.org
The Washington, DC Women’s Business Center| www.dcwbc.org
DC Doing Business Guide 201293