Marketing

Right Steps to Market Your Products or Services

A marketing strategy is a plan which identifies the firm's marketing goals and explains how they will be achieved within a stated time-frame. It includes product development, pricing approach, distribution, promotion and advertising. Marketing strategy determines the choice of a target market segment, brand positioning, and allocation of resources.
 
It is most effective when it logically defines how the organization will successfully attract customers, and be superior to competitors in the market. Since the customer is the main source of a company's revenue, marketing strategy is closely linked with sales.  
 
1. Be sure of your Business or Organization in terms of your goals, your product/service and your target customer. 
 
The very first step is to analyze your business and customers by answering the following questions:-
 
a) What business am I really in? What are my customers really buying from me? Are they buying my product or the customer service that comes with it?
b) Who is my target market and what do they want? Where can they be reached most effectively? What image do I want to project to my market?  What are the benefits that they derive from my products and services? 
 
Answering these questions in depth can help you understand the marketing issues. For example, you may discover that you aren't selling a product but the convenience that comes with the product. You may begin to clearly see the type of people who really need this convenience and be able to target them effectively.
 
2. Focus on a particular target market. 
 
Research your target clients. Your clients are your most important concern and you should know their ages, lifestyle, needs, wants, likes and dislikes. Once you know their needs, you can market your product or service to meet those needs. 
 
3. Develop distinctive, superior benefits for customers. 
 
a) What benefit does your customer derive from your product / services, which is superior to that offered by your competition? What makes your enterprise distinctive from others?  In short what is your USP, which is going to bring in the customer? 
b) How can you improve your product to service to factor in what your customer requires from you?
 
Are you better than your competition in providing quality relationships with customers, quality products, dedication to service, convenience, innovation, or emphasis on speed? 
 
Paulomi and her family love animals but made the decision not to keep a pet because, they didn't want to be tied down at home. They live in a large house with a tree filled garden, and would get requests from their friends to look after their pets when they had to go out of town. Inspired by this, Paulomi decided to open a dog care centre and a transit camp for such pets. This would give her the flexibility to accept clients when the time-period suited her. Her USP is that she will care for any kind of pet for a period of up to a week, for a reasonable fee. She has plenty of space for the animals to roam around, and lavishes a lot of love and care on them. Since the pets are well loved, cared for and groomed properly, the centre gets a lot of positive word-of-mouth publicity. Paulomi always gets a feedback from all her customers on what she can do to improve her services, and makes changes accordingly. Her staff makes sure to give every customer more than they expect, and her establishment has a cheerful aura about it. From the extent of her success it is clear that Paulomi knows exactly what her customers want, and has established a distinctive and superior business as compared to her competitors.  

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