Marketing creates an overall public perception of your company and unless you do it right it is easy to create the wrong image

A market strategy identifies customer groups which your business can service better than your competitors. A good strategy tailors product offerings, price, promotional effort and distribution to the needs of the customer and helps the business focus on the target market.

Owners of small business usually have limited resources to spend on marketing so concentrating your efforts on one or a few key market segments will get the most return for a small investment.

A marketing program would consist  of four sections:

• Products and Services
• Promotion
• Distribution
• Pricing

 With the Product and Services you will need to decide on the make up of your product range as you can sell a specialized product or have extensive range of products that may be suited to a particular industry or market segment.

Your financial resources are usually limited so you will need a strategy that includes advertising that requires little of your funds. We would suggest that you look for other ways of promotion other than advertising in magazines or national newspaper because these can be quite expensive. You would probably need a presence in the Yellow Pages and direct mail can also be an effective way of advertising.

You need to do some careful market research before you set your prices because the success of your business could depend on the level you set your prices at. You need to be sure you have a good profit so if you set your prices higher you may not need the volume but if you set your prices low you will need to have volume sales.

Working through established distributors or commission agents is usually the easiest for small manufacturers or importers and retailers should consider cost and traffic flow in site selection .A low cost, low foot traffic location means spending more money to build traffic.

Marketing Plan
Your business strategy is the single biggest factor which determines the success or failure of your business. It doesn’t matter whether you are a large or small business but you need to get it right and you prosper but get it wrong and it could result in the failure of your business

What you need to do is set aside time to sit down and make a marketing plan for your business. Set yourself a list of achievable resolutions your business should focus on and it does not need to be too formal.

Think about you goals for the coming year and how you will attain them.

Get organized.
Once you have gathered together ideas for your Marketing Business Plan so that you can put into place a plan of how and where you want to go with your business.

Marketing Budget
While writing your marketing plan you need to focus on the cost of implementation. A general rule of thumb is that you need to allow 10% of revenue be designated for your marketing efforts.

Targeting a specific audience
You cannot be everything to everybody when it comes to sales and marketing so you need to identify your target market which is critical to your marketing success.

It is also critical to choose the appropriate marketing techniques to reach your potential customers.

Clearly define your service or product’s benefits.

In today’s highly competitive marketplace customers often become confused about the products and services they purchase

By defining a unique selling proposition for your service or product you will help your customer differentiate you from the competition.

Pricing
The most common question people have about the marketing strategy section of the Marketing Plan is “How do you know what price to charge”?

You need to calculate the cost of your product or service including fixed and variable costs and estimate the benefits to the purchaser and compare you products, services and prices to others that are similar,

Sales and Distribution Plan
How is your product or service going to get to the customers. What distribution channels will be used.

In a direct distribution channel the product or service goes direct from the manufacture to the consumer.

In a one stage distribution channel it goes from manufacturer to retailer to consumer.

The traditional distribution channel is from manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer.

You also need to consider the costs involved and what are the delivery terms

Outline the transaction process between your business and you customer.

Understanding the value of your existing customers
You have to be sure you do not concentrate on acquiring new customers and because if you do not do so you will find these customers will go elsewhere

Do not take them for granted so you need to make regular checks to see that their needs are being met

Research your market
Research can identify the sales and distribution channels typically used by similar businesses in the target market. What marketing techniques work and which one do not.

Careful analysis of market research leads to useful decisions regarding the nature of the market and potential customers. Why would they buy your product? How much would they pay? What changes do you need to make, if any, do you need to make to appeal to the customers to appeal to the customer.

What is the best marketing vehicle to reach these customers?

These are the type of research that needs to be done for you to reach your potential customers

Advertising
Advertising is not marketing but a small part of your marketing plan so and I often find that businesses have spent a large amount on advertising with very poor results.

If you have plenty of money to place large advertisements and you can run them four or five times you will probably get some results but with most small to medium sized businesses having lots of money is not the case.

Before you spend a dollar on advertising spend the time needed to plan your expenditure and include this in your Marketing Plan.

What percentage of your budget will you spend on:

·         Internet

·         Radio         

·         Television

·         Telephone Books

·         Directories

·         Magazines

·         Direct Mail

Marketing is about developing relationships so do not expect to much to early as its takes time for potential customers to accept you and your product or service.

Remember follow your business plan and realize it is difficult to obtain instant success so stay the course.