How To Make Market Analysis for Your Business

When you’re starting a business, it’s important to take a good, hard look at the market you are trying to enter. This helps you plan your approach to marketing, pricing and general operations, and as such, should be included in your business plan. Once your business is established, periodically re-analyzing the environment in your industry can help you adapt your business to changing attitudes, economies and regulations, and help you sidestep potential roadblocks.

Although the term "market analysis" sounds technical and intimidating, it’s rather simple, if involved. You don’t need an M.B.A. to do this. It’s all about examining your industry, target demographic, pricing structure and competition.

» Industry

Research your industry. Find out how it’s been doing, and where it’s going. Has it dropped off recently? Is it due to economics or new regulations? Is it projected to resume its previous levels? In how long? Is it growing, or is it stable? Get a feel for the difference between steady and stagnant - one is characterized by slow but steady growth, the other by inactivity. Find out if your industry is changing - if everyone else seems to be branching off into niche markets, positioning yourself as an all-around provider may not be the best idea.

» Target Demographic

Who is your ideal customer? Know everything about them. Know who they are, where they live, how much money they have and how much money they spend. The Census is handy for this. If your business is locally-based, it behooves you to know how much of your target demographic leaves the area every year, and how many move in. Once you know the facts, start looking into the intangibles. What do they like? What do they buy? What level of customer service do they expect?

Once you know your target market inside and out, explore other potential markets - they may not be your main source of revenue, but they could prove valuable down the road when you’re trying to eke out every last drop of profit to fund expansion.

» Pricing Structure

In your business plan, you’ll have to justify your prices - your market analysis helps with that. Look at your production costs, overhead, labor, etc., but don’t stop there - look around and see how much everyone else is charging, but focus on those who serve your target market. Does perceived value play a role in your industry? What else affects sales, price-wise? Do you plan to offer discounts? How will that affect your bottom line? How deep will the discounts be, and will they more than make up for themselves by effectively driving sales?

You can’t set your prices arbitrarily. If you plan to charge substantially more than everyone else, what about your product or service makes it worthwhile to the customer?

» Competition

Finally, analyze your competition. Ideally, you will look at what the competition is doing throughout your market analysis, but here is where you put it all together. What makes you think your business will be superior to them? Where are they failing the market? How do you plan to fill that gap? Become intimate with the way your main competition does things - you might learn something, even if it’s what not to do.

Your market analysis can go as deep as you want it to - the deeper, the better. Be prepared to rethink some of your ideas as you find out what’s going on out there. Your business may look great in your head, but it has to survive in a real economy.

Read More

How to Market a Product

Marketing is making available the new commodities, which would fulfill the demands of the customers. However, if you have invented something new and want to sell your product, then that's where you have to use your marketing strategies and tactics. We often face difficulties in marketing a product because we lack good marketing and sales techniques for the product. To overcome these hindrances, one must try to make the product popular. More the popularity, more the demand.

Since the main aim of every small or big organization is to be successful, well planned sales and marketing strategies can help organizations to flourish. It is essential to know and understand the product and the right ways in which it could be introduced in the market. Hence, it is important for an organization to do a thorough research on the market situation and the types of customers who are likely to buy the product.

If you have created a new product and want to sell it, then implementing the following marketing techniques will make the product a success. Let's take a close look at a few successful marketing techniques.

Market Research
Selling the product is a big task. Hence, an enterprise must conduct a market research to promote a product. Analyze the new trends, competitors and needs of the customers while conducting a market research. This will help you to market your product better.

Pricing of the Product
Pricing strategies for the product must be ready before bringing the product into the market. After a careful market research and analysis, set up a decent price, which would be convenient for the buyer and the seller. A firm must try to reach out to the maximum number of buyers and make a good profit.

Advertising
This is a good tool to promote your product. Advertising becomes much better if branding of the product is also involved in it as it will create an identity for the product. There is a lot of importance of branding in the advertising field. Advertising is a form of communication where one can convince the targeted customers to purchase the product. One can use many mediums like the Internet or the tele-media to advertise their product. These days, advertising on Internet proves beneficial for product marketing. It helps in making the product popular and can attract many potential customers to the organization.

Analyzing the Customers
Success or failure of the product lies in the hands of the common man. A firm must know as to whom they must target before selling their product. There are many types of customers and it is important to know their tastes, likes and dislikes. This will help the firm to determine as to how the product must be sold.

Reaching Out to the Retailers
This is another way through which an organization can establish their products. Create enough awareness among the retailers and try to convince them to buy your product. Retailers can prove to be of great help as they act like a link between the customers and the organizations.

Packaging
Packaging is the first attribute of the product that creates an impression on the customers. Packaging should be attractive so that the customer feels like buying the product.

Maintaining and Managing Product Quality
Once the product is in the market, the next step is to maintain the product's quality. It is important for the seller to make sure that the product is meeting the requirement of the buyer and must work towards maintaining its quality. Usually, buyers tend to compare the products to other products/commodities and hence, it becomes necessary to keep a check on the product quality. Higher the quality, higher the sales.

Marketing plays an important role in selling the product. If the organizations have to meet the demands of the ever-increasing wants, they need to have organized and creative marketing ideas. Market research, advertising and packaging are the tools for earning the maximum profits and gaining more sales.

We have now seen some of the vital steps for marketing a product. Hence, we can conclude that marketing is not only introducing the product but also maintaining the quality of the product. Every enterprise who introduces a new product must keep a check on the new market trends and keep improving their product. It should be the aim of every firm to serve the best to their clients.

Read More

How to Market your Business using Facebook

Facebook has become one of the best platforms to promote a business in today's world. Every businessman, with a small or big business will look forward to promoting it on this social networking website. Since there are so many people who are competing on this platform, marketing your business here needs precise judgment and planning. Facebook is a place where you can reach out to millions of people and that too free of cost. The advantages of Facebook for business are way to many to be listed out, and this makes us understand why it's so important to have a company profile on this website. Marketing and advertising are two different concepts and it's important you understand the difference properly to start marketing your business. The basic difference between the two would be that marketing will decide how your business will reach people and advertising will decide how your business looks when it reaches those people. This is a very general difference but I hope you can now at least tell the two apart.

Tips to Market your Business on Facebook

Creating a Page
The first step is to create a page for your company, explaining in detail what your business deals in. The information here should be complete and true as the people need to know what exactly it is your business does. When you create this page, fill in all the details so that no part of the business is left mysterious or unknown to the people. This page will be your business card in detail for everyone on Facebook. Though this is the first step, it's the most crucial one.

Tagging
Now that you have created a page for your business, you need to start showing people it exists, isn't it? People are not going to just pass by and suddenly realize that there is a page that they need to visit. To overcome this possibility, you need to start asking your friends to 'tag' your page in their statuses or posts. After tagging, the people in your friend's friends list will be able to see your page. Eventually, a lot of people will come and visit it.

Sharing
Start sharing the posts you put up on your company page from your personal profile page and ask your friends to do the same. If they business is good, people will do it anyway. You can also ask people to share this through messages and if need be, you can hire people who will work on this. On the platform of Facebook, the option of sharing is considered the best way to spread information, so make sure you make optimum use of the same. To share any post, you need to click on the 'Share' button given usually at the bottom of the post.

Invites
Sending invites is another way to market your business on Facebook. Invitations can be sent when you hold an event that is related to your business. The event can be held on Facebook itself. You will come to know the number of people attending and those not attending on the page of the event. The numbers will show you how much your business page is being viewed daily. People may not reciprocate immediately on the page but once you have confirmed information that they have visited the page, there are chances that they might get back later.

Offers & Discounts
When you share your business page with people on Facebook, make a request for them to like this page. The Like option is given on the top right of the business page. Once people like this page, they will be updated about all the posts you publish every single time. To make this option more lucrative, you can put up some offers and discounts which will also be published. People will be tempted to know about the offers and discounts and in that way, they'll visit your business page.

Now that you know how to market your business on Facebook, do it soon and do it properly. Though there are many advantages of advertising on Facebook, it might take you some time to realize these. However, the key is to keep at it and continue sharing. The more you share, the more you increase the chances of making business. Platforms like Facebook are very few, so make sure you make the most of it. Best of Luck!

Read More

How to Market Your Invention rapidly

It may seem like the world has run out of innovative inventions in the last few years, but the fact of the matter is that the most dedicated minds will always find ways to create something novel. The kind of technology and tools that are available to the common man today has made it possible to push new boundaries and explore new avenues, and people who are curious about how things work will always find a way to build something that has never been seen before.

Assuming that you have already accomplished this stage, you will now surely be looking to market your invention effectively. Finding the right audience for an invention is essential to its success, and this is another area where the massive technological setup in place comes in handy. There are a number of new channels and avenues in place today for people who are looking to sell things and these need to be managed in an effective manner.

Steps to Marketing an Invention

The most important thing to remember is to not get carried away by someone who is over enthusiastic to help you out. You must be wary of scams out there, because there are plenty of them present in the world right now. Duplicating ideas and inventions is one of the easiest things to do today, so you must be very careful about who you deal with. If you are satisfied that the person(s) you are dealing with are working in your best interests, then you can go ahead and follow these instructions on marketing your inventions.

Step #1: Recognize Your Target Market
You cannot figure out the ways to market without knowing who to sell them to. Since you have created the invention, you will be the best judge of who it is meant for, and who are the people who will use it the most. Keep these targets in mind and then think of ways to reach out to them. Every business venture and marketing operation starts off with this planning process and the recognition of the targeted audience before anything else.

Step #2: Create a Marketing Plan
Once the target audience has been pinpointed, you must start working on a plan to reach out to them. Utilize the various media outlets like the local press, the national press, the international press, the Internet, television, radio, trade publications, magazines and other outlets. Make your presence felt and create an awareness campaign that brings your invention to the attention of the world. Make use of some advertising techniques like OTL advertising (Over The Line), BTL (Below The Line) and OOH advertising (Out Of Home). Allocate a budget to all of these avenues and choose the best course possible and enlist the help of a professional if the need arises. Also remember to file for a patent for your invention or someone else will undoubtedly steal your idea, no matter how small scale it may be. You will need to enlist the help of a patent lawyer for this purpose.

Step #3: Settle on a Pricing Strategy
For this purpose you will need to decide the price at which it is sold, and also the distribution strategy that you intend to follow. Pick a price that covers your operational costs and gives you some profit, but do not name an overly ambitious price. Tie up with retailers and distributors so that the product will be supplied to the market on a timely basis. Admittedly, this is a process that will heavily depend on the nature of the product itself. Some people also choose to get their product licensed and bought by an existing seller in the market and sell it under their brand name. Deciding on how to carry out all these procedures will certainly require the help of a seasoned professional in this business.

There are many more nuances and subtleties to marketing a product, but they are all further subsets of these aforementioned steps. Entrepreneurship is not an easy path to go down, but it can ultimately be a very fruitful one. You should know that a majority of new ventures that come up, perish and fail within no time. So one needs to have good business acumen to make things like this work, but most importantly, one needs to have a good product to sell.

Read More

Business Marketing Ideas

business marketing is the function that is critical for many businesses to survive and thrive in today's extremely competitive world. This type of marketing is done when the company's product is sold in bulk (usually) to other businesses or companies, which may use it as a part of their own product. For example, a company selling packaging material will sell it to an FMCG manufacturer in large quantities. It is different from business to customer marketing, as the channels of information dissemination are quite different.

Ideas for Business to Business Marketing

Exhibitions and Expos
This avenue is used by nearly all the companies to market their products. It proves to be successful for some and not so for others. So what really needs to be done to exploit this avenue for its maximum benefit? A company needs to do a little homework about the kind of crowd an exhibition will attract, before actually exhibiting. Research needs to be done about the fellow exhibitors, target audience, past years footfall and if possible, the data about the deals that your company or other companies struck at that particular expo previously, etc. In addition to this, the company's exhibit needs to have a person with deal making authority at hand. The hired sales force, even the temporary ones, need to be well trained with the product knowledge and ability to pitch it right. Even if you don't hit target sales, don't worry! The main purpose of expos and exhibitions is giving out information to potential customers. So as long as this job is well done, the project is a success. This is the most easily accessible tool, which when correctly used, can put the company not only on a domestic but also on a global business map. It is cost-effective, and once you get it right, it can get you sure-fire results year on year, as these expos and exhibitions are usually annual affairs.

Newsletters and Content
The manufacturer can start a monthly newsletter to market his products. This can be either in electronic or print format. The content of the newsletter is often ignored by many. But it is the written matter that will make all the difference. The content of the newsletter has to be precise, concise and appealing. It should effectively convey all the features and benefits that your product has to offer, that none of the other products can. Newsletters can be coupled up as brochures also. The terms of trade that your company has to offer can be advertised. They also serve as a great way to remind your potential customers about your presence and products. Throw in a bit of news about the company and the recent achievements, to build its credibility. They make a great tool to help build a brand for your product in the business world!

E-Marketplaces
When the world is turning into a global village, why not go beyond the local markets? E-marketplaces are essentially a platform where vendors and buyers congregate. It is an effective way to reach the customers anywhere on the planet and expand the reach of your business exponentially. However, one needs to be careful while selecting the right marketplace. The positioning of the product is very important in this virtual space. E-marketplaces serve a dual purpose. You can even find buyers who have posted a "wanted..." listing. Regularly monitor the listings and try making deals with the buyers whose demands you will be able to fulfill. Be realistic in offering terms of trade. Reputation and credo is everything in this virtual world. Be careful about selecting your vendors and buyers too. Check for their credibility and past transactions. This platform will open up so many avenues for your products, that expansion will become inevitable. As long as you give out the right information, have realistic terms of trade, and build up credibility, these platforms would not fail you for sure.

Meets
You have been supplying to your buyers for years, still maybe the order size and frequency remains the same. How about doing something good for them and watch it come back to you in return? Go out and organize a meet for all your buyers and vendors. Informal or formal is your choice, but these meets definitely help. The buyers and vendors will feel cared for and cherished, and in turn spread goodwill for your company. The meets also help you understand your customers better. Maybe you can help them network more effectively, and help them grow in their businesses. This in turn will come back to you in terms of larger order quantities, with more frequency. They will also help you expand your network of contacts and help tap into potential customers, distributors, and even partners. A social gathering is always welcome in the monotony of professional life. Meets do not usually add immediately to the company's bottom line, but they do pay off in the longer run!

Customized Niche Offerings
This is a little tricky, as you can make customized niche offerings catering to the needs of only a single large customer. It requires quite an investment on the manufacturer's part, and might involve some tinkering around with the products and production line. Meanwhile, you also need to make sure that the buyer is supporting you right from the start. This will ensure his involvement and will give you a fixed sales figure on monthly or annual basis. Care needs to be taken that you do not neglect your other customers either. Becoming a sole supplier for a business requires a lot of grit and comes with a huge responsibility. Make sure you have the capability to see it through. It serves as a great technique to attract other potential clients, and helps to sell your products better.

Search Marketing
Search engine marketing or SEM, is another novel technique many companies are using to generate and direct more web traffic to their websites. The businesses can pay to place their advertisements on the top of the results page, when a particular query relating to their products in entered in the search engine. If the company has deep enough pockets to pursue this, they definitely should do it. It is a great way to generate leads, and also markets your products and services across the world.

Social Media Marketing
Different social media portals have dedicated services for marketing products. The company can exploit the popularity of these websites and reach out to a vast customer base. Business social networking portals should be specially looked into. Any good reputation built here in way of referrals has a tendency to immediately become viral and creates a good buzz about the company's products and its brand. These portals serve as a great platform to advertise your products and help in building good brand value for the company. Although they are predominantly used for business to customers marketing, many businesses are now using it for business to business marketing as well. Doing it before it gets too crowded will also give the company an edge over other competitors.

Better and fair deals, offering good trade terms, advertising in key journals and business publications, sponsoring events and expos, are few other ideas which can be studied and implemented for building businesses.

Read More