Strategic marketing Essays

Strategic marketing Essays Strategic marketing Essay Strategic marketing Essay In today’s economy, marketing is the second critical area in business because it’s the machine or the engine house in business driving it in the right direction. Why? Because when used correctly, its the biggest profit-making tools to find in business. It’s the skill that makes or breaks every business. In real terms, marketing is all about discovering (identifying), addressing and answering the customer’s needs. Because what’s   interesting to you is irrelevant to the customer. What the they want is something that answers their needs not your product or services. Every CEO in an organization need to understand everything about what is going on in business rather that delegating such responsibilities to someone lower in the organization irrespective of him participating in the marking process or not. Thus it is very important to look at your marketing strategy. Replace yourself with that of your customer and see if you will respond to your own advertisement or promotion. If your responds is negative, it’s a bad news! Neither will your customers respond to it. If you cannot see clearly how your strategy or campaign will sell, dump it. When your marketing efforts do not bring new customers to your business and generate sales, then it’s a waste  Ã‚   of money and resources. However to go about this you need to ask yourself one important question. Why should a customer buy from me?. This is the most important question you can ask yourself. Its called â€Å"Value Proposition(VP)†.it’s a special promise you make to your customers that only you can offer, which gives you an edge and compels your customer to want to buy from you instead of someone else. It makes you â€Å"Unique†Ã‚   .So what I’m saying is that-â€Å"make yourself unique† .If you do not have value proposition (vp), I suggest you stop everything and look for one now. Because, without it you have no positioning, no edge and no reason for customers to buy from you other than, perhaps price. It’s the cornerstone to marketing and without it you cannot compete. Your starting point however is always with your customer. Go out and sit face to face with them. Target those who have come in contact with your business yet did not buy from you. Try to discover why they did not buy and address them. Note that those who did not buy or those who refuse to buy will enjoy giving you some feedback, which will tell you how to overcome their resistance and objection in the future. Also they will see that the company cares. In a simple process ask them the following question with respect and politeness: -Why did you choose not to buy or purchase from us? -What could we do next time? -What did like or dislike about us, if anything? -What did you like about our competition that you feel we adopt? -Etc. Once you think you have found you Value Proposition, remember to test it first. Try it in a limited number of ads or brochures and compare the sales or query rate with your usual methods .Example 1:consider a client want a n advertisement written, planned and placed for $10,000.Usually he spends this same amount on   advertisement and it brought $20,000 worth of business and he has been happy. Suppose we write similar ad for him of   the same size   and cost to bring him $100,000 worth of business. imagine how impression will be like. With the same time and effort one can be as much as five times more successful than another. All   because of strategic marketing. Example 2:Creating a magic experience makes your organization becomes more memorable and more people will want to do business with you. Now consider a restaurant giving free snacks and juice to all patrons who are waiting for a table. Staffs usually bring out sample of its entrees and deserts, offering them to those who are waiting. Not only this keeps people happy when waiting, but it encourages the sale of items patrons rarely order. However remember if someone else in your market is offering the same thing, your VP is therefore not unique and its not a VP. And so to create magic, you must be different-think outside the square; whatever others are doing, do not do that. Start by saying thank you to your customers in a meaningful way. Send them a note, a card, some flowers, or a gift basket. Call them later and tell them how much you appreciate doing business with them. Give them the occasional freebies. Invite them back with gift certificate. Do small things that cost you very little but means a lot to your customers. Introduce fun into your business and have fun with your customers. Go one step further. If any one else is offering their customers a cup of tea or coffee, offer yours with cappuccino or fresh squeezed orange juice. if others starts into cappuccinos and orange juice, offer a cocktail! it doesn’t matter how; just be different. Value Proposition (VP) and Price When a good VP has been created that is compelling and that delivers, then you can almost raise your price. Because your VP is unique to you   and can not be found else where is also a reason for increasing the price signifying uniqueness and quality. Doing this some customers may leave you or choose not to. That’s fine! -Don’t panic. Some customers are just not profitable and it ok to let them go somewhere. You can’t afford to keep servicing them anyway without making profit on them But not that if your VP is on the mark, you will attract many new customers who are will and happy to pay your price. In most cases they will pay without hesitating. OTHER VARIABLES In strategic marketing, the key focus is on the customer because business today is no longer about market share but about the share of a single customer. It may sound absurd to you, but usually advertising is not the key way to increase revenue. It is high risk and generally does not work as well as it should. Before spending another cent and risk your business health on in effective advertisings, you first need to develop the cheap, low-risk alternatives for increasing your revenue. And this involves three-strategy implementation. Which are: -Strategy one: Constantly attract new customers. -Strategy two: Develop ways to generate more revenue on each sale. -Strategy three: Develop ways to ensure your customers purchase from you again and again. Working vigorously on these three will generate a thriving, profitable business. The problem with most business today is that they focus on strategy one and forget the rest. However, when a business starts, it has no option but to focus on getting new customers. But once this has been achieved, the other two methods must be used to make sure that the business is a real success. Moreover, allocating all your resources to getting new customers is the most expensive and least profitable strategy. Because it cost six times more to attract new customers than it does to do business with an existing customer. Thus when you begin to use the new strategy and maximize your existing customers, things rapidly change for better. Remember, a customer who has done business with you is likely to be happy with you and feels comfortable with you making them your best prospective buyers for an immediate new transaction, cross-sale. So do not waste the chance. Implementing the three strategy will depend if you are prepared to look there are effective, lower-risk and lower cost opportunity for improving sales than just advertising and they include: -Adding value or creating a new value proposition -Increasing your price -Increasing loyalty and repeat business -Cross selling or selling other product in your range. -Converting more prospect into paying customers It’s not that companies should never advertise but should do this only after maximizing all these opportunities. Once sales are maximize at low risk, then profit can be reinvested into advertising. Since VP and price has been looked upon, lets focus now on Loyalty, cross-selling and Up-selling. Loyalty To have a successful business, your marketing strategy should focus on attracting new customers and hold onto customers faster than you lose them. Although all business lose customers, a successful marketing needs to hold onto the existing one because the longer they remain, the more you can make them buy from you again and again. If you constantly attracts but not keeping, you are suffering from can be termed to as â€Å"leaking† syndrome. To hold on to your customer you need practices just as earlier discussed: Get to know your customer, provide a magic experience, test your VP, take   risk   from   your   customers (provide a Money- back guarantee policy) and build a staff culture and attitude that makes the difference. Cross-selling Customers usually buy in a sequence of product or service because satisfying one need brings about another. How many time have you gone to do shopping and return with what you intend to buy with lot more? when you get to know your customers very well, you will identify sequence in their buying behavior. It can be use to builds a range of secondary products and services that they will want to buy. At time questions like â€Å" would you like   a shoe with that? Asking question which are very simple but rich in common sense are very necessary because one in every three of these customers will always say yes. Thus it involve selling product that are closely related. Up-selling Always try to increase the value of what you sell. that is you do this when the opportunity arise of offering a customer a slightly different product from what the customer first thought the y would need. Whenever that difference meets their need more exactly, it will increase sales. the rule here is that: don’t try to push something that the customer does not want. EASY SELLING Many organization are still making it hard for customers to buy-whether it’s bad service or customer unfriendly practices and policies. its very bad for business that may ruin it.