PREFI

• Identify your market


  Analyze the needs of customers
• Market segmentation


  Grouping customers with common characteristics into segments
• Target market


  Individuals or companies interested in a product/service and willing to pay for it
• Identify your target market


  1. Who is my potential market?

  2. Are my customers individuals or companies?

  3. If individuals, how old, how much money, where do they live, how do they spend time and money?

  4. If companies, what industries are they in, where are those industries located?

  5. What needs or wants will my product/service satisfy?

  6. How many potential customers live in my area?

  7. What is the demand for my products/services?

  8. What can I do that competitors aren't?

  9. Where do potential customers currently buy similar products/services?

  10. What price are they willing to pay?
• Market segments


  Groups of customers with common characteristics
• Customer profile


  Description of characteristics of likely customers
• Demographics


  Data describing a group in terms of age, marital status, family size, ethnicity, gender, profession, education, income
• Psychographics


  Data describing a group in terms of tastes, opinions, personality traits, lifestyle habits
• Use-based data


  Data on how often potential customers use a particular service
• Geographic data


  Data on where potential customers live and how far they will travel
• Market research


  Collecting, recording, and analyzing information about customers, competitors, products, and services
• Primary data


  Information collected for the first time to fit a specific purpose
• Ways to collect primary data

  • Survey
  • Observation
  • Focus groups
• Secondary data


  Data found in already-published sources
• Six steps of market research

  1. Define the question

  2. Determine the data need

  3. Collect the data

  4. Analyze the data

  5. Take action

  6. Evaluate the results
• Customer relationship management (CRM)


  A company's efforts to understand customers as individuals instead of as part of a group
• Interactions with customers


  Identifying customer relationships, including information on who they are, where they are located, and what products/services they buy
• Customer database


  Large amounts of data obtained from interactions between a company and its customers
• Data mining


  Finding hidden patterns and relationships in customer data
• Social media marketing


  A form of Internet marketing that utilizes social networking sites as a marketing tool
• Social media optimization (SMO)


  Works hand in hand with search engine optimization (SEO) to help users find certain topics on social networking sites
• The social media marketing conversation


  Businesses build relationships by allowing customers to share opinions and interact directly
• Competition


  Companies offering similar or identical products/services to the same target customers
• Types of competition

  • Direct competition
  • Indirect competition
  • Large retailers
• Competitive analysis


  Identifying and examining the characteristics of competing firms
• Steps in competitive analysis

  1. Identify competitors

  2. Summarize products and prices offered by competitors

  3. List each competitor's strengths and weaknesses

  4. Find out competitors' strategies and objectives

  5. Determine market opportunities

  6. Identify threats to your business
• Customer loyalty strategies


  • Listening and responding to customer feedback
  • Superior service and convenient hours
  • Easy return policies
  • Store-specific credit cards
  • Personal notes or cards
  • Frequent-buyer programs
• Marketing


  The activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society
• Marketing concept


  Using the needs of customers as the primary focus during planning, production, distribution, and promotion
• Marketing strategy


  A plan that identifies how marketing goals will be achieved
• Elements of a marketing strategy

  • Product introduction or innovation
  • Pricing
  • Distribution
  • Promotion
  • Sales or market share
  • Projected profitability
• Short-term goals


  Goals to achieve in the next year, such as number of customers, sales, profits
• Medium-term goals


  Goals to achieve in the next 2-5 years
• Long-term goals


  Goals for 5, 10, or 20 years in the future
• Marketing plan


  A document that defines the market, identifies customers and competitors, outlines a strategy for attracting and keeping customers, and recognizes and anticipates change
• Elements of a marketing plan

  • Product or service
  • Target market
  • Competition
  • Marketing budget
  • Business location
  • Pricing strategy
  • Promoting strategy
  • Distribution strategy
• Consumer-driven market


  Over the past 50 years, consumers have become more educated and competition has increased to include the global market
• Product mix


  The different products and services that a business sells
• Pricing objectives

  • Maximize sales
  • Attract customers
  • Increase profits
  • Establish an image
  • Discourage competition
• Return on investment (ROI)


  A measure of the profitability of a product or service