Marketing - Overview
To many business owners, marketing means advertising
and selling. However, you'll be more successful if you
try to look at the "big picture" by analyzing
your products or services and your business as a whole
in relation to your competition, your customers, and to
societal and regional trends and conditions.
The key to successful marketing is answering the following
question for your business: How will you communicate a
meaningful difference about your business idea (product
or service) to the people who might be most interested
in buying it?
There are five questions that should be answered for
every business:
- What's unique about your business idea?
- Who is your target buyer? Who buys your product or
service now, and who do you really want to sell to?
- Who are your competitors? Can you effectively compete
in your chosen market?
- What positioning message do you want to communicate
to your target buyers? How can you position your business
or product to let people know they are special?
- What's your distribution strategy? Often your distribution
method will provide an additional marketing channel,
or give you the opportunity to promote more products
as you provide the first one.
Source: Small Business Resource Center
