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
