Effective Marketing Strategies and Market Research
Marketing: Creating Value for Customers
Marketing is a set of processes for creating, communicating, exchanging, and delivering offerings that have value for customers.
Benefits of Marketing
- Adds value for the customer
- Supports company branding
- Identifies opportunities and trends
- Facilitates precise decision-making
- Helps monitor competitors
Market Research: Understanding Your Target Audience
Market research is when an organization performs research on an intended market for expansion or to launch new products.
Research Methods
Primary Research
- Questionnaires
- Hall tests
- Group interviews
- Focus groups
- Surveys
- Market experimentation
Secondary Research
- Internet
- Books
- Newspapers
- News sources
Importance of Market Research
- Information you collect allows you to better understand your customers and build promotion and marketing strategies that work.
- The ability to tailor your marketing approaches allows you to have increased customer satisfaction and appreciation as customers feel their input is being considered.
- A better understanding of your market and its customers presents new opportunities for your business, which means you can create a more profitable business from the outset due to this increased understanding and utilization of opportunities.
Marketing Mix: Key Business Considerations
The marketing mix is an aspect of business a marketing team must consider.
Product Mix
Elements of the product mix include:
- New product development
- Updates or changes to existing products
- Extensions to lengthen the product line
- Branding
Branding is the overall identity of a product and how the business establishes that identity.
Benefits of Branding
- Recognition: A well-designed and professional brand allows customers to appreciate your goals.
- Memorability: A catchy, well-created logo allows for easy remembrance.
- Loyalty: Built up as consumers associate your brand with a positive impression.
- Customer retention
- Premium pricing and image: When you provide a premium service, you can charge premium rates for your products.
- Reduced marketing expenses: Since your brand is well-known.
Promotional Mix
The promotional mix is an important component of marketing as it can boost brand recognition. It is comprised of various elements:
- Advertising
- Direct marketing
- Sales promotion
- Public relations (PR)
- Personal selling