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