In: Root » Business » Marketing
The starting point for any marketing campaign to be successful is for you to first understand your market. So, before you start designing all your ads and choosing your marketing methods for the year consider these 5 key tips to first make sure you understand your market: 1. Narrow your market niche. In a broad market there are too many subsets of characteristics, preferences and variables that blend together into a muddy market profile. The more narrow your niche the more you'll understand about your target audience. With a narrow market niche you will gain higher definition and greater clarity about specific trends in your market: the evolution of their likes, dislikes, attitudes, values, culture, language, personality and ways of thinking. 2. Survey your market. You can either utilize a market research firm or conduct your own company survey or do both. To gain a better understanding of your market you want to engage in consistent communication and feedback from members of your target market. For small businesses even doing a sampling of 100 customers and prospective customers is better than putting it off until you can conduct a larger scale survey. 3. Live in the market. If you wanted to better understand the people from a different culture the most effective way is to immerse yourself in their country. You would live, eat, sleep, breathe and work right alongside the natives. Similarly, you'll gain a much better understanding of your market if you spend time doing what your "natives" do. What do they read? Where do they spend their leisure time? Where do they work? Where do they dine? What do they read? What do they watch? Who are their heroes? Who do they emulate? What groups do they belong to? What do they believe? 4. Join the market. Change hats from entrepreneur to customer. Check out your top 3 competitors and experience what it's like to be one of their customers. Interact with other customers and find out what they like and dislike about the product and services they receive from your competitor. Ask the other customers for referrals of what other company they would strongly recommend and why. This will not only help you understand your market better it will also reveal discoveries on how you can better position your company's selling points. 5. Invite the whining. As an entrepreneur you normally want to surround yourself with positive people. However, as a customer-incognito, you want to surround yourself with the complainers. So, this will be one time where you want to go ahead and invite the whining! Listen to the stories that they vent about. Pay attention to even their most trivial complaints that were spoken as an aside. Buying decisions are more often an emotional choice than it is a logical one. Taking the time to invest in researching your market will be well worth the return on the money you will spend on all your ads and marketing materials, not to mention all of your online marketing expenses. Studies have shown that upwards of 75% of all new businesses fail in their first 5 years. Those businesses in the top 25 percentile can often trace the foundation of their success back to having done solid market research. Yoon Cannon is a systemic business growth coach, consultant and speaker based in Philadelphia, Pa. She specializes in helping entrepreneurs grow Million Dollar companies through best practices in marketing and productivity. To receive additional, powerful free tips and strategies request your complimentary monthly subscription to Biz Growth Tips Newsletter visit www.paramountbusinesscoach.com or call (215) 292-4947 EST.
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