Marketing Strategy Development · Type of Buyer Design/fashion house Department store Independent...

Marketing Strategy Development

Ensuring a unique and customer focussed approach

Overview

How do you define success? What business are you in? What are the features & benefits? Which customers do you care about? Devising appropriate marketing

communications Setting sales & marketing objectives

Activity 1 - Three questions about you & your business

What is your motivation for starting a business?

What skills & resources do you need?

How do you define success?

Other folks answers…Focussed, struggle, expert, triumph, admired, hot, renowned, politics, hothouse, achievement, network, lounge, inventive, productive, family, intuitive, global, courage, playground, belly, fortune, retaliation, slow, mother/father, machine, joker, loose, rational, controlled, dictator, organism, sought, fugitive, dedicated, amateur, mountain, expensive, flawed, mechanical, innocent, farmhouse, approachable, blunder, malicious, swarm, surprise, local, conscious, pack, ocean, orchestra, comic, chaotic, insult, definite, chaos, fate, rockband, intellectual, hero, student home, tight, unconscious, cheap, fast, accident, sweatshop, ordered, distracted, victim, scholar, emergency room, frail, static, ambiguous, cool, dedication, one man show, tribe, pain, creative, responsible, magic, brain, cunning, order, power, rebellion, professional, corporation, selfish, calm, flexible, freedom, money, nest

Activity 2 - What business are you in? Describe the products/services Why would someone need what you

offer? New market or existing? Summarise the goal of the business – in

terms of meeting customers needs THINK BIG

Activity 3 - Features & Benefits

List all the features of your product/service

Highlight the unique ones Translate features into benefits to

customers When customers buy make-up they buy hope When customers buy pen & paper they buy

communication

Feature – holein biscuit showsjam centre

Benefit – temptsthe unwary &

reminds them why they prefer to

chocolate bourbons

Identifying customer segments

List all the different types of customers you can think of

Cluster these into ‘segments’ Which ‘customer segments’ are the most:

Sustainable – regular buyers, pay a price which enables a profit to you

Accessible – you can afford the cost of marketing to them

Measurable – you know when you’ve reached them and what they think of you

Defining your customers & marketsB2B Trade Buyers Trade Press Awards & Prizes Trade Event Organisers Funders & Gov’t

programmes Agents &

Intermediaries Gallerists Talent Spotters

B2C Customers Private Clients &

commissions Consumer Press Curators Programme managers Audiences & Viewers

Defining the Details – B2B Trade Buyers

Type of Buyer Design/fashion house Department store Independent retail Agent/intermediary Multiple retailer Specialist outlet International buyer

Independent Retailers in the UK offering a mix of well known brands and new designers with a focus on X Subdivide each broad categoryinto homogeneous groups and target each group separately

Write a wishlist for what youwant from each group

Defining the Details – B2B event Meet some trade buyers Take a stand at Trade

Fair X In the course of the

show make contact with X buyers, Y journalists and win B prize

Follow up from the show with personalised letters to all people met and succeed in arranging 10 meetings

Aim to make sales to C new customers over a 12 month period as a result of this trade event

Defining the Details – B2C Customers

Income Age Geographic distribution Depth of interest One off vs. long term

customer

Customers with a history of interest in X, who buy regularly through preferred outlets and also attend invitation only functions

Use this to drive your analytics, SEO goals etc not the other way around!

Getting to know customersB2C Age, sex, income,

geographic area, buying attitudes, buying habits

Geographic segmentation

Demographic segmentation

Family life cycle Psychographic

segmentation

B2B Job title Trade press they read Trade events they attend (How) does the company

work with partners? Do they buy in

solutions/ideas/ products? What do they outsource? Can they buy or bring

volume of transactions?

Which customers to focus on?

Do Look at the world from customers perspectives List the benefits to the customer List the unique benefits Cherish the features that are important to you

Review Your sort of customer Cost of new customers Not your sort of customer Patterns of success & rejection

Identifying customer segments

List all the different types of customers you can think of

Cluster these into ‘segments’ Which ‘customer segments’ are the most:

Sustainable – regular buyers, pay a price which enables a profit to you

Accessible – you can afford the cost of marketing to them

Measurable – you know when you’ve reached them and what they think of you

Adoption Curve

What would sales enable?

Organic growth Financial sustainability Proof of concept to enable raising

further finance Proof that customers want the benefits

you offer

Your Goals

Clearly defined

Measurable

Do-able in a few months

Relevant to you and your customers

That you have the time, money & resources to achieve

SMART

Next 12 months, 3 years Next 3 years

an outline e.g. attend 3 international trade fairs Next 12 months - prioritising

detailed e.g. take stand at 100% Design using your network of contacts to make the next steps preparing for activities later in the year

Why customers matter

No customer = no market

Markets or Illusions?

Puff of smoke – ghosts & other apparitions

Market fails to materialise – technical, political, financial reasons

Escape artists – now you see me, now you don’t

Man can’t sell to innovators alone

What your mother never told you about markets…

Power holders – customers or suppliers?

Profitability – what the standard margins are?

Technology – who owns it, how good it is, when the IP expires, what the IP covers?

Customers – knowledgeable or naïve?, demanding or easily pleased, switching costs & churn rates

The Devil is in the ServiceIntangibility

no substantial material or physical aspects

InseparabilityCan’t be separated from the service provider

Heterogeneityvariability in quality of delivery

Perishabilitycan’t be stored

Ownershipno transfer of property

Product Lifecycles

Evaluating Results

How do you know your marketing is working?

How could you build evaluation mechanisms into market research marketing communications sales processes …. any customer interaction

Final checks

Your marketing map – what have you learnt

Highlight the areas of further work Action lists Final questions

A Reading List: The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell

The marketing plan (a pictorial guide for managers), Malcolm McDonald & Peter Morris

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn

Sold (how to make it easy for people to buy from you), Martin & Colleran

Do your own PR, Milton

Breaking Through, Vandermerwe

Co-opetition, Nalebuff & Brandenburger

Activity 1 - Three questions about you & your business

What is your motivation for starting a business?

What skills & resources do you need?

How do you define success?

Other folks answers…Focussed, struggle, expert, triumph, admired, hot, renowned, politics, hothouse, achievement, network, lounge, inventive, productive, family, intuitive, global, courage, playground, belly, fortune, retaliation, slow, mother/father, machine, joker, loose, rational, controlled, dictator, organism, sought, fugitive, dedicated, amateur, mountain, expensive, flawed, mechanical, innocent, farmhouse, approachable, blunder, malicious, swarm, surprise, local, conscious, pack, ocean, orchestra, comic, chaotic, insult, definite, chaos, fate, rockband, intellectual, hero, student home, tight, unconscious, cheap, fast, accident, sweatshop, ordered, distracted, victim, scholar, emergency room, frail, static, ambiguous, cool, dedication, one man show, tribe, pain, creative, responsible, magic, brain, cunning, order, power, rebellion, professional, corporation, selfish, calm, flexible, freedom, money, nest

More, you want more?

Sarah Thelwallsarah@sarahthelwall.co.uk

… on this trip I’m around until the 28th