Business Ideas, How To Apply Marketing Effectively

One of the key elements for a company to achieve its sales goals is the design and implementation of its marketing strategy .

An effective marketing strategy allows companies or business ideas to stay in the market environment and potential businesses, and carrying out a market study is a fundamental element that will allow access to the appropriate commercial strategies.

But what is a marketing strategy and how can it be designed according to the needs of the company?

A marketing strategy can be defined as a series of actions that the company must carry out to achieve the business objectives.

The market study

One of the first steps to follow in order to design and implement a business strategy is to carry out a market study .

The market study is made by collecting and analyzing data from various sources of supply and demand to have a better understanding of the market in which we want to position our product or service.

The marketing or commercial areas are responsible for carrying out this analysis to determine basic elements that make up the market such as: product, price, potential customers and competition.

The information sources of the study are classified as: internal sources, which relate the information of the company or business idea, and external sources, which come from organizations outside the company. The sources are valued according to their degrees of reliability, origin, obsolescence and validity.

The elements of the market

In order to efficiently and effectively apply the information obtained through market research, it is important to know the elements that make up a market .

From an economic point of view, the market contains products and services, supply, demand and prices.

In marketing terms, the market is made up of: products, potential customers, competition and prices.

When participating in a market , each company will have a quota, that is, the percentage or proportion of participation of the company in the total market . This figure can be obtained by dividing the market size of the company by the market size of the sector and multiplying it by 100.

The target market , also known as the target market, is made up of potential buyers and companies must implement strategies that allow them to attract them as customers and consumers of their products or services.

The target market can be defined through a segmentation based on the following aspects:

• Geographical
• Demographic
• Staff
• Family
• Psychological
• behavioral

These elements make it possible to define a concept known as a "buyer persona", which is a fictitious person that is constructed from ethnographic characteristics such as age, sex, customs and beliefs, as well as a psychological profile with certain qualities and behaviors that constitute the type of buyer. consumer that a company wants to reach through its product or service.

In order to properly segment the market , a company can use three types of strategies: differentiated, undifferentiated and concentrated.

As previously mentioned, one of the basic elements of the market is the product that, in turn, seeks to satisfy a desire or need of consumers. There are three product levels: basic, formal and extended.

Another element of the market is the price , which is the value assigned to a product or service that is offered in the market.

The price can be set by considering costs, buyers, and competition.

The behavior of potential customers is essential to be able to propose and implement strategies that respond to commercial stimuli.

On the other hand, knowing the competitors in depth allows establishing the strong and weak points to make decisions regarding the product and devise strategies that allow the company to be strengthened.

The product

The product is one of the main elements of the company and fundamental to be able to design its commercial strategy. It is defined as the goods and services offered by a company to satisfy the wants or needs of a market segment.

A product has tangible characteristics - such as its shape, size, color - and intangible characteristics - such as the brand, image, service - that the buyer takes into account to analyze whether it can satisfy certain needs.

In this sense, some marketing experts say that a product cannot be said to exist until it fails to satisfy a need or desire.

Products can be divided into three levels:

• Basic product: it is the first level of the product and reflects the need that it seeks to satisfy.
• Formal product: it is when the product becomes something tangible for the consumer.
• Extended product: this is when other features are added to the formal product, especially associated with its purchase.

The products in turn can be divided between goods and services and between consumer products, which are aimed at consumers in general, and industrial products, which are purchased and used for a production process.

All products have a life cycle and the stages are as follows:

• Introduction
• Increase
• Maturity
• Slope

The price

Price is another fundamental element and is defined as the value assigned to a product or service.

A company can set its prices based on the production or operation costs that it will incur; based on the perception that potential buyers have about the value of the product, and based on the prices that the competition manages for similar products.

Some marketing experts explain that the price of a product not only considers the concepts mentioned above, since they assure that some consumers are willing to pay a higher price for the same product based on a subjective value such as the sense of belonging, status or even nostalgia.

The competition

When a set of companies offers similar or identical products that seek to satisfy the same wants or needs of consumers, it is said that there is competition .

Competition usually results in a greater supply of products, and under certain conditions, lower prices for potential consumers.

In order to know the possibility of success of a product, the company that markets it must take into account the competitors based on elements such as the characteristics of the product they offer, the prices they manage and their proportion of market share. or, in other words, the level of preference that your product has among consumers.

In order for each company's product to have a place in the market, it must seek to have a competitive advantage.

This can be achieved by offering a product with characteristics that are very different from those of the competition, or by offering a product or service similar to that of the competition, but with a clear strategy to attract more customers.

Marketing

Marketing can be described as a set of techniques that seek to understand the company's environment and identify the opportunities it can offer in the market .

Within these techniques is strategic marketing , which has as one of its main objectives to be able to plan the future of a company.

In order to achieve this, it studies the current and future needs of customers, looks for new market niches and potential markets, designs an action plan and a commercial offer that can satisfy the needs detected in this analysis.

In this sense, strategic marketing is essential for the company to be able to position itself in a relevant place in the mind of the consumer, and not only survive the adversities and changes that occur in the market.

As part of strategic marketing , the company must develop a marketing plan , which has the following objectives:

• Define the goal you want to achieve.
• Diagnose the current situation of the company.
• Point out the stages that the company must meet to achieve the goal.
• Identify the economic resources, personnel and time that are available to cover each stage.

One of the most used tools in marketing is the marketing mix , which is the combination of: product, price, positioning and promotion that has the objective of achieving the goals set in the marketing plan .

Given the evolution of the different technologies in the field of communication, companies have been forced to seek new ways of interacting with their customers. Among the most relevant trends are:

• Marketing 3.0
• viral marketing
• 360° Marketing
• QR codes
• blended marketing
• Below the line (BTL)
• green -marketing
• experiential marketing
• neuromarketing

The promotion

Consumers choose to purchase a product not only because of its characteristics or price, but also because of the promotions they can find.

The success of a promotion will depend on the following four elements:

• The identification of the target audience.
• Choosing the right message based on the response you want to get.
• The choice of the means of communication through which the message will be transmitted.
• The choice of a feedback method by customers.

The communication or promotion channels are those that the company uses to publicize its products and can be:

• Advertising: has the purpose of influencing consumer behavior to get them to purchase the product.
• Public relations: has the objective of building a positive image of the company and the product that is being offered.
• Sales promotion: seeks to encourage the purchase of the product through some extra advantages.
• Direct or personal sales: seeks to provide information about the product to the consumer to persuade him to buy the product. It can be carried out by sellers, sales agents, commercial agents or commission agents.

The distribution

In order for the product that a company is offering to reach its customers and consumers, it must consider which distribution channels it will use.

In order to determine which distribution channels are the most convenient for a product, the company must take into account the following elements:

• Product characteristic: volume, weight, fragility.
• Characteristics of the company: financial capacity, human resources, etc.

Once the two previous elements have been defined, the company must consider the following cases in order to decide which is the best distribution channel:

• The route from the producer to the consumer: when the producer directly delivers the product to the consumer.
• The route of the product to the stores that will commercialize the product: when the producer delivers the product so that a physical establishment commercializes it.
• The route from the producer to the wholesaler, from the wholesaler to the retailer and from the retailer to the public: when the route involves the involvement of a wholesaler, who delivers the product to the retailer and the retailer to the final consumer.

Franchises

One way to start a business without having to set up a company from scratch is the franchise system .

In this scheme, a contract is signed between two parties where the franchisee provides the service or product and the franchisee receives a license to operate the business in a specific geographical area agreed by both parties.

The entrance canon refers to the amount that the franchisee must pay to access the license, while the royalty is the percentage of sales or purchases achieved that the franchisee must pay the franchisee monthly, quarterly or annually for the services obtained.

One of the best-known franchise models is that of McDonald's, which used this system to be able to spread throughout the world. It should be noted that not all large fast food chains work under this scheme, since some continue to concentrate the administration and operation of their branches from a central headquarters.