Description of the market
Before you start any sales and marketing activities you should establish a
solid knowledge of the market. If you don't have a feeling of who your
customers are it becomes difficult to choose the right way to approach
them.
There are a lot of questions that could be asked in order to establish a
picture a your customer. How many customers can there potentially be? Do
the live in the neighbourhood or in the urban area, in the province, in the
country, in Asia or all over the world? Are they men, women, old people or
children? What do they do in the spare time? What is the limit they are
willing to pay for the product?
You shall know as much as possible about your potential customers. If you
know the name and address of the customers you have come very far in
your marked research.
In the market you also find competitors. You have to find out what you are
up against. On what level is the quality of the competitors product? What is
the price? How big is their turnover? How is their marketing and web site?
Their product development? Where are their weak points?
Iceberg
If you look at an iceberg 90 % of it will be under water. 10 % is visible to the
human eye. This you can compare with the description of the market and
the marketing material. You need to spend a lot of time researching the
market and thinking about the best way to approach the customers. After
weeks of researching you might end up making a five page web site and
300 business cards. 90 % was spend on research. 10 % on the
appearance.
Ways of research
Generally there are to types of customers:
• The consumer - private persons buying from you
• Corporate customers - other companies buying from your company
Whether approaching consumers or other companies, knowledge of the
customer is important. Often, it is easier to obtain information about
corporate customers than consumers. Corporate customers are easier to
define.
In order to structure your collecting information on potential customers you
can make a distinction between:
• Desk research
• Field research
20
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51