What is marketing - market your business better

Marketing can seem a luxury that no business can afford

Marketing can seem fluffy and just for high powered folks enjoying expensive lunches in posh hotels

But real marketing should be at the heart of every business.

Here, we have tried to show you what marketing really is and how you can use it to improve your business and profits.

So what is marketing?

Marketing in its broadest form is "identifying and satisfying customer needs"

Notice no mention of market, communications or expensive lunches!

Marketing is all about customers. Customers buy things. Customers generate profits. It's people like you and me that you need to focus your efforts on.

The only reason someone buys something is to satisfy a need. And you need to focus on that need even before you try to sell.

Identifying customer need

So, what is this customer need then?

Take a "ready meal" that's sold in the supermarket.

Putting aside any cynical thoughts, the ready meal is meant to serve a purpose of providing a complete meal to satisfy hunger, provide relevant vitamins etc in minutes. It saves you time in having to prepare anything and to have to buy all the individual ingredients. It's all done for you.

The need is "I need food now and I don't have the time (or don't want to) prepare and cook my supper.

Can you break this down for the customers you are trying to target?

Breaking down customers into groups

The customer need grouping above is a huge value and comes in all forms.

To efficiently attempt to target this group you would first break it down into smaller chunks.

There are different demographics of the people who essentially have the same need (saving time).

This way you can focus your products and communication efforts incredibly efficiently (rather than trying to tell everyone).

In this group you would have (possibly)

• At home mums - too busy looking after the kids
• Full time workers who have a heavy commute and get home late
• People going out in the evening need something quick (eg: meeting friends, going to the gym etc)

There are probably many more but you get the idea. Not every company will be targeting the same segments.

And, but doing the above analysis you'll find groups of customers you'd never thought about.

Think of why you have a take-away -- you are far too busy to prepare anything or come home late from work and are tired.

That's the basic premise.

But do you see how marketing should be at the heart of any business, every business plan and every decision a company makes?

When we put business plans together it is essentially a marketing plan. Customers must feature heavily in your decisions.

Next time we'll discuss how to satisfy this need then we'll move onto communications.

If you have any comments on this discuss them in our business forum

All the best for your business success,

Peter Hale
Teneric Business Plans Ltd

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