TOPIC 5 Search For a New Venture Building a Powerful Marketing Plan

 Principles of building a guerrilla marketing plan and benefits of preparing one  The role of market research in building a guerrilla marketing plan and outline the market research process  How a small business can build a competitive edge in the marketplace using guerrilla marketing strategies: customer focus, quality, convenience, innovation, service and speed

 Objectives of Guerrilla Marketing Plan: 1) To Pinpoint specific target markets the small company will serve. 2) To Determine customer needs and wants through market research. 3) To Analyze the firm’s competitive advantages and build a guerilla marketing strategy around them. 4) To Help create a marketing mix that meets customers needs and wants.

 Without a clear image of target market, a small company tries to reach almost everyone and ends up appealing to almost to none!  Use Rifle approach (customer-driven) instead of shotgan approach (sales driven)

 2 objectives: - To increase existing customers’ satisfaction - To attract new customers.  Market research answers questions such as: Who are my existing and potential customers? What are they looking for? What kind of people they are? Where do they live? How often they buy these products and services? What models, styles, colors or flavors do they prefer?

Determining customer needs and wants through market research  How to conduct Market research: -Define the objectives -Collect the data *Individualized (one-to-one) marketing *Data Mining -Analyze the data and interpret the results -Draw conclusions and act

 Primary -Customer surveys -Focus groups -Daily transactions -other ideas  Secondary -Business Directories -Direct-mail lists -Census data -Forecasts -Articles

 It is a process in which computer software that uses statistical analysis, database technology, and artificial intelligence finds hidden patterns, trends, and connections in data so that business owners can make better marketing decisions and predictions about customers’ behavior.

 For effective individual marketing campaigns to be successful, the business owners must collect 3 types of information: 1. Geographic: Where are my customers located? 2. Demographic: What are the characteristics of my customers (age, income, education levels, gender, marital status etc) 3. Psychographic: What drives my customers’ buying behavior? What values are most important to them?

 Plotting guerilla marketing strategy: how to build competitive edge?

 Involves developing & maintaining long-term relationships with customers so that the will keep coming back to make repeat purchase.  Small companies have an advantage over larger rivals at relationship marketing.

 Small companies can exploit their size to become more effective than their larger rivals at CRM– The process of developing, maintaining, and managing long-term relationships with customers, so they will keep coming back to make repeat purchases.  According to the concept, customers ‘lifetime value’ becomes the company’s greatest sustainable advantage.

 Entertailing: a marketing concept designed to draw customers into a store by creating a kaleidoscope of sights, sounds, smells, activities and sell- makes shopping more fun, educational and interactive.

 4 ways: - Products & services - Marketing & promotional campaigns - Store layouts they design - Business strategies they employ.

 Branding: communicating a company’s unique selling proposition to its target customers in a consistent and integrated manner.

 USP: a key customer benefit of a product or service that sets of apart from the competitors; it answers the critical question every customer asks: “What’s in it for me?”

 rule: 20 percent of a typical company’s customers account for about 80 percent of its sales.  Effective growth rate={new customer growth rate-(100%- customer retention rate)}  If a company increases its customer base by 20% each year, but retains 85% of existing customers. Then effective growth rate= 20%-(100%-85%)=5%  Attracting new customer actually costs the typical business seven to nine times as much as keeping existing one.  Customer Experience Management (CEM): The process of systematically creating the optimum experience for their customers every time they interact with the company.

 Total Quality Management (TQM): the philosophy of producing a high-quality product or service and achieving quality in every aspect of the business and its relationship with the customer; the focus is on continuous improvement in the quality delivered to customers.

 Friendly service> convenience, quality and speed

 “Four P’s”:  Product: Capitalize on growth stages (Introductory, Growth & acceptance, Maturity & competition, Market saturation, Product decline stage)

 “Four P’s”:  Place: Channels of distribution: Consumer Goods  Place: Channels of distribution: Industrial Goods

 “Four P’s”:  Price: The right price depends on 3 factors: (1) Company’s cost structure, (2) Assessment of what market will bear, (3) The desired image the company wants to create in customer’s minds. Nonprice competition (free trail offers, free delivery, lengthy warranties, moneyback guarantees) are more effective strategies.  Promotion: advertising (mass) & personal selling (one-to-one basis).