Every once in while you need to step back and look at the big picture to accelerate your business growth. All of the day-to-day demands of running a small business draw you away from that 20 thousand foot view of your business. That’s where real progress can be made in better defining your value proposition, adding clarity to your marketing message and standing out in the crowd.
Here are 5 simple ways to help gain traction in the market place.
Sometimes eliminating what something is not helps provide clarity to what in fact it is. Such is the case with marketing. So much has changed in the landscape of marketing that it is not uncommon for people in business to be totally confused as to what marketing is and if they are doing it at all, much less correctly. Many small business owners I have talked to and worked with are horrified that they are not.
So let’s start with a list of the 10 things marketing is not:
If you were going on vacation, you would think through the following:
You wouldn't go away without asking yourself these questions. You may not have every day planned out, but you wou...
Place has most certainly changed and extraordinarily so. Marketing strategy decisions regarding Type/Location of Stores must now include a company website with e-commerce capability. There was once the dominance of the brick and mortar store and perhaps a call center for catalog sales. Service providers, both B2C and B2B, were call-in businesses. Find the number on your Rolodex or phone book and call in your request or order. Now a growing number of businesses have a web presence as shown in the...
This Mastermind is for serious entrepreneurs, professionals and managers/owners of small businesses. This Mastermind will meet monthly and start with a brief meet and greet. We will then talk about a specific business issue and then share with each other our own exprerience or current issues relating to the topic.
Successful entrepreneurs are skilled at surrounding themselves with people vital to the success of their business. Come to the Meadow Creek Mastermind and surround yourself with a gro...
Other than the obvious change in cost structure in some web-based distribution models, pricing fundamentals too, have not changed. Price is set to maximize profitability in concert with corporate strategy regarding:
Corporate strategy regarding its selection of differentiation, cost leadership or focus plays a key role in pricing of course, but what has changed is the influence of changes in distribution on pricing flexibility. Compared to bric...
Product
Corporate strategy would typically define in some reasonably broad parameter product and place. Unless you’re in a web based business or a web substitute (more on that later) there has not been an appreciable change in product since Al Gore invented the internet. Yes, many products have become web enabled, but that’s a matter of product differentiation, not typically corporate strategy. There are also a plethora of products that would not exist if not for the web.
Pity poor Blockbu...
Fundamentals of Company Strategy The foundation of any marketing strategy has got to be a company strategy that defines the parameters of the business that you’re in. Among other things, it defines the scope of the product or service offering, target market, sales and distribution strategy. This is all based on a strategic analysis and strategic plan as depicted below in Michael Porter’s Wheel of Competitive Strategy.
Strategy has always shared a lot more sex appeal in corporate man...
The internet has not changed the fundamentals of marketing. The internet has not created a new “silver bullet” of marketing, but introduced many new considerations and an enormous number of new tools to be employed. All too often people are confusing internet savvy, website design and SEO skills with marketing and it’s not. These skills are important parts of online promotion techniques and campaigns and important elements of most marketers’ tool kits. Marketing, however, needs to be app...
Small businesses rank their Marketing and Innovation lowest in a recent survey of the components of their competitive health. This is not surprising given the confusion generated by the proliferation of new online marketing tools. So called and self-proclaimed “marketing gurus” confuse knowledge of a couple of internet tricks with marketing.
Small businesses are disappointed with their marketing effectiveness as a result of having lost sight of the bigger picture while chasing inapprop...
I am always amazed at the number of people that do not have a proper business plan. I am equally amazed at those who feel that their fill in the blank plan will make them successful beyond their wildest expectations. What amazes me even more are those entrepreneurs and small business owners with or without plans that do not have a strategy or strategic plan.
All the detailed planning in the world isn't worth a darn without strategy. A well thought out strategy is an analysis o...
The strategic plan is a vision and roadmap to future success only to the extent that it is:
The alignment of these fundamental requirements seldom happens. To a very real extent, that is what separates successful c...
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