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Tag: marketing process

  • Processes – One of the Seven Ps of Marketing

    Processes in Marketing

    Not to be confused with the over-arching Marketing Process, here we are talking about one of the Seven Ps of the Marketing Mix for service businesses.

    We’re all familiar with the famous Four Ps, namely product, place, pricing and promotion. But this list can be expanded out to the Seven Ps for services marketing. Services marketing is relevant to all people-facing businesses, like hairdressers, professional services, restaurants and bars, etc.

    In this context, processes in marketing refers to how your business delivers its service at the customer interface : through each step of the customer experience.

    Imagine, for example, entering a restaurant and being met by lovely staff who take your order competently and without undue delay, striking the right balance between friendly helpfulness and efficiency. Your food is served in a timely manner and the evening goes off smoothly, with no glitches. This would be an example of excellent processes in marketing.

    Now imagine, on the other hand, a restaurant where dishes you didn’t order are served, the wine isn’t delivered without you having to remind the waiting staff, the bill is incorrect and so on. This might be how processes in marketing can go terribly wrong.

    Processes
    Processes move the customer through their experience

    In a very large customer interfacing business, such as a theme park, issues might include :

    * How to manage the queuing system

    * Alternative ticketing options

    * Location of restaurant and toilet facilities around the park

    * Pathways and signage – how the customer actually gets around the park

    Here’s a real-life example. A person recently booked a room in a hotel for a wheelchair-bound relative. The hotel was specifically asked if they had wheelchair accessible bedrooms. The receptionist was delighted to confirm that they did and the booking was taken. On arrival, it was discovered that neither the bar nor the hotel restaurant were accessible, both having several steps to be negotiated to gain access. This is a classic case of poor processes in marketing. Clearly, the receptionist should have known to point out these obvious hurdles during the booking process (telephone interaction).

    We all know the adage that if you have a great experience you’ll tell three people, whereas if you have a bad one, you’ll tell twenty!

    Make sure your processes are sound – that your customer experience is as it should be and that your business delivers its service in a correct, timely and uniform manner. But watch out : this is not to say that you shouldn’t deliver your service with personality. Quite the contrary. If you are confident about your processes, this in fact liberates you and your team to be personal and attentive in your delivery. And that’s wonderful for branding and gaining positive testimonials.

    Processes in Marketing

    Processes are about knowing what to do and how to do it, especially in services marketing. Do you work your customers through their experience of your business in an efficient, logical and friendly manner? Heck, is the coffee machine where I would expect it to be?

    Read about Physical Evidence, another of the expanded Seven Ps of Marketing.

  • Target Marketing – Visualise that Persona

    Your Target Marketing Personae

    In Target Marketing, for a business-to-consumer (B2C) enterprise, you should try to paint a picture of a persona that represents the actual real-life market you are hoping to develop.

    Taking into account factors like family status, number of children, age bracket, income level, motivations, behaviours, etc., you should try to build a picture of that special person for whom you hope to solve a problem. Of course, your business might cater for more than one target market, in which case you build two or more distinct personae. The point here is that, if you want to communicate with the right type of person for your business, you need to be able to picture that person in your mind’s eye. In this way, you will more carefully consider your marketing content and the media across which you send out your content.

    Target marketing
    Pursue representative target market personae

    This is not to say that you will refuse a sale of your product or service to somebody who does not precisely fit your established persona. Of course not. It simply means that you will direct your energy and resources solely at clearly defined target markets.

    So your target market persona might be a 50 year-old single lady living in Dublin, who plays tennis and likes to lunch out with her lady friends. Or yours might be a young couple, with two children under the age of 6, who own a Volvo saloon and like to go cycling. Yours might have enjoyed the now defunct Mooney Show on RTE Radio 1, or might always have been more of a Moncrieff on Newstalk listener.

    Target Marketing – Its Place

    Don’t forget that target marketing comes third of the four elements that make up the Marketing Process. It is preceded by Situation Analysis, where you line up what you’ve got and what not, what you’re great at and what not, etc. A SWOT Analysis should form part of that step. Then comes Marketing Research, where you find out all you need to know about the market as a whole, competitors, etc. Only then does Target Marketing take centre stage, as you look at all your cards and realise which market segment(s) your offering will suit best. After all, marketing is about offering solutions to your market. Finally, the Marketing Mix is where you settle on your product, its pricing, distribution and promotion.

  • Marketing Research – Step Two of the Marketing Process

    The Vital Role of Marketing Research

    So you’ve carried out your Situation Analysis as the first step in the Marketing Process. Now it’s time for some Marketing Research.

    Marketing Research is about finding out what you feel you don’t know enough about. That might be competitive offers, potential distribution channels, consumer behaviour, and so on. But it’s also about challenging and validating what you feel you do know. Or disputing.

    Marketing research is about joining the dots. The dots between what you know and what you don’t. The dots between your customers’ wants and your planned project. Here are some ways of achieving this.

    Marketing research

    1. Focus groups.

    Invite a group of people that might make up your one or more target markets to come and discuss their wants and needs. The idea here is to tease out what makes them happy and not-so-happy about providers in the market, whether that includes your business or not. The focus group is not about discussing your particular product or service. Rather, it is to talk about the marketplace as a whole and maybe you might spot some opportunities as a result of the session. Asking about your specific product or service will only result in skewed responses, as people will naturally give you the answers they feel you’re looking for.

    2. Questionnaires.

    If you have access to people’s email addresses, use a service like Surveymonkey to carry out marketing research through a number of questions. Vary the questions between yes/no, multiple choice and sliding scale types. Always leave an open “add your comments” box at the end.

    3. Competitors’ online presence.

    In today’s market, there is a ton of information readily available on your competitors, their offering and, indeed, their pricing. Dedicate some time to browsing their websites and social media platforms. Subscribe to their e-newsletters and go browse reviews of their businesses on third-party sites, like Tripadvisor. As a rule of thumb, I suggest you ignore reviews from people who’ve only ever posted one.

    4. Government Agencies.

    Depending on what sector you’re in, there’s loads of (often free) research available from the various industry-supporting Irish government agencies, such as Enterprise Ireland, Fáilte Ireland or Bord Bia. Go browse what they’ve got on sector- or market-focussed research, covering size of market, trends, players, etc. Know also that these agencies organise overseas trade visits, where you can learn a lot about what export markets require from your business and where opportunities may lie.

    5. Get out on the street.

    If your market is one that’s predominantly offline, then get off your seat and take a walk down the streets of your town or city. Go in to stores that are relevant and take a good look at what’s on display. Come back several times. What moves and what does not? Where are the pricing levels? What’s the branding saying to you? Marketing research does not need to be fancy stuff.

    6. Anonymous shopping.

    Whether on- or offline, work through a purchase with competitors. Learn how their process works and get a fell for the ‘vibe’ of shopping with other businesses. Learn where you could improve upon the experience.

    7. Feedback forms.

    Pro-actively request that customers complete feedback forms. Read and learn.

    Marketing Research – Avoid Presumptions

    There are lots of ways of gathering useful marketing research and many of them do not have to cost anything other than your time. Remember what a friend of mine once said : “Presumption is the mother of all f*** ups!”. Carry out research to make sure you aren’t guilty of making too many.

  • Situation Analysis : The ‘Now’ of Marketing

    Situation Analysis – Where Are You At?

    One of the bigger challenges facing any marketing trainer, like myself, is holding participants’ attention while discussing the role played by what we call “Situation Analysis”.

    While carrying out a Situation Analysis should be the first step (and then regularly repeated), it can be so much more appealing for training attendees to jump straight to the exciting part that is the Marketing Mix – discussing product, price, promotion, and so on.

    But it’s the Situation Analysis stage that should direct us along the path of the Marketing Process towards developing a marketing plan. This first step is where we learn about and evaluate political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental information that might impact upon our plans. Essentially, it’s a critical review of our current business situation. We need to be able to identify internal and external forces that may influence the performance of our business and what strategies we might pursue. We equally need to assess our current and future strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and strengths, aka carry out a SWOT Analysis.

    Situation Analysis
    What to consider during a Situation Analysis

    A Situation Analysis could unearth issues like legislative change coming down the tracks that might provide us with great opportunities or, perhaps, curtail revenue generation from some existing services. We can devote time to investigating recent trends and what might happen next. Perhaps we can spot possible future products and services that we could offer to the market that might just give us a head-start on competitors.

    Situation Analysis – What’s Involved

    Really, the Situation Analysis is all about looking at both the micro- and macro-environments that impact upon or potentially could impact upon our business. So, we might consider looking at issues under the following headings, while carrying out a Situation Analysis :

    Company – What we’ve got internally and what not (resources).

    Customers – Which type of customers we’ve got and which not. What other market segments exist?

    Collaboration – The value we attribute to our suppliers, partners, bankers, etc.

    Competitors – What they’re up to, good at, not so good at, etc.

    Context – The environment in which we are trying to do business – legal, technological, etc.

    All critical stuff.

  • Marketing Process – The Structure Behind Ideas

    The Marketing Process – Your Strategy

    Play word association with ‘marketing’ and many will respond with ‘advertising’. Others might come up with ‘promoting’, or even offer up ‘Facebook‘ nowadays. Rarely will somebody utter ‘marketing process’.

    And yet, as small business owners and marketeers, we should be thinking more about the Marketing Process as a whole rather than simply its exciting promotional element. So bear with me here.

    In marketing jargon, there are four elements to the Marketing Process – the strategic steps through which we should go when looking for direction, ideas and actions.

    First, there’s Situation Analysis. Here, we look at the marketplace as a whole and what resources we have, how our business, product or service stacks up and what trends are out there that we could be taking advantage of. One part of this step is the good old SWOT Analysis. What are our Strengths and Weaknesses? What Opportunities and Threats are out there?

    Second, there’s Marketing Research. Here, we carry out research into what competitors are offering, or what current and potential customers are looking for. Think of it as validation of what we’ve discovered during Situation Analysis, or as a means to answering the questions that will inevitably have popped up.

    Third, it’s Target Marketing. Armed with the kind of good information that the first two steps will have furnished us with, we should now have a sound picture of the marketplace. It’s now time to pick and choose between the various market segments and home in on the one or more we feel we can best serve.

    Fourth (and only having completed the other steps), it’s time to get to the juicy bit – the Marketing Mix.

    Now, having worked methodically through those first three (less appealing) steps, we can make better decisions about product offers, pricing levels, distribution channels and promotional mix. Why? Because we’ve learned so much already.

    I like to call these four steps “Now, Check, Aim, Fire”. Note how, along with the fourth, the first three don’t stop. They are not a simple once-off exercise; they are ongoing.

    Marketing Process
    The Marketing Process – Now, Check, Aim, Fire

    ‘Now’ signifies looking around and seeing where you’re at. ‘Check’ is about researching and validating what you believe to be true. ‘Aim’ is for finding your preferred target markets. Finally, you ‘Fire’ your mix of product, price, place and promotion at that or those target markets you’ve identified.

    The Marketing Process

    Check back over the coming months for more detailed posts about each step.