Hello, I’m Khalil Potts, a 17 year old male from Washington DC. Unlike most professors in college I actually have a business, brand, and online store so this information is valid and you might want to read it. The path I chose to learn more about is marketing strategies because I feel like it can help my business the most.

Customers can be consumers, other businesses, or governments.Customers usually go through 5 stages which are: problem recognition, information search, alternative evaluation, purchase decision, and post-purchase behavior. In problem recognition, the customer has a pain point and opportunity; when customers search for more information to solve their problem you want them to find your business. You want your business to stand out from the competition; use a purchase description and an order form. If an unplaced order is made send a reminder email to the customer to seal the deal; make sure customers are thrilled with your product or service. If you want to gain customer loyalty no matter what your business is, you can consider sending appreciation letters.

Some questions to think about when trying to market to your customers are: Ask what is your customers' problem? How do customers find you? Do customers know how you stand out? How easy is it for customers to order? Are your customers happy? Knowing your customer is needed for your business to be successful no matter what type of business it is. Ask yourself who is your target market customer? What are their needs? And how would you describe them? You need to be able to describe an actual person who is buying your products; knowing your customer makes you a more proactive business owner.

This means you’re creating examples of your target market; which helps to make you very specific in how you plan your sales, marketing, and how you work with customers. When thinking about customer profiles ask yourself, how can we best reach and serve these customers? The more information you have on your customers the better your marketing efforts will be; a customer persona is a semi-fictional description of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers. Persona’s are used to customize your customers experience with you, making them more likely to buy from your business. A marketing strategy that can be used is developing a social media mini-campaign for products or services targeted to taylor (they are offering customized financial help, advice, or support specifically designed to meet Taylor’s unique business needs).

You should get inside the minds of your customers by learning the ins and outs of their lifestyles and attitudes. When talking about demographics and psychographics; you should be trying to know your customers better than your mom. Ask yourself who are your customers? What are their lives like? What do they like to buy? Getting to know your customers is essential to understanding your target market; secondary research can give you the big picture through government statistics and industry surveys of how people live.

You can also do your own primary research using surveys, interviews, and test marketing; to communicate with your target customers first hand on how your business can better serve them. Fun fact it is estimated women control $29 trillion in customer spending globally making them the world's largest, fastest, growing market. When thinking about demographics consider gender, relationship status, and location; essentially demographics tell you stats about your customers such as their age, family characteristics, income, and location. An example of this can be shown by looking at Americans' habits between 2012 and 2016, the average commute to work in the United States was 26.1 minutes. In 2012, African American women were the only demographic group to own more businesses than men in their group.

In total 58.9% of black businesses were run by black women; American Indian and Alaska Native women owned 48%. Pacific Islander women had a percentage of 45.6%; Hispanic women had a percentage of 39.1%; and white women had a percentage of 33.2%. When thinking of psychographics, consider what are your customers thoughts and politics?

Are they in tune to social media? What movies or books do they like?

These bits of information are psychographics and are very important to researchers; you’ll need to talk to your target users to get inside their mind and understand their attitude. Which helps to relate to the customer using your product or service; four in 10 Americans prefer watching the news on television over reading it or listening to it. In order to grow your business; I’m going to bring them back, you’ll need to sell to businesses, consumers, and governments.

In all of these categories market segmentation is a great tool for small business owners. This method will allow you to focus your energy researching your customers that fall into a select number of specific categories, such as geographic, demographic, or psychographic.

In order to grow you can sell new products to your same customers; or you can sell your same products to new customers in a different market. The more you know about the customers and market segments, the easier it will be to find a strategy that will reach them. When thinking about market information ask yourself does your business plan to navigate market challenges? How can you get a better understanding of your market? Specifically, how do you know if your market is growing or shrinking?

Having a better understanding of your market makes your company more reactive to demands in the marketplace. When considering competitive intelligence you need to identify ethical best practices for gathering data on your competitors. According to George Mathew Adams, “There is a tendency among the same businesses to criticize and belittle their competitors.” Don’t do this, praise your competitors, learn from your competitors. There are times where you can cooperate with them to yours and their advantage.

If you speak well of them they’ll speak well of you. You can’t destroy good ideas; take advantage of them.” Competition can make you nervous especially if you don’t know that much about them; a systematic approach to knowing and understanding your competition can be a pathway to potential growth opportunities. Competitive intelligence begins with finding out who your competitors are. Start by understanding your connection at the industry level and their drill down to individual companies that are serving the market and customers you want. Competitive intelligence is about learning what the competition isn’t offering that you can; identifying gaps in the market based on what competition is doing or overlooking tapping into those opportunities.

Competitive intelligence is about finding the motivation to continually improve your products and or services. To elevate your business to be the best it can be; competitive intelligence is not about finding ways to sabotage your competitors. Competitive intelligence has the potential to not only benefit your business, but also assist the market by bringing in new innovations and providing first-class products and services to customers. There is certain information you should gather about your competitor; you’ll want to know the market areas they cover. What products or services do they offer?

Do they offer promotions or other value adding attributes? Does the competition get any benefits from geographical location or has a strong online presence? What makes customers choose their products? Is it expensive or time-consuming for a customer to switch from a competitor to your business? To gather competitive intelligence, explore online and social media presence; attend conferences, chat with your customers, pick up the phone, watch ads, engage with shared suppliers, and become a customer.

Now that you’ve gathered the information you’ll need to review it; asking does your competition ignore any market areas or customer bases? Is there a way we could pursue larger deals together? What do customers say they want? Are we providing what customers say they want? Where do we stand with respect to our competitors on these demands?

Is there an area where we can innovate or lead the market? What are our competitive advantages? Do our competitive advantages get seen and experienced by the outside world? How can we improve upon this with respect to our competitors? Analyze your customers experiences, from searching for a product or service that solves your needs to their post-purchase experiences.

Your customers have choices meaning they can choose someone other than you; you should ask yourself, why choose you? What do your customers want? How do your customers perceive you? What’s it like to purchase your product or service, from the customers perspective? Knowing how your customers think of your business informs more you target specific areas of your business where there is room for improvement.

According to business development manager at Vennli, Mairy Claire Manderville, “Customers value factors, depending on the products or service: ease of use, consistency, durability, etc. The list of attributes is endless, and customers attach significance to different factors based on personal taste and preference.” Before purchase your customer touch points are; advertising, marketing, reviews, social media, and word of mouth. During purchase your touch points are; catalog, phone system, sales staff, satire, and website; after purchase your techniques are. Billing, marketing emails, service, support, and “Thank You” cards; method 1 is to map out the customer experience in a line, with different shapes including detail about each step.

Method 2 is to map the cycles of your customer in a circular format with detail inside each circle. There are several different pricing strategies a business can use; bundling is selling or packaging goods or services at lower price than if they were each bought separately. Premium is pricing a product at the high end of a price range; freemium is offering products for free or at an extremely low price while encouraging customers to buy premium features. Penetration is maximizing the quantity sold and increasing market share by offering low prices. Skimming is selling a product at the highest possible price, often to early adopters; psychological strategies are based on the theory that certain prices and how you display them increase customers’ willingness to purchase products.

Economy is pricing products at the lowest end of a price range to attract most price-conscious consumers. Quantity discount is offered to customers who buy in bulk; cumulative quantity discount is offered to customers who buy large quantities over a period of time but don’t place a large stand-alone order. Seasonal discount is offered during certain times or seasons; cash discount is offered to customers who pay their bill before a specified date or customers who pay with cash instead of credit. Finally, a trade discount is a discount offered to the members of the distribution channel. Research shows that women usually make prices lower than men in business.

As a small business owner, you may have faced a pricing dilemma; if your pricing is too high, you risk customers being unwilling to buy your product. If your price is too low, you might not be able to cover your operating expenses; whether it’s too high or too low you’re not maximizing your profits. In order to find the right price you’ll need to experiment with different pricing strategies based on your target markets. No matter the size every company needs a marketing strategy plan; a snapshot is a picture of how your service provides better value than the rest. Target audience is a profile of your customers using demographics and other lifestyle characteristics.

Marketing goals are usually related to your desired sales growth; strategies and tactics outline how you’ll reach your customers to accomplish your goals. The last thing you’ll need is budget and measurements; as you develop a market plan you’ll need to find the right tactics to reach your goals. When developing your marketing strategies, think about your desired objective. Your outcome will be different depending on what shape your business is in; it could also depend on increasing revenue, units sold, market share, return on investments, new accounts, and awareness. Now that I’ve explained this process, I think this pathway can help my online store by giving me information. (If you would like to read more about me and my business follow these links > Link1 Link 2

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