Why Research?

There is a lot of information on Marketing Principles available throughout every Marketing book on the planet – but we are going to take it one step further and give you suggestions on how to implement some of these principles into a small business and give you exercises to do to make you think strategically, then we have thought about the process behind implementing the activity into a business and have pre populated our marketing planner with tasks you can choose to do, or just delete as you need to.

One of the fundamentals of marketing any type of business big or small is to know who you are, what you do well and who you sell to, as well as who you are up against. Every marketing person or business coach you come across will start talking to you about your USP and who your target market is, the reason for this is because you cannot start to plan your marketing campaign properly until you have this information.

Target Market Research and Competitors Research is crucial to the success of your business, you MUST know where your sales come from (not where you would like them to come from – where they actually come from).

Knowing who your competitors are and what they are offering is also key to ensuring you are offering your products and services at what is deemed as market value and your business is then seen as an option by the customer. It’s wise to do some research on each of the 4 major competitors so you can ensure you are both competitive on value and service.

Who are you and what do you do – this is otherwise known as your USP – this stands for “Unique Selling Proposition”

What does that mean? – Well it means what makes you stand out (unique), what makes you different from your competitors and why would people buy from you over your competitors? Essentially it defines the message you are sending to your target market – it is what you will be remembered for. Create the mental association you want your clients to have of you.