Understanding the Market Process
Being a small business owner isn’t just about having a great idea for a product or service. A major part of the job is about bringing that idea to potential customers. That’s where marketing comes in. It's made up of every process involved in moving your product or service from your small business to your consumers. Marketing includes everything from discerning your customers’ needs, promoting your products or services, and moving them through the appropriate channels to reach those consumers. Essentially, in order to be a great marketer, you need to have a great understanding of your customers. There’s no point in having a great service if you can’t reach those who would be interested in them. Lack of marketing skills is one of the reasons why small business owners have to give up their passion project; they don’t know enough about their customers. In order to be a successful small business owner, you need to have your own marketing process.
What is the Market Process?
The marketing process refers to the series of steps that help with planning, analyzing, implementing, and adjusting your marketing strategy. Your marketing strategy is your game plan, and if you’ve already started your small business without one, you’ll want to take a few steps back to start your own. Without a marketing strategy, you’ll find yourself struggling to understand (or even increase) your sales. It’ll be hard to avoid unplanned or inconsistent marketing activities, which will create ineffective or disappointing outcomes.
Marketing strategies contain your business’s value proposition (the reason why customers need your product or service), your key brand messages, information about your target audience, an outline of your competitors, and your overall business goals. The market process describes how you’ll actually achieve these goals.
Market Process Steps:
There are four major steps to the market process. You don’t have to complete these steps in order; however, make sure that you’re accomplishing all of them in order to strengthen your market strategy. These steps involve a lot of market research, which goes hand-in-hand with finalizing your market strategy. In order to best understand these steps, instead of thinking about them as instructions, consider them as guidance as you navigate your way through your own research.
Understanding the Marketplace
You won’t be able to reach your customers without first understanding the marketplace, or where your consumers will be getting your products or services. Most companies nowadays provide an online shop, which is especially beneficial when trying to expand your target audience to people in different parts of the world. No matter what good or service you provide, creating an online marketplace is not only a great way of expanding your customer base, but it also lets you easily answer customer-questions, get feedback, and start establishing your online presence.
Developing a Customer-Driven Market Strategy
Your small business relies on your customers. If you don’t provide a product or service they like or need, they won’t buy it. If potential customers aren’t aware of the products you provide, they can’t buy them. Either way, poor brand awareness or execution causes your sales to decrease, which may lead to the end of your business venture. In order to prevent this, you need to think like your customers. What do they want to see? What do they need? What value does your product or service give them? As a small business owner, it’s your job to make your customers understand that you can provide what they need or want. The only way to provide what your customers want is by learning their needs and wants.
Delivering High Customer Value
Just because you give your products or services a certain price, that doesn’t mean your customers will understand that price. Have you ever heard complaints that something is too expensive? This is because of customer value. In technical terms, customer value is the ratio between the perceived benefits and costs incurred by the customer when buying a product or service. Essentially, it’s how your customer will understand your products. As long as your customers understand and believe in the high value of your products or services, they will understand the prices that you choose.
There are four types of value that customers gain from products or services. The first is functional value, which directly corresponds with the need or want for the product. If it can do what the customer needs or wants it to do, then the product has high functional value. The second is monetary value, or the actual price of the product compared to its perceived worth. You won’t make all of your customers happy with your prices (at least one person out there will complain), but as long as the majority of your target audience understands the prices you set, you are delivering high monetary value. The third is social value, which describes how much owning your product allows your customer to connect with others, such as having shared experiences. The last kind of value is psychological value, which is the emotional value that consumers get from buying a product or service.
Growing Profitable Customer Relations
Unfortunately, acquiring customers is one of the hardest (and most expensive) elements of marketing. When you clearly know who your potential customers are, the more effectively you can determine how to reach them, which allows you to maximize your marketing dollars. This step to the marketing process is all about easily reaching your customers and making it easy for them to make continued purchases, which generates positive experiences and relationships with your business. When customers think highly of a business, they are more likely to become repeat buyers and to recommend your product or service to others. Making sure that your customers are having an easy, enjoyable, and memorable experience with your business (essentially keeping your customers satisfied) is one of the most important aspects of marketing.
As you navigate your way through the vast world of marketing, remember that you shouldn’t be focusing on selling your product; you should focus on establishing and building a connection with your audience. Your sales will increase with time, as long as you have a great understanding of your customers. Their needs, wants, expectations, and beliefs are all topics you should dive into as you create or strengthen your own marketing strategy using the steps listed above. No matter what industry you’re in or what products you sell, understanding the marketing process is a key step in reaching your small business goals and aspirations.
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