Using the information discussed in prior blogs written in May starting from Your Competitive Advantage Edge! through Tracking Your Strategy-The Writing on the Wall will provide valuable information that will allow you to have a complete understanding of a competitive analysis that will give solid insight into ways to increase targeted market share.
When compiling data for a market size, it should consist of the number of potential customers in the target market who meet your demographic study discussed earlier. This information, updated annually rather than monthly, is a comprehensive demographic study of your potential probable customer.
To gather the data for market growth, consider the average frequency of purchases for your type of product or service. Unless you have great market research that is readily available, estimate this information based on knowledge of the markets and common sense. In the exhibit industry, I would want to know how often my customer purchases an exhibit item and what they purchase in order to determine this demographic information.
The next step is gathering market potential based on the first three steps in looking at your marketing exposure. Does your marketing reach someone in the target market? If so, the potential buying customer is exposed to your marketing message.
“Now that key marketing indicators have been created, it is time to use metrics and evaluate information.” A great example is a direct mail piece that has been mailed to five thousand people. This would equate to creating five thousand exposures if all the addresses were known and correct. If done twice a year, there would be a creation of ten thousand exposures. Additionally, if an advertisement is run in the local business paper or magazine that reaches fifteen thousand of your target market customers, then you have created twenty-five thousand total exposures. If you continue to circulate twenty-five hundred newspaper inserts per week for four weeks, that would be another ten thousand exposures for a grand total of thirty-five thousand exposures to the target market potential customers.
This process is another form of lead generation. A lead is any person who has expressed interest in your business or its products and/or services by walking into your store or showroom, submitting an e-mail, responding to a direct mail or viral marketing piece, making a telephone inquiry indicating interest in your product and/or service, or filling out a call to action form on your Web site responding to a product and/or service inquiry. A lead is more valuable than a random member of the target market because the lead exhibited a motivation to buy and an interest in your product.
By the time these leads to sales are converted, sales information was most likely collected. For the purpose of tracking the marketing strategy, you will need the exact number of sales transactions and the number of leads generated to calculate the true lead conversion rate (i.e., leads = appointments = presentations = closure = percent close ratio).
When compiling sales dollar totals, find this on the business financial statements or in sales reports in your accounting program. This information represents one type of marketing data most people can find fairly well, but having a true understanding is key to building a strong and financially stable business. Now that key marketing indicators have been created, it is time to use metrics and evaluate information. This allows you to keep informed of what the quantification efforts are for determining the accurate, objective, and ownership point of view of the business rather than the usual collection of random numbers with personal impressions on which most small business owners rely. This also allows you to know what the business is doing and what to do about it. It also allows a business to adapt to change because they are aware of business strategies and using metrics for quantifying the data.
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
DJ Heckes, Author & CEO
EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
www.exhib-it.com
Full BRAIN Marketing
www.fullbrainmarketing.com
When compiling data for a market size, it should consist of the number of potential customers in the target market who meet your demographic study discussed earlier. This information, updated annually rather than monthly, is a comprehensive demographic study of your potential probable customer.
To gather the data for market growth, consider the average frequency of purchases for your type of product or service. Unless you have great market research that is readily available, estimate this information based on knowledge of the markets and common sense. In the exhibit industry, I would want to know how often my customer purchases an exhibit item and what they purchase in order to determine this demographic information.
The next step is gathering market potential based on the first three steps in looking at your marketing exposure. Does your marketing reach someone in the target market? If so, the potential buying customer is exposed to your marketing message.
“Now that key marketing indicators have been created, it is time to use metrics and evaluate information.” A great example is a direct mail piece that has been mailed to five thousand people. This would equate to creating five thousand exposures if all the addresses were known and correct. If done twice a year, there would be a creation of ten thousand exposures. Additionally, if an advertisement is run in the local business paper or magazine that reaches fifteen thousand of your target market customers, then you have created twenty-five thousand total exposures. If you continue to circulate twenty-five hundred newspaper inserts per week for four weeks, that would be another ten thousand exposures for a grand total of thirty-five thousand exposures to the target market potential customers.
This process is another form of lead generation. A lead is any person who has expressed interest in your business or its products and/or services by walking into your store or showroom, submitting an e-mail, responding to a direct mail or viral marketing piece, making a telephone inquiry indicating interest in your product and/or service, or filling out a call to action form on your Web site responding to a product and/or service inquiry. A lead is more valuable than a random member of the target market because the lead exhibited a motivation to buy and an interest in your product.
By the time these leads to sales are converted, sales information was most likely collected. For the purpose of tracking the marketing strategy, you will need the exact number of sales transactions and the number of leads generated to calculate the true lead conversion rate (i.e., leads = appointments = presentations = closure = percent close ratio).
When compiling sales dollar totals, find this on the business financial statements or in sales reports in your accounting program. This information represents one type of marketing data most people can find fairly well, but having a true understanding is key to building a strong and financially stable business. Now that key marketing indicators have been created, it is time to use metrics and evaluate information. This allows you to keep informed of what the quantification efforts are for determining the accurate, objective, and ownership point of view of the business rather than the usual collection of random numbers with personal impressions on which most small business owners rely. This also allows you to know what the business is doing and what to do about it. It also allows a business to adapt to change because they are aware of business strategies and using metrics for quantifying the data.
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
DJ Heckes, Author & CEO
EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
www.exhib-it.com
Full BRAIN Marketing
www.fullbrainmarketing.com
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