Basic Marketing strategies for Growing a profitable business as an Entrepreneur

          Basic Marketing Strategies For Growing a Profitable Business as an Entrepreneur.
The success of any business depends on a firm’s understanding and meeting of the customer’s needs and demands. As an entrepreneur your main aim should not be focused on profit making alone. Satisfaction of customers needs should also be the goal of every organization. Entrepreneurs are solution providers there should constantly strive to provide solutions by meeting the needs of customers.

Customers are the wheels of organization; they drive the organization, while marketing is the engine that keeps the wheel going. The importance of marketing in every organization cannot be over emphasized. The major role of the marketers is the identification and satisfaction of needs.

This article articulate and explain five (5) basic strategies for growing a profitable business as an entrepreneur.

1)      The God Factor: 

Strange right???? This aspect as been ignored by most organizations. They are many CEOs, Mangers, and Entrepreneurs around the world that has adapted this basic and important strategy. The question in your mind right now is “what is the relationship between spirituality and business growth?”. The spiritual controls the physical. There are so many great men and women in the world that are dedicated Christians.

Contemporary Cases of Great Men & Women that are Dedicated to God.

Ø  Mary Kay Ash: 

An entrepreneur. Her philosophy is “God first (1^st), family second (2^nd), career third (3^rd).

Ø  Henry Heinz: Heinz baked beans. His success was as a result of direct faith in God.

Ø  Strive Masiyiwa: A Zimbabwean Christian businessman. He reads the Bible for four (4) hours a day. He pays the fees of 22,000 children.

Ø  Sam Walton: The founder of Wal-Mart and Sam’s club. He was the richest man in the world till death. He was a deacon in the church. He died in 1992. Bill Gate became the richest man in the world after Sam Walton.

Ø  Cher Wang: Taiwanese billionaire, 54^th most powerful woman in the world.

Other contemporary cases will be written in the article “Unveiling Biblical Strategies for the Growth, necessary in every Organization”.  

These great men and women participate in kingdom advancement endeavors such as charity, rendering services to God, soul winning, tithe paying etc. You can’t serve God and end up a failure. There are various Biblical principles for business growth that is necessary in every business organization. I will shed more light on this in the article “Unveiling Biblical Strategies for the Business Growth, necessary in every Organization”. 

2)      Identification of Needs and Segmentation of Target Audience:   Who are your target audience? After identifying your target audience, a proper marketing research is needed in the identification of customers’ needs. The identification of needs of the target audience is a very important process in the field of marketing. It is important to segment the target audience which is your market into various subset or segments.

Market segmentation is the subdivision of a large heterogeneous market into smaller homogeneous market known as segments. It is advisable to segment your target market for easy penetration, direct relationship, good customer relationship etc. Segmentation makes it easy to identify and satisfy the needs of each segment, since there are now grouped into various segments.   

A market can be segmented on various bases, such as;

Ø  Geographical Bases: These are the most common way of subdividing the market. It is the dividing of the market based on national, regional or local level. It is based on locations, such as Streets, Villages, Cities, States, Countries, and Continents. You can decide to target a particular area, conduct a research about the area and identify the needs of that area. Remember satisfaction of needs is key in marketing.

Ø  Demographic Bases: this is the subdividing of the market based on age, sex, income, occupation, religion, size of family. For instance your target markets are ages 0months – 1year, what are their needs? The known needs of that age segment includes baby bottles, baby wears, etc. Then focus on the need you can satisfy and meet them.

Ø  Behavioral Bases: This is the subdividing of the market based on the purchase occasion (regular or special occasion); the status of the users (non-users, potential user, first timer users); usage rate (light user, medium or heavy user); benefit sought after (for economy benefit, or convenience or prestige).

Ø  Psychological Bases: this is based on individual personality, motives, life-style, product knowledge and use of product.

The needs of each segment should be identified. All departments in the organization should work with the marketing department towards meeting the needs of each target segments this is known as integrated marketing. Integrated marketing is the co-ordination of all activities within an organization by all departments to meet the needs of customers and make profit for the organization.

3)      Unique Selling Point or Proposition (USP).  After the segmentation and marketing research has been conducted, the next process is the satisfaction of the customer needs. Organizations face the challenge of meeting customers’ needs and retaining customers.

Unique Selling Point strategy can be used to attract, satisfy and retain customers.

What is Unique Selling Point? USP is the factor that differentiates your organization from others, what makes your organization outstanding, unique, different. It is the strategic competencies of your organization that gives your organization a competitive edge over other organizations.

There should something unique about your organization that attracts customers and retains them.

These include factors such as:

Ø  Quality and Quantity of the product.

Ø  A good delivery time

Ø  A good customer service

Ø  A good customer relationship.

Ø  Good social factor (Relationship between employers and employees; relationship between employees and customers). More light will be shed on social factor in the article “The power of store atmospherics in influencing customer behavior in a retail industry taking Ikeja City Mall as a case study.”

Ø  Quality services etc.

4)      Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) Mix:  IMC mix is the coordination of the entire marketing promotional mix element towards achieving common goals and objectives in an organization.  There are five (5) marketing promotional mix element and seven (7) marketing mix element. The five (5) basic marketing promotional mix element includes;

Ø  Advertising

Ø  Personal Selling

Ø  Sales Promotion

Ø  Public Relations and Publicity.

Ø  Direct marketing.

This will be further explained in the article “Integrated Marketing Communication Mix an avenue or promoting the sales o products and services”.

There are seven (7) marketing mix element, which is known as the 7ps of marketing. Surprised right? Everyone knows it as the 4ps of marketing, but there are actually 7ps of marketing and not 4ps of marketing. These 7ps of marketing is divided into two (2) groups.

Group one: This is the marketing mix for products. There are the 4ps of marketing which is common to everyone. There include:

Ø  Product

Ø  Price

Ø  Place

Ø  Promotion.

Group two: These are the marketing mix for services. There are the 3ps of marketing which is not really known, unlike the 4ps which are common. There include:

Ø  Physical Evidence

Ø  People

Ø  Process

The 7ps of marketing will be further explained in the article “Strategic ways of improving your product and services using the seven (7)ps of marketing”.

These IMC strategies can be used for both small and large organization. There are various rules that guides the application of each promotional mix, read the article on “Integrated Marketing Communication Mix an avenue or promoting the sales o products and services” for more.

5)      The SWOT Analysis:

The SWOT analysis is an important strategy that is used in organizations to have a competitive edge or advantage over competitors.

Ø  S – Strength

Ø  W-  Weakness

Ø  O- Opportunities

Ø  T- Threats.

Organizations should frequently conduct a SWOT analysis of the organization and also those of their competitors. SWOT analysis provides an overview of the situation o the organization, it shows an organization what to focus on, what to improve on, the strategic situations of the competitors. It makes room for business strategy overview.

Strength: The strength of every organization are the strategic competencies that gives the organization an edge over competitors. There are what the organization can do so well, the USP of the organization, the competitive advantage over other organizations. Companies should focus on their strength and try to improve it, in order to have a competitive advantage over other competitors.

Weakness: This include what hinders a firm from competing well in the business environment. They are the hindrances a firm has that affect it from performing well. Weaknesses such as structural, legal, business based etc. Organizations should try to turn their weakness into strength, which can be achieved by  every department in the organization working together as a team to achieve common goals. This can be done through integrated marketing (Integrated marketing is the co-ordination of all activities within an organization by all departments to meet the needs of customers and make profit for the organization).

Opportunities:  These are areas or markets in which the firm can grow into in the business world. Can the strength of the organization contribute? Or do new innovations, ideas and capabilities need to be created?

Organization should seize opportunities available in the business environment (political environment, economic, social, socio-cultural, technological environment etc).

Threats: Threats are factors that can stop a firm from growing into new spaces or new size. There threaten a firm’s existing market share and product line. The competitors and environment such as political environment, economic, social, socio-cultural, technological environment etc) can be a threat to the organization.

Firms should turn their threat into opportunities. Remember an entrepreneur sees solutions in the midst of problems. Strategic thinking is necessary.