Reassessing Your Company’s Marketing Strategy

Every entrepreneur knows that small changes actually affect businesses greatly. This is why there is always a need to be aware and prepared if you want to keep your business from failing.

One of the most important aspects to check is your marketing strategy. Try reassessing your company based on the 4Ps marketing mix:

Product. Always check your relevance in the market. Is your product still sellable? Is it still relevant to your consumer? Is there still a need for such product?

Assess if customers still value your product as they have valued it in previous years. Do you have to augment things to retain value?

Price. Have you checked your customer’s value for money recently? Are they satisfied and still willing to pay that much for your product? Maybe competitors are now offering similar products at a lower price. Luckily, price is the easiest variable to change in the marketing mix. Study your market and take note of the standard pricing of similar products. Avoid price wars as these never really end well for all parties involved. Set your prices competitively, and check the market actively.

Place. High foot traffic location is a good indicator of potential sales, but have you checked the demographics of that foot traffic? Would they buy your product?

Think about putting up a jewelry store in the middle of the university belt. There is high foot traffic, but foot traffic is mostly composed of students. Are they your target market? Most probably not. Place is the hardest element to change in your marketing mix, so make sure that in deciding where to sell your product, you look into the demographics of all the nearby establishments, villages and schools. Think long-term and be aware of changes around your store.

You may also explore getting a distributor. This is a cost effective way to expand to untapped markets. If you already have a distributor, it may be time to assess their effectiveness or if you are getting the most for what you are paying them. See, too, if your product or service can be sold online. It is better that you be the one to cannibalize your sales than for competitors to gain from the opportunity.

Promotion. Promoting aggressively is not always promoting effectively. Today, online marketing has redefined marketing, and a lot of small start-up companies have been taking note of what digital can do for them. It can be enticing to see how well other companies are doing because of their paid ads in the webpages you visit, but note that these are still paid ads. Small companies may find these ads expensive, and it’s not always a great idea to pour your money there. Evaluate your marketing strategies and research their ROIs by asking your consumers directly. This way, you’ll learn which strategies are not working (and scrap it), and capitalize on the ones that do.

*Originally published by the Manila Bulletin. C-4, Sunday, May 24, 2015. Written by Ruben Anlacan, Jr. (President, BusinessCoach, Inc.) All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or copied without express written permission of the copyright holders.