Marketing: A Game of Chess

Several organizations suffer from poor direction, strategy, and leadership. This is often apparent in marketing efforts and marketing communication. Most people fall into the trap of thinking that ‘marketing’ just means advertising, page ranking or promotion.  But marketing and a marketing plan is so much more than that, and includes everything from understanding the market to which you’ll sell your products and services, to choosing specific tactics you’ll use to reach that market. Marketing is like a game of chess. You should always be thinking at least 3 moves ahead. How does a small, medium, large, or starting business plan or build a profitable enterprise? The answer, in short, is strategy. 

                   

Marketing Strategy

When building strategy for an organization at any level, a business, and its competition, can be viewed from an outside perspective like a game of chess. Business strategy flows much like strategy in a game of chess, where each piece has its purpose, distinct movement, and anyone can play. The marketing strategy section is where you actually spell out how your business is going to do just that, by setting goals and high-level strategies.

Start by setting the goals for your business, typically for at least one year.  Make them realistic, achievable and measurable.  No sense in setting yourself up for failure right out of the gate. By having it all worked out months in advance you give yourself enough time for getting the concept down. Wrap up the strategy section of your marketing plan by outlining the particulars of your business offering. In marketing phraseology, you’ll be defining what are known as the “four Ps” for your business:

• Product 
• Price 
• Place 
• Promotion 

Marketing Tactics

When comes to using good marketing tactics, it can be a lot like a good game of chess. You have to consider all the options that your opponent has and can use against you. They will try to take your pieces every chance they get; therefore, you need to use good marketing tactics and know the game well. Thankfully marketing is one of the few things in a business that you can do far in advance.

To take your marketing plan to yet another level of detail, you can drive some tactics to actually meet the goals you set in the previous section.  Common marketing tactics include advertising, trade show or event attendance/participation, public relations, grassroots and viral marketing campaigns and email marketing.

Marketing Budget

Wrap up your entire marketing plan with a bow by summarizing your costs and timelines from the previous section. Check your marketing budget at least monthly, and determine whether you are getting the return you expected from each tactic. Typically, the accounting department has the ability to look into the past, and to look into the future through use of trends, patterns, forecasts, usually all based on historical data. The accounting department has a huge influence on the business strategy as they not only control what funds are available to other departments, but they also have the ability to predict new trends from historical data.

Blunder occurs because of an incomplete understanding of the key elements of a position, without which an assessment and plan cannot be found. Similarly, an effective marketing plan cannot be developed without understanding and actively applying the basics of product marketing. Writing a marketing plan should become at least a yearly ritual for your business.  Not to mention that it’s probably a good idea to renovate your marketing plan when you are releasing new or significantly changed products or services. Remember that writing a marketing plan is time well spent for any sized business, because it’s the process for thinking honestly and thoroughly through how you’re going to connect with your customers.

Add Value to Your Website

The world of online marketing for online businesses is constantly changing. Many businesses fail because of the lack of value they give to their online business website. Online business is always about adding value to the items that you acquire to gain profit. This is especially true when you deal with real and virtual property like a website. Adding value to your service allows you to raise the product price, so you earn more money, or keep the price the same, but conversion rates and customer satisfaction with the product will be higher. Anyone can make their own website, and often for free or a very nominal cost. You don’t need to know html coding anymore, with plenty of ‘what-you-see-is-what-you-get’ web developer platforms. But how can you make your website the best it can be?

Search engine optimization is very important if you want to sell products on your site. A highly optimized site has keywords that search engines love and which put it at the top rank. This makes your website more visible to internet surfers who are looking for information that is related to your keyword. Once they enter a search phrase which contains your keyword, they will be led to your site. This means that you have more chances of having your site visited than those sites that do not rank. A website with a high ranking keyword is more valuable than one without.

Social media marketing is becoming a mainstay for business owners. Show customers you’re active on sites like Twitter and Facebook by integrating social icons and functionality into your website. Consider adding share buttons to any website content or product pages so that visitors can easily link their friends to your website. These are essential because it keeps your site active and interesting. If people know they can get regular updates about your company’s activities, they will come back more often and social media is an excellent tool for this. A blog is a great tool for sharing news and updates with customers. Blog posts are great for pushing out content to your online friends and followers. Companies that frequently update their blogs with keyword-rich writing will likely see improvements in their search engine rankings too.

Improve the appearance of your pages. A change in the banner or logo design could be enough to attract more traffic. Get rid of clutters in your pages and make them easy to read and navigate. Your visitors would like to get information easily from your contents. Having a good looking website may satisfy visually, but if it isn't user friendly or can’t be found due to the cyber-overcrowding occurring with more and more companies turning up online, you’re back to square one. Write in an engaging manner to grab your readers’ attention and make them want to stay longer to read more. This will decrease your bounce rate and increase the value of your website. See to it that they are highly informative and the knowledge that they want to share to your readers are clearly presented.

These are just a few of the things that you can do to add value to your site. Be creative and you will discover that you are sitting on a gold mine. With a few tweaks, your site can be valued several times higher than the amount you paid for it.

Do You Need CRM?

Small business has always been about customer relationships — about knowing names, knowing preferences and offering the kind of friendly service that keeps customers coming back. But as a business grows, that ability to relate on a personal level to each and every customer becomes more of a struggle. The owner may be more involved in operations, less involved with customers. Managers may spend more time handling employee issues and less time interacting with customers. Yet effectively managing those customer relationships is a key to profitability. So the question becomes: How does a small business know when it's time for a more sophisticated method of managing customer relationships? That is why there is a higher demand is being placed on the need for CRM software that will do it all.

First, let’s define what a CRM is: The term Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is a system that connects different parts of a company through the thread of customer relationships. Sales, Marketing, Accounting and Customer Service can all be tied together with powerful, centralized CRM software made to retain customer loyalty, increase revenue, deliver consistent and efficient customer service, and finally, evaluate which customers to focus on.

CRM is a phrase that describes how your business interacts with your customers. Most people think of CRM as a system to capture information about your customers. However, that is only part of the picture. CRM is also about what you do with that information to better meet the needs of your existing customers and identify new customers, resulting in higher profits for you. Customer Relationship Management systems help business owners organize information to maximize new leads, repeat sales, improve customer service, cut costs and integrate information from operations processes.

Most of the companies lose in the selling process, if that wasn't the case, selling would be easy. But when you never get into the sale because lead information is misplaced, or when you fail to follow up because of disorganization, or when your sales people are spending more time updating and managing Excel spreadsheets than they are selling, then it's time to move toward CRM. This type of software assists you to keep your current customers and building new relationships with a variety of sales and marketing tools. 

CRM is useful in gaining new customers, but it's even more valuable when it comes to keeping existing customers. If you start losing them because of failures to follow up -- especially with customers who order on a regular basis -- it's time to introduce some automation into your sales operations. If you forget important details of your relationship with a customer, why should that customer believe that you're any different from any of your competitors? Successful CRM is founded on excelling in two areas – understanding your customers and focusing your operations to serve them through all points of contact

Perhaps the most critical issue that points to a need for a CRM solution goes back to the beginning: Small business has always been about customer relationships — knowing who your customers are, what their preferences are and how you can keep them coming back. With CRM, you can maintain that small business advantage while you take your business to the next level.

Benefits of Good Customer Service

In this ONLINE world where competition is at its peak, good customer service can help the merchant to lead the market. Customer service is important to the merchant because it is often the only contact a customer has with the company. Some customers spend hundreds and even thousands of dollars per year with a merchant. Consequently, when they have a question or product issue, they expect a company's customer service department to resolve their issues. Customer service is the overall activity of identifying and satisfying customer needs. It differentiates a company from its competitors.

A company with excellent customer service is more likely to get repeat business from customers. Consequently, the company will benefit with greater sales and profits. Contrarily, companies with poor customer service may lose customers, which will have a negative impact on business. It costs a lot more money for a company to acquire a customer than to retain them, due to advertising costs and the expense of sales calls. Therefore, the efforts that go into maintaining quality customer service can really pay dividends over time. Understanding the importance of good customer service is essential for a healthy business in creating new customers, keeping loyal customers, and developing referrals for future customers.

In a recent study conducted by the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), small enterprises, which heavily emphasize their customer service support, were more likely to endure and succeed when compared to their leading competitors who only focused on offering lower prices for their products and services. Customers will simply pay more money and take their business elsewhere if they are not completely satisfied with the way a company treats them. Businesses, on the other hand, cannot afford to lose customers since their credibility and reputation is highly dependent upon a customer’s experience and feedback.

Good customer service leads to many benefits. Not only will you gain trust with your current clients, they'll also become a wonderful referral system as they spread the word about your business to other prospects. Especially with any internet business transactions, product reviews are quite common. Whether it's positive or negative feedback about a product or service, people are writing freely about their shopping experiences. In the long run, treating people fairly and with respect will bring business to your company today and in the future. Customer service also helps merchant to improve their products. If a merchant gets repetitive complaints from customers on a particular product, he may proactively fix the problem. If the quality of your product is good then you do not have to worry about sales.

Overall, a good Customer service support is extremely important for any new business. Always keep in mind that your business will be successful only if you have satisfied customers.