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Become the business of choice for your customers
By bpjames | September 2, 2008
Before you carry out any new marketing activities you want to consider how you plan to differentiate your business and how you wish to position it appropriately for your marketplace.
This requires you to step back from the every day hustle and bustle of running a business and take a strategic look at your operation as a business owner. This task is best undertaken away from your business - you want to avoid distractions.
Start with a blank sheet of paper and taking a ‘helicopter’ view to begin with, determine key objectives for your business. These include current and projected turnover levels, profitability targets, the scale of your organisation (number of proposed outlets), the volume of customers required and the size of your team.
It is very empowering to create a vision of your planned operation and then commit it to paper in numbers at high level. Give yourself permission to dream and think big - then make it believable by attaching SMART goals to it. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound.
Your ultimate goal may be 2, 3, 5 or more years in the future and it is only necessary to set goals at high level for this far ahead. The business world changes very fast. You only need to concern yourself with detailed plans for the current year.
There are several key questions you want to ask and find answers to:
- What does your business stand for in terms of mission and values?
- What difference does it make compared to the myriad of established businesses?
- Why should anyone want to buy from you rather than a competitor?
- What is compelling and unique about your experience for customers?
- What is your ideal customer profile?
- Where is your business located and why?
- How are you going to position your prices to provide maximum value to your customers and produce profit for your business?
As a business owner, you have full control over all of these elements. Ensure you exercise this control by being purposeful in all your business decisions.
To help find answers to these questions you might want to consider:
- Obtaining quality feedback from your existing customers
- Gathering market feedback in respect of other similar businesses in the area
- Examining gaps that exist in your marketplace locally
- Gaining competitor knowledge with appropriate research
- Understanding the demographics and psychographics of the area you choose to operate within
Once you have considered and documented all the above, you are then ready to attract large numbers of new customers, beating a path to your door!
Brian.
Topics: Customer development, Strategic planning |