The Marketing Process

The Marketing Process

• Marketing is the strategic planning and execution of product, price, promotion, and placement to meet the entrepreneur's and organization's objectives
• Marketing is often mistaken with selling. Selling involves pitching a product to a customer
• Sales are critical for businesses as they generate revenue
• Marketing aims to optimize sales and create conditions for successful selling
• Connecting customers to products or services is what marketing is about from an entrepreneurial point of view
• Customer connection happens through value proposition
• The 4 Ps: product, price, promotion, and placement, help connect the value proposition
• The goal is to generate product/service sales to the firm

Product Development vs Customer Development

• The product development process involves the entrepreneur generating an idea, while the customer development process involves reaching potential customers.
• The central focus, either the product itself or the customer, is what differentiates the two
• Each method has advantages and limitations
• If entrepreneurs are significantly ahead of customers, trusting their own "gut" may be wise, but having a genius helps
• Customer development begins with identifying customer's pains and gains
• Pains can be problems, annoyances, sources of aggravation, shortcomings, or suboptimal situations faced by customers or potential customers
• Selecting appropriate customers, pains, and gains is key for entrepreneurs
• It is key to seek people who will pay for what you're selling
• Products and customers must be developed together
• Avoid "if I build it, they'll come" mindset, very few people will be on the level of Steve Jobs

Understanding the Customer

• Understanding the customer is critical
• Even though everyone is a customer in one way, most don't think about being a customer, so it helps to have an idea of how to think about customers
• It also helps to;
  • Recognize different customer roles
  • Learn from customer
  • Use information to determine who will benefit the most from your business and discover the target customers

Customer Roles

• The initial thought for many is that, the customer is the person that buys something, but figuring it out can be far more complex
• End User: the person who uses a product/service in their work or personal life
• Purchaser: the individual/institution that pays for a product/service
  • You are both the end user and purchaser if you're buying something for yourself
  • If you're buying something for someone as a gift, you're still the purchaser but the end user is the person obtaining the gift.
  • This often occurs in organizations (families and businesses)

More Customer Roles

• Decision Maker: The person in an organization responsible for selecting the product/service
  • This person determines the product to buy and tells the purchaser to order it.
• Influencer: someone/group whose suggestions/recommendations impact purchase choices.
  • Organizations make use of influencers to raise awareness
• Roles helps understand the purchasing process

Purchasing Process

• Purchasing Process: steps individuals/organizations take when deciding to buy a product/service
• Two questions can define the process:
  • How roles contribute to purchasing decisions?
  • Who is in charge with these, what is relevant to them?
• Answers help promotion and sales efforts

Budget Cycle and Customer Affordability

• Customer's budget cycle (capital budgeting cycle which is the same for major purchases) focuses on two more questions
• Is it possible for the customers to buy the product if you pitch to them?
• If the price is above the level where they need to budget for it, when do you need to pitch to them so they can make their decision and when they can buy from you?
• Answers help with planning out sales efforts and pricing point
• Building a customer profile can improve the customer understanding

Initial Customer Profiles

• Interact with a wide consumer base, can improve consumer understanding
• Customer Profile (Persona): Description of an archetypical/hypothetical customer for a product/service
• Gathering information is the most important step in researching consumers and their requirements
• Begin with face-to-face interviews with potential customers (helps startups)
• Goal is to have an unbiased perspective of how customers think about resolving the issue your good is trying to solve

Initial Customer Profiles Further

• Use skill module 9.1 for learning
• Poor information can create misleading results
  • At best costing you time and money.
  • At worse, create a situation where it is not feasible to locate customers and there is ultimate business failure

Customer Interviews

• Questions 1, 2, and 3 are about the pains and gains
• Question 4 involves the ways customers try to deal with the pain right now
• Question 5 determines if there is possibility for something better

Analyzing the Results

• The problem being solved is often referred to as the customer job
• Customer Job: A duty a customer takes to achieve some outcome
• It's main goal is what the product is intended to resolve
• Understanding of the customer's circumstances are gathered through answers to questions
• This helps understand where money and time is spent
• Build one or more customer profiles to show the demographics and a personal example that can be kept in mind while developing the product
• Reports are often done as a single page profile

Additional profile Info

• If customer interviews don't hit a responsive cord there are two options
• Change or pivot service per talk
• Change or pivot customer base to what you want to propose
• If neither works, find a new business idea

Target Market

• Establishing customer roles and understanding customer is to locate best customer for your business.
  • The person who is helped, and in result is loyal
• "Perfect fit" is the target market
• Target market: name of nested terms for market size from high-level to highly tailored

Market Definitions

• Total Available Market (TAM): everyone who may consider product
• Serviceable Available Market (SAM): customers within reach. City neighborhood, could be TAM if online
• Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM): Customers the firm is able to provide to
• Penetrated Market (PM): Number of customers of an operating number divided by the size of target market (percentage)

The Target Customer

• Identifying the optimal consumer is key to achieving business goals
• Possibilities can come from initial data' Finding so, you decide how.
  • Benefit Matching: If customer needs and wants align with features, all the better

Long Term Customer and Influencers

• Long term value;
  • Regular customer bring more revenue
  • Premium purchases higher profits
  • Customer who buys extras gives more benefit then regular customers
• Tracking down right Customer:
  • Finding right influences
  • Influencers spread impact to unknown targets
• There can be a "perfect storm" of benefit, influence, long term value and these perfect benefits show right direction

The Perfect Customer

• All customers are not created equal.
• Business is relationship
  • Can love your business, like it, dislike it.
• People with positive view, great. Success stems from it.

Passionate Customer

• The product powerfully does something
• Wraps in emotional state with customer
• Call is outstanding customer service, doing it all (going all out)
• More help, professionalism, trying to find that customer who has exceptional experience

Great Service

• Showing care for those linked to you, employees
• Go distance for people
• Time to embrace people
• Integrity in every act
• Fix things when there bad
• Keep mind the SERVICE acronym, have to engage customer. Key to service.

Helpful Consumer

• Passionate customers great
• To have their loyalty to product
• Talk to all about brand
• See what you are doing, first to comment and propose edits
• Help firm, empower, have emotion raise other side. Why important to have solid business.

Value Proposition

• Value Proposition: Connecting company aspects to customer's wants
• Business owners share tips that improve market
• Talk on key advantages that competition don't reach
• Or what is missing to reach other sides for business

Value

• Problems is getting that one mantra
• Propositions focus, helps customer and works
• The challenge today is to meet the needs
• Draw line, follow it.
• Taglines, are the value pro

Customer Focused Value Proposition Design

• Discuss customer needs
• Explain product will do in that space
• Add note for better benefits to be given

Value Proposition Tests

• Approaches
• Is product ready to reach goal
• Solve many customer pains
• Add many great things
• Have result to gain customer.
  • Over doing is fine, have to handle the facts

Distinct Competence, Value Proposition

• Two Steps Process, Mapping Value.
  • Get competitor figures
  • Follow this result

Mapping Competence

• Competency is great
• Move to area for data
• Is fundamental now, has two circles, can be followed
• Have basic features now

Second Map Step

• Add another ring, circle shows facts ready to be changed.

Value Proposition-Circle Analysis

• Begin with customer circle with all requirements from what is available
• The goal has to be summarize by file
• After, look at core skill to connect items. Is equally like that
• Want, competitors, but these points
• There has to be multiple segments, could reach them
• May have to take back step to see points to follow

Final steps

• Where competition is greater
• Follow line to see who falls

Final Step

• Clients can't meet needs
• You win them, for better out reach

The Marketing Plan

• Goal is to improve brand
• Have to follow for sales increase
• Marketing plans are for sections, problem, product
• Promotion, price, all equal

The Basic Building Blocks

• Building blocks, what you want
• To follow
• Need to make change, better point
• Update market for success
• Change market to win
• Time
• To decide
• Up sales, brand all
• To change for step

Focus is Plan

• All data points and to be equal/same
• Strategy is key
• To do right, follow plan, succeed
• Have to to not make assumptions
• Need steps, all success can come from it
• Can increase sales with changes, for the benefit