Marketing and Pricing

Determining a price for your product is an important step when coming up with a marketing plan. If the price is set too low your company will have a hard time making a profit. A price that is set to high could encourage competition, which could hinder the success of your company. 

#Pricing the #Product 

To get an idea of how you should price your product there needs to be frequent checks made of your competition and how they are pricing their product. By doing this you will be able to create a history of pricing so you can determine if there are any trends. Having a good history of your competitors pricing will let you know if they change the price at certain times of the year in an effort to boost their sales. This will let you counter their pricing with your own prices keeping you competitive at all times. By looking at your competition, it will help you see supply and demand trends that will help you set a competitive price that will ensure your company the best chance to turn a profit. 

Is Your Product Elastic? 

Having a good history of pricing will let you know if your product is price elastic. Your product is considered price elastic if the price of the product is raised and the demand for the product decreases. The same is true if the price of the product is lowered and demand for the product goes up. A good source for this information is the surveys that you have completed or from focus groups that you have had done to gauge consumer opinion. Your research should let you know how elastic your product is, and the elasticity of your industry. 

Know Your #Competition

Doing a complete analysis of your completion is a crucial step in determining how to proceed in your marketing campaign. By analyzing your competition, you will have to look at the differences between your company and others. The analysis should also include how your competition markets their product and will give you insight on how you should respond with your marketing campaign. By analyzing your competitions marketing campaigns and strategies you will be able to see where they succeeded and where they failed giving your company an advantage when you implement your marketing campaign. 

Key Information 

When you are doing a comparative review of your company against your competitors there are certain elements of information that you want to look at. From the information that you have already gathered you will want to compare target markets, sales, pricing, packaging, customer service, #marketing #objectives, and #publicity. The secondary research that you have already done will be the best sources of information when it comes to checking out your competition. 

After you have done a complete analysis on your company and your competition you will be able to know the market share of your competitors in relation to your company. How your competitors distribute their product. Their marketing strategies, and where they were successful and where they were not. You will be able to determine if they have a loyal customer base or whether consumers of their products have looked elsewhere. 

Marketing #Analysis 

Your comparative analysis should include an in depth look at your company and competitors marketing campaigns. After you have completed the review of your company and your competitors you will be able to get a clear understanding of your products strengths and weaknesses in comparison to the competition. You will also be able to see any trends in market share and sales. What percentage of the target demographic account for sales and is this the same target demographic as your competition. You will get a better understanding of your company’s marketing strategies and how they are like or different from your competitors. 

In addition, you will be able to compare your products pricing to that of your competitors. You will also be able to know how your customer service stacks up against your rivals. You will see if your company relies on marketing more or less than the competition and you will see if your marketing campaigns were successful to driving business away from your competitors to your company. 

Moving Forward

Now that you have completed the business review its time to prepare the marketing plan. The first step in this process is to set sales objectives. This is not as easy as its sounds, no random number will do, and it will take time and effort to project a proper sales objective. 

#Sales Objectives 

The entire marketing plan will be designed on meeting the #salesobjectives, which is why this step is first and crucial to get right. Because sales are so important to a company the objectives must be simultaneously demanding and achievable. The sales objectives must be set by giving a precise estimate of the opportunities that exist in the marketplace along with the ability of the company to meet those estimates. By setting sales objectives too high you will also be putting more pressure on the entire organization and increasing the cost of running the company. If sales objectives are too low, the company will have a hard time keeping products in stock and meeting consumer demand. Sales objectives that are not accurate will put a strain on your company that is avoidable. 

As well as being demanding and achievable sales objectives must be time specific. This will give your marketing team a start date and an end date. Short-term sales objectives are usually designed for up to twelve months and long-term goals are designed for up to three years. Remember what is included in the short-term marketing plan will affect sales for the years after the first. Therefore, if your company is designing new products to be released they should be tested in the first year so by the third year they will be able to reach sales objectives. 

The sales objectives that have been set must be able to be measured. How you plan on measuring the sales objectives should be included in the marketing plan. There are several ways that you can make the objectives measurable. It can be done in terms of money, units, and transactions. Measuring with money indicates the expenses that you have incurred making the product; the profits made, and will also show any elasticity of the product if there were any price fluctuations. When you measure with units and transactions, it will show how well your product is being received by consumers. Sales objectives must also include a projection of profits because sales have a direct influence on profits. 

Influences on Sales Objectives 

Your research will come in handy when setting sales objectives. A review of the marketplace over the past five years will show any upward, downward, variable, or static trends. Analyze how sales at your company are moving on a yearly basis in comparison to sales in the entire marketplace. This will give you an idea of how to project sales in the future. Sales should be projected at least equal and perhaps a little ahead of market growth in order for your company to maintain its share.

You will also need to review your data for any trends that you can see in your company’s share of the market. If you find that your company’s share of the market has been changing, whether it has been increasing or decreasing you will be able to adjust your sales projections accordingly. If you find that the market is in decline or your market share is in decline be aware that this is something that is extremely difficult to turn around. 

Additionally, to be able to set proper sales objectives it is good to review your company’s history in terms of annual budgets and expected profits. This will at least give a minimum number to start with because sales of your product will need to cover operating expenses. If prices change during the year, at holiday’s for example, these need to be factored into your sales objectives. 

One factor that is difficult for any business to predict when it comes to sales objectives is the economy. The best you can do is analyze the data that you have a set the sales objectives to an estimation of what you feel the economy is going to do. Along with trying to predict the economy, you must also keep a close watch on interest rates. Interest rates are important to companies because customers use credit many times to purchase goods. If interest rates go up consumers are going to tighten their purse strings and not buy goods. 

Moreover, another factor that can influence sales objectives is your competition. If you are part of a growing market it might attract more competition so be sure to know who you are up against before finalizing your sales objectives. In addition, instead of more business competing against you it could be an old competitor that is looking to increase their market share and trying to push you out, so you will have to respond to their challenge. 

The last factor that you want to address when setting your sales objective is the product itself. Every product on the market has a life of its own and it is up to you to determine where your product is in theirs. If your product has been on the market for several years you will want to take that into account because your market might be smaller because people already have the product. Conversely, you might be introducing a new or improved product that has a vast untapped market.

Marketing strategies

A #marketing strategy is a plan that will show how your marketing objectives are going to be fulfilled. When coming up with a marketing strategy you will want to consider the following factors: naming, competition, the product, markets, packaging, pricing, and advertising. 

Naming Strategy 

If your #company is planning on releasing a new product, you will need to give a route for the name of the new product. This means that if it is a new product do you want to try and include the name of the product as an offshoot of another product from your company that is already on the market or do you want the name of the product to be something that makes it a stand alone product? Additionally, you will have to decide if the name is something that will keep current customers using your company’s products or if you want to give the product a name that will attract a new target market. 

#Competition Strategy 

Competitive strategies can focus on one main competitor or your closest group of competitors. When using a competitive strategy it is best to find something that your company does well and focus on the aspect of your business to set yourself apart from your competition. You may also find that you will be forced to use a competitive strategy when one of your competitors tries to move into a market that your company has been dominant. Think of this as a boxer that is a counter puncher, so when your competition tries to hit you first, your company knows what is coming and reacts hard and fast knocking out the competition before they know what’s hit them. 

Competitive strategies can also be used when introducing a new product where you can incorporate packaging, product improvements, and merchandising to help you gain advantage over your competition. 

#Product Strategy 

Another marketing strategy that you will have to consider is product strategy. When your company is introducing a new product or a product that goes with an already established product line, you will have to make a decision on how to ensure that the product makes an impact when it gets to market. 

If you start to notice things like your product is not selling as well as it used to and consumer confidence appears to be slipping about your company you have to make the decision on how to turn public opinion around so you can reach your sales objectives. If you have a product that might have limited use, you can look to try to find alternate uses for your product and introduce them to your target market. 

#Packaging Strategy 

You might think that if you have a good product that does what you say it will do and does it well is all that you would need to make your product a success. However, that is not the case. Many products will be chosen from store shelves just because of their packaging. When it comes to packaging your product there are certain factors that you need to address. The packaging is first and foremost a way to protect the product. Second, packaging should add some value to the product. If a consumer sees the care that the company has taken in packaging the product they will understand that the company feels that they have a quality product and they will feel the same way. Packaging is also a great way for your company to get its message across and perhaps entice other markets than your main target market to try the product. 

#Pricing Strategy 

When you are looking at marketing strategies, you should look at pricing as an option. You will have to decide whether you want to attack your competition by either pricing your product higher or lower than them. You will have to keep in mind that pricing has a direct affect on the sustainability of the business and you will want to make sure that your pricing does not interfere will the chance of turning a profit. Geography also has to be taken into account when using a pricing strategy. The decision has to be made if the product is going to have the same price across each market or will prices vary. Finally, your previously done research should be able to tell you if price is an important factor for your target group to purchase your product. 

#Advertising Strategy 

When you are coming up with a marketing strategy and are looking at what to do with advertising the important thing to remember is that the advertising message should have a consistent message. The main reason for having a consistent message is to show direction for all marketing plans that will derive from your strategies. Therefore, when you make the decision to advertise make sure that in whatever types of media you choose the message is consistent and addresses your target market.

SLP - Pune 2017-18 : Customer Development, lean startup and marketing plan

It was a wonderful day today!!
Starting a day in canteen while chatting with all #SLP fellows and ending it with a tea at Restaurant is an amazing time in startup life. 

Today we interacted with three speakers in different domains.
First was one for the legal aspects in startups. Why its important and what is it, superbly explained by FoxMandal speaker. This will definitely help us to remind in the background  of our brain to do the preventive action while exploring our startup. The most important point was that while pitching for funding we should be strong enough to point out our legal binding with customers, vendors, employees, consultants, investors and co-founders. It will make your pitch legally strong.

Very lean startup was a good example of most startups in our batch. But the way our speaker Mr. Anil Gupte taught was very remarkable. I was looking our startup as a best example of #leanstartup. The most memorable session was customer development. How to sale a product to customer with live example was a great experience. Everybody will remember the socks sold in the session in cash transaction!!

Marketing session of Sonali madam was fantastic as usual. But today's session was something different. Live demo of one of our fellow startup was realistic and workable for each of us. 25 brains with different sizes working on a single startup was an amazing idea to teach fellows. We are not doing marketing plan for that startup, but preparing our self for our own startup!!

Learing experiences from expert makes us closer to our excellence is very true!!

Vijaykumar kakade
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