How to Drive Promote any Product
- By ContentMart Editor
- Published 01/20/2005
- Humor
- Unrated
Armed with an business idea, the basic questions must be asked. “Is there a market for my product or (service), and can it support me?
Finding the answers means that you will have to do some Market Research to define the size of this market, it’s area and develop whether a need or wants exists. You can then assess if you are able to generate enough profit to make a living. You will also have to find the answers to these 2 questions:
ØWho the competition is
ØWhat is different about your product
Wanabee entrepreneurs often say “I’m not trying to make a lot of money, just to cover my costs of living”
What they don’t realise is that they will discover that it’s very hard to make the sales – far tougher than they probably anticipated. And that’s just the offline world.
What about the online world then? That’s just as tough. Cheaper, but tougher because of the millions of websites all competing for that piece of the pie.
But to succeed, you need a great product. This means that market research needs to be done.
Your Market Research needs to find out:
ØIs the market actually interested in this product
ØIs the price about right
ØAnd thirdly, how many will you sell
Before officially launching a new product or making improvements to an existing one, you need to know it’s potential sales volume before any resources devoted to it, are not wasted in a unplanned attempt to find a substantial enough market for it.
The activity used to establish whether customers might buy, is called market research.
There are 2 types:
(A)Desk Research
This is about researching any past records on matters relating to the proposed venture. This kind of information can be gathered from publications, the internet and the trade publications of competitors, to give you indication of popular trends.
(B)Field Research
This involves active fieldwork – interviewing potential customers, preparing questionnaires and getting them filled out by the public at arranged events, and always by selected target groups known as ‘segments’.
These segments of the population may carry out tests oranswer questions on a certain topic.
A good questionnaire will:
ØAsk questions which relate direct to information needs
ØBe brief
ØNot ask personal questions
ØQuestions are asked in a logical order
To help interviewers operate a questionnaire, sometimes a prompt card is used. This means that if several or all the questions have the same range of set answers, they can be numbered and the respondents answers can be recorded as numbers.
Marketing
Okay, I wish to discuss the subject of Marketing first, as it’s tricky to get right, and most people DO get it wrong.
In my opinion, there are way too many internet ‘experts’.
ØMost are self appointed, as the ease of the web allows anyone to set themselves up as one.
You never truly know who you’re dealing with, so please be careful.
Let’s get through what marketing actually is. “Marketing is the anticipation and fulfilment of a consumer need – profit.”
Fulfilment could mean anything, and as far as the web is concerned – it does. It could be to write and post an article, but whether that satisfies a need, only the customer can decide that one.
The implication of Marketing is that for any company to pursue it’s objectives and generate a profit, it needs to find out what it’s customers want to buy and then simply meet those needs.
In order for you to be successful - You MUST build up a profile of customers:
ØWhat they want to buy
ØWhen they want to buy it
ØWhat they do
ØWhen and why they do it
In a nutshell, what will encourage them to buy or use your product. You have to study their habits and motivations. That will give you the Gold, so to speak!
This is what all that Market Research is for – to give you that information.
Understanding Customer Behaviour
This is so importan
Finding the answers means that you will have to do some Market Research to define the size of this market, it’s area and develop whether a need or wants exists. You can then assess if you are able to generate enough profit to make a living. You will also have to find the answers to these 2 questions:
ØWho the competition is
ØWhat is different about your product
Wanabee entrepreneurs often say “I’m not trying to make a lot of money, just to cover my costs of living”
What they don’t realise is that they will discover that it’s very hard to make the sales – far tougher than they probably anticipated. And that’s just the offline world.
What about the online world then? That’s just as tough. Cheaper, but tougher because of the millions of websites all competing for that piece of the pie.
But to succeed, you need a great product. This means that market research needs to be done.
Your Market Research needs to find out:
ØIs the market actually interested in this product
ØIs the price about right
ØAnd thirdly, how many will you sell
Before officially launching a new product or making improvements to an existing one, you need to know it’s potential sales volume before any resources devoted to it, are not wasted in a unplanned attempt to find a substantial enough market for it.
The activity used to establish whether customers might buy, is called market research.
There are 2 types:
(A)Desk Research
This is about researching any past records on matters relating to the proposed venture. This kind of information can be gathered from publications, the internet and the trade publications of competitors, to give you indication of popular trends.
(B)Field Research
This involves active fieldwork – interviewing potential customers, preparing questionnaires and getting them filled out by the public at arranged events, and always by selected target groups known as ‘segments’.
These segments of the population may carry out tests oranswer questions on a certain topic.
A good questionnaire will:
ØAsk questions which relate direct to information needs
ØBe brief
ØNot ask personal questions
ØQuestions are asked in a logical order
To help interviewers operate a questionnaire, sometimes a prompt card is used. This means that if several or all the questions have the same range of set answers, they can be numbered and the respondents answers can be recorded as numbers.
Marketing
Okay, I wish to discuss the subject of Marketing first, as it’s tricky to get right, and most people DO get it wrong.
In my opinion, there are way too many internet ‘experts’.
ØMost are self appointed, as the ease of the web allows anyone to set themselves up as one.
You never truly know who you’re dealing with, so please be careful.
Let’s get through what marketing actually is. “Marketing is the anticipation and fulfilment of a consumer need – profit.”
Fulfilment could mean anything, and as far as the web is concerned – it does. It could be to write and post an article, but whether that satisfies a need, only the customer can decide that one.
The implication of Marketing is that for any company to pursue it’s objectives and generate a profit, it needs to find out what it’s customers want to buy and then simply meet those needs.
In order for you to be successful - You MUST build up a profile of customers:
ØWhat they want to buy
ØWhen they want to buy it
ØWhat they do
ØWhen and why they do it
In a nutshell, what will encourage them to buy or use your product. You have to study their habits and motivations. That will give you the Gold, so to speak!
This is what all that Market Research is for – to give you that information.
Understanding Customer Behaviour
This is so importan