Welcome to Marketing Magic.

The 5M’s of Marketing Part 1 – The Market

Welcome to this month’s edition to Marketing Magic. Over the last month we have had a number of emails requesting information about how to develop a marketing plan and so in the coming months we’ll show you a very simple but effective way of developing a marketing strategy to help promote your business. We like to refer to it as the 5 M’s of marketing

What are the 5M’s of Marketing?
The market – who are you targeting? The message – what are you promoting? The media – what resources are you using to promote your message? The method – how are you delivering the message? The measures – how are you measuring the effectiveness of your campaign?

Using this technique we will help you to step through the process of developing an effective marketing plan.

In this month we are going to focus on the first of the 5M’s The Market

The Market
The market basically refers to those you are trying to reach during your marketing campaign. You need to be specific, the more targeted the better.

In last month’s edition of Marketing Magic we introduced you to one of our subscribers Toby from Perth, Australia, who designed a marketing strategy that was a complete failure simply because his campaign was too broad and that he did not fully understand his target market. To go to last month issue Click here. Understanding your target market is the first key step towards developing a successful campaign. If you don’t fully understand your potential customer how will you know how to influence them? It’s time to do market research.

Market Research
There are a number of ways to conduct market research, some of which include interviews, surveys, situational analysis etc. and we will discuss many different techniques in detail in the coming months, however for now it is important that you understand that regardless of what method you choose to use, you basically need to capture the following 3 things.
• Demographics
• Geographic and lifestyle factors
• Customer needs

Demographics
Begin your research by checking the demographics of the region that you plan to target. You’ll want to know the population’s make-up in terms of age, gender, income level, occupation, education, and family circumstances — married, single, retired, and so on. The one of easiest ways to find this information is to do a search on internet for the demographics of your target postcode. If you have difficulty finding this information on the internet, you might also like to try your local library.

Geographic and lifestyle factors
Give some thought to where and how your target customers live. Are they city dwellers or suburbia’s ? What lifestyle factors (hobbies, interests, past times) do they enjoy? Are they risk-takers or conservative, athletes or couch potatoes, spenders or savers? The answers will help determine what you can sell to them and how you should sell it.

Customer needs
Consider all of the reasons why people might purchase your products or service. A good start is to simple sit down with your colleagues and come up with a list of reasons why people might want to buy your products or services (for help refer to our sales training page) Click here . Once you have finished your list one of the best time investments you can make is to get out in the field and do some firsthand research. For example if your company sells vitamins, a good start would be to head down to the local discount vitamin store to assess your competition and to casually interview the staff to learn more about their customers. Why not find a nearby coffee shop, enjoy a coffee and observe the demographic of customers who buy these products, even better if you get the chance to survey or interview the customers first hand. Only when you understand your customers can you design an effective marketing campaign. One of the key lessons you should have learnt from last month’s Marketing Magic Ezine is that one of the most common reasons marketing campaigns fail is that they are based on assumptions, that is small businesses often assume that they know what they customers want.

Remember the marketing mantra of the World Health Organisation

“Do nothing – produce no T-shirts, no posters, no pamphlets, do nothing....until one has carried out a situational market analysis”

Taking time out to understand your target market is a very good investment, however like all things in business this time needs to be used constructively.

Putting it all together
Once you have conducted your market research the next step is to put it all together and to create a profile of those people you wish to target. All major marketing companies create a customer profile of their target market and small businesses should do the same. An easy way to create a profile of your target market is to use the PROFILE acronym.

Personality - Come up with a list of words to describe their personality (eg an entrepreneur would generally be, self-motivated, enthusiastic, success driven etc.)

Responsibilities - What responsibilities or commitments do they have? eg work, financial

Occupation - What do they do? - Where do they work? - Do they work for themselves or for someone else? - How much do they earn? - Is their job/ income secure? - What hours do they work? - How do they get to work? - Do they enjoy their work? - Do they have a second job?

Family and Friends - Do they have a family? - How old are they? - What social networks do they have? - Who influences their decisions? Interests - What do they do in their spare time? - What motivates them?

Lifestyle - Where do they go? (eg movies, sports etc.) - How do they spend their money? - What and where do they eat? - Are they fit / healthy? - Do they need to lose weight?

Education - What education do they have? - Are they doing or interested with further studies?

Your homework over the next month is to put your thinking caps on and to get out in the field to do some market research and to create a profile of your target market. Be sure to email us your ideas or examples, remember if we publish any of your material we’ll gladly link back to your business as a way of saying Thanks for contributing. Remember in the true sense of networking “if you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it” – Margaret Fuller.

In next month’s edition of Marketing Magic we’ll move on to discuss the second of the 5M’s - The Message.

Wishing you and your business all the best.

Troy Rocavert