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Marketing Tips You Can Use Right Now ...
Marketing Faults ...
The most common failure in marketing is to not develop a strategic plan. Marketing consultants say only 5% of businesses have such plans. Most firms run on a day to day basis - with no real idea how their marketing methods may have to change in the next two to three years. Because they make no effort to predict changing market forces, they often face unexplained sales drops. But most sales drops can be anticipated by proper planning. When you know in advance, you are in a far better position to know how to react.
The other most common problems in marketing in order are:
- Underestimating the competition. An incredible 90% of businesses underestimate their competitors. It's amazing how many people don't take time to talk to their customers. Even fewer talk to their competitor's customers - yet they are the ones you must win if your business is to expand. Try to find out how they perceive you - and your competition. If you know why they choose the way they do, you are able to make appropriate changes so they are more likely to choose you.
- Predisposition to take the cheap way out. The cheapest solution is not always wrong. But most businesses fail to check that it is right.
- Insufficient information. When something goes wrong, most businesses don't gather enough information to accurately pinpoint the problem The problem is even worse when there is nothing wrong. For example, the firm might be quite content with a 5% sales rise in a given locality, but because they don't have an analysis of each account, they don't know all increase is from one or two accounts. All other accounts may have lost ground - but management doesn't have enough information to detect this. Every company owns valuable data like this, but rarely do they use it, or know how to use it.
Thinking too generalised. Management usually fails to think through to the specifics of any marketing problem. For example, they think in terms of "our sales are too low", rather than "sales of product X in area Y are too low".
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