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MARKETING CONSULTING
Know Your Competitors and Be Clear About How You Differ (and make sure your prospective clients know, too!)
A critically important part of effective marketing and advertising communications is figuring out what your key message needs to be to differentiate you from your competitors. This goes hand in hand with refining your message in such a way that your prospects are able to get a clear understanding of what you do and what you might be able to do for them. This is imperative whether you’re a sole proprietor or a marketing manager for a multimillion-dollar business or business unit.
We have found that often businesses of many sizes are hurtling toward the future with their firms and expending their advertising and promotional dollars without having a business plan in place or even a budget established for what they can afford (or choose to) spend on their business for that year. As one of the key causes of business failure is undercapitalization, one of the first things we will ask you as a prospective client is if you have a business plan and know what your advertising and promotional budget can be for the year. If not, we would are happy to put on our MBA hat and parlay the rest of our experience to help you get clear about the classical aspects of a marketing plan and budgeting.
Business Plans and Budgets
It’s always key to have done a SWOT analysis for your business—which is a critical component of an effective business plan—which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The first two have to do with your own businesses, and the last two have to do with the external environment, which would include everything from competitive factors to political or economic issues that are beyond your control. We are also qualified to help you learn more about your industry, your competitors, or other aspects of your chosen field or one you are exploring. If you decide to go back to your own “home team” and develop the plan and budget, we’ll be here for you when you’re ready and we together we can make responsible decisions about how to maximize your exposure without getting overextended. We can make sure that all of your communications are clear, concise, and properly worded using a consistent style. While we don’t place media or do the actual graphic design, but we do have a number of strategic alliances with extremely well-qualified specialists in a number of areas, such as graphic design and media placement, who can assist.
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