KNOW YOUR MARKET
Marketing encompasses everything you have to do to brainstorm a needed product or service, making potential customers aware of it, making them want it, and then selling it to them.

Everything you do, including advertising, sales promotion, and pricing are all tied to marketing. You must know your market, understand your strengths and weaknesses, and find opportunities to make marketing work for you.

You must first become knowledgeable about your market. Your market is the people who will be buying your service, product, or merchandise.

Basic marketing considerations:

1. Who is your market?
   
   
2. What is the present size of the market?
   
   
3. What percent of the market will you have?
   
   
4. What is the market's growth potential?
   
   
5. As the market grows, does your share increase or decease?
   
   
6. How are you going to satisfy your market?
   
   
7. How are you going to price your service, product, or merchandise to make a profit and be competitive?

Most successful businessmen consider marketing skills to be of prime importance. Once you clearly identify the market you wish to service, you can then focus on numbers 2 through 7 (above) in a coherent way.

Your first consideration then is to:

Define Your Market (Target Marketing)
Target marketing is especially useful because the market you target provides the fruit of your efforts. Defining the target market is done in a logical fashion by considering:

• Who needs your service?
• Who needs your product?
• Who buys the kind of merchandise you stock?

It may be necessary
to change your service, product, or merchandise mix to meet the needs of the market you have targeted (number 6) or make rational price adjustments (number 7).

Who is Your Market >>