Friday, February 27, 2015

Marketing 101

Source: SBA

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In order to successfully grow your business, you’ll need to attract and then work to retain a large base of satisfied customers. Marketing emphasizes the value of the customer to the business, and has two guiding principles:
  1. All company policies and activities should be directed toward satisfying customer needs.
  2. Profitable sales volume is more important than maximum sales volume.
To best use these principles, a small business should:
  • Determine the needs of their customers through market research
  • Analyze their competitive advantages to develop a market strategy
  • Select specific markets to serve by target marketing
  • Determine how to satisfy customer needs by identifying a market mix
Marketing programs, though widely varied, are all aimed at convincing people to try out or keep using particular products or services. Business owners should carefully plan their marketing strategies and performance to keep their market presence strong.
Conducting Market Research
Successful marketing requires timely and relevant market information. An inexpensive research program, based on questionnaires given to current or prospective customers, can often uncover dissatisfaction or possible new products or services.
Market research will also identify trends that affect sales and profitability. Population shifts, legal developments, and the local economic situation should be monitored to quickly identify problems and opportunities. It is also important to keep up with competitors' market strategies.
Creating a Marketing Strategy
A marketing strategy identifies customer groups which a particular business can better serve than its target competitors, and tailors product offerings, prices, distribution, promotional efforts and services toward those segments. Ideally, the strategy should address unmet customer needs that offer adequate potential profitability. A good strategy helps a business focus on the target markets it can serve best.
Target Marketing
Most small businesses don’t have unlimited resources to devote to marketing; however, the SBA wants you to know that you can still see excellent returns while sticking to your budget if you focus on target marketing. By concentrating your efforts on one or a few key market segments, you’ll reap the most from small investments. There are two methods used to segment a market:
  1. Geographical segmentation: Specializing in serving the needs of customers in a particular geographical area.
  2. Customer segmentation: Identifying those people most likely to buy the product or service and targeting those groups.
Managing the Market Mix
Every marketing program contains four key components:

  1. Products and Services: Product strategies include concentrating on a narrow product line, developing a highly specialized product or service or providing a product-service package containing unusually high-quality service.
  2. Promotion: Promotion strategies focus on advertising and direct customer interaction. Good salesmanship is essential for small businesses because of their limited advertising budgets. Online marketing is a cheap, quick, and easy way to ensure that your business and product receive high visibility.
  3. Price: When it comes to maximizing total revenue, the right price is crucial.  Generally, higher prices mean lower volume and vice-versa; however, small businesses can often command higher prices because of their personalized service.
  4. Distribution: The manufacturer and wholesaler must decide how to distribute their products. Working through established distributors or manufacturers' agents is generally easiest for small manufacturers. Small retailers should consider cost and traffic flow in site selection, especially since advertising and rent can be reciprocal: a low-cost, low-traffic location means spending more on advertising to build traffic.
The aforementioned steps combine to form a holistic marketing program.
The nature of the product or service is also important in citing decisions. If purchases are based largely on impulse, then high-traffic and visibility are critical. On the other hand, location is less of a concern for products or services that customers are willing to go out of their way to find. The Internet makes it easy for people to obtain goods from anywhere in the world, so if you’re worried about reaching a certain market, selling your product online may do wonders for your business.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Aston Martin #DB10 - #AstonMartin

Aston Martin DB10

The next Bond adventure hasn't even hit theaters, and yet we already know what car he'll be driving. The Aston Martin DB10 is 007's official ride in Spectre, and is being developed specifically for the film. That kind of thing happens when a character and car maker have been linked for 50 years. Only 10 will be built, so the odds of you parking one in your garage are essentially zero, but if past concepts are any indication, you'll be seeing echoes of its streamlined design in production Aston models very soon.

Friday, December 12, 2014

Amber's Army - Benefit and Live Action - January 17, 2015

Amber was severely beat, strangled, sexually assaulted and left for dead at the hands of her soon to be ex-husband. She has an amazing will to survive and managed to get herself untied and get help all while her young daughters were in the home asleep. Amber will be out of work for a while and is in need of our support. She and her family have a long road to recovery and are asking for your support and continued prayers.




Please contact Tiffaney Alderson at 832-465-5942, to schedule a donation pick up or drop off.

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

They’re Back LIVE on Air from McKinney Buick GMC

Perfection is rarely duplicated.  However, October 18th live from McKinney Buick GMC; the boys from The ANE Show will once again dominate the airwaves with the most talked about Automotive, News and Entertainment radio show in the Dallas and Fort Worth area.  After a brief hiatus, (rumor has it that Doc was renegotiating a long-term deal) Jim “Doc” Proctor, The Guru Josh Deaton, Jeff “Bubba” Thompson and James “The Spin Doctor” Schaefer will pick up the mic every Saturday morning at 9 AM on Clear Channel Radio’s 1190 AM.

The show is not your typical radio talk show.  There is a definite purpose to the hour long program.  The ANE Show which stands for “Automotive, News, and Entertainment” provides information for consumers and dealerships alike helping listeners find the right vehicle for their needs.  However, the show doesn’t take the typical approach to just providing the same information about the automotive industry every week.

Each week, listeners will be able to interact with the cast of characters through social media as well as visit with this team live on location.

The “Doc” and “Bubba” have spent many years in the automotive industry helping put car buyers in the right vehicle.  They built a great reputation for providing great vehicles for fair prices, and even more for going the extra mile to make buyers happy.  “The Guru” and “Spin Doctor” created a patent-pending digital marketing company (DeliveryMaxx) that blends social media and online reputation to help any company, organization, or person that utilizes the web to share or sell their products or services.  Combined, listeners will be able to understand the automotive industry learning how best to buy vehicles as well as keep up with the latest industry news.

In addition to being informed about the automotive industry, real world news, sports and entertainment will be discussed during the show.  There will be plenty of opinions and fun to be had every Saturday morning.

You can tune in at 9 AM every Saturday Morning to 1190 AM and follow The ANE Show on Facebook or Twitter @theANEshow to be part of the conversation.  Just write your questions or comments into the timeline and hear how the cast responds.