If a business’s marketing is to be successful, it should understand:
Customer needs – Understanding this is done through the process of market research enabling a company to understand their consumer and moulding around this image. My business does this by gaining data collectively analysing and documenting any relevant issues.
Keeping ahead of the competition – in competitive business environment organisations are forced to be on their toes. So we cannot let rivals gain advantages by offering lower prices or goods/services customers perceive to be substantially better. In order to excel organisations will gear their activities to being better than their competitions, and to keeping up with any improvements competitors make.
Bright Spark Accounting Services will be carrying out this by means of research, making sure we are keeping up with technology, along with carrying out SWOT & PEST analysis to keep up with changing times for them and the market.
Communication effectiveness with customers – an effective network of communication is essential for any form of promotional activity. It enables an organisation not only to communicate with its customers and satisfy their expectations but also to build an image with the world at large. Such an image will help others to form a judgement about what the organisation stands for, and will influence their dealings with it.
Bright Spark Accounting Services does this by using various tools to communicate effectively with customers to satisfy their expectations within what is known as the promotional mix.
Satisfying customer needs – this is carried out to be competitive within my market segment, so to this market research may be conducted asking questions to find out what THEY want.
Co-ordination of business functions to achieve marketing aims – business strategies is concerned with the big decision organisations for the whole organisation and influences the future of a business for a long time to come. An organisation with a strategy is concerned with identifying successfully so that the organisation can meet a range of objectives.
Awareness of the constraints of marketing – Every organisation that has a marketing activity is faced with a number of constraints that may limit their activity.
Internal constraints: - relate to the resource capabilities of an organisation.
External constraints: - involve a series of factors within the business environment in which an organisation operates that limit, in one way or another, the organisation’s activities. These will include the following,
Consumers – if my organisation is not market focused or if consumers are not interested in my service, then it will be difficult to market.
Competitors – It may be difficult to market a product for which a competitor already has an advantage.
Economy – In a period of economic recession when consumers have declining incomes, it may make it difficult to market a luxury product.
The law – There may be a number of laws constraining the activities of a business, which may make it difficult for the business to do well.
This is relevant to the Bright Spark Accounting Services business at hand, as it is a market-focused company that will research all these constraints fully and will try to find solutions that enable it to turn weaknesses into strengths and threats into opportunities.
Researching for Bright Spark Accounting Services
My type of research is secondary research, otherwise known as Desk research. This is the gathering and analysis of already available information. Therefore, the company does not have to actually carryout surveys etc, but just look up information that they need, this is where the Internet is most useful! A big advantage of Desk research is that it saves both time and money for the company in question. However, one common disadvantage with this type of research is that the information found is not always the information that it needed however in my case I got all the information I needed.
Market research can obviously be of great help and benefit the business enormously, which is why it is considered a very valuable tool to my business in achieving success and my objectives. After I have found out what is in demand by consumers, then I will then continue to carry out more research. So the company will continue to use research until all of the research objectives have been satisfied. If the company’s research has been successful, I should know exactly where to head in the market next. Market research can obviously help a business that is not doing very well, for example, making a loss.
Secondary research objectives
My secondary research objectives consist of:
How much money does the population in our area spend?
The circulation/viewing figures that correspond towards my project.
Review market size and current competition to see if there is growth or decline within our sector.
Research into how much money spent on accounting services annually.
To gather the information the sources we will consider using are as followed,
- Statistics on Social trends,
- Annual statistics book,
- The Internet,
- Business related textbooks
The data is easy to access so I will look up the relevant data and use it appropriately to the task at hand.
Over the Internet the easiest possible way to find out what I will be looking for, so by using search engines to find web pages on statistics. From this I will search for the relevant data, this should be simpler as I should be able to type in what I’m looking for and the data should come up.
Ansoff Matrix
The Ansoff Matrix is a useful tool for businesses aiming for growth. The Ansoff Matrix shown below illustrates both existing and new products within existing and new markets. Four possible marketing strategies to achieve growth are revealed by the Matrix.
The Ansoff Matrix - Use the Ansoff Matrix to show which of the following strategies might be appropriate to your business.
Marketing Penetration - A key objective that many organisations have is to improve their levels of market penetration. This involves making more sales to customers, without changing products in any way.
Better marketing penetration thus helps organisations to improve their market share. In large markets even a small increase in market share can create significant sales, and studies have shown there is a link between market share and profitability.
There are possible short cuts to this an example being, sponsors. If I were to be sponsored by a big brewery, pubs will be more likely to look at my idea than if I were freelancers. I have explained other ways of penetrating the market previously.
New product development - A new product may be one that replaces an old product, opens up a new market or even broadens an existing market.
Advertising My Company
After thinking of what ways I would advertise my company, I decided that I would create some Business Cards, leaflets and a website as well as a repeated newspaper column in the local paper.
With the budget of £5000 I had to be sure that I would achieve some success. As the company is based in my local town of Lutterworth, I researched that with approx. 10000 people living there, a number of companies and small businesses there was only a dozen accountants/accounting services. The local paper is disrupted over the whole town and surrounding villages once a week on a Thursday, so my business will be viewed on regular basis.
I felt that opening my services here with the appropriate advertising would attract sufficient interest to run a successful company.
As I have set a fixed amount for my fees it should be easy to predict my income and work out how much I need to break even on the advertising costs.
The break down of my advertising:
Website £1500 + £50 per month for updates
Newspaper advertising £200 per month
10000 Leaflets + Distributor £750
1000 Business Cards £125
I have assumed that I will not receive any income through customer during the first month as I will only just start to get noticed, but once the ‘word’ gets around about my company sales will expand and develop, and through the course of continually/repeated advertising in the paper I expect sales to continue to grow.
Obviously I will measure my success on the amount of custom I receive, but all so I will provide a questionnaire for customers on how/why they have decided to come to my business for accounting services to see of any ways of improving my services.
When I will be looking to recover my costs for advertising I will be able to cover my main outlay within the first month of business after the start of the advertising, however this does not include wages that I have set up to be taken into account.