The Bath and West Show June 2010
I have a love of coffee and could remember that previously there have been lots of stalls selling ground coffee. Whilst you can find every "difficult" product under the sun - ie those that do not sell on the high street, there was no ground coffee to be seen. I was there for 4 days and looked pretty hard.
4 years ago there was lots of coffee ground by individuals hoping to catch the eye of supermarkets.
During this time the market has matured and the supply chain settled down. Ground coffee or even coffee shops are no longer "growth" markets in the same way as they were and to some extend consumers have made their choices on brand.
Breaking this down - it is useful to research things over time - you get a picture of how things are changing. This is an example of longitudinal research.
I was working with a wood pellet supplier - Energy2burn - and with a bit of questioning it was a good opportunity to look at the competitive landscape. It was possible to work out margins, concentration ratios, marketing strategies, and predict behaviour. It helped match what I already knew about some companies to reality. This is called cross referencing.
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Sunday, 6 June 2010
Friday, 26 February 2010
Resources - are they important?
Lots of people have dreams and business owners are no different. Business owners dream of the large or very profitable customer, or lots of very large and profitable customers.
Some business owners chase dreams without sufficient resources. There are examples where a business can improve its credibility superficially to get meetings with a large customer, and sometimes you hear stories of the business succeeding with a large order.
Unfortunately this is not the most common occurrence. To get orders there are benchmarks or rules of thumb on the resources needed not only to gain a customer, but to get repeat business.
For instance look at high street shops. Shops work on 3 key principles:
If you are very specialist you may get away with a location that is a long way away from the centre of a city or a town, but in general, location is important to gain awareness and sales.
Whilst we do not all own shops - the shop and the location are resources. If you were a jeweller and wanted to attract the rich and famous then a location in central London, possibly Regent Street would be good.
Taking another example - if you want to tender for government work they will ask you to fill in a tender document for work of any size. The difficulty with this is that your business may be too small, or your track record to insignificant to even get an interview.
Can you improve your credibility artificially?
The short answer is no. However there are things that you can do right that make effective use of the resources at your disposal. In other words you match the resources to the best market opportunity available to you.
Plugging into your market is about focussing on key potential clients, working out what they need from you in terms of service, appearance, capability and your long term future. They must see you as a good bet and feel better about trading with you rather than someone else.
Some business owners chase dreams without sufficient resources. There are examples where a business can improve its credibility superficially to get meetings with a large customer, and sometimes you hear stories of the business succeeding with a large order.
Unfortunately this is not the most common occurrence. To get orders there are benchmarks or rules of thumb on the resources needed not only to gain a customer, but to get repeat business.
For instance look at high street shops. Shops work on 3 key principles:
- They get lots of people walking past
- They get the right people walking past
- They have an attractive offer that entices people to walk in
If you are very specialist you may get away with a location that is a long way away from the centre of a city or a town, but in general, location is important to gain awareness and sales.
Whilst we do not all own shops - the shop and the location are resources. If you were a jeweller and wanted to attract the rich and famous then a location in central London, possibly Regent Street would be good.
Taking another example - if you want to tender for government work they will ask you to fill in a tender document for work of any size. The difficulty with this is that your business may be too small, or your track record to insignificant to even get an interview.
Can you improve your credibility artificially?
The short answer is no. However there are things that you can do right that make effective use of the resources at your disposal. In other words you match the resources to the best market opportunity available to you.
Plugging into your market is about focussing on key potential clients, working out what they need from you in terms of service, appearance, capability and your long term future. They must see you as a good bet and feel better about trading with you rather than someone else.
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