Page 8 - Duct Tape Marketing

xiv Small Business Marketing For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 3: Seeing Your Product through Your Customers’ Eyes . . . .33

In a Service Business, Service Is the Product ............................................34
Telling “Just the Facts” about What You Sell .............................................34

Tallying your sales by product line ...................................................35
Using the cash register to steer your business ...............................36
Illogical, Irrational, and Real Reasons People Buy What You Sell ...........37
Buying Decisions Are Rarely about Price, Always about Value ..............38
The value formula ...............................................................................38
Riding the price/value teeter-totter ..................................................40
Pricing considerations ........................................................................41
Presenting prices .................................................................................41
The Care and Feeding of Your Product Line ..............................................43
Enhancing the appeal of existing products ......................................44
Even products have life cycles ..........................................................45
Raising a healthy product ..................................................................45
Developing new products ...................................................................46

Chapter 4: Sizing Up Competitors and Staking Out Market Share . . .49

Playing the Competitive Field ......................................................................50
The terminology of competition ........................................................50
Knowing what you’re up against .......................................................52
How businesses compete ...................................................................53

Winning Your Share of the Market ..............................................................53
Defining your direct competition ......................................................54
Moving up the competitive ladder ....................................................55

Calculating Your Market Share ....................................................................56
Sizing up your target market ..............................................................56
Doing the math ....................................................................................57

Increasing Your Market Share ......................................................................59

Chapter 5: Goals, Objectives, Strategies, and Budgets . . . . . . . . . . . .61

Where Are You Going, Anyway? ..................................................................62
The “vision” thing ................................................................................62
Developing your statement of purpose ............................................63
Success stories ....................................................................................63

Goals and Objectives Defined Simply .........................................................64
Setting goals and objectives ..............................................................65
Setting strategies .................................................................................66
Goals, objectives, and strategies in action ......................................66
The failsafe planning sequence .........................................................68

Budgeting to Reach Your Goals ...................................................................68
Realistic talk about small business marketing budgets .................68
How much should you be spending? ................................................69
Budgeting considerations ..................................................................70
Why a static budget is headed downhill ..........................................71