This is a presentation om my website on the basic principles of marketing from a small business perspective. It is argued that marketing strategy is basically very simple, it is the tactics which can be complicated.

1. Marketing Strategy for Small
Businesses: 2012
Richard Masters
1 11/10/2012

2. Marketing Strategy
Whether or not digital marketing is right for your
depends on if it fits in with a clearly thought out
Marketing Strategy
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3. Why Marketing Strategy?
 Marketing tends to be dominated by a considerations
of marketing tactics.
 Digital Marketing is, in essence, just a host of new
tactics enabled by the internet.
 It is patently useless, for example, to pursue a
Facebook marketing strategy if none of your
customers are not present on Facebook!
 Similarly, the best tactics available to a major
multinational brand are very different to those of a
small business!
 To be able to select the most appropriate tactics to
deploy it is therefore essential to develop an
3 appropriate Marketing Strategy as a framework.11/10/2012

4. The principles of marketing
The best place to start with developing a marketing
strategy for your business is with a basic understand of
what marketing is all about.
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5. Principles of marketing
 Most marketing discussions are about marketing
tactics. These can be very complex and
expensive experts abound
 It is my contention that the principles of marketing
are in fact very simple- especially for small
businesses
 To develop a successful marketing strategy
(combinations of tactics) you have to get the
basics right.
 This section looks at the basic principles as they
apply to small businesses.
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6. Definitions of Marketing
 Heidi Cohen asked eminent marketers for a less
than 5 line definition of marketing.
 She got 72 very different responses ranging from
the very simple to impenetrable, buzz word filled
gobbledegook!
 I have selected the few that, i think, are most
relevant to small businesses. These are shown
on the next slide......
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7. My 4 best definitions!
 “Marketing is defined as: we help people sell
more stuff.” Joey Iazzetto
 “Marketing is helping people buy your product or
service.” Jason Falls
 “Marketing is helping your customers understand
how much they need something they never knew
they needed”. Doreen Moran
 “Marketing is discovering what the prospect
wants and demands and delivering it more
efficiently and effectively than the
competition”. Paul Kulavis
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8. Core Elements
 The forgoing identify that there are 3 key
elements that are core to marketing.
Understanding these is therefore vital to
developing a successful marketing strategy:
1. Your Products and Services
2. Customers and Clients
3. Markets and Competitors
 How to approach the analysis of each of these
for your business is covered in the subsequent
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sections below.

9. Marketing Strategy: Key Drivers
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10. 1. Products and Services
Understanding your products and services from a
customer perspective is vital to a successful strategy
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11. The Customer Perspective
 Most businesses perceive their products/services
from a components and features point of view.
This is understandable because this is how they
design and put them together!
 The customers perception of your products can
be very different because they see them from a
different perspective!
 Customers view product/services from the
perspective of what benefits they will bring to
them
 It is vital to turn this through 180 degrees and get
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a customer centric view of your 11/10/2012
products/services.

12. Customer benefits
 Traditionally, it was assumed , ultimately, there
were only two real customer benefits:
1. Saving Time
2. Saving Money
 More recently, it was acknowledged that some
people get genuine utility from being associated
with brands/groups and a third has been added:
3. Image
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13. Articulating benefits
 A simple tool exists for small businesses to help
with identifying customer benefits: FAB Analysis
 This involves converting Features. firstly into
Advantages, and then into Benefits
 A link to download it are contained in the
resources section
 Clearly, all of your marketing messages should
look to demonstrate how your
products/services provide these customer
benefits ( and are better than the competitions!)
 If you have different groups of customers then
you may require different sets of marketing
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messages! 11/10/2012

14. Customer Value
Proposition(CVP)
 A useful way of summarising and understanding your
customer benefits is to construct a Customer Value
Proposition (CVP).
 This describes the unique mix of product and/or
service attributes, customer relations and
corporate image that a business offers.
 A downloadable pro forma for a CVP is contained in
the resources section
 In conjunction with an analysis of your competitors
market positioning (see 3 below), this allows the
identification of which benefit messages to use in your
marketing activities. This is called your Unique
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Selling Proposition (USP) (see below). 11/10/2012

15. 2. Customers and Clients
Once you have fully understood your own products and
services, it is vital to gain an in-depth understanding of
your potential clients.
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16. Types of Customers/Clients
 In order to be effective in marketing you have to
target your marketing activities at certain groups
of individuals.
 This is often refereed to as Target Marketing and
the groups identified as Target Markets
 For small businesses it is useful to look at four
types of target marketing:
A. Personas
B. Socio Demographic Groups
C. Hybrid Types
D. Local
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17. Customer Types: Schematic
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18. A. Personas
 Personas are “fictional representations of your
ideal customers” ( Wikipedia)
 They help you build a picture of your ideal
customer in terms of understanding his needs
,wants and behaviours; and therefore, how to
present your products/services benefits to
greatest effect
 I find it useful to imagine these as Cluedo like
characters, where the characters embody all sorts
of assumptions about their behaviours......
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19. Personas as Cluedo Characters!
Colonel Mustard Miss Scarlett
Colonel Mustard is the stock character of Miss Scarlett is the resident femme
a great white hunter and colonial fatale in Cluedo. She is typically
imperialist. He is usually a military man portrayed as young, cunning, and
both dignified and dangerous. highly attractive.
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20. Personas: Typical profile Info.
 Demographics
 Needs/Wants/ “Pain” points
 Behaviours
 Where they typically “hang out” (frequent)
 Where they typically get their
information/influence from
 How computer literate they are ( important for
digital marketing)
 See an example below....
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21. Example- Social Media Persona
Types http://socialmediatoday.com/node/564409
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22. How to use personas in your
marketing strategy
 Decide which of your benefits are likely to be
most important for each persona type
 Tailor your marketing messages to be most
relevant to them
 Select the most appropriate tactics! If your target
clients are not online then Digital Marketing is a
waste of time & effort!
 Target the media they use to find out about things
 Persona types are particularly important if you
want to target new customers for your products.
It helps you to understand them and what
22 messages are most relevant. 11/10/2012

23. B. Socio Demographic Groups
 Before Personas became popular targeting was
often done by reference to Socio Demographic
groups
 The logic behind these types were that they were
classifications of people into groups who showed
similar patterns of behaviour.
 Classically these have been classifications such
as Social Class or Social Economic Groups
(SEG’s)
 More recently Generational Groups have
become more widely used. These are outlined
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below. 11/10/2012

24. Generational Groups
 This is recent approach based on the premise
that birth date is a key behavioural determinant.
 This believed to be the case due to the rapid, and
increasing, pace of change in society leading to
successive generations showing different
behaviours
 These Generation Groups are believed to be
differentiated particularly in the attitude to, and
use of, technology. This is because the sheer
pace of technological developments and its
implications over the recent past.
 The table below summarises the various
generation groups and their characteristics from a
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marketing perspective.

25. Generational Groups
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26. C. Hybrid Types
 These are neither pure groups nor individuals but,
more, ad hoc groups (or typologies), defined for
target marketing purposes . These tend to be
based upon a combination of demographics and
behaviours.
 The most famous example is the first Obama
presidential campaign who identified “Soccer
Moms” and “Nascar Dads” as key groups to
develop specific messages for.
 More recently groups such as “Smartphone
Moms” , “Social Junkies” and “Techno Geeks”
have been used to effect.
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27. Use of Hybrid Types
 Hybrid types have been proved effective in target
marketing- especially where it has not been
possible to identify ideal personas. However there
are some limitations:
1. By their more general nature they allow less
specific message targeting.
2. They are not comprehensive like socio
demographic groups.
3. They tend to be very geographically and
culturally specific. Are Smartphone Moms or
Nascar Dads relevant outside the US?
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28. 4.Local
 Local, can be regarded as a particular “persona”,
rather than a type of its own. I treat it separately, as it
is a very important and distinctive customer type.
 Generally speaking, if your business caters for mainly
local customers/clients, then you approach to
marketing is dominated by this fact.
 Examples of businesses where local is pre-eminent
includes: local shops, coffee bars, restaurants and
other local service providers.
 A list of potential marketing tactics are on the next
slide.
 This is a very specialist area and a link to an
28 introductory resource paper appears at the end 11/10/2012

29. Local Marketing tactics
Traditional Digital
 Word of Mouth  Local search listings
 Local Networking  Google Places/G+
 Local Advertising  Online Directories
 Leaflets & Flyers  Foursquare
 Local Newspapers  Local deals (Groupon)
 Support local events  Location specific
 Physical directories adverts.
 Mobile website/offers
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30. Summary on Customers &
Clients
 This section has presented a number of different
methods of looking at clients in order to
understand their characteristics in order to target
your marketing messages.
 Generally, the more specific and personal you
can get the more focussed and effective your
messages can be. Personas are therefore the
preferred method.
 Generation groups provide a useful context and
Hybrid groups can be useful in some contexts.
Beware national cultural differences
 Where Local is the overriding factor, this largely
determines your approach to marketing.
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31. 3. Markets and Competition.
Marketing is not undertaken in a vacuum but in a highly
dynamic environment. It is vital to understand this to
develop an effective marketing strategy.
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32. Importance of Market Intelligence
 In my experience this is the area that a large
number of marketing strategies fall down
upon
 Marketing strategy cannot be constructed in
isolation. Understanding the wider context,
such as the dynamics in the marketplace, and in
particular of the activities of your competitors, is
absolutely vital
 Market Intelligence is looked at below under two
headings:
1. Markets
32 2. Competitors 11/10/2012

33. 1. Markets
 It is vital to understand what is happening in your
overall marketplace as context to setting marketing
strategy
 Generally growing markets provide more
opportunities as the number of potential customers is
growing and competition is less.
 Declining markets are the reverse with falling
demand where a number of legacy suppliers are
competing for less business. Price is likely to be more
important.
 A third important market type is a market where a
major change is occurring- often called a market
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discontinuity- as this provides an opportunity for11/10/2012
new products and services to succeed.

34. Marketing Opportunity
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35. Marketing Information
 Perhaps the simplest, and most overlooked,
method is to simply ask your potential customers
what they want. Alternatively you can describe
your product and ask them if they would buy it.
 Over and above this, there are many publishes
sources of information. These provide invaluable
information and intelligence on markets.
 The table below summarises some of the main
sources and the resources paper contains further
more in depth information and links etc.
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36. Markets: Information Sources
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37. 2. Competitors
 Understanding who your competitors are, and
their competitive positioning, is vital to arriving
at your own.
 It is also useful to try and anticipate their future
strategies as well. Never forget that they are
actively planning at the same time you are!
 I suggest you try and pull together an implied
marketing plan for each of your major
competitors!
 Fortunately, in most industries, information on
competitors is fairly easy to come by!
 The next few slides looks at some sources of
competitive information.
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38. Sources Of Competitive
Information
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39. Social Media as a Competitive
Source
 Twitter
 Follow to identify: Marketing messages and tactics, Customers:
who they are what they are saying, hash tags (#) used etc.
 Facebook
 Identify Company Pages: Key messages and promotions,
numbers and characteristics of followers, customers views of
offerings.
 LinkedIn.
 Company Pages. Identify the core products and services and the value
proposition. Contains numbers and roles of employees, marketing
messages and blog posts. Slide Share presentations
 Google+ Local( ex Places)
 Location (Maps), opening hours, Customer Reviews, Customer
References
 YouTube.
 Identify video marketing strategy
 Pinterest
 Identify image marketing strategy
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40. Marketing Grader
 Tool provided free by Hub Spot
 Very valuable for assessing you own digital
marketing strategy
 In addition it can compare your online presence
with your competitors.
 Number of pages, numbers of inbound links and
where from.
 Summary of social media activity on major
platforms
 Assessment of comparative weaknesses and
strengths of inbound marketing strategy
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 More information in resource doc.

41. Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
 The culmination of the marketing strategy process
described above is the formulation of your USP’s
 Your CVP may well be similar to your competitors.
The USP attempts to capture what makes you
different from your competitors. A definition is:
“The factor or consideration presented by a seller
as the reason that one product or service is
different from and better than that of the
competition”
 This is the driving force for all of your marketing
messages
 The resources document contains guidance
41
details on how to put these together. 11/10/2012

42. Summary: Marketing Strategy
 Marketing strategy need not be complicated for small
businesses.
 You do need to have an understanding of:
 Your products and services and their customer benefits.
 Your customers, and potential customers, needs and
wants
 The wider marketplace trends and your competitors
strategies and tactics.
 Based upon the above you can select your USP’s and
the marketing tactics most likely to be successful for
your business.
 Digital Marketing tactics may, may not, or have only
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limited applicability to your business. 11/10/2012

43. Downloadable Resources
Document Link
Products & Services Resource https://www.box.com/s/xirhcdxani33dmz2lf3c
Doc.
FAB Analysis Pro Forma https://www.box.com/s/q45tzkarn73s1utyzgvd
CVP Pro Forma https://www.box.com/s/nvs1355pquoecixsjni3
Customers & Clients Resource https://www.box.com/s/gcgjge3xvbdfdjyme1ek
Doc.
Markets & Competitors https://www.box.com/s/5xm6ktqbx2oa6fdyuqo
Resource Doc. k
Competitor Analysis Pro Forma https://www.box.com/s/2sfyw0k34ake369z1l3
o
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Localisation Resources Doc. https://www.box.com/s/p1nl29m2ffqeqhbw9m

44. Further Information/Contact
 Email: richard@rjmasters.co.uk
 Website: www.rjmasters.co.uk
 Linkedin: http://lnkd.in/vTp8Kw
 G+
:http://www.google.com/profiles/richardmasters.richar
d
 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/richardmastersj
 Twitter: www.twitter.com/mastersassoc
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