SMEssentials: Marketing

By Peter Ashfield, senior lecturer in business and marketing, UCLan

1. Ask yourself ‘what are you really good at?’ and explore ‘who are your customers, competitors and collaborators?’ and ‘what is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?’
2. Once you have this information you may want to look at your strengths and weaknesses and then move to unpack the opportunities and threats within your marketplace.
3. Using the above information, ask yourself: ‘What do these things mean for your business right now?’ and then ‘what could these things mean for our business in the future?’ Then ask ‘what do we need to do next?’ and develop an action plan.
4. Ask yourself the critical question: ‘What do we really do? What is our business focus? What business are we really in?’ Does the answer to this question alter your action plan?
5. Then ask: ‘Who are we targeting and how will we target them?’ Consider your marketing objectives and how you will measure success. Analyse how you will evolve your product or service over time and how you will hook your target market.
6. Revisit your action plan and identify the marketing communication tools you could use. Explore direct marketing, personal selling, advertising, sales vouchers, word of mouth, social media, website, public relations and publicity activities.