About nine weeks back, I wrote about the possibility of a bottle of water that is being offered for sale at a unit price of not more than N100. The same bottle of water at a restaurant or a hotel may sell as high as N250. In a four star or five star hotel, the same bottle of water may sell for as high as N1,000. It is a function of value attached to the product where it is to be sold.
The value attached to the product or services you are selling goers a long way to speak about the target market for the product.
This is a very fundamental aspect of starting a business. Before you roll out the business, you should find out what your customers want and how they want it, and what price they are willing to offer for the product or service. The roadside markets and shopping malls are both retailers, but they have very different niches: road side markets meets the needs of shoppers who want to bargain and haggle over prices while shopping malls are available to shoppers who will not argue over prices.
Your business or product cannot be for all people. As a matter of fact no business whether micro, small or large, can be for all people. The more specific, concise or narrow closely-defined your target market is, the better for your business. If you are able to achieve this, you would have succeeded in creating a niche for your business and is key to success for even the biggest companies. But rather than creating a niche, many business owners make the mistake of trying to be in business for all, thinking they can satisfy the yearnings and needs of all consumers. They soon find out that it is impossible and they learn a tough lesson: serious high-end clients/customers are unable to identify with the business and the low-end clients/customers are struggling with product sales price.
Product positioning in the market is highly central to business success. How quickly and easily a new business can get a foothold will be influenced by clear identification of those who really need the product or service, by the placement of your product for the customers for easy reach, by the degree of fellow-feeling between you and those hearing about your business, by empathy, by sense of belonging, by location, and by identification.
A business may struggle for a long time just because there is a gap between a product and the people who really need it or because the owner of the business is perceived to be too aloof or ambivalent by users of the products or services your business wants to sell, especially if economic condition and situation has made the product or service is in a buyers’ market (where buyers dictate the price and can afford to choose from other substitutes or turn down the use of such a product outright).
Therefore, it is improper for a business to start without appropriate marketing concept and plan. Marketing plan is the roadmap for a business success. It is done so that it can help to guide and direct marketing initiative and assist in the attainment of business goals. An unknown product always finds it difficult to do well in the market. Marketing is therefore whatever you can do to discover consumers of your product in large number and to find out exactly the way they want you to serve them the product.
Since you can only make profit when customers exchange your product with their money, it is very important that you provide them what they are looking for at the price they are ready to pay. Also you will be concerned with how best to make the products available to them and also attract them to buy.
In order for you to get your marketing plan right, it is important you do a very thorough market research. The outcome of the market research will help you to adjust your business idea (the what, which, who, and how of your business) and help you come up with a good market penetration strategy and plan.
. Emmanuel is a business planning and cooperative consultant. He works with a team of international consultants to conceptualise and plan agribusiness and housing projects. As a certified trainer authorised to use the International Labour Organisation’s enterprise development modules, he trains entrepreneurs and organises workshops and seminars for potential and practising entrepreneurs as well as business managers and cooperatives. He also speaks and facilitates at leadership and management workshops on invitation. His book, Business Planning Made Easy: Step by Step Guide On How To Turn Your Idea To Profitable Business’ is the latest of the books authored by him. Tel.: +234(0)9068602954 (call and sms), +234(0)8023257707 (whatsApp only).
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