The microenterprise must know the fundamental concepts of marketing, in order to survive difficult competition.
I hope that when you read this article you can appreciate the advantages of knowing how to accurately distinguish the concept of marketing or marketing, as well as its elements and the importance of sales, products and customers.
The idea is that you can understand your market, locate your products well and sell them easier. All these points are vital for your company.
First we will make a classification of concepts and then enter to interrelate them.
Companies can produce goods and / or services. Let's distinguish between them:
Goods: they are all the articles or things that are produced transforming raw materials, that is to say that the goods can be shoes, furniture, shirts, telephones, etc. In other words, the physical products of the company.
Services: are the actions that a company performs to cover a market need. That is to say that among the services are those of a laundry, or an automotive workshop. As if they do not produce things but perform actions for which they receive a payment.
What is a company?
A Company is one or several people, who together with organized resources produce goods and / or services with which they meet the needs of the market or community and thus obtain a profit or profit.
Remember that goods and services are to meet the needs of individuals. The person who actually demands my products, that is, the one who buys them, is called Customer.
The previous definition also reminds us that the goods or services produced by the company are called Products without distinction, which are intended to satisfy the needs of customers.
But apart from customers there are other people who need your products but have not bought them. This universe of potential customers is generally called Consumers because they are the ones who spend or consume the products that companies make. In other words, a consumer who buys your product periodically or only occasionally, automatically becomes your customer.
However, it turns out that a company can have its clients in various geographical areas, such as nearby towns or cities. And in all those points there are consumers. The group made up of a company's customers plus the people who are able to buy the product, that is, the consumers, is called the Market.
We now weigh to interrelate these concepts to start their application the company.
Many microenterprise owners are great technicians and are dedicated to producing and producing. In fact what is important to them is their product and they downplay the rest. Those companies that show that kind of disposition are said to have a Product Orientation.
These companies are distinguished by:
- The fundamental thing for them is to produce, to the point of exaggerating the importance of the product. The person in charge of the production is the one who determines what is produced. For them the market is just a place where they put what they have produced.
For example, a shirt factory, which has its shelves and warehouses full of finished products, which are very well manufactured and which makes its owner proud, who only is interested in producing more shirts, is a company with orientation to the product.
For other companies and entrepreneurs, the important thing is to sell. They locate the problem in selling and not in producing. These are said to have a Sales Orientation. All daily efforts are made based on how to increase sales volume, how to sell more? It is the question to answer.
These are characterized by:
- The entrepreneur identifies that the problem is not to produce but to sell. He places all the importance on the volume of sales as such.
So far, everything is going very well apparently, but it turns out that in reality many micro-business owners start with a product or sales orientation, which has its disadvantages, since in the first place their products do not have long-term security. in the market, since they do not give much priority to the customer and on the other hand they exaggerate the importance of sales as such and of the product.
There is another form of guidance, much more effective and efficient, but it requires a little more effort, but instead it will give your project much more security. This is the so-called Customer Orientation.
Is distinguished by:
1. The most important thing is to find out what the clients' needs are to dedicate themselves to satisfying them.
2. The emphasis is on customer needs.
So if you want your business to prosper and consolidate, you need to give it a customer orientation. How to do it ?, Let's see.
The development of man's knowledge of the reality of business and markets has resulted in a set of activities that ensure that the company has this orientation, that is, that it manages to produce goods and services that correctly respond to the needs of clients, these activities are called Marketing or Marketing.
A practical way to implement the marketing or marketing plan is that before working on your product, look for who your best customers may be, locate them geographically (in the neighborhood, the city, the country, etc.), which characteristics are those who like the products (styles, prices, etc.), identify your competition. Now if you start working on your product so that it is in accordance with the demands of the customers.
More orderly we have:
1. Find the best clients. In other words, Identify the Profitable Markets, in order to optimize your efforts in an environment that responds positively.
2. Find out the needs of customers. Research the Market, probe the needs and see if you can meet them or if your proposal would resonate with the market.
3. Use the best way to meet those needs. Develop a Marketing Strategy to serve the market.
Now you can already evaluate your company or your entrepreneurial plan with these tools. We are sure that they will be very useful and you can clarify your horizon. Don't forget the quality of your product, or neglect your sales, but give them only their fair measure of importance within a customer-oriented approach.
