by Paul Lines

Created on: August 26, 2008

All businesses need to understand the basics of marketing. However, when small business owners see the size and complex content of technical and academic textbooks on business marketing it is little wonder that they find the prospect of learning about marketing daunting. Nevertheless, effective marketing is just as important for a small business as it is for any other. Therefore, the intention of this article is to try to provide a simple and straightforward guide to marketing for the smaller business owner.

Marketing is the term given to the process of understanding your product, knowing who is going to buy it and how to find these customers and also being aware of the problems that your business might come up against when trying to sell. Simply put, marketing is about product, pricing, positioning and promotion.

Product

Understanding your product in a marketing context means more than just knowing that it works. In the first place, there is no point in producing something unless there are enough people out there who have a need for this product or service to make your task of making and selling the product or service into a viable business venture. To take a crazy example, it is unlikely in the modern world of colour TV that a company which produces black and white televisions would be successful.

Therefore, in technical terms the product or service has tp be marketable. There has to be a viable market for the product you have produced to be able to convert this process into a profit and continued success. Additionally that market has to have sufficient customers in it to achieve your business sales targets.

Pricing

Although many might think otherwise, pricing is also an important element of marketing. No product will achieve sales if it is overpriced. Similarly, there is little point in selling a product or service if it does not provide a reasonable return for the business, one that will cover the costs of production, distribution and administration and leave a profit for the owner. It is essential to set the price of the product to take into account all of these costs.

Remember that the price also has to be acceptable to the seller and purchaser and, furthermore, it has to be competitive. Despite the fact that it may not be possible for your product to be sold at a price as low as someone could purchase the same item in a supermarket, as far as other competition is concerned you do not want the price set so high that people will be forced to go to other independent

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