Marketing R D Helps You Capture Consumers Minds
Whatever you make or sell, minds are the real estate you want to claim for your product, service or brand! It's those tiny corners of consumers' minds you're after, those places in which, when they hear or think of cereal, automobiles, or computers, for example, they instantly think of a specific product, service or brand. Here's how to claim one of those corners - and make it exclusively yours?
The process, referred to as R&D - research and development, involves several steps. But it's not the same kind of R&D found in a manufacturing environment. Marketing R&D is different.
Marketing R&D starts with identifying "wants," because in today's world the average person's "needs" are usually being met. Start with looking for what your targeted buyers want. Not what they think they want. And not necessarily what they say they want. But the kinds of Stuff - products and services - they actually want.
"Stuff," by the way, is a truly great word. Generic, all-inclusive, a time-saver I discovered while teaching. It's a great alternative to repeating "products and/or services" again and again during class. It's also quicker and easier to write on the board, and for students taking notes. And I use a cap "S" to distinguish Marketing Stuff from ordinary stuff.
There's an even better approach than searching for who wants what Stuff. Develop some new Stuff. Stuff you can produce and deliver profitably. Stuff for which you create the "Want," a deep-seated emotional desire that only your Stuff can satisfy.
That latter approach may be difficult, but it is do-able. While it can be extremely expensive to create that insatiable "Want" in a mass audience, nothing says you can't start out small, right?
Note that I use a lower case "w" to identify existing wants, a cap "W" for the Wants you create. But if resources are severely limited, you may be better off trying to satisfying existing wants.
Back to your Marketing R&D. Be sure to look at both past and present buying patterns of your potential customers. What affects them? The nation's economy certainly. So can seasonal factors. Keep your eyes open for everything that might have changed your customers' past buying habits, and that can influence future ones.
Once you're able to determine what Stuff your potential customers want - truly want - the next step in your R&D process is to find out who's now selling them Stuff similar to what you hope to sell them. Marketing R&D must include all you can learn about your competitors - who, what, when, where, why and how they do what they do.
Your research should also tell you the market share of each competitor, currently and historically. The latter not only identifies past shifts in buying patterns, it can sometimes foretell future trends.
Why would you want to know all of that? Well, if you think that the number of people wanting to buy "me-too" Stuff - Stuff that's similar to what your competitors now sell - will increase dramatically just because you want to sell similar Stuff, too, think again.
There's not likely to be any such increase...unless your Stuff is better than the Stuff your competition sells. But wait a minute. If your Stuff is better than your competition's, it's really not "me-too" Stuff, is it? Your Stuff might actually be "new" Stuff, right? And that might require a whole new R&D effort.
By the way, the process is called Marketing R&D because the Research helps you Develop your Stuff and your marketing plans.
New and old ways to stuff the Thanksgiving bird - The Gazette (Montreal)
The Gazette (Montreal) New and old ways to stuff the Thanksgiving bird The Gazette (Montreal), Canada - But don't stuff the bird until the last minute. This is enough to stuff a 15-pound (6.75 kg) turkey, which will serve eight to 10 people. Stuffing standoff