7 Ways to Improve Profit Through Both Long- and Short-Term Strategies

Your marketing mix is the combination of promotions, products, places (distribution channels), and prices you choose for products, services, and the overall business. It is important to strike a balance between those four "Ps". By including both short- and long-term marketing strategies of each, you can create an even more profitable marketing mix.

Long-Term Marketing Strategies

Long-term strategies build brand and company awareness, and give sales revenue a gradual, permanent boost. Some of the benefits are indirect and cannot always be directly associated with profit. For this reason, long-term strategies can be difficult to execute when the focus is short-term.

Branding activities.

High profile activities and general-purpose advertising contribute to your company's image by building familiarity and trust. This, in turn, can create customer loyalty. Successful branding can have a large impact on market share, but is a gradual process so cannot always be definitively measured.

Industry relationships.

Building healthy relationships with distributors and others involved in the industry puts you in a position to know about new opportunities and potential problems as they occur. Long term, this improves the flow of product from you to your customers and creates new distribution channels.

Giving.

Donating money, services, and time can build a positive image with customers and employees. Over time, this increases a company's trustworthiness. When they see you consistently giving something back to the community, they are more confident you will take the same care with them.

Research and development

A new product pipeline and research are short-term expenses, but represent future sales. Conduct research with customers (or potential target markets) and design products to meet their needs. This ensures future growth.

Short-Term Marketing Strategies

Short-term strategies create immediate revenue. Sales and accounting people often prefer these to long-term approaches because the results are direct and quantifiable. The disadvantage of relying strictly on short-term approaches is the effect is temporary. They tend to be limited-time techniques that do not work well over time. Some examples ...

Reduced price sales.

Sales encourage customers to act. Holding a sale will give customers who have been "meaning to buy" an incentive to do so, resulting in a revenue boost. Frequent sales can erode profit over time as customers become "trained" to wait for a sale instead of buying at full price.

Group discounts and offers.

This is a good way to introduce your products or services to a new set of customers, or give important groups a permanent discount. Carefully evaluate long-term impact, however. Over time, the gain in sales may not offset the cost of continual price reductions.

Blended Marketing Strategies

Some marketing strategies have both long- and short- term benefits. Pay per click (PPC) advertising, for example, is a way to communicate temporary price reductions or highlight a promotion. PPC can also build long-term brand awareness, however, as you expose more people to a Website.

Together, long- and short-term marketing programs help achieve immediate sales goals while building business reputation and goodwill. Implement both and your business will prosper for years to come.

6 Common Market Research Mistakes of Small Business

Whether expanding a new line or starting a business, market research for your small business is a necessary component for success. As any business owner learns soon enough, risks are part of business. With limited resources, entrepreneurs know risk needs to be calculated. Employing market research helps you sort out the risks involved.

The benefits of market research for small business range from finding hidden niches and preserving capital to building customer loyalty and identifying more business opportunities with existing customers.

Before you take the path to greater customer understanding by market research, it's
important to know the common pitfalls encountered by small business. Avoid these 6 common mistakes in market research for small business.

Think It's Costly: Bob Kaden, market research expert and author of "Guerrilla Marketing Research" knows too well the challenge small business owners face to afford the costs of conducting market research. Small businesses believe focus groups and surveys are unaffordable. Marketing research costs can range from a few thousand dollars to $25,000 annually.

Should you hire a professional or go it alone? "If you have the time and interest to learn what it takes to do effective research, there is no reason you can't execute the studies yourself at a fraction of the cost it would take you to use a professional," states Kaden in "Guerrilla Marketing Research." On the contrary, Kaden feels a solid market research professional is invaluable. Spend the time to learn what you don't know and need to know.

Try Secondary Research Only: Research comes in 2 forms: primary and secondary. Primary research is first hand knowledge you gain directly from the marketplace and often uses techniques as focus groups and surveys. Secondary research is usually published studies available online or from your library providing broad knowledge about your markets. Learning about your business and industry from secondary research is a good start but primary research allows you to target your efforts and understand customers' attitudes in real time.

Use Web Searching: The Internet has opened up a flood of business information that was once available to big companies or those with money. No doubt conducting secondary market research on Yahoo or Google saves time and money for small business. Search engines mine only a portion of the web and often the good info you need will be part of the deep web or on a paid search like Lexis Nexis. To save money, visit your local library, business center, or college to gain access to the quality information you need at zero cost.

Hit the Wall: Any sizable research project runs into the U-shaped curve. Your enthusiasm and motivation are high at the beginning but as the project progresses you reach a wall. As you start to take in more information, the level of complexity rises. At this point it's easy to lose motivation and cut the research efforts short. Those who persist soon realize it all comes together in the end. To best manage your cycle of motivation for the project, start your secondary market research by getting an understanding of your industry. Don't wait too long to get in the field and talk to potential customers.

Rely on Family Focus Group: A common mistake of new startups is asking those close to you for feedback on your product and service. Those who know you will want to guard your feelings. Friends and family make the worst possible selection of a focus group. You need to talk to real customers about the pros and cons of your offer and use your friends and family as support not market research.

Big Company Attitude: You spent years in your industry and understand customers... who needs market research? You carry plenty of baggage and preconceived notions of customers needs and wants. Test your assumptions on the market for real insight on customer attitudes and behavior.

All too often business owners will downplay the importance of gaining customer insight by market research. It's absurd how many businesses are launched without ever talking to a single potential customer. Avoid the common errors and use market research wisely to position your business for success.

Market Research

To successfully export your product, you should examine foreign markets through research. The purpose is to identify marketing opportunities and constraints abroad, as well as to identify prospective buyers and customers.

Market research encompasses all methods that a company can use to determine which foreign markets have the best potential for its products. Results of this research inform the firm of: the largest markets for its product, the fastest growing markets, market trends and outlook, market conditions and practices, and competitive firms and products.

Your firm may begin to export without conducting any market research if it receives unsolicited orders from abroad. Although this type of selling is valuable, the company may discover even more promising markets by conducting a systematic search. If your firm opts to export indirectly by using an intermediary such as an Export Management Company (EMC) or Export Trading Company (ETC), you may wish to select markets to enter before selecting the intermediary. Because many intermediaries such as EMCs and ETCs have strengths in certain markets, it is valuable to select the intermediary after deciding on markets to enter. You may also want to do market research if you export indirectly.

A firm may research a market by using either primary or secondary data resources. In conducting primary market research, a company collects data directly from the foreign marketplace through interviews, surveys, and other direct contact with representatives and potential buyers. Primary market research has the advantage of being tailored to the company's needs and provides answers to specific questions, but the collection of such data is time-consuming and expensive.

When conducting secondary market research, a company collects data from various sources, such as trade statistics for a country or a product. Working with secondary sources is less expensive and helps the company focus its marketing efforts. Although secondary data sources are critical to market research, they do have limitations. The most recent statistics for some countries may be more than two years old. Moreover, the data may be too broad to be of much value to a company. Statistics may also be distorted by incomplete data-gathering techniques. Finally, statistics for services are often unavailable. Yet, even with these limitations, secondary research is a valuable and relatively easy first step for a company to take. It may be the only step needed if the company decides to export indirectly, since the intermediary firm may have advanced research capabilities