Before turning your hard-earned business/brand over to a marketing consultant, you’ll need to schedule a sit-down and inquire some questions—from fundamental to painstaking. It probably goes without saying, but a face-to-face meeting which has a prospective consultant, advisor or marketing manager is a must. Relying only on recommendations from your most trusted friends and family members won’t suffice; it is ultimately up to you to make certain your business/brand are safe and being put to perform to fulfil your specific goals.
So what do you need to know? Here’s a list of questions to allow you to prepare for the initial meeting:
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You might think it’s pointless to identify future competitors when it’s hard enough trying to forecast sales and uncover existing competitors’ strategies. However, you need to take invisible competition into account when developing your firm’s long-term strategies or plans, especially plans for global expansion. In fact, just thinking about new, future competition is worthwhile for the following reasons:
- It facilitates the long-term view.
- It forces you to look beyond the obvious and evaluate new international players; disparate companies joining in a potential alliance, joint venture, or merger.
- It helps you identify future business-building opportunities for your own company.
This link between what people considered two very disparate companies spurred thinking about competition we cannot easily envision, or what is called “Invisible Competition” Competition isn’t really invisible, of course. But we often face competition we don’t expect, and we all can too easily overlook important signs of competitive activity. We can use the term “invisible competition” as a framework for thinking about a changing competitive landscape, new competitors, or future competition in a new light. Invisible competition can come from a new domestic company, an international company entering key markets, or a new joint venture, alliance, or merger that creates a new threat, industry shift, or paradigm change. The creation of new or invisible competitors is often stimulated by: new technology, favourable economic conditions, changes in market dynamics, changes in the attitudes or vision of competitors’ executives, or changes in consumer demographics or target audiences.
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Know your customers
It is of vital importance that organisations understand what drives both value and delight for their customers. Adopting a customer centric vision enables an organisation understand their customers, deliver customer delight and drive for loyalty.
One fundamental issue we forget is that different customers have different requirements and will be delighted in different ways. Segmentation and data analysis are critical if an organisation is to generate loyalty from different customer segments.
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