Bemarkingsriglyne vir mikro-ondernemnigs

Abstract

Many a microenterprise has failed because it did not pay attention to the marketing side of the business. The owner of a small business should have a marketing orientation if the business is to succeed. This marketing orientation comprises striving to satisfy the consumer and realising maximum profit as the two most important long-term goals of the business. The small-business owner should know what is meant when one talks about marketing. Longenecker et al (1994:190) describe the marketing of a small business as ... those business activities that relate directly to identifying target markets, determining the potential of the target market, and preparing, communicating and delivering some bundle of satisfaction to the target markets. The planning and implementation of a marketing orientation demand thorough planning, known as the marketing planning process. McDonald (1992:3) sees the marketing planning process as ... deciding on a logical sequence of activities, leading to the setting of marketing objectives and the plans for achieving them. The result of suceessful marketing planning is a written marketing plan that covers all the elements of the marketing planning process. Research undertaken by the author (Smit, 1997) revealed that businesses do not give special attention to planning a marketing strategy. The author subsequently compiled marketing guidelines for home-based microenterprises in the clothing manufacturing industry. These guidelines are summarised in this article. Most owners of microenterprises base their decisions on intuition or “gut feel”. This instinct is an important part of any marketing decision, but it is also necessary to base decisions on facts. The more information a business has, the better it will understand its market, customers and competitors (Machado, 1996:17). The most common way of getting that information is through marketing research. One of the secrets of success in marketing research is to think carefully what information is needed and then to collect it. Once all the information has been collected, it is organised, summarised and simplified in order to be usable. Tables, charts and other visual aids make it easier to see and understand what the information means (Machado, 1996:28). A marketing model has been developed and is used as a framework for the marketing guidelines (see Figure 1). The different components of the model are discussed below. Analysis of the environments surrounding the business comprises an assessment of the internal environment to determine the business’ strengths and weaknesses, and an assessment of the external environment to determine opportunities and threats in the marketplace. Internal or microenvironmental analysis starts with planning and formulating the business’ overall mission, objectives and culture. It continues to plan and analyse the product and ability of and groups of interest in the business. The external environment of the business consists of the market and the macroenvironment. The business’ competitors, its market and its suppliers are analysed, and so is the macroenvironment , which comprises the social, economic, political, physical and technological environments. The next step in the strategic marketing planning process is to integrate the results of the environmental analyses into a written marketing plan. This requires the formulation of a marketing mission, marketing objectives and a marketing strategy. The marketing strategy describes the unique ways in which the business plans to attain its marketing goals. Such a strategy consists broadly of three components: ¨ Segmentation of the market in order to select target markets ¨ Positioning the business in relation to its competitors in order to position its product and/or service most effectively ¨ Planning and coordination the four decisionmaking areas or marketing instruments, namely product, price, distribution and marketing communication (also known as the marketing mix). Market segmentation enables the marketer to divide the heterogeneous market into smaller, homogeneous submarkets or market segments. This enables the marketer to develop a specific marketing mix for each market segment, leading to optimal satisfaction of market needs. Four factors are used to segment consumer markets, namely geographic, demographic, life-style and customer behaviour factors. The ultimate goal of market segmentation is to identify markets in which the business can compete. The identified segments are known as the business’ target market. According to Machado (1996:40-43), a small business has three options or approaches to dealing with its target market, namely mass marketing, multisegment marketing and a concentrated or niche approach. Both Washer (1992) and Machado (1996:43) contend that the concentrated or niche approach is the better approach for microenterprises. According to this approach the business concentrates all its efforts on one or two small market segments or niches. This approach allows the microenterprise to specialise and also to make better use of its scarce resources. After the business has selected its target market, it should try to position itself in such a way that this market perceives it to be better than its competitors. The main aim of positioning is to persuade the business' customers that its particular product or service will meet their unsatisfied needs. The microenterprise should carefully decide how it is going to gain this competitive advantage, because this positioning provides the basis and direction for the marketing mix. It also focuses the attention of the owner of the business and its employees on what the business is trying to achieve in the marketplace. When the microenterprise has been positioned in the marketplace, it is time to develop the marketing mix, in other words to decide about the most effective composition of the four components of the marketing strategy, namely product, price, distribution and marketing communication. According to Hannagan in Terblanche(1993:180), an effective marketing strategy will ... weld the four variables together in order to satisfy customers’ needs. Ideally this will have what can be described as a synergistic effect, so that the total combined effect will be greater than the sum of the parts. Decisions regarding the product or sevice of the microenterprise are extremely important for the successful running of the business. These decisions help to achieve two things, namely to satisfy the requirements of the target market and to meet the objectives of the business itself (Adcock et al, 1993:153). Product decisions comprise decisions on product classification, the product/service mix, branding and trademarks, packaging and warranties. Pricing is a crucial element of the marketing mix because profit implications affect the long-term success of any enterprise (Majaro, 1993:93; Machado, 1996:84). Many factors influence pricing decisions, for example cost, competition, type of product or service, image, supply and demand, and environmental factors such as legislation, taxes and exchange rates. Other decisions on pricing include different ways of pricing, discounts and credit. Distribution is about finding the best outlet(s) for customers to receive the products and/or services the microenterprise offers. Distribution is establishing a system that gets the product to where the customer wants to buy it (Machado, 1996:108). The business has to decide on a channel of distribution which may be described as a ... system of people and organisations that get products or services from the producer to the customer (Hutt & Stull, 1992:310). These people or organisations are often called middlemen or intermediaries. Distribution decisions include deciding on whether to use a direct or an indirect distribution channel and where the business is to be located. Marketing communication consists of all the methods used by the microenterprise to communicate with its target market, including advertisements, sales promotion, publicity and personal selling. All these methods are used to create a certain image of the business. The main objectives of successful marketing communication are to inform, to persuade and to remind the target market of the business and its product or service. The microenterprise has to decide on effective communication methods and how the results of its marketing communication are to be measured. The owner of a microenterprise should consider all the above aspects in formulating a marketing strategy or marketing plan. The effectiveness of this marketing plan should be evaluated from time to time to ensure success as it is always better to be proactive rather than reactive in the marketplace.