Part A

  1. Marketing is an important part of building your brand! What are some issues that many small business owners encounter that often stop them from implementing good marketing practises?

a)

b)

c)

  1. When looking at the 7 Pillars of Marketing Success, number 1 is ‘Understanding who your customer is’ and really outlining a detailed profile of your ideal customer. For those of you who attended our Masterclasses, we did this briefly but this activity is designed to explore this in more detail. Define your customer by answering the questions below:

How old is your customer?

Where do they live?

Are they married?

Do they have children?

Do they work?

What’s their income look like?

What activities do they engage in?

What motivates them?

What is their preferred form of communication?

What makes them happy?

Describe your customer’s personality:

Are they a morning person or a night owl?

What does a day in their life look like?

What are their priorities?

What are their goals right now?

What Facebook or Instagram pages do they love?

What are their challenges and frustrations?

What brands do they like?

What can they not do without in their lives?

  1. When looking at your product positioning, have a think about what makes you ‘stand out’ from your competitors. Make a list below of the differences you and your business has, over those similar in nature and state how they relate to your target customer.

Differences / How this relates to my customer
  1. In her webinar, Katrina talks about knowing your ‘point of difference’ and then using that point of difference to market to your customer.
  1. What is your point of difference?

DEVELOPING A MARKETING STRATEGY ASSESSMENT

Part B:

One of the first things you need to do when setting up your business, is ensuring the product or service you have is viable. To do this, testing the marketplace for the demand of your product or service will ensure you’re on the right path with building your business.

A survey is a terrific way of gaining some feedback about your product or service. Whether the idea is in concept phase or already established, it allows you gauge reactions from potential or existing clients.

Survey Monkey is a ‘free’ survey tool that you can use to create and send surveys. For this assessment, you’ll be using Survey Monkey to create a survey and conduct some market research on your product or service.

STEP 1

Your survey will need to:

Ask 10 questions

Get a minimum of 10 responses. You want valuable feedback. Ask people who are either current customers, or potential customers and users of your product. Use Social Media to assist you in getting the survey out the or use the forum in our own Portal to assist you by asking fellow Women’s Business School students who may be in your target market to assist.

Think hard about what questions you want to ask to get insightful and useful feedback about your product or service (eg. Is it innovative? Is it something that your consumer wants or something they need? Is it value for money? What’s the likelihood of using the product or service again?)

HOW TO USE SURVEY MONKEY: It’s fairly straight forward and there are a number of templates that exist around market research that you might be able to use and then slightly tweak to suit your product or service. Instructions on how to use Survey Monkey are below:

Go to

Click the ‘Sign In’ button on the top right hand side of the page

If you already have an account, sign in, otherwise click the ‘sign up’ icon on the top right hand side of the page and create an account.

If creating an account for the first time, it will take you through a tutorial on how to use Survey Monkey.

You’ll have the option of creating your own survey from scratch or using a template. Have a look through the existing surveys to see if there’s one suitable for you. There are a number of them around Market Research that might work for your product or service.

Follow the instructions to create your survey.

Once you’ve completed the survey, click on the ‘next’ button on the top right hand side of the screen.

You will see a number of options that will allow you to send your survey. Choose the most appropriate one for you. Remember to allow yourself enough time for the responses to come through. You may need to resend or remind people to complete the survey for you.

Once the surveys are completed, all responses to your survey are kept in Survey Monkey. To track how many people have responded and to look at these responses, you need to click the ‘My Survey’s’ button. This will allow you to see number of responses, and also allow you to analyse the results.

If you encounter any issues or are unsure, contact who can assist.

STEP 2

Your survey is completed and you’ve collected a minimum of 10 responses. Now it’s time to analyse the results and see what others think of your product or service! For Part B of this assessment, you’ll be required to look at a summary of your results and come up with your findings.

When you analyse your results through Survey Monkey, there are 3 main ways of doing this:

Question summaries

Data Trends

Individual responses

For the purposes of this activity, we’ll be looking only at the Question Summaries. This is a report that summarizes all the responses for you. It’s a great way of seeing at a glance, what your customers think about your product.

STEP 3

Let’s download and save your report. To do this:

you’ll see an ‘Export All’ button on the right hand side of the screen. From the drop down menu, select ‘All Summary Data’.

You’ll be asked what format you wish to save the report. Select the first option (.PDF) and click the ‘Export’ button on the bottom of the screen.

Your report will download and you’ll then be able to save it.

STEP 4

YOUR FINDINGS/DATA ANALYSIS:

For each question you asked your customers/potential customers, answer the following:

  1. In a paragraph, summarize your findings
  1. Are you surprised by the response to this question?
  1. As a result of the response to this question, will you need to change or do anything differently?

PART C

Reflection: In a couple of paragraphs, explain how this survey assisted you with testing your marketplaceas well as what you’ve learnt from this topic. Thinkback to Katrina’s webinar itself as well as the activities and assessment you’ve completed. Make reference to any changes you may need to make or explain how the results confirm your product or service is on track to be profitable.