Step Five: Putting It Altogether What it is: Taking all the information you got out of your market analysis and implementing it in such a way that it meets the goals you set in Step One.
Why it’s important: Without this step, all the resources you spent on the market analysis are wasted.
How it’s done: “I think most people will need help with this step,” Moline says. “They’ll know the industry and market pretty well, and they’ll know where they should target, but they don’t have a clear idea about marketing.”
Moline, whose company has done several market analyses for remodelers and whose focus is on integrated marketing, says that the key to successful implementation of a marketing plan is to find a clear, focused message, and to make sure it pervades the entire campaign.
If you want to give it a go yourself, then take that demographic research you did and establish your target market. Then, Moline says, “determine what message suits them best.” This is where the importance of surveying comes in. By quizzing your clients on why they chose you, you’ve learned the aspects of your company that are most appealing. If your customer base rated service as the most important thing to them, tailor your message accordingly.
Similarly, if you discover that homeowners are choosing your competitors mainly because they are less expensive, keep your marketing and selling focused on value. You probably aren’t going to be able to compete on price (nor should you want to), so make the customer aware of the level or service and the quality of work they’ll receive for the money they do pay.
In other words, be a businessperson. Doing a market analysis is all about gathering the information you need to make smart, informed business decisions. Once you have that crucial data, it’s a matter of using your business sense to implement it.