Reference no: EM133323287
Case Study: If cash is king for a new venture+, then generating sales is a key to success. Marketing skills and campaigns are required to reach out to potential customers, to interest them in your product/service, to get them to your location (website or physical location), and to make the sale. The first question that needs to be answered is "who is your customer"?
Market research will aid in identifying your target market and specific types of customers within that target market. The text points out that market research can be a time consuming and costly activity. But, you should have done a lot of this work prior to building a business plan, because without customers you can't convert an innovative idea into a business.
In Houston, Texas the most successful furniture store is Gallery Furniture. It's owner, Jim McIngvale, started the business in the 1980's based on a simple idea - "buy it today, get it delivered tonight" (tagline on every TV commercial)! Gallery Furniture still uses the same business model, with a few variations added. Who is their customer? The person or family who needs furniture immediately and is prepared to buy what items they see on the showroom floor. What a customer sees on the showroom floor is backed up by Gallery's inventory in the warehouse. There are other elements to the Gallery business model such as a fast inventory turnover. In an industry where the average ratio is about 8, Gallery's ratio is 25. Their supply chain is configured to that turnover ratio.
The text, articles and videos all point to the need for startup ventures to conduct smart marketing such as "guerilla marketing" which is not only low cost but also disrupts the marketplace and establishes a venture's brand. Other low- cost marketing techniques are illustrated in the text, including the increasingly important social media approach. The net results are to build sales while conserving cash.
Larger organizations market to scale. The article on 3M's approach to developing and marketing Post-It Notes is instructive. Development took several years of ups and downs in the thinking of 3M management towards this product. But once it was ready for launch, 3M promoted it heavily and the payoff in revenue and profit has been enormous. Very few new ventures have the financial and marketing resources to accomplish such a feat. Tesla Motors is a current example of a company that is trying to market to scale but lacks the production capability to do so. Their marketing approach (buy direct from the manufacturer) is disruptive and not allowed in several states that have laws to protect motor vehicle dealers.
Question: Please answer on the following topics with detailed explanation and examples. Please reference.
- Use of social media for guerilla marketing.
- How was Farmgirl Flowers able to scale up their business?
- How has Tesla been able to achieve limited financial success with a very low marketing budget?