Marketing strategy for small- to medium-sized manufacturers : a practical guide for generating growth, profit, and sales / / Charles E. France.

• Superior document: Marketing strategy collection,
• Author: France, Charles E.
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: 2013 digital library.; Marketing strategy collection.
• Physical Description: 1 electronic text (xxxv, 306 p.) :; digital file.
• Notes: Part of: 2013 digital library.

Small and medium manufacturers' attempts to grow their business often produce less-than-desired results due to self-inflicted obstacles and pitfalls that defeat their well-intended efforts. Many do not follow generally accepted basic business practices such as knowing product costs and margins, obtaining strategically useful information about customers, conducting market research to identify prospective customers, and understanding competitors' advantages and disadvantages needed to build effective growth strategies. Their approach to pursuing growth strategies--a.k.a shotgun marketing--is akin to ready, shoot, aim--and often the business' working capital, cash flow, financial ratios, and overall profitability are insufficient to afford the costs of needed sales, marketing, and promotional strategies typically called for to find and develop new customers, markets, and products.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments -- Foreword -- 1. Necessary and sufficient conditions for increasing sales and profit -- 2. Getting down to basics -- 3. Customer analysis to improve the top and bottom -- 4. Quotation analysis to improve competitiveness -- 5. Using customer feedback to inform strategy -- 6. Product analysis and product management -- 7. New product development -- 8. Marketing research and competitor information -- 9. Crafting goals, objectives, and strategies from the bottom up -- 10. Sales management -- 11. Advertising and promotion -- 12. Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Index.