# what is marketing... and how to do it!



## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

if you're like me, and heaven help you if you are, you never went to business school. what you know is what you've gleaned from talking to people, experience and rather pretending you know what the hell you're doing. and in no other business aspect does this seem to manifest itself moreso than in marketing... whatever that is, right?! 

'you will die a horrible, fiery death *if you don't market correctly*!' now, i've been told i was going to die a horrible, fiery death plenty of times, but never for failing to market corrrectly, so to nip this fate in the bud i thought it would be a spiffy idea to actually share my haphazard research on the subject with y'all so that you may also avoid the same inevitable doom. 

that said, i think a lot of people misunderstand the difference between marketing and *advertising*. i think we know what advertising is, so i'm going to drop the definition of marketing now, as borrowed from wikipedia:

"Marketing is defined by the AMA as "an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders."It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments. It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves.

"Marketing is used to identify the customer, satisfy the customer, and keep the customer."

from knowthis.com: "Marketing consists of the strategies and tactics used to identify, create and maintain satisfying relationships with customers that result in value for both the customer and the marketer." basically, they both say the same thing.

perhaps more interestingly is this from businessdictionary.com:

"The management process through which goods and services move from concept to the customer. As a practice, it consists in coordination of four elements called 4P's: (1) identification, selection, and development of a product, (2) determination of its price, (3) selection of a distribution channel to reach the customer's place, and (4) development and implementation of a promotional strategy.

"As a philosophy, marketing is based on thinking about the business in terms of customer needs and their satisfaction. Marketing differs from selling because (in the words of Harvard Business School's emeritus professor of marketing Theodore C. Levitt) "Selling concerns itself with the tricks and techniques of getting people to exchange their cash for your product. It is not concerned with the values that the exchange is all about. And it does not, as marketing invariably does, view the entire business process as consisting of a tightly integrated effort to discover, create, arouse, and satisfy customer needs.""

i think that's a good start for now. i'd love to hear people's own definition of marketing, particularly if it varies from the three i listed. it's also a pretty dry subject and hard to digest in large doses, imo, so one step at a time and hopefully make it as fun (and useful!) as possible.


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## Riph (Jan 11, 2011)

Well, a lot people use "marketing" when they really mean selling. It gets very confusing at times.

Marketing to me means the strategic side of figuring out what customers (in the aggregate) need, and then designing products and services to meet those needs. 

Selling comes later. Now hopefully through your marketing process you have created some products that meet the needs of some customer segment. Then off you go to match up those Products to appropriate customers.

It is a big topic.


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

you have a great design, but you need someone to sell it to. you need to *identify* your customer, that person who's going to shell out money for your art on a tee. it's easy for someone to say, 'you need to do your market research,' but what exactly does that entail? often your design is actually worn by an entirely different group of people than you expected, and barring going to school for it or reading half a dozen books on the subject, how does the average person know who his customer really is? or how to even make a semi-educated guess as to who they may be? 

no one said it would be easy, as evidenced by this wiki quote: "Marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry in the past, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programmes." so, what, i have to be a neurologist now to sell shirts effectively? 

we should probably begin with market research and market segmentation. market segmentation as defined by businessdictionary.com goes, "The process of defining and subdividing a large homogenous market into clearly identifiable segments having similar needs, wants, or demand characteristics. Its objective is to design a marketing mix that precisely matches the expectations of customers in the targeted segment.

"Few companies are big enough to supply the needs of an entire market; most must breakdown the total demand into segments and choose those that the company is best equipped to handle. Four basic factors that affect market segmentation are (1) clear identification of the segment, (2) measurability of its effective size, (3) its accessibility through promotional efforts, and (4) its appropriateness to the policies and resources of the company. The four basic market segmentation-strategies are based on (a) behavioral (b) demographic, (c) psychographic, and (d) geographical differences."

that's a lot of gobbledegook to most of us, so i hope wiki can clarify some of it: "A market segment is a sub-set of a market made up of people or organizations with one or more characteristics that cause them to demand similar product and/or services based on qualities of those products such as price or function. A true market segment meets all of the following criteria: it is distinct from other segments (different segments have different needs), it is homogeneous within the segment (exhibits common needs); it responds similarly to a market stimulus, and it can be reached by a market intervention. The term is also used when consumers with identical product and/or service needs are divided up into groups so they can be charged different amounts for the services. The people in a given segment are supposed to be similar in terms of criteria by which they are segmented and different from other segments in terms of these criteria. These can be broadly viewed as 'positive' and 'negative' applications of the same idea, splitting up the market into smaller groups."

oh, okay. well, answers.com has this to say about it: "Process of dividing the market according to similarities that exist among the various subgroups within the market. The similarities may be common characteristics or common needs and desires. Market segmentation comes about as a result of the observation that all potential users of a product are not alike, and that the same general appeal will not interest all prospects. Therefore, it becomes essential to develop different marketing tactics based on the differences among potential users in order to effectively cover the entire market for a particular product. There are four basic market segmentation strategies: behavior segmentation, demographic segmentation, geographic segmentation, and physiographic segmentation."

some of us have a pretty good handle on who's going to buy the art on our shirt. if you're selling something for skaters or thugs or grandmas, some of these segments are likely to be well known to you. some of us have good designs, but they don't fall into any category you can think of off-hand, and if you sat down and really thought about it really appeals to those people who are least likely to spend $25 on a shirt no matter how uber-epic it is. should we give up, or should we adapt to what sells? should grandma stop trying to hawk kitten sweatshirts and go for inner-city pimp styles instead? or will the right marketing keep granny flush in bingo money? 

granny has it easy. she's a granny and she sells to grannies, so she knows her market probably better than she thinks she does, although probably has never thought too much about:

Gender
Price
Interests
Location
Religion
Income
Size of Household
(examples from wiki)

answer these questions about your potential customer and you'll be on your way towards uncovering your micro-segment, those gangstas that will wear your cute kitty shirt... with an ill 'tude! 

from Market segmentation by customer needs - know your markets , "Market segmentation, correctly applied, is about understanding the needs of customers and, therefore, how they decide between one offer and another. This insight is used to form groups of customers who share the same or very similar value criteria. A company is then able to determine which groups of customers it is best suited to serve and which product and service offers will both meet the needs of its selected segments and outperform the competition."

does this help to identify your market? if you have a facebook page and you get a 100 likes, should you look at each of those people's profiles, each of their avatars, and get an idea of who these people are that checked out your stuff? i think it would be good to know if 75% of teenage girls were looking at the product even if they didn't buy anything, no? 

how do you identify your market? 'market research' is not an answer here, lol, i want to know exactly you employed what methods and the success of that.


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

riph, you pretty much said it in a nutshell. hopefully we can figure out how to actually create a demographic beyond what we think we know and translate that into an advertising scheme, which is what i'm attempting to do here. anyone can say, 'market research then advertise to them,' but that's not really any advice on how to go about it, i.e. the point of this thread. you're right, it is a big topic, but my goal isn't to master it in all its forms, rather pick out what we need to do on a practical level to accomplish being able to practice marketing without it being harder than it needs to be.

okay, so far i hope you have an idea what marketing actually is and the beginnings of how to narrow down the broader scope into your niche by identifying your customers through market segmentation. it sounds to me like a lot of fancy terms that essentially gets to narrowing your market down to as fine a point as you reasonably can. from there your advertising methods should be much clearer. i mean, if all your research points to an inner city consignment shop, you probably shouldn't be handing out brochures at a little league game in the suburbs, right?

it was glossed over in the previous post about what questions need to be answered when finding your market. ehow has a pretty good starting point, so this stuff is coming from them:

Research Demographics
1
Look at the age and gender of the people who use your product. You can do this by surveying the consumers or deciding what age and gender you want to attract to your product.

2
Find out your consumers' education and income levels. You may be able to market differently to those who have earned a college degree versus those who haven't and to those who are in a high income bracket versus those who aren't.

3
Notice the marital status and family life cycle of your target consumers. Find out whether they are single, newlyweds, have been married for many years, or have children or grandchildren. Each type spends money differently.

4
Look at the ethnic and religious background of the people who use your product. This may not make a difference in many cases, and is often good to know.

5
Put all the demographic information into a customer demographic profile. For example, you may find that your target market includes people in their 30s and 40s who graduated from high school, have a middle class income and are married with young children.

Research Psychographics
1
Look at the target consumers' lifestyle. See whether they are conservative, trendy, enjoy traveling or drive a minivan. Every little detail can tell you the type of people they are.

2
Figure out what social class your consumers belong to, whether lower, middle or upper class. This tells you how much extra money they may have to spend and whether or not they spend it.

3
See whether your consumers are opinion leaders or followers. Find out whether they tell others what products they should use or need others to tell them what is trendy and what works.

4
Look at their activities, interests, attitudes and beliefs. Find out what they like to do in their spare time, what their hobbies are, what sort of music they listen to and whether they are interested in environmental issues or politics.

5
Put the psychographic information into a customer profile along with the demographic information to figure out who your market is and how to go about advertising to the market. Once you find this out, you can advertise to the people where they hang out, where they work out or where they shop.

since you're here looking at this, i'm assuming you're not a marketing school graduate. neither am i. anyway, this is where i need to use an example, so someone please (finally) make a comment about your brand, answer these questions if you please, and see if we can come up with a way to reach your market through advertising. 

first, though, i want to give businessdictionary.com's defintion of 'family life cycle': Concept that attempts to describe the effect of time on a family through the phases of marriage (and divorce) and births and deaths, reflected in the family's income and consumption.

(from cigna):

The stages of the family life cycle are:

Independence.
Coupling or marriage.
Parenting: babies through adolescents.
Launching adult children.
Retirement or senior years.

if knowing these incredibly fine details are important to selling shirts, you can read the whole thing here Family Life Cycle | Cigna , although i find it's too in-depth for marketing a shirt with a skull on it. give it a look anyway, you may disagree, and i mention it just to try to be thorough.

here is a list of questions that need to be answered first:

1) what is the age range of your intended customers?


2) are they male, female, both or other?

3) what is the education level of your customer?

4) how much does your customer earn?

5) is your customer married, single, divorced, a grandparent, parent? 

6) how does your customer spend their money? grandma may not like online purchases, while johnny doesn't have a credit card, and stacy is at that stage where online, cash or check doesn't matter.

7) what ethnic background is your customer?

8) who, if anyone/thing, do they pray to? 7 and 8 may not be overly pertinent to us... then again, if that's a serious consideration of your market, obviously it's worth noting. 

this gives you a pretty good overview of who your customers are going to be. if you can't answer these basic questions, you're probably just sticking your business out there and hoping for the best, then will be left wondering why your advertising was such an abysmal failure. after all, why should someone buy your brand when you don't even have the slightest inkling who you're trying to sell to? we need to narrow this down:

1) who actually do you see wearing your brand? do they care about politics? do they care about style? are they making a statement, like wearing something flashy, jokey, with a message? what is their lifestyle like? do they hang out at biker events? do they drive around town in a '63 split window 'vette? do they travel?

2) what's their income level? you may find this distasteful, but it's nothing personal... it's just business. marketing a $50 t-shirt to a guy whose real name is bubba may not garner many sales. is that comment wrong? i don't care, because we're not cops and it's not illegal for us to profile people, and that's absolutely what we're doing here, putting people into categories so that we can exploit our knowledge of them for personal gain. if that statement hurts your hot-house sensibilities, go hug a tree or grow tomatoes for the poor, i don't care, just don't whine when you fail miserably and miss the point that this is really a service to the customer to provide him or her with the product that makes them happy. 

3) do your customers have any influence over others? does the group that hangs together wear about the same thing? (i find this question to be rather nebulous.)

4) what does your customer do? what are their activities, how do they spend their free time? what are their interests? 

by now you should have a pretty solid demographic base by which to centre your advertisement efforts around. this, to me, is why so many facebook efforts are a waste of time, because your customers may push that 'like' button fifty times a day, but that doesn't mean that that's where they buy products from. obviously, you need to have a facebook presence more often than not, however is that going to be what spurs your sales? use your facebook as a method of collecting this information if possible, but not as a marketplace in and of itself. facebook, imo, should be viewed as a gateway to your site for the average brand seller and as a means of gathering demographic information. 

so i need someone to answer those questions for me and let's see what happens. keep asking yourself who, when, where, how and why until you can't pinpoint the answer to any sharper degree. 

when it's all said and done, you should have generally performed the first of the 4P's, (1) identification, selection, and development of a product. the next is determination of its price. i'm really hoping that someone will answer the questions and we can find out some more on this topic that every single one of us has grappled with... and still grapple with.


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

i'm placing this question here to myself more as a reminder than anything else (and plan to erase if unreplied to), though if you have any answers, i'd love to here them. 

why market research at all? you have the design, it's not going to change, so how is answering these questions going to help on a realistic level? i don't know who my target market is, how can i know that based on a design? how do i know who my customers are going to be unless i design product specifically for that market? in other words, how do i reverse market research? if i have a design of a cat sniffing a dog's butt and thinking, 'i don't see the big deal,' where do i even begin knowing how to market that when i can't even answer the first and one of the most important questions about the age of my market?

to any programmers reading this, we should get together and build a market research programme where you insert your parameters and it just spits out the best advertising method.


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## neiljackson (Jan 12, 2012)

Well I have spent several years in corporate world and based on that I would like to tell that marketing is a key for the lock which we can call as profit in the business world. If you have the key your business will prosper but if you donot have this key you will end up getting bankrupt. The second thing is terms like advertising are the tools of marketing.


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## Shokeapparel (Jan 25, 2012)

Marketing and advertising for the least amount of money is the key! the key to the money lock so to speak.

It's your business so it is up to you to promote it and get it out there so people know it's here. It's very easy to set up a tee company and have it sit there expecting to make millions but you know what?
People are not going to visit your store online because they won't know it's there!!!

I'm a graphic designer no marketer, in fact I hate salesmen and the sleazy way they try to push products onto you but it's how you make money... 

I recently met a person who paid $6000 to pay walkers to walk the streets delivering flyers in letter boxes (They ripped him off) and you know what! he went broke. Find a supplier, design effective tees or apparel that people will love and market the &^%$ out of it so people know you are there! I have come up with these cheap effective solutions...

* Free website blogs, Facebook, Myspace.

* Word of mouth, friends, family.

* Put a link to your store front in the description of the videos you upload on You tube.

* On your email signature place the link to your store front. 

* I even went nuts one day & jumped on the train into the city stuck my stickers everywhere with the store front email on it with the Shokishi Apparel
logo and stuck them everywhere. There was no trace of my name and phone number on them but, I left on Train, seats, signs, bus-stop you name it. 

I even dropped a few of my business cards around. Even if people just take one look at your site that is something, right?

Like I said, people won't know you exist if you don't scream at them 



Good luck hope these ideas help you a little. And by the way, visit my store!!!


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

the last time i paid $6000 for street~walkers i was a very tired guy the next day, but that's a different story.

i did visit your store and here's what i found: 

to answer, 'what would kimbo do?', the answer is become a professional, get his butt kicked in uber-embarrassing fashion, then walk dogs for a living as now little girls think they can take him.

a little 'karate kid' infringement never hurt anyone, did it?

and a jui-jitsu addict shirt of two guys in silhouette that looks like they're, ah, practicing something other than martial arts. or at least martial arts in greece, if you know what i mean....

some of the designs i really liked a lot. one looked almost like a face inside what could be a japanese word (for all i know) ~ was that intentional? if not, i'm going to steal that idea... well, i guess it's not stealing, really.... 

when people say, 'market the hell out of it!' that phrase really has no weight. it's sage advice to be sure, but it doesn't say *how* to market, and that's what i'm looking to get to the bottom to in this thread. i'll (slowly) get to internet marketing (the 'put your links on *everything*' part). my goal here isn't to say, 'have a web site, tell your friends and family, and have a facebook page.' rather, i want it to be a study of real marketing and, ultimately, how to market and advertise effectively. imo, friends, family and word of mouth is not effective marketing, lol. of course you do that because it doesn't hurt, but it's entirely too random and lacks any substantive method.

just so y'all know, when i'm finally satisfied that there are some actual good and practical nuggets and it's all said and done, i'll put this in another thread just all cleaned up, more succinct and minus my lame attempts at humour. 

as an aside, you wanna talk about marketing? a woman who just now left my store has a missing dog for ten days now and she wanted to make sure i still have the sign up on the counter. she was telling a couple of customers how one thing she did was make up bookmarks with the picture of the dog on them, had them laminated, and gave them to all of the city workers. to me that's genius... or at least damn clever.


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## Shokeapparel (Jan 25, 2012)

ryan barker said:


> the last time i paid $6000 for street~walkers i was a very tired guy the next day, but that's a different story.
> 
> i did visit your store and here's what i found:
> 
> ...


hahaha, In regards to the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu comment, Unless you have trained in it or understand it you would know what is meant.

I have a lot of Brazilian friends here in Australia and have been training for a long time so it's not a greek style tee for noobs. 

Kimbo Slice lol yeah he is a joke but funny? Sold a couple already? Ever seen the tee with what would Johnny cash do?

As for the Japanese face yeah it's intentional, I've studied in Graphic design for a long time and thought I could make a bit of money on the side with the tee idea. You have to kind of not listen to the negative people saying it will never work and just do it. 

As for your marketing comment? Never say something is to lame and will never work, you never know and it always has method. As far as I'm concerned, getting people to know about your product and even get a click on your web-site is something right?. 

What exactly are you trying to build here? Another Nike or Everlast empire?

Yes I'm Aussie and I say Market the crap, hell, Bejesus out of it!! get your name into the world. 

Good luck with it.. Shokishi


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## NotWithoutPerel (Jan 19, 2012)

You're warm, but not hot.

You have the right idea in that you have your design and it's not going to change so why bother, but...

The "Market Research" piece of the puzzle is not only the *who*, it is also the *how* you are going to reach the people that are going to buy the dog-sniffing-the cat's-butt shirt. You might know *who* they are, but you need to figure out *how* to reach them.

Market Research does not necessarily indicate that you don't know your Target Market (destination), it's also a map to get there.

And your idea of a "reverse Marketing Research program" is genius... kind of like those reverse font-finding Q & A programs!


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

thanks, chase, and by no means is what i've got so far the end, rather more the beginning of this marketing thread. the 'how to reach them' needs to come after you know who to reach, eh? lol. there really is no template that i'm trying to follow other than trying to put things somewhat in logical order, but if you have some ideas on the order or an outline i'd be more than happy to accommodate your suggestions. all of this will eventually get cleaned up anyway. 

for the record, the cat/dog thing was literally an example that came off the top of my head as i was writing, it's by no means indicative of the designs i would do. no, my designs are *much* worse....


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## NotWithoutPerel (Jan 19, 2012)

ryan barker said:


> ...for the record, the cat/dog thing was literally an example that came off the top of my head as i was writing, it's by no means indicative of the designs i would do. no, my designs are *much* worse....


Yes, I got that... my comment was a compliment to yours!

I'll come back later and answer your latest question... gotta go play grown-up for a while first.

Cheers,


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

thanks again, chase. my 'designs' lately have been of the five-minute from start to finish variety and just stupid humour things to entertain myself, some of which border on infringement. i've decided that if i have any strengths at all when it comes to this stuff it's trying to figure out a little one-panel cartoon that alludes to a story behind it, or you can conclude on the inevitable result... kind of like 'the far side'... but drawn badly and with total disregard to good taste if i feel the need. after all, 'art' has absolutely nothing to do with political correctness. 

case in point: the other day i started up something i call 'last lessons,' wherein in this particular one a bunch of kids about to play hockey are standing around picking out teams. there are only two left to choose from, so the one captain says, 'you can have the dumb looking kid with the funny stick,' referring to the grim reaper. you know that Death is just gonna whack that kid by the end of the game. tasteless? you betcha. ridiculous, too, as why would death want to play hockey with some kids to begin with? 

sadly, i have several more examples of 'last lessons,' but it keeps me out of trouble for the most part, lol.

my original thought was to market each shirt with the buyer's choice of two designs, one on front and back, their pick. i have my own screenprinting set-up so i don't have to worry too much about wasting anything other than some emulsion and utilities and a little spare time, though i have no idea who my market would be. that's the point of all this, because i think a lot of people have the same dilemma and aren't getting the answers they really need. 

that's not saying all my ideas are like that, it's just an idea i've been rolling with for fun for a few daze. some things would require my brother-in-law, who's a tattoo artist, to do for me, i.e. requiring actual art. other designs are commentary, cool (hopefully ~ well, cool if you're into salvador dali style stuff) to look at, etc.. so, eventually, i plan on getting around to finding out the merits of having multiple sites for different varieties of design vs. one site with categories, that kind of information.


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

oh, and how to get the right audience to come to those sites, of course, lol.

eta: want to drop an addy for future reference. keep moving along, there's nothing to see here, folks.

http://www.missouribusiness.net/sbtdc/docs/marketing.pdf


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

it's saturday for most of the world (blurgsday on planet ryan), so it must be time for another thrilling installment of 'how to market... ket... et... et....' 

so far i've delivered a brutal punch to the jaw in the form of what marketing is, then a wicked uppercut detailing what questions to ask yourself about your potential customers. are you ready for some gut shots bordering on low blows that ask the question, 'great, but how do i find all this information out?' well, as you can probably deduct already, this isn't a tyson bout, it's a rocky match... long and involving dramatic twists and turns. blood will be spilled, but there can only be one winner ~ will it be you? can you say 'asss kicking,' kids? i thought you could, so let's sound the horn and let the race begin for part III, or as i like to call it, "What the Huh?"

you probably know a lot about your customers already. after all, you think they're probably like you, a 63 year old moonshining polygamist that teaches scientology to bullfrogs in the swamp. what's not to love and profit from, right? it's probably a good idea to answer those sets of questions, cletus, just to be on the safe side.

the problem is you have a design. you could find out what demographic has the most money and proclivity to spend it, where and how, follow the trends for that crowd, and design towards that end. that's not how you did it, though: a whorish muse took a crap on your shoulder and thus you were inspired. you assume your designs will likely appeal to people just like you, and you hope there's enough of a customer base there willing to keep you flush with the leccy department. what you're doing is hoping, you really don't know for sure. and you probably don't know that you don't know until you start to answer those marketing questions and realize you can't even answer the age bracket of your potential customer without making wild stabs in the dark. 

there are three agencies that are great for free demographic info: the census bureau, the the department of labor, and the social security administration.

here i'm going to drop the census bureau's site: American FactFinder . here you may find useful information that might help you answer some of your ancillary questions about where to direct your marketing. i'm just making this up for an example, but you may find that you'll have better odds selling streetwear in cleveland as opposed to toledo based on the demographics. note that only a few states have been released for the last census so far, though eventually they all will be available, so keep a sharp eye out. possibly helpful is this site from the census bureau: State and County QuickFacts

the DoL site offers even better, specific info: Demographics Page . trust me, you can get lost in this site, so i want to endeavour to make this information more digestible and, frankly, more pertinent.

to a lesser extent, i think the SSA's site might be helpful: Social Security Administration: Fact Sheets for Demographic Groups

clearly these aren't the end-all-be-all resources one would hope, not to mention they *are* government websites, which are hardly the paradigm of user-friendliness (although they're a lot better than they used to be).

and now i must a fond farewell for the nonce (meaning i have to close things down for a minute and will be right back, but don't want to lose what i'm doing). i'll get back with more, so until then keep slugging and happy trails....


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

miss me much? sorry to keep you hanging, i was building suspense towards the big reveal, uncovering the man behind the curtain, gathering all the suspects in one room.

the question is: how to i answer the questions based on the design i made?

the big money answer is: guess. i've looked for a good answer (read: free) to this one, and short of paying for it, i wasn't able to find anything that satisfied me. marketing is, after all, about playing the odds, there are no guarantees even if you diligently do everything to a tee. even if you paid for this information, that's no promise of any kind of return.

that isn't implying that marketing is worthless, or not beneficial to you anyway. quite the opposite. making your best guesstimate will provide you with some basis, but you can narrow your field by filling in what information you can. we're smart people, we can figure this out, and we are likely to come at least somewhat close to our demographics. there are ways to help us widdle down our options.

take a deep breath, because this from managementhelp.org is going to eat up pixels faster than pac-man. a lot of this will seem redundant, so on the next reply i've just pulled out what i feel is pertinent to the end of ways of gathering information. you can skip this, skip to my lou, or skip around if you want.

1. Identify opportunities to serve various groups of customers.

Verify and understand the unmet needs of a certain group (or market) of customers. What do they say that they want? What do they say that they need? Some useful data collection methods might be, for example, conducting focus groups, interviewing customers and investors, reading the newspaper and other key library publications, and listening to what clients say and observing what they do. Later on, you might even develop a preliminary version of your product that you pilot, or test market, to verify if the product would sell or not.

2. Examine the size of the market – how many people have the unmet need.

Identify various subgroups, or market segments, in that overall market along with each of their unique features and preferences. Useful data collection methods might be, for example, reading about demographic and societal trends in publications at the library. You might even observe each group for a while to notice what they do, where they go and what they discuss. Consider interviewing some members of each group. Finally, consider conducting a focus group or two among each group.

3. Determine the best methods to meet the unmet needs of the target markets.

How can you develop a product with the features and benefits to meet that unmet need? How can you ensure that you have the capacity to continue to meet the demand? Here’s where focus groups can really come in handy. Conduct some focus groups, including asking them about their preferences, unmet needs and how those needs might be met. Run your ideas past them. At the same time, ask them what they would need to use your services and what they would pay for them.

4. Investigate the competition.

Examine their products, services, marketing techniques, pricing, location, etc. One of the best ways to understand your competitors is to use their services. Go to their location, look around and look at some of their literature. Notice their ads in newsletters and the newspaper. Look at their web sites.

5. Clarify your unique value proposition.

Your proposition describes why others should use your organization and not the competition’s. A particularly useful data collection method in this area is the use of focus groups. Get some groups of potential clients together and tell them about your ideas. Tell them how your ideas are unique. Tell them how you would want your program to be seen (its positioning). Ask them what they think.

6. Conclude if the product is effectively meeting the needs of the customers.

One of the best ways to make this conclusion is to conduct an evaluation. An evaluation often includes the use of various data collection methods, usually several of them, for example, observing clients, interviewing them, administrating questionnaires with them, developing some case studies, and, ideally, conducting a product field test, or pilot.

7. Conclude if your advertising and promotions strategies are effective or not.

One of the best ways to make this conclusion is to evaluate the results of the advertising. This could include use of several data collection methods among your clients, such as observing clients, interviewing them, administrating questionnaires with them, developing some case studies.

To plan your market research, see Business Research.

Basic Methods to Get Information and Feedback from Customers

Copyright Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD
Far too often, we think we know what our customers think and want because -- well, we just know, that's all. Wrong! Businesses can't be successful if they don't continue to meet the needs of their customers. Period. There should be few activities as important as finding out what your customers want for products and services and finding out what they think of yours. Fortunately, there are a variety of practical methods that businesses can use to feedback from customers.

The methods you choose and how you use them depend on what the type of feedback that you want from customers, for example, to find out their needs in products and services, what they think about your products and services, etc.

Employees

Your employees are usually the people who interact the most with your customers. Ask them about products and services that customers are asking for. Ask employees about what the customers complain about.
Comment Cards

Provide brief, half-page comment cards on which they can answer basic questions such as: Were you satisfied with our services? How could we provide the perfect services? Are there any services you'd like to see that don't exist yet?
Competition

What is your competition selling? Ask people who shop there. Many people don't notice sales or major items in stores. Start coaching those around you to notice what's going on with your competition. (See Competitive Analysis.)
Customers

One of the best ways to find out what customers want is to ask them. Talk to them when they visit your facility or you visit theirs. (See Questioning and Listening.)
Documentation and Records

Notice what customers are buying and not buying from you. If you already know what customers are buying, etc., then is this written down somewhere? It should be so that you don't forget, particularly during times of stress or when trying to train personnel to help you out.
Focus Groups

Focus groups are usually 8-10 people that you gather to get their impressions of a product or service or an idea. (See Focus Groups.)
Surveys by Mail

You might hate answering these things, but plenty of people don't -- and will fill our surveys especially if they get something in return. Promise them a discount if they return the completed form to your facility. (See Survey Design.)
Telephone Surveys

Hire summer students or part-time people for a few days every six months to do telephone surveys. (See Survey Design.)

Some Major Sources of Market Research Information

Copyright Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD

Census Bureau

There is a vast amount of information available to you, and much of this is online.

Chamber of Commerce

Get to know the people in your local office. Offices usually have a wealth of information about localities, sources of networking, community resources to help your business, etc.

Department of Commerce

The Department has offices in various regions across the country and publishes a wide range of information about industries, products and services.

Ask Librarians

They love to help people. See the Directory of Associations, Sales and Marketing Management magazine, American Statistics Index (ASI), Encyclopedia Of Business Information Book, Standard & Poor's Industry Survey's and Consumer's Index.

Trade and Professional Organizations

Organizations often produce highly useful newsletters for members, along with services for networking, answering questions, etc.

Trade and Professional Publications

These have become much more useful as various trades become more specialized and their expectations are increasing for timely and useful information


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

okay, time to get back to me.

subscribing to trade publications is a good idea, but defeats the purpose of this thread. 

you probably saw 'focus groups' in there. for our purposes, however, i think just talking to people will suffice. show as many people as you can your design and ask them for feedback about it. do they like the design, colour, price? what would they change, if anything? would they buy it? if not, why? obviously, you would make a note of everything you can about that person. depending on the setting, some questions would be inappropriate, of course, but you'll quickly develop a sense of them using context. for example, what kind of jewelry do they wear, if any, the quality of what they're wearing (wal*mart brands or nicer), wedding ring, general age, religious symbols, children present, etc.. basically, you can profile a lot of folks merely by looking at them. 

people offer all sorts of information about themselves without even realizing it. for instance, guys are usually pretty forthcoming about cars. for us it's like talking about the weather. if it's not forced, casually strike up a quick conversation about cars, and at some point try to find out what they drive, which is one of the best indicators of income level, imo. same with jewelry. people wear clues about themselves, so pick out a good indicator and talk about that for a moment to derive useful information. i would suggest doing this after you get some feedback as not to prejudice the information.

look at who's visiting your facebook page, people just can't wait to tell you about themselves there. 

it's flat-out simple: make a study out of people. if your design is something akin to what you might find at a particular store at the mall, go to that store and look at who's shopping there. make a note of the prices and if people are buying. make a note of the store itself, how big it is, how many people go in and out. you can even talk to a sales clerk if they have the time, but don't be a PITA. this is research.

not sure if it's a good idea or not, but offering a slight discount if they fill out a questionnaire may be helpful. 

if you have a design, it probably appeals to you and ostensibly others like you, so make yourself your first set of collected data. not everyone's design is going to work in a mall setting (thank gawd), so your powers of observation need to be honed. pay attention to who's wearing a shirt comparable to yours, try to define them as much as you can through stalking them for a couple of yards. profile the person they're with, too. 

i hope to deviate from what's expected next (as if i knew) by trying to find methods of profiling if possible.

stay tuned, boys and girls! until next week, remember the same bat time, same bat channel, and happy snurging....


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## jojo7 (Oct 8, 2011)

Marketing is the act of getting product into the hands of the consumer (or just brand awareness but the ultimate goal is the purchased product). Advertising, tv commercials, billboards, sales, websites, ebay listings, etc are all forms of marketing. 

Pick your delivery method and you are marketing.


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## Shokeapparel (Jan 25, 2012)

Ok, this is all great in theory but how is it working out for you?

Where is your store? I'd like to see proof.

I take it you started Nike with all that theory work!


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

i'm not implementing any of this yet, and i'm not really searching for theories. part of it is clarification for people like me that keep seeing advice like, 'you need to do market research.' that's fine and dandy, but what *is* market research, how do you do it, what is the benefit, etc.. 

it's hardly random theory, and i try to make sure that more than one source says basically the same thing even if i don't link to it. social engineering is theory, the big bang is a theory... marketing is straight up proven fact to get customers to buy your stuff. it's still a numbers game you play, but the idea is to greatly improve your odds of making a sale because you're catering to a specific market. you find out who they are as much as possible to ensure that you're not wasting your advertising money in the wrong places. it seems like common sense, and some of it is, but you still need a methodology to go about it, and that's what i'm attempting to get to the root of, finding a realistic method. anyone can find the same information out that i can, but i'm trying to cull it all together from the web so you don't have to. 

nike markets the hell out of themselves. they're not invincible because they're nike, they stay on top of the game because they constantly market and research, finding out who new customers are. a different buyer exists now than it did in 1964 when it was blue ribbon sports, and even in 1978 when they officially became nike. they first began selling their shoes at track events from the trunk of their car. the first nike line came out in 1972. 1978 saw nike sponsoring athletes as a marketing tool. 1982 they ran their first national commercials during the new york marathon.

nike did invent the waffle sole and by that point had ten years experience in the business. they knew their market and catered to them. they weren't trying to sell my mom shoes then, they were selling soccer and track shoes to work better on a new kind of track surface. in other words, they saw a niche and capitalized on it. 

so, unless someone is going to invent a new kind of shirt to meet some kind of new demand, giving consideration to marketing is a smart thing to do. and those guys knew their customers down to a tee, one being a college athlete and his partner his coach. it was also a different era where you didn't have huge competition for every product at every turn. and those that had competition stayed alive because they knew how to market effectively. 

we can look at these companies for inspiration, though you shouldn't look at them as the norm. you'll often find the big players fulfilling the need where little or no competition existed and they were so immersed in their market that they may not have needed to do basic research. indeed, they practiced it without knowing it.

look to nike if you want. since we're on the topic, look at blockbuster as an example of what happens when you DON'T do your market research and act upon it. the list of bygone companies that failed to recognize changing markets is endless.

this is for the average person trying to sell their own designs effectively. if you can set the world on fire as a result, awesome, but it's more about selling and advertising the best way we reasonably can. using, say, billboards as advertising may be money completely wasted if your market lives and works in the inner city and rarely makes it out on the highway. 

it's not a law you have to do market research to sell your brand. however, people with a site that links to facebook and twitter and can't figure out why they only sell two shirts a month can probably greatly benefit from it (and should have done their research first as not to waste a lot of time). then you'll see them blindly trying to be seen anywhere they can think of with little results, like trying to sell on ebay not considering that their customers don't go there that often and when they do they're not looking for shirts. i'm not going to buy banner space on a harry potter message board or set up a booth at a starving artists show if i'm trying to sell a car guy a car shirt. 

my online store is a ways off. and when it happens, it'll focus more on our core business and screenprinting will be an additional service that we offer when we market to them. for those looking for a screenprinter, the trophies (our main business) will be the additional service. when i do my own brand, that will be separate from the two, though linked together. the same market research techniques will be used for all, though obviously the paths will lead to different directions.


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

i realize that this part of what i'm trying to accomplish may seem out of the ordinary, but i'm hoping it has some useful benefits not only how to derive some cheap and relatively easy market research on shirt selling, but as a life lesson in general.

as promised, i'm going to delve into profiling a bit. 

first, a little story. back in the salad daze of manufacturing i worked at a little place called general motors. for some bizarre reason (one amongst hundreds of others i'd witnessed while there) they called these guys in to help the company figure out the best group combinations of people... or something. in fact, no one ever figured out why they were or if the company ever did anything with the information they gathered. anyhoo, these guys were like mind-readers. i had lunch with one of them and he amazed me by almost literally being able to tell me what i was about to say next. if you've ever seen a mentalist or been to a tarot reading, profiling is what they're doing.

from dictionary.com, the definition of profiling is:

the use of specific characteristics, as race or age, to make generalizations about a person, as whether he or she may be engaged in illegal activity.

well, we're not using profiling to determine if someone is a criminal or not. i'll bludgeon them over the head later out in the parking lot. no, what my intention here is looking at someone who may be a potential customer and try to derive market research information based on observations. also, this won't be the most rock solid of information or in the greatest detail as we would like particularly in the beginning as we're new at it. 

or are we new at it? we make judgments about people all the time based on what they look like, say and do. this is considered a bad thing, making judgments. however, if you see a biker looking guy acting erratic while approaching you in a dark alley late at night, automatic red flags should be going up like firehouse alarms in your head. you can't help it, it's a defense mechanism and should be natural. 

we profile people all the time. in interviews, searching for a new mate, as a salesperson, as a manager that actually knows how to manage people... sometimes we don't profile people, but objects. you're checking out an used car and you profile it, for example.

it's instinctual and critical. i want to get used to the notion with more focus and for a specific purpose, though. it's not only ferreting out potential customers, but also about knowing who they are that have purchased already.

if we're able to have a conversation with someone, so much the better. psychologists isabel briggs myers and katharine briggs invented the myers-briggs personality test, which identifies 16 basic personalities that are combinations of:

Extravert or Introvert
Sensor or Intuitive
Thinker or Feeler
Judger or Perceiver

(from Profiling People | Larrywomack.com ) also from this site:

"The process begins by identifying what appears to be routine data about the individual: Name, age, job title, marital status, and religion." 

of course, you may not be able to reveal some of these clues through context simply by looking at them, though careful, casual questioning should make up for that. a person's name can be a 'cultural tattoo,' so if it's possible, it's good to know. because i pulled this from a site more oriented towards business, 'job title' is there, but for our purposes i think just 'job' would suffice. given your surroundings and the person, it should at least be easy in most cases to put them in a blue-collar or white-collar category.

here i took the personality test myself at Jung Career Indicator and it says i'm an ENTJ type, which then gave me a listed of possible careers, of which only politics interest me (if not for my work schedule, i would run for city council). other ENTJ types include Napoleon, Franklin D. Roosevelt , Mark Anthony, Sean Connery, Madonna, Yulia Tymoshenko. wow, i'm just like yulia tymoshenko?! cool! who the hell is yulia tymoshenko anyway?

here i'm going to take a little break before i attempt to correlate info from Myers Briggs Test | MBTI Personality Types into something we can actually use. this may take a minute because frankly this whole thing is pretty large and it's getting too late (and the store is pretty busy today) to do.


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## tshirtguru629 (Feb 3, 2012)

Good answers from several folks. I'll try to pick up from this as well.


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## Shokeapparel (Jan 25, 2012)

Like I always say, actions speak louder than words.

Good luck with it.


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

is your issue with marketing or this thread, shokishi? when it's all said and done and i have a good grasp of things, i absolutely will put these things into effect. this thread is a rough draft; when it's done i'll attempt to boil it down to the essentials for anyone to use as it pertains to selling shirts, to have an actual resource to go to when people say, 'do good marketing.' 

if actions speak louder than words, what do you call all this research i'm doing? i can't do something like effective marketing if i don't know how it's done. nor can most people. the 'action' at this phase is all about research, which is a cornerstone of implementation. if you implement a bad plan, then you'll get bad results, but if you don't know what a good plan is, how are you supposed to know the difference?


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## Shokeapparel (Jan 25, 2012)

Like I said, Good luck with it and aim high champ.


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

okay, thanks.

look, guys, i'm not making this stuff up. *if you want to do market research*, this is the stuff to start with right here. you can investigate everything on your own and you'll find the same exact things. sometimes a little different wording is used, or you have to adjust the advice to fit your business a bit, but you shouldn't find significant differences from one crash course to another. 

if you don't believe marketing will help you, as is some people's opinion apparently, no law exists saying you have to do it. if you know your market down to a tee, most of this may seem redundant and bordering on a waste of time. you may have gotten lucky and your perception is that you are doing all right without it... but imagine what you *could* be doing *with* good marketing and advertising! wouldn't you like to know if you could sell to a different market if you added some bling? or offered green shirts? maybe accessories would be a great addition to your store? in other words, you could (and most likely are) missing out on a lot of sales if you don't believe marketing works. 

if you're utterly dumb enough to believe that multi-billion dollar companies are giving away millions and millions of dollars away to fakes, con-artists and charlatans calling themselves ad-men and marketing firms, i don't know what to tell you other than have fun in your fantasy world and drop me a line before you put your dreams on ebay as i'm always interested in a good deal on equipment. or you can do the smart thing and at least learn about it and see if it's something you could benefit from. if you don't trust the advice from some guy that makes bad jokes, hey, that's cool, do your own investigation into the subject and you may find some nugget that i left out. or don't, it's no skin off my nose, and, frankly, who needs the competition? i'm sure you'll blow it up without any help from me. but, first, ask yourself this: is knowing how to market going to *prevent* me from being the next tapout or nike? if you answer 'yes,' wow, good luck barney fife-ing it.

i'm still at the information gathering stage with all this. the point of all this information is to direct your energies towards the best advertising methods for you to connect your product with your customer.


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

well, in reference to the myers-briggs test, i'll add this for your perusal and let you make out of it what you will:

Myers Briggs Test | MBTI Personality Types

in retrospect, while i think this is great stuff to know, i'm reconsidering its detailed value for our purposes. thanks goodness this is just a rough draft, eh? still, i think it's a good skill knowing how to profile people inasfar as it pertains to recognizing people on the street wearing what they wear and why. so, in that vein, i'll do some more research and try to come up with a simplified version of how to profile a customer. were it not superbowl sunday, i'd have more time, but, you know, gotta at least try to have a life, lol. 

go anyone that's not new england!


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

the plan was to do some research on how to read people, how to profile them as a way to get some basic clues as to who they are for cheap and easy market research. i do all this between customers at my little convenience store, and sometimes this can take hours to do a post. normally it's not a big deal, i have fun and learn something along the way, but today my wife is going to need this computer off and on so you'll just have to wait til i can get to it! lol. ...okay, not sure who's out there actually waiting, but....


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

this one is for me as a point of reference, so skip this posting. 

okay, so i did my market research and feel pretty confident that i know who my market is. how do i use this information to create an advertising strategy? how much is it going to cost? what are reasonable expectations/what's my return per advertising dollar? is there a formula? how much time is involved? 

what about pricing? 

based on my brand, what kind of advertising is best, e.g. 'yowsa!' or classy or inbetween? at what point should i, if ever, open up my own store? when should i start making my own shirts instead of having them made for me? event sales ~ who to speak to, what to ask, how much to pay. giveaways. contests. consignment/placing in retail stores.


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## Crafty M (Dec 1, 2011)

Many Great points above. Some things to think about.

Marketing and selling are closely related and here are some things to think about.
1. Work out your Target market. Ie are they 18 yrs or 40 yrs? Are they into Sports? Or Fashion Tees? - this will obviously depend on your brand and where you position it. What forums are they are part of - social media etc.
2. Once this is developed - I see marketing as really developing your Brand. It is what you want your Brand to represent within the market. Think of some brands you like and work out what they represent. Rip Curl - lifestyle, cool, surf, fun etc. This obviously determines the designs you use and colours etc which reflect the values of your Brand.
Create news, information, social media around your Brand so it reaches your target market.
3. Then comes the sales element. Sales Copy is so so important. It's your message of what your Brand is about and what you are delivering to the customer. Also encompasses your pricing and Hot Offers you can put in the table. Maybe have ALL comic t-shirts $20 this week for example.
Hope this helps. There is so much more information, but hopefully this will get you started.
Cheers
A.


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

thanks, M.  

hopefully soon i'll get to the point where i'll be bridging some gaps between marketing and advertising. even more hopefully find some useful information specifically for t-shirts. also, and you hit on this a bit, it wouldn't be a complete 'lesson' without talking about branding. any other nuggets you want to drop, please do so! anything useful will wind up in the boiled-down version.


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

i'm having computer issues today, sorry for not updating.


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

let me explain the computer issue i'm having: it just shuts down randomly and everything winds up lost. we bought a replacement/service warranty and the computer should be replaced here hopefully in the next week, but until then i'm stuck on this and the wife won't let me surf any messages boards on her laptop, lol. i run our little convenience store saturdays, which allows me time to do things on the computer, but these little posts take a lot of time to put together (i know, you wouldn't think it, huh?). so when i have a gabby customer slink in or a bunch of kids crashing through the door and can't decide how to spend their twelve cents in under half an hour, you can imagine how frustrating it is wasting your past two hours of research. 

so, i apologize again and ask that anyone interested in this thread to bear with me a while longer until these computer issues finally get resolved.


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## Shokeapparel (Jan 25, 2012)

Thank god for that, I was starting to miss your ranting.


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

i hadn't realized i ranted a lot in this thread. but, i know how dearly you hold this subject, so, just for you, i promise not to disappoint....


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## Shokeapparel (Jan 25, 2012)

Thank you sweetheart


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

i live but to serve....


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## Shokeapparel (Jan 25, 2012)

hahaha....


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## limsandy (Apr 12, 2012)

ryan barker said:


> this one is for me as a point of reference, so skip this posting.
> 
> okay, so i did my market research and feel pretty confident that i know who my market is. how do i use this information to create an advertising strategy? how much is it going to cost? what are reasonable expectations/what's my return per advertising dollar? is there a formula? how much time is involved?
> 
> ...




Ryan,

I think a lot of people are underestimating how important marketing is. If you have the time, I would really like you to finish/answer the questions above.

BTW, I have tried to understand all your explanations in this thread.

Your loyal reader,

Sandy


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## ryan barker (Jul 21, 2011)

thanks, sandy. every saturday i'm embarrassed that i haven't been able to get back to this. my plan is to hit it when i get my regular computer back and i can get off this old back-up. HP reimbursed me for the old one, it was that bad of a crash, but the wife decided to spend the money and let her cousin fix it instead. while i know he will, he's out of state and i'm left waiting, waiting, waiting....

i really wanted to have this wrapped up by now and cleaned up for a decent presentation before i got busy, but, yeah, that didn't work out so well, lol. i haven't abandoned it at all, just stuck in a circle for the meantime.


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## Cyron (Aug 3, 2019)

Marketing focuses around four things at its heart for all its complexity: product, price, promotion, and location. Tactics and channels alter, but these are the ideas around which everything else revolves, and they are never changing values.


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## lucycarter (Jun 17, 2019)

Hey Ryan,

I read all your thread. You have nicely explained about marketing and its related stuff. This thread of yours really helped me to open up my mind on marketing.

I really want to thank you for this thread.


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