Marketing & Sales Help?

Hi

your marketing plan should detail the business owners strategic objective (ie what the finished business will be) as the starting point which in its turn must be based on their primary aim (ie their life plan). The strategic objective contains the standards against which progress will be measured eg in financial terms (x profit, x turnover in x years, the product (as oposed to the commodity), the target market (demographic and pshychographic characteristics) etc etc. The plan should explain how they intend to go about it to achieve the strategic objective.

In this case, it seems that they have started a business complteley blind, the other way round. They badly need some sense of purpose the business plan will give them.

Prospecting and marketing ideas include QVC, Amazon, etc (a few things that spring to mind) but it depends on the target market really (ie where they are and what sales channels appeal to them).

I hope this helps

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Kind regards,
James Constantine
Chartered Certified Accountant
http://www.taxadviceuk.com
FREE Weekly Tax Tips for the small business owner, written in understandable language

If I may ask. Why are you advising someone on Marketing if you dont know anything about it.
I am confused!

Anaylse who buys marble tiles - TGI should do it
Look at what these people do, what they read etc.
Advertising should generate interest.
Have they got a website? If so get it advertised on sites about the home, furnishings, lifestyles etc.
Use a marketing specialist would help!

Or just stick them on ebay and hope for the best!

I am just wondering if they would be in a position to sell to UK based Wholesalers and retailers. For example Topps Tiles all the way down to smaller independent outlets. I would cold call by telephone some of the larger suppliers to try and arrange meetings with purchasing depts. Another part of this strategy would be "Van Sales". Load a van up with samples, call in on some of the smaller independent outlets, even give them a free sample to see if they can sell at the right price or make sales there and then.

Jonathan

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Thanks for the advice guys. I do know about marketing, but I wanted some input from the forum. I have completed the marketing plan and I will present it to the client tomorrow. If anybody is interested in any tiles please let me know. Once I have spoken to the client tomorrow, I should be in a position to start marketing them if they decide to go ahead with my plan.

Get a stall at a local market and get them sold that way and start again from the plan. All the marketing routes to establish this sort of business take too long and they are sitting on stock.

None of the big chains will look twice at this sort of quantity so keep some as samples and get rid of the rest and do it properly next time. Get them on Ebay in room size loads and get them sold! Madness to sit on this sort of outlay whilst planning in my view for a start up, get rid get some money back and start over.

you could try and setup an affiliate program and get advertisers to sell the product for you from their websites. For a commission on the sale of the items of course.

affiliate marketing is a very big and growing industry, try googleing for it for more information.

Tom