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| Farmers being trained on Marketing |
Marketing is everything you do to place your product or service in the hands of your customers, which includes diverse disciplines like sales, public relations, pricing, packaging, and distribution. It is the most important part of farming business because it justifies the decision to produce and remain in a particular enterprise. Marketing plans must be based upon the goals laid out in the agribusiness plan, therefore a thorough review and understanding of the plan is the first step in created a marketing plan. The six most important marketing strategies commonly referred to as the six Ps of marketing include:
1. People-Identify people who need and can afford to pay for your product. Who are your customers? What do they need? When do they need it? Marketing is all about finding the right people to persuade to buy your product/service, therefore take time at the initial stages to discover who your potential customers are, and how to effectively reach them.
If you do not start by keeping people in the frontline you are bound to fail because marketing plans are designs of ways to effectively communicate with people.
2. Product / service-Identify the product or service which you will deal with.
How is the availability of complimentary products in the market? What is the demand of the product?
People buy a product as well as the concept of what the product will do for them, or help them do for themselves e.g. People who are overweight will buy the concept of a new, slim, happy and successful self.
3. Price-The price you charge must be competitive but still allow you to make a reasonable profit taking into consideration how much the consumer is willing to pay for the product.
4. Place- This refers to the geographical area and it may include warehousing, shipping, middlemen etc
How big is your market? How can you expand your market? How accessible is your market?
5. Promotion-How will people know of your product?
Promotion involves influencing people through advertising to buy your product. All products need promotion either to introduce them into the market or increase their demand. This can be achieved through the use of media, posters, signboards, free samples, leaflets, personal and family contacts and sales incentives .However the best form of promotion is a reputation for high quality products, friendly services, fair prices and good management. Recommendation by satisfied customers is the cheapest form of promotion.
6. Packaging-Packaging plays an important role in marketing of food products as follows:
- Protection of the food products against deterioration
- Encourages a customer to prefer the product to the other products on retailer’s shelf
- Tells potential customers about the product
Therefore it is worthwhile making effort to have the best packaging and labeling affordable.
Labeling-Labels must give information about the company and the product as follows:
· The name of the product
· The net weight
· The ingredients in order of the amounts
· The name and address of the manufacturer or producer
· The brand name
Distribution and Selling-Transport, distribution and marketing costs are often a major expense to businesses. It is important to always avail products to customers where they wish to buy them from, when they need to buy them. The entrepreneur has to ensure a distribution system that will deliver the product for the customer to get it on time and in the right condition as economically as possible. For more information Visit this marketing LINK -http://mfarm.co.ke/ .
