Every marketing plan should include an analysis of the industry. Why? Because it is vital to understand the industry in which they operate, and to identify and track its performance against key success factors (CSF) for your organization.
Understanding your industry and identify the CSFs help in building a successful marketing plan., One that is based on measurable progress and results. A key success factor is an element of a whole which affects the ability of your business to succeed in its market.
Most companies focus on three to five of the most important (to your business) success factors. From time to time, or year to year, these key success factors can be changed, such as industry or market changes.
15 examples of key business success factors (and this is not an exhaustive list) are: ..
Number of clients a year;
Number of customers lost per year or the number of retained customers (it is important to understand and measure customer lifetime value potential of each customer on a regular basis);
Recruiting and retaining excellent employees (measured by employee turnover, job offers, customer satisfaction);
The successful introduction of new products (measured by sales and costs);
The success of promotional programs (measured by sales and costs);
Good financial indicators / health: for example, working capital, acceptable reasons (in particular debt to equity ratios), margins, cash flow, accounts receivable and more;
If in the manufacturing industry, high utilization of the capacity of operation;
Strong network of providers;
Strong distribution network or channel;
The successful placement of product;
Low cost structure;
Niche product / service - track the number of competitors entering and / or leaving the place. Is the cost of market entry high or low?
Market leader or follower or challenger, and their relative position in the market and why? Are you able to support that position if under "attack"?
Product differentiation: Does the technology or service advantages that others can not easily copy? What is unique and different from your product or service?
Time to market: your product or service is able to deliver quickly and easily, from the first point of contact at a time shipped and invoiced later? Once you have identified your specific FCE, strategize around these factors and integrate these strategies into your marketing and business plans to ensure business success. Develop measurement programs to help you track your progress against your success factors. You also need to evaluate your competition and see if their key success factors of competitors are similar or different to yours (in terms of their strengths and weaknesses and marketing and business strategies, which could be very different). One way to compare and evaluate is to analyze the competitiveness; know what your competitors' strengths and weaknesses and build their competitive strategy accordingly. (A sample SWOT analysis can show how to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing your business.).
For example, if the retention of existing customers is a key success factor, your business objective should be to increase sales with existing customers. How is that? First, do a survey of customer satisfaction to assess the degree of satisfaction of your current customers are (or not). Next, determine what needs to change and what to focus on. Make sure you understand how your customers choose among competitors is the price, service, quality, knowledge, reliability, relationships, or all of these factors? What product or service attributes are most important to your customers? What is the only difference between your product or service and the product of their authority or the service (from the perspective of the client).
Once you have identified the key success factors, integrated measurement devices for monitoring, evaluation and comparison of its competitors FCE-and industry; built their strategies and objectives in your marketing and business plans ( ugh!), you have to act! Build your business in these key success factors.
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