Researching and Analyzing the Market

Our Tuesday evening class focused a lot on putting ourselves in the role of a potential client or customer. The question asked: What is the customer perception of your business?

The answers varied by many classmates, but most noted great customer service or best value for the money.  In trying to answer for myself, I noted that customers get "two for the price of one".  Ha!! But after further reflection I can say honestly that people who have approached us see "dependability" "professionalism" and a "high level of responsiveness".  What would set us apart from other production companies will be our ability to bring forth local/regional filmmakers who can offer great information at or above the A-list seminar speakers in the industry, and at a fraction of the price.  In our Producing role, we would like to work with filmmakers with menstrual budgets; yet maximize their results with a high perception of value in the final product with the use of quality equipment and skilled professionals.

We need to find out our edge or "ticker"? Is it our presentation, personality, brand recognition, etc?

In doing further research about our needed pricing strategy, we realized that we can't just be the low cost leader, but more likely go along the lines of marginal pricing, where our variable costs and a portion of fixed costs are covered. In doing so, we'll likely have early-bird specials for our seminars to entice attendees to sign-up early, and also have a slightly higher mark-up for sign-up the day of the workshop/seminars.

Next week we'll discuss the various marketing strategies we need to use to get our services/products known to people. Awareness is key, and it often takes more than one type of marketing ploy to make people aware of who you are and what services/products you provide. For example, utilizing social media is one aspect, but there should be more.  Various marketing strategies within advertising, promotion, and publicity will be further discussed next week.  My ears are perked, are yours??

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