Cindy Kennaugh, On The Mark

Effective data collection for your marketing strategy planning is vitally important to the success of your marketing plans  — and ultimately your business. The objective is to use the most cost-effective and time-efficient means to capture information about:

• Your customers
• Your industry or market
• Your competitors
• Your partners

The data that you collect must be comprehensive, accurate, and current because it will become the foundation upon which all your marketing strategies and plans are built.

Invest now, reap later

Good strategies are based on a variety of information, from facts to estimates to anecdotes to assumptions. This information comes from many sources and often takes longer to collect than to use.

Gathering input successfully streamlines your marketing strategy development process and ultimately improves the quality and timeliness of your strategic decision-making. You can then base your decisions more on facts and a sense of direction, and less on seat-of-your-pants guesswork.

Plan your work, work your plan

The best thing you can do is to prepare and follow a clearly defined, step-by-step process. Advance planning gives you a clear idea of what steps are necessary to gather the most useful information.

Complete the marketing strategy questionnaire and use your responses to guide you through steps 1 and 2. For the link to the questionnaire, see the More information section at the bottom of this page.

1. Create an outline of the marketing plan you will ultimately write  You don't need to go into great detail; general section headings are enough. Appropriate sections headings vary by business, but here are some examples:
• Business overview and objectives
• Market characteristics and trends
• Customer profiles
• Competition
• Product offering(s) or services offering(s), or both
• Impressions and messages
• Sales and purchase process
• Pricing
• Partners
2. Under each section, list the questions that you need to answer  Focus on defining the information you need that will help you to make decisions and to make changes to your marketing strategy where necessary. Consider such questions as:
• Market characteristics and trends
• What are the logical customer segment groupings?
• What business or seasonal cycles affect our business?
• Customer profiles
• Which customer segments are we targeting? Which are we not targeting? Why or why not?
• What is each segment's primary reason for wanting our product?
• Pricing
• What kinds of price versus value trade-offs do our customers make?
• What industry trends are likely to drive prices up or down?
3. Use a variety of resources as you gather information  This step is basically a market research process. Before you begin gathering data, see the More information section at the bottom of this page for a list of related market research articles.
• Ask around  Get input from colleagues, management, salespeople, channel partners, and customers.
• Tap into free information sources first  Search the Internet. Look at your existing customer data. Visit public and academic libraries.
• Purchase information as needed and when practicable  You might find what you need quite inexpensively by joining an organization or by subscribing to a service. If these sources aren't adequate, you might also want to invest in some more expensive, more comprehensive market research reports.
• Generate information you need but can't buy  Specifics about your customers' attitudes and behaviors can often only be obtained by observation, by taking surveys, and by conducting focus groups. These methods can be expensive, but you can get exactly what you want.
4. Fill in the gaps with assumptions and best guesses  No matter how much information you've gathered, there will still be unanswered questions. You have to make assumptions — it's part of marketing. Just remember to keep track of your assumptions and to modify them when necessary.
5. Document your findings  A clearly written record — including well-documented sources — eases information sharing and speeds strategy development.

Tips to the wise

As you begin following the guidelines listed above, here are a few pointers that can save you time and headaches:

• Begin with the end in mind  Author Stephen Covey's sage advice was never more appropriate. Clearly define the information you need before you start — then stick to the plan. Don't be lured astray by interesting information that isn't pertinent.
• Talk to your customers  Customers are the reason you're developing marketing strategies — find out what they think. Contact customers with whom you have a good relationship, tell them what you're up to, and ask for their input. You might be surprised at how helpful they can be.
• Make assumptions  Don't hesitate to draw conclusions from incomplete information. You must make some assumptions, because there's no way to finish developing your marketing strategy if you don't make some guesses along the way. It's part of the art of marketing. The key is to write down the assumptions you've made, test them over time, and update them whenever appropriate.
• Use your marketing research staff, if you have them  Bring them in early and often. If you don't have a research staff, see the More information section at the bottom of this page for articles detailing excellent data collection strategies.
• Keep moving  You'll never get complete answers to all of your questions. Don't get bogged down. You have to finish the input collection phase; otherwise, you'll never formulate any strategies. Make assumptions and move on. Budget adequate time for input collection, but set deadlines and stick to them.

The success of your business depends on developing a successful marketing strategy. Your marketing strategy begins with collecting as much relevant input as possible. Following the guidelines and tips discussed in this article can provide you with the information you need to achieve your business goals.

More information

• Choose a cost-effective market research technique
• Find the right primary market research technique
• Secondary market research: Getting the most for the least
• Marketing plan presentation

About the author  Cindy Kennaugh is President of On The Mark, a Silicon Valley–based consulting firm specializing in all aspects of business-to-business marketing in the high-technology industry.