When launching a new product or service into the marketplace in a particular market sector you must understand and know your target customer. You must know the demographics of your market including the buying behavior of the customer and the trends that are happening in the marketplace. You must know your market.

If you fail to understand and adapt to the market changes as they occur or if you fail to register the reality of the marketplace before you start you will decrease your desired results. You want to make sure that your marketing teams understand all of this or you will increase chances of failure or greatly decrease your chances for achieving your intended goals.

Moreover the chances of not achieving your goals in the marketplace are almost guaranteed. In a competent marketing team or marketing plan which takes into consideration knowing their market and understanding their customer has a better chance of succeeding. One of the simplest ways to do this is to survey the customer and ask potential customers what they want and study their buying behavior.

This is more than just doing surveys and ad hoc interviews. You must get into the minds of the consumers and potential customers, which will be buying your product in the marketplace and find out their needs and desires.

Additionally you'll need to determine how much they're willing to pay and make darn sure you can afford to produce the product or service to their liking and their specifications for the price that they're willing to pay. I hope you will consider this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

Currently Lance is retired at age 40 and is running an Online Think Tank Forum while traveling North America. Perhaps considering something extremely challenging to do that will exercise his mind and utilize all his experiences, observations and skills. Any ideas?