Entrepreneurship is not an easy thing because it requires covering many aspects that we do not see with the naked eye. One of them is to create a commercial strategy that allows you to place your products or services in your target market in a set time. But what else is it useful to create one for and how to do it? Keep reading and I’ll explain.
What is a trading strategy?
A commercial strategy is the set of actions that you plan, develop and execute to achieve the sales objectives in your business. It is about what and how you will do to reach your goals in a market that you choose with a specific product and in a certain time.
What is a trading strategy for?
Creating a business strategy helps you organize your efforts and achieve your goals, but also to achieve the satisfaction of your target market and create strategic alliances.
Being able to provide your customers with what they need in a timely manner will strengthen your business not only because of the sales you achieve, but also because of the structuring of internal processes that you achieve and the reputation that good commercial attention leaves you.
Why is business strategy important to my business?
1. You will get a better view of your goals
The first step you take is to set goals. From them you can create all the action plan you need, as well as take into account the resources that you will need and the routes by which you can get there.
Taking the time to write or structure a business strategy will allow you to clarify and maintain focus on the specific actions that will help you reach your goals.
2. You can improve your brand positioning
Defining your commercial strategy allows you to raise your brand name within your target market, as it allows you to determine an adequate positioning plan so that your brand and business reach a greater number of people.
You will be able to choose the niches you want to reach and how you will achieve it through marketing and communication actions.
3. You will be ahead of your competition
Having a business strategy is also a competitive advantage for your business. Not all companies plan their business strategies and the fact that you do it will allow you to have a broader vision of your market to take advantage of possible opportunities at the right time.
According to supported by data from INEGI, in Mexico there are very few SMEs that are concerned about having a well-defined marketing strategy, since in recent years only 14% of small and medium-sized companies in the country carry out continuous improvement actions in terms of its administration and marketing.
Can you imagine the potential you can achieve if you structure your business strategy well?🚀
4. You can boost your business
Think that the engine of your business is the people you reach, that is, your customers. When you have a well-structured strategy and focus on the final satisfaction of your customers, you achieve better acceptance but you can also get other resources that boost your business such as strategic alliances with suppliers or partners; It will also allow you to align your sales team with your general business objectives and, without a doubt, you will be able to have more planning in other strategies such as prices, promotions or marketing.
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Types of trading strategies
There are many types of trading strategies that you can use depending on your goals. In fact, it is possible to make a mix of several of them to create a more robust strategy that covers all the commercial points of your business. Here I leave the most common for you to start with your structure.
By product
As an entrepreneur or businessman, you seek to develop commercial strategies based on the characteristics of your product. There are products that are essential, for which you will not need to create a great marketing plan to reach your sales quota, but there are also products that will require greater efforts to be placed.
In this case, your commercial strategy could be based on training your sales force in a specific way to achieve your quotas, or on focusing communication and branding efforts to achieve acceptance of your product in your target market.
for price
You can also structure business strategies that focus on the cost of your products to the public. In this type of strategy, the most important thing is to understand what price your client is willing to pay and why.
Here the characteristics of the product are not the most relevant but what your client gets when paying its cost. It could be unbeatable service, chances to get into a loyalty program, or access to future promotions.
by place
Another good way to structure your trading strategy is by market placement. To develop concrete actions, ask yourself things like: Where are the people who need my product? How will I reach them? What distribution channels will I need?
Once you have defined the place where you must be to reach your target audience, you can design a commercial strategy that guides your actions to achieve the highest number of sales on specific sites.
by channels
Your business strategy can also focus on satisfying various distribution channels and finding the best way to satisfy them with the fewest resources and the highest profit margin possible.
This is a good strategy because you diversify your entries and you have the opportunity to satisfy different segments of the market. For example, you can have a commercial strategy that includes specific sellers at the point of sale, another for business accounts and one more to serve distributors.
How to create a commercial strategy to improve your business
Analyze your financial plan
This data is the starting point for creating your business strategy. Without the analysis of your financial plan you will not be able to create a solid commercial strategy.
The financial plan is all the data that allows you to visualize the resources of your company, in addition to making projections. Show how much you have in capital, how much you have in investment, how much and when you project the return on your investment through an income budget; it also defines the amount of investment you have for all your strategies, both operational and commercial.
Define where you want to go
Once you have outlined your financial plan, determine expense budgets, income budgets, administrative costs, operating costs and define what your financial goals will be to cover when you have deployed your business strategy.
In other words, you must know what the specific sales objectives are that will allow you to cover the expenses of your company and operation, which will also leave you a profit and investment margin.
Consider your resources
This is the point where you should make a checklist of the resources you have, both financial and operational, technological and human. It is common that as entrepreneurs we think big and the goals are ambitious; however, it is necessary to base ourselves on hard data and know what we have and what we need to implement any strategy.
Check your budgets, your technological tools, the scope of your staff or if you will do it yourself. Having adequate control allows you to better plan and execute.
Create a follow-up plan
A business strategy needs indicators in order to monitor progress and results. Depending on your proposed strategies, create a follow-up plan of specific actions that allows you to see what you have achieved and how much you have left to reach your goals. Constantly monitoring in short periods reduces time and energy waste, since you understand what is working and what is not, so if necessary, act quickly with a change.
look long term
A trading strategy is usually done annually, but you can split shares quarterly or monthly based on the type of business and products you run. You can even set daily sales goals to reach your expected quota, however the recommendation is that you look at the long term and be aware of market variations and trends. Preventing yourself is being one step ahead and will allow you to improve relationships and strategies.
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Experiment, measure and correct
A trading strategy is not set in stone. By entrepreneurial nature you know that a business is in constant transformation and that your market can change. The way in which you carry out your commercial strategy will always have improvements, the idea is that you keep an adequate control to know what works better and what is not working to adjust and correct the necessary actions.
Conclusions
Creating a commercial strategy allows you to define an action plan to place your products or services in the market you are looking for with greater certainty of achieving your financial objectives as a company. Even when you are starting your business, it is recommended that you have a vision of your financial plan and your budgets to assign them to your promotion and commercial strategies.
At Tiendanube we are witnesses of thousands of success stories that are fulfilled through a business or enterprise. We want you to be part of these stories and therefore, in addition to sharing this information with you, we invite you to try our platform to create your own online store and go even further with your business.🙌
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