A Guide To STARTING A BUSINESS IN MINNESOTA 42nd Ed 2024

Marketing Strategy/Market Analysis Describe the industry and the industry outlook. Identify the principal markets (commercial/ industrial, consumer, government, international). Include industry size currently as well as its anticipated size in the next ten years. Explain the sources of your projections. Describe major characteristics of the industry and the effects of major social, economic, technological or regulatory trends on the industry. Describe major customers, including names, locations, products or services sold to each, percentage of annual sales volume for each customer over previous five years, duration and condition of contracts in place. Describe the market and its major segments. Describe principal market participants and their performance. Identify the firm’s target market. For each customer, include the requirements of each and the current ways of filling these requirements. Also include information on the buying habits of the customers and the impact on the customer of using the product or service. Describe the companies with which the business competes and how the business compares with these competitive companies. This is a more detailed narrative than that contained in the description of the product or service, above. Describe prospective customers and their reaction to the firm and any of the firm’s products or services they have seen or tested. Describe the firm’s marketing strategy, including overall strategy; pricing policy; method of selling, distributing and servicing the product; geographic penetration, field/product support, advertising, public relations and promotion; and priorities among these activities. Describe how the firm will identify prospective customers and how and in what order the firm will contact the relevant decision-makers. Also, describe the sales effort the firm will have (e.g., sales channels and terms, number of salespersons, number of sales contacts, anticipated time, initial order size) and estimated sales and market share. Sources of information include census data (on both industries and on consumer demographics), business directories, specific industry reports (either from government or private sources), and competitors’ websites. Technology Describe the technical status of your product (i.e., idea stage, development stage, prototype stage, etc.) and the relevant activities, milestones, and other steps necessary to bring the product into production. Discuss the firm’s patent or copyright position. Include how much is patented and how much can be patented (i.e., how comprehensive and effective the patents or copyrights will be). Include a list of patents, copyrights, licenses or statements of proprietary interest in the product or product line.

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