Marketing the New Venture 243ing approach to the customer and design a business system that can ultimately provide
a high level of customer satisfaction.
Market research need not be extensive, sophisticated, or expensive, but it must deter-
mine what customer satisfaction means for the target market. It also provides other crit-
ical information about the target market, information that can help with marketing
strategies and activities. These activities—pricing, product/service decisions, promotion,
and distribution—form the core of the venture’s marketing effort. Because these activi-
ties are complex and the relationships between them ambiguous, the marketing strate-
gy, organization, and resources can be a source of sustainable competitive advantage.
The Internet offers a variety of opportunities for a new venture and its marketing
activities. Innovative marketing techniques such as affiliate programs and search engines
enable a venture to reach previously unapproachable customers, but there are difficul-
ties: weak security and consumer concerns about fraud.
Sales forecasting is the bridge between the venture’s marketing decisions and its
financial decisions and outcomes. The sales forecast represents the “top line” of the ven-
ture’s financial picture. Both bottom-up and top-down approaches to sales forecasting
should be employed to ascertain the venture’s prospects for success or failure.KEY TERMS
Break-even volume
Channels
Clayton Act
Concept testing
Confirmation stage
Cost-based pricing
Customer satisfaction
Decision stage
Diffusion process
Discriminatory pricing
Distribution
Government market
Halo effect
Implementation stage
Inbound logistics
Infomercial
Institutional market
Knowledge stage
Market research
Market segmentation
Market testing
Marketing strategy
Outbound logistics
Persuasion stage
Price
Primary data
Product
Product consistency
Product depth
Product mix
Product testing
Product width
Production orientation
Promotional mix
Public relations
Pull system
Push system
Robinson-Patman Act
Sales orientation
Secondary sources
Sherman Act
Social entrepreneurship
Target profit pricing
Truth in Lending Act
Viral marketing
Word of mouth