STUDY OF THE PRODUCT 1. Importance of trade relations.—The plan for a marketing campaign must include the study of a great many things. In the first rank in importance, altho not necessarily first in point of time, is the study of trade relations. This study enables the man with something to market to know the various ways of reaching the people who might buy his goods, and it suggests a solution to at least some of the many vital problems involved in the manipulation of the com plicated links in the chain of distribution for the great majority of manufactured products. Because trade relations constitute the largest single problem of the average distributor, and also because failure or suc cess in solving this problem is perhaps the chief con tribution to the failure or success of a business as a whole, the subject of trade relations has been placed first in this book. It has been considered at length in Chapters III to XIV inclusive.
The present chapter and the three chapters which follow it, present a summary of the more important points usually considered by a manufacturer in plan ning his campaign. The remaining chapters will deal with a few of the special problems in market ing that have to be solved by most distributors. The significance of the many new types of retailers, their value as distributors, the status and function of the jobber, the possible substitutes for the middleman, and the relation of all trade factors to the manufac turer and to his selling and advertising activities, form a necessary groundwork for any adequate knowledge of marketing methods.
2. Necessity of a marketing plan.—Neither adver tising nor salesmen can bring success to a business unless its plan of campaign is right. There must be definite advance knowledge of the methods to be used in marketing an article or the stock of a store, before the selling starts. Opposed to a planned campaign are the hit-or-miss unplanned trials of this scheme or that, the vacillating, wavering attitude of the man who does not know exactly what he wants to do or how he wants to do it, and who opens his mind and his purse to every will-o'-the-wisp scheme that is sug gested to him by those who want his money.
For instance, there is the small retail merchant who does not plan his advertising for a year in advance.
He has no definite appropriation, and pays for space not, because it fits in with a marketing scheme, but because of the personality and fluency of the solic itor. There is the manufacturer with no settled pol icy about trade channels. He may have been selling only to jobbers, but a big order from a retailer tempts him ; he accepts it without thinking of the conse quences, and trouble follows. There is the advertiser who looks on advertising as a, gamble. He puts his little bet on this medium or that, on this size space or on that preferred position, and sits back stoically to take his earnings or his losses with cynical expecta tion of the latter and only a gambler's hope of the former. This does not necessarily imply that the cut and try" method in marketing is wrong. The one best way is often found only by a process of elim ination of the wrong ways. But if the whole so-called campaign consists in trying this and testing that, there is no campaign worthy the name; the real campaign should start where the cutting and trying end.
3. Basis of a good plan.—It is important to have a definite plan of campaign, but a definite plan of campaign is worse than useless if the plan happens to be the wrong one. A good campaign plan must be founded on careful study, investigation and analysis. Without careful study, investigation and analysis, the plan is built on mere whim and prejudice, and whim and prejudice are unsafe guides for the invest ment of money.
4. Analysis in business.—Analysis in business is nothing new. It has always been applied in the pro ductive end of industry. Boards of directors seldom decide arbitrarily that such and such a change shall be made in their manufactured product, and forth with order it done. They recognize that mechanical problems must be studied and analyzed, and they usually reserve decisions until competent engineers have done their part of the work. Yet the same directors who study their manufacturing problems wisely will often complacently order large expendi tures in new sales activities without study, investiga tion, or analysis, merely on the strength of personal opinion or reasoning by false analogy.