How to focus on developing relationships with customers

The overall marketing strategy of an organization should focus on developing relationships with customers to understand their needs, and to develop goods, services, and ideas to meet those needs.

1. Information Gathering: research potential customers, their needs, and spending habits in order to understand what sort of product, service, or idea they wish to buy.
2. Evaluation of Organization Capabilities: decide what your organization can produce relatively well, and what your organization is not capable of producing based on the organization's specific strengths and weaknesses.
3. Identify Market Opportunities: research the current market for a product idea, and look for an opportunity; such as no competition or strong demand.
4. Set Objectives of Marketing Strategy: decide what results need to be achieved in order to reach the organization's goals; such as a specific increase in sales, or net profits.
5. Formulate Action Plan: List the specific steps the organization needs to take in order to implement the marketing plan, and assign the responsibilities to specific staff members.
6. Monitor & Evaluate: Study the marketing plan regularly, at least once per quarter to track performance against the set objectives.