Market Research for Business Start-Ups

Rich holds a BA & MBA from IUP & a JD from Northwestern. Upon graduating from Northwestern in 1995 Rich started an Investment bank in Romania. He joined the SBDC in 2011. In addition to working with the SBDC, he is a Coach in the Ben Franklin Techcelerator Program. In this feature, he describes the process he uses with clients to improve their branding & digital presence.

Richard Hoover
IUP SBDC
Business Consultant
Special Insight & Common Questions

Many clients contact the SBDC wanting help with marketing, which usually means they want someone to run their social media, create content or assist with promoting their business. Clients think the problem is step 6 in the Marketing & Media Knowledge Overview (below) - if only they had someone to design, produce or execute - and not that they’ve never thoroughly completed steps 1 through 4.

The most effective way to improve a client's sales is to level up branding and value proposition messaging. Find the H. Zenas Neal Branding and Value Proposition Levels Chart I commonly use with clients here. Most clients' marketing messaging focuses on products and features/benefits and sometimes validating features and benefits. Clients could set themselves apart if they moved down the chart like the Italian Restaurant example shown below.
In the following infographic, Rich Hoover further outlines our marketing/digital marketing & media research and knowledge.
Find an example of a consulting case with Venice Pizza that involved many of the above areas here.