Activity: Benchmarking

Marketing is a form of communication, like a language.  Words, images, approach, these topics all comprise how your brand, product or service will be perceived by those who are open to receiving its message.  Will they passively scroll by your advertising on Facebook, or watch a quick 30 second video of your service while watching a Youtube video.  Will the customer come to your booth at the Willamette Falls Lamprey Celebration, or will they see your art at the local Farmers Market or Craft Fair.  

Benchmarking is the business term for comparison against a standard.  Looking around at the marketplace and seeing what approaches they are taking is a great first step to understanding how you can approach your own business.  The first thing to do is get out of the colonial mindset of competition and into the Native mindset of observation and openness for understanding.  Let’s ask some questions of ourselves, and how we want to market our goods or services, and then take a look at others with the same approach.  We can start this exercise by mentally asking some of the following questions:

• Who is their target audience?
• How does the consumer purchase the good or service?
• Who are the similar companies?
• How are they marketing the product?
• Do they have multiple product offerings?
• Is their business reliant on retail, online sales, or some other distribution?