Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Plate 8.2
Focus group discussion
A good sales presentation requires thorough preparation. Photo courtesy of Purdue University
Centre for Food and Agricultural Business.
Another tool for analyzing internal data is
market mapping
. It is common, for example,
for much of the sales volume in a small agribusiness to be concentrated in limited geograph-
ical areas or among relatively few accounts. At the same time, other geographic areas have
relatively little market penetration with many potential accounts left for someone else to
serve.
In any given market, there may be physical reasons for an imbalance in market penetra-
tion. An interstate highway may make access to some areas diffi cult. Certain types of farms
may be concentrated in some parts of the market area. More often, however, friends, rela-
tives, or just well-established customers seem to predominate in one local area. Salespeople
tend to spend less time in areas with which they are less familiar. In short, many agribusi-
nesses have undiscovered market potential near them, if they were just able to discover and
cultivate this potential.
One way of discovering these areas of untapped potential is through a market-mapping
technique. This exercise can be done by hand in smaller fi rms. All current customers are
pinpointed on a map of the market area (
Figure 8.4)
. It is a good idea to color-code custom-
ers by volume of business, type of products purchased, or other informative characteristics
when developing this map.
A market map can also be developed using any one of a number of computer software
products designed specifi cally for this purpose. Recent developments in computer mapping
software and geographic information systems (GIS) make it possible to download a variety of
data on market characteristics such as number of pigs on feed, number of households with at
