As many of you know already, my education and experience in life certainly is not in
GIS (geographic information systems). However, I do have significant experience in
business and, specifically, in sales and marketing. One of the biggest challenges I faced in my previous role as a brand manager was thoroughly understanding my target market and managing all of the data that I did have access to. If only I would have had access to GIS technology during those days!!
Let's start at the beginning. For B2C (business to consumer) marketers, it all starts with
demographics, right? Usually, you have an idea of who is buying your products, but do you know how to reach them? Where they live? How to define and target your marketing efforts? Demographic mapping is one of the simplest tools that
marketing GIS offers. And, the good news is that the 2010 census data is going to be available soon.
Any time that you implement a marketing program, you want to measure your success, correct? How about monitoring market penetration and/or distribution? Here is a mapping example of doing just that. I would have been thrilled to monitor distribution in this manner in my previous life. Instead, we spent countless hours trying to review Excel spreadsheets that contained unbelievable amounts of information about hundreds of skus. This particular company was only interested in US market penetration but as you can see, they were lucky enough to get some penetration into the Canadian market as well.

So now that marketing has a good grasp on their potential customers and how to successfully convert them in to paying customers (which is the ultimate goal), what does the sales team do with them? I have mentioned previously that I strongly encouraging all businesses utilize some type of CRM to manage their customer data. The great thing about using a CRM is that you can export your customer data at any point to get a visual look at your customer database. This can help with assigning sales territories, prioritizing leads, and even planning a day of route sales. Here is an example of a map that has been exported from a customer's CRM. This is map is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of identifying niche markets, focus sales efforts, and assign sales territories. This particular map is just one layer of a GIS map. Other layers include farmers markets and non-corridor-related retail outlets.

If you are looking for a solution for your sales and marketing challenges, I guarantee that GIS can offer some much needed assistance. And, with
down to earth, not only do you get the technological capabilities of GIS but you get people who understand business and what you are trying to achieve regardless of whether you are a B2C, B2B, or a combination business.
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