NEWS RELEASE                                                                                    June 2021

Market Forecast Needs Differ for Strategic Planning, Content Marketing, and Direct Sales

How large an investment should a company make in market forecasting? The average flow and treat product supplier spends very little.

Suppliers now realize that success is achieved by identifying the profitable opportunities and then launching a Content Marketing program to bring in the orders. This dictates a big investment in market forecasts.

Any company now selling flow and treat products by communicating the product’s superiority for a specific application needs to quantify and prioritize each targeted opportunity.

Content Marketing changes strategic planning as well as local sales activity. All functions need reliable market forecasts. However, the time frame and specificity differ for various corporate functions. 

Time Frame

General Management: There is general interest for the next decade or more.

Sales Management: There is a need for very detailed forecasts over the coming year and lesser interest beyond the next two years.

Local Sales: The focus is short term.

Manufacturing: Several years lead time is desirable.

Geography

General Management would tend  to focus on world regions and major countries. Sales management may want the 70 largest countries and 10 aggregations of small regional countries. The local sales people would want forecasts for their territories. There are 270 countries, states, and provinces.

Products

Management may need only forecasts for product groups. In the past sales did not attach much importance to forecasts by individual products. However with Content Marketing it becomes important to determine the potential for each product and budget content marketing expenditures  to pursue the most profitable product/customer combinations.

Customers

From a content marketing perspective it is important to forecast the niche customer revenues  associated with each product. In many cases it is also desirable to identify the largest customers.  A content marketing program can be tailored for each.

The McIlvaine Company maintains current forecasts for more than 20 million product/ location/ customer combinations. Details are found at www.mcilvainecompany.com and then “Increase Profits with Holistic Content Marketing”

Bob McIlvaine can answer your questions at 847 226 2391 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.