KGB Strategic Marketing Solutions, based in Southlake, Texas, specializes in assisting small business in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

We offer three broad categories of services: marketing plans, competitive analysis and customer analysis, with services customized based on your small business needs.  We also offer a variety of seminars addressing critical marketing topics that can be tailored to your needs and brought to your front door.

Marketing plans

Marketing plans include external and internal factors impacting your business, such as demographics, technology, competitors, and customers. Furthermore, it’s beneficial for new and existing business to identify and analyze their individual strengths and weaknesses, such as customer satisfaction levels, financial stability, technical expertise and employee turnover. Marketing plans also address the 4 P’s of marketing, namely pricing, product, promotion, and place/distribution factors. Examples of these include discounts, niche markets, seasonality, and alliances. The last two sections of a marketing plan are generally reserved for revenue and sales forecasts and monitoring procedures.

An important related planning tool is a marketing calendar.  Together, we will identify important activities, dates and costs for improving your marketing efforts.  This tool can be invaluable to you and your staff in preparing for and reviewing the effectiveness of promotional efforts.

You may not have the time or finances to expend on a thorough marketing plan, but by using a marketing calendar you will have gathered important information to make the annual marketing planning process more efficient and effective.

Competitive analysis

Competitive analysis can include a wide range of topics. By combining primary and secondary research, a business can learn specific information about industry trends and who are and where are their competitors. These studies can also focus on the need for partners or alliances, and how you can respond faster than large businesses.

One study found that companies placing a premium on competitor information grew 200 percent faster than firms that did not.  The three most critical pieces of information are pricing, new product development and changes in strategy.  We can help you develop a system for routinely collecting this information.

Customer analysis

Customer analysis is essential for every business. Existing customers can help you discover strengths and weaknesses from their perspective. We don’t like to hear we aren’t good at something, but wouldn’t it be better to solve a problem than to keep on losing customers?

Assistance is available to help you find new customers, identify key employees, or uncover ways to tailor a product or service and charge a higher price. We can help you develop a method for gathering customer feedback based on your timeline and budget.  The benefits from these studies are numerous!

Education and Experience

Kate Barlow has over fifteen years of professional marketing and planning experience with service-based organizations within the for-profit, public and non-profit sectors.

She has combined strong writing and organizational skills with analytical abilities to evaluate and formulate pricing program and policies, research demographic and economic statistics for application in various location studies and decisions, produce newsletters and promotional literature, develop long and short term market projections and train employees.

Major projects include creating the City of Southlake, Texas’ first business database, researching the women’s, senior and youth markets to develop new programs and products based on target market characteristics, and managing surveys and focus groups in the study of customer satisfaction.

Major Employers and Clients

• American Airlines (Fort Worth)
• City of Southlake, Texas
• Boy Scouts of America National Office (Irving)
• Greyhound Lines, Inc. (Dallas)
• First Land Title (Southlake)
• User Friendly Computer Consultants (Colleyville)

Education

Kate holds a Bachelor of Science, Magna Cum Laude, with Political Science and Business concentrations from Minnesota State University Moorhead (formerly Moorhead State University). She earned a Master of Urban Planning, Transportation concentration, from the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). She received the Department’s Masters Project / Thesis Award for her graduate thesis.

Additional Training

• Graduate of the Economic Development Institute, Norman, OK
• Burke Institute seminar participant
• American Marketing Association workshops

Community Involvement

Kate believes is it important to give back to one’s community. Some of her past and present volunteer activities include:

• Southlake Planning and Zoning Commission
• Homeowners’ Association treasurer
• Big Brothers and Sisters of Arlington, Texas
• St. Frances Children’s Discovery Center Advisory Board
• Carroll ISD Committee Member (Academic Co-curricular Enhancement & District Advisory committees)
• Durham Elementary PTO volunteer