Put simply, SWOT is the acronym for your business's internal Strengths and Weaknesses and external Opportunities and Threats. Your SWOT Analysis is a useful process to summarise your business's current situation and future opportunities and will assist you with the development of your marketing objectives, marketing strategy and tactics.

Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths are your brand's or business's internal resources or capabilities that are better than your competition and positively contribute to your profitability

Weaknesses are your brand's or business's internal resources or capabilities that are below your competition and may negatively contribute to your profitability.

When completing your SWOT Analysis it is important to choose just 2 or 3 strengths and weaknesses that will have the greatest impact on your business' short and long term profitability.

• Product or Service - for example innovative or unique features and benefits
• Brand or Business - for example low or high brand/business awareness
• Business Relationships - for example positive or negative business relationships
• Geography or Location - for example compete in a few or several locations, compete in all states, located in key areas of the market, poor location or difficult or easy to find locations
• Customer Service - for example high or low customer service levels

Opportunities and Threats
Your opportunities come from your strengths and will indicate which marketing strategies are needed now for your business to profitably grow in the future and improve its competitive edge.

Your threats come from your weaknesses and will indicate which marketing strategies are needed to solve or protect you against the problems facing your business now and in the future.

• Product or Service -for example product or service improvements, innovations, new product or service development
• Competition - for example number of competitors increasing or decreasing
• Strategic Alliances - for example competitor or company merger
• Customer Service - for example growing customer demand for high quality customer service or after hours customer service
• Technological Factors - for example new technology allowing more convenient purchases for customers
• Economic factors - for example strengthening or weakening of the Australian dollar or economy
• Government factors - for example changes to government or changes to national or state legislation

Completing a SWOT Analysis for your business every 12 months, ideally before you develop your small business marketing plan will ensure you have a good understanding of your business and customers and will enable you to continually identify your market's opportunities which you can capitalise on.

M4B Marketing Software has easy to use templates with a step by step guide and examples to follow to help you to complete a SWOT Analysis. You can buy now and download instantly to start your SWOT Analysis today.