Step 5 Marketing Planning |
A marketing plan is a written document that details the necessary actions to achieve one or more marketing objectives. It can be for a product or service, a brand, or a product line. It can cover one year (referred to as an annual marketing plan), or cover up to 5 years. A marketing plan may be part of an overall business plan.
Solid marketing strategy is the foundation of a well-written marketing plan. While a marketing plan contains a list of actions, a marketing plan without a sound strategic foundation is of little use. Set Sales and Marketing Goals: Setting goals is critical to ensuring success. When setting goals make sure they are, sensible, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time specific. Goals should include financial elements such as annual sales revenue, gross profit, sales per salesperson etc.
However, you should include non-financial elements such as units sold, contracts signed, clients acquired, articles published etc. Once the goals are set it is important to implement processes to internalize them with all team members, such as reviewing them in sales meetings, displaying thermometer posters, awarding achievement prizes, etc.
Develop Product Marketing Plan:
Product marketing addresses four important strategic questions: 1. What products will be offered (i.e., the breadth and depth of the product line)? 2. Who will be the target customers (i.e., the boundaries of the market segments to be served)? 3. How will the products reach those customers (i.e., the distribution channels to be used)? 4. Why will customers prefer our products to those of competitors (i.e., the distinctive attributes and value to be provided)?
Develop a Pricing Strategy:
Pricing is the manual or automatic process of applying prices to purchase and sales orders, based on factors such as: a fixed amount, quantity break, promotion or sales campaign, specific vendor quote, price prevailing on entry, shipment or invoice date, combination of multiple orders or lines, and many others. Automated systems require more setup and maintenance but may prevent pricing errors.
A well chosen price should do three things:
- Achieve the financial goals of the firm (eg.: profitability)
- Fit the realities of the marketplace (will customers buy at that price?)
- Support a product's positioning and be consistent with the other variables in the marketing mix
Building a Distribution Strategy:
Developing the strategy and plan in order to get the product or service delivered to the customer. Some questions to ask when developing a distribution strategy: Should the product be sold through a retailer? Should the product be distributed through wholesale? Should multi-level marketing channels be used? How long should the channel be (how many members)? Where should the product or service be available? When should the product or service be available? Should distribution be exclusive, selective or intensive?
Developing the Marketing Message:
Your marketing message not only tells your prospect what you do, but persuades them to become your customer. You should develop two types of marketing messages.
Your first marketing message should be short and to the point. Some may call this your elevator speech or your audio logo. It’s your response to someone who asks you, “So, what do you do?”
The second type is your complete marketing message that will be included in all your marketing materials and promotions. To make your marketing message compelling and persuasive it should include the following elements:
- An explanation of your target prospect’s problem
- Proof that the problem is so important that it should be solved now, without delay
- An explanation about why you are the only person / business that can solve your prospects problem
- An explanation of the benefits people will receive from using your solution
- Examples and testimonials from customers you have helped with similar problems
- An explanation about prices, fees, and payment terms
- Your unconditional guarantee.
Determine which Marketing Media to use:
It is critical to develop the right mix of communication vehicles that will efficiently reach your target customer and effectively deliver your marketing message. Selecting media that gives you the highest return on your marketing dollar (promotional ROI) in other words getting the largest reach possible at the lowest cost per person reached.
Develop the Marketing Budget:
A marketing budget can be developed several ways depending on whether one wants to be more exact or develop just a quick-and-dirty number. It’s good to start out with a quick-and-dirty calculation and then to support it with further details.
First, if the company has been in business for over a year and has tracked the marketing related expenditures one could easily calculate the “cost to acquire one customer” or “cost to sell one product” by dividing annual sales and marketing costs by the number of units (or customers acquired) sold. The next step is to take the cost to sell one unit or acquire one customer and simply multiply it by unit sales or customer acquisition goal. The result of this simple computation will provide a rough estimate of what is needed for a marketing investment to meet sales goals for the next year.
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