Outline for your Marketing Plan

Outline for your Marketing Plan

(With comments and examples)

Mission Statement
Write a few sentences that state:
� Use the mission statement from the festival and make sure of the following:
� "Key markets" – to who you're selling
� "Contribution" - what you're selling
� "Distinction" - your unique selling proposition
1. Situation Analysis: A SWOT analysis looking at the broader market analysis and the unique attributes of your project, The five forces analysis may be helpful for a micro-view and an environmental analysis for the broader understanding. Decide how you feel the analysis is most helpful.
Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT)
The content that this section of your plan communicates is some of the most important. Up until now, you've been talking about the past, so to speak. From this point on, you're moving into the future and ultimately the meat of your marketing plan.

With that in mind, write this section of the plan with particular clarity and substance. Pull out those lists of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that you came up with during the research phase and put them in order of importance within each category.

Remember, these should include anything that might affect sales of the product. Make it detailed enough to fully explain each strength, opportunity, etc., but keep the format clean and graphically easy to read.

2. Target Market
Find niche or target markets for your product and describe them.
If you've developed a survey, you may have a very good idea who your target market is. Here is another strategy to determine who your target market is:

Sit down with a piece of paper, think about who your target market might be and write down the answers to the following questions:

How old are these people?
Are they male or female?
How much money do they make?
What are their occupations?
What is their level of education?
What are their hobbies?
Are they married, single, divorced?
Do they have kids, grandkids?
Are they students?
3. Product
Describe your product. How does your product relate to the market? What does your market need, what do they currently use, what do they need above and beyond current use?
The next step is to write about your product.

a. Greed - will it save them money, make them money, make them look like they have money?

e. Health - will it improve health or ease their pain or make them look and feel younger?

f. Belonging - will it make them feel as if they belong to something - an exclusive group?

Out of your answers, create one sentence which will describe the biggest, the best, the most important benefit of your product. Make sure it includes what this product does, that no other product can do. This is your "Unique Selling Proposition" or USP. Some suggestions to consider in your USP are price, convenience and guarantee. You need to provide a tangible service, yet evoke emotion.

Features vs. Benefits
This has probably been hammered into your head if you've been in marketing or advertising, but what does it mean? Don't your customers make the connection that if the box says "batteries included" that means they won't have to take those extra steps of buying and installing them? Sure, they might, but if you say "Batteries Included: Ready to use right out of the box!" you'll get their attention more quickly and perhaps give your product the slight edge that will convince the customer to pick up your product rather than your competition's.
In a nutshell, you have to make very clear the end result that is ultimately the reason why someone should purchase your product. Connect the dots for them, and you'll have a much better chance of having a successful product. Add to the list above a big "benefits" category, especially if your product is new.
When you get to Strategies and Action Plan, use the benefits information you come up with here to make your creative efforts and positioning work for you.

Unique Selling Proposition (USP) Enter your USP here
4. Competition
Describe your competition. How does your "unique selling proposition" set your approach apart from your competition?
5. Positioning
Think of positioning as the perception your target audience has of your product. You have total control over this element of your marketing efforts, and it is critical to how you develop the rest of your plan. Planning your product's positioning must involve taking into consideration such issues as the competition and how its products are perceived, the needs and desires of your target audience, and the element of mystique or drama that your product or service naturally has about it.
6. Marketing Goals
Establish quantifiable marketing goals. This means goals that you can turn into numbers. For instance, your goals might be to gain at least 30 new clients or to increase your income by 30% this year. Your goals might include sales, profits, or customer's satisfaction.
7. Marketing Objectives
Your marketing objectives should be the means to achieve your goals. By working through your target market data and your market segment data, you should come up with marketing objectives that address every group. Your marketing objectives should follow the same rules as the sales objectives, and be measurable, quantifiable (meaning there is a specific number of some sort assigned to each one), and time specific.
You should have a marketing objective that addresses each group in your target market. For this reason, you need to have good data about the sizes of your market, potential market, and your current customer base. To this data, add information such as recognized opportunities, your customers' buying rates, and other behavioral issues. This information will help you estimate the numbers you need to attach to your marketing objectives.
For example, imagine this scenario:
1. You know your 2,500 customers each bought an average of 2.5 of your widgets last year.
2. You've also identified a new market of 3,500 potential customers (at your current market share percentage) that you're estimating will buy an average of 2 widgets each for the year.
3. In addition, you've identified an opportunity to add a service contract for customers that would cost 10% of the product cost.
Your marketing objective for existing customers could then be: To increase your current customers' buying rate by 20% and sell service contracts to 50% of those customers.

8. Market Strategies
Write down the marketing and promotion strategies that you want to use or at least consider using. Strategies to consider:
� Networking - go where your market is
� Direct marketing - sales letters, brochures, flyers
� Advertising - print media, directories
� Training programs - to increase awareness
� Write articles, give advice, become known as an expert
� Direct/personal selling
� Publicity/press releases

Here are some examples of a Unique Selling Proposition for businesses that we've worked with in the past:
Examples:

What are Marketing Goals?

How to Set Marketing Goals

Your marketing goals may deal with many different elements of your business. You may wish to increase sales, increase awareness of your business, increase visitors to your web site, increase the stickiness of your site, get more repeat clients... the list goes on and on.

Brainstorm what you really want to get out of your business this season. Then write down these three things:

1. Your Goal
2. The Strategy to Achieve the Goal
3. How you will Measure the Goal.
You may have several goals or you may start out slowly with one overall goal.

Examples of Goals and Strategy

These are goals, strategies, and measuring techniques we've used and have worked successfully (meaning we achieved our goals).

Strategy: Put "Next" buttons on the bottom of each page in order to lead people to the next page.

Measurable: Go into the site logs and compare the average # of pages hit per visit for four weeks before and after adding the navigational buttons.

Measurable: Compare number of sales the month after the review with the number of sales during the month prior to the review.

3. Goal: Increase visitors to website by 50 unique visits per week from search engines.

Strategy: Optimize 10 web pages of the site for keyword frequency and meta tags, submit to 6 most popular search engines.

Measurable: When the pages are indexed and ranking, use Web Position Gold to compare the number of referrals from search engines for three months prior to and three months following the optimization.

Strategy: Get two other web sites to put up our ad and subscriber address on their thank you page when someone subscribes to their newsletter. (Return the favor by also including them on our web site.)

Measure: Gather number of subscribers each week by having an email come into my mail box everytime someone subscribes. Compare the number of subscribers before and after the ads go out.

Strategies
Okay, so you know where you want to go. Now, you just have to determine which roads you're going to take to get there. These are the strategies you'll use in your marketing mix. Your marketing mix is the combination of elements that make up the entire marketing process. By using a variety of modes to reach your goal, you have a better chance of actually doing it. It requires the right combination, however, so be careful when putting it together.
Traditionally, the marketing mix refers to the four P's: product, price, place, and promotion. There are folks who will tell you that those are old-fashioned, and that there are new hip terms to use, but they really all boil back down to... product, price, place and promotion.
We'll go through each of the Ps and talk about the inherent elements in each that can be strategically modeled to help you meet your goals. In addition to the traditional Ps, and probably the most important when it comes to your marketing communications, is positioning. Let's begin there.
Positioning
Think of positioning as the perception your target audience has of your product. You have total control over this element of your marketing efforts, and it is critical to how you develop the rest of your plan. Planning your product's positioning must involve taking into consideration such issues as the competition and how its products are perceived, the needs and desires of your target audience, and the element of mystique or drama that your product or service naturally has about it.
In crowded markets, it is very important to position your product appropriately. Think about the advertising messages your audience is bombarded with every day. In order to stand out, your product has to have a clear position in your audience's mind. But how do you come up with the positioning for your product?
First, you have to determine a broad positioning. This means determining if your product should fall into a niche, be a low-cost leader, or a product differentiator. These are each very different strategy highways, and will take you in different directions when fine-tuning your message. Think of the qualities of your product, its strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities you've uncovered, the pricing you've considered, and your target market to determine which broad position you will take.
Next, you will have to determine specific positioning. This could be based on a certain quality or benefit of your product, such as ease of use, durability, reliability, safety, convenience, etc. In some cases, you may even be able to position your product based on two qualities. For example, think of Volvo . Safety and durability are Volvo's primary and secondary positions.
Begin narrowing down your positioning by answering questions such as:
1. What opinions does your audience already have, and how can you tie your product into them?
2. What are your target audience's needs and desires?
3. Is there a hole your product can fill by targeted positioning?
4. Are there certain company attributes you can build on, such as experience, or being the first in the business?
5. What are the greatest benefits of the product and how can you capitalize on them?
6. Is there a specific use or application that your product fits particularly well?
7. Is your target audience identified independently enough to create a position based on their uniqueness?
8. Can you springboard a positioning idea from your competitor's positioning?
9. Can you base the position on quality or pricing strategies?
10. Can you position the product based on opportunities you've discovered in your research?
It may help to chart these issues out to compare and narrow your options for positioning. By doing this, you can also incorporate importance levels to some of the issues you bring up. For example, if you list the needs and desires of your target market, it might be helpful to rank those according to importance to your target audience. If you list the strengths and weaknesses of your product, it may also be helpful to put those in order from greatest to smallest.
Once you have determined your product's positioning, go through these questions to further refine it:
� How can you simplify the message so it gets through? - Remember, more is often less.)
� Does the name of your product fit with its positioning? - Your product's name is an important part of your positioning strategy. If it doesn't fit, you're going to have a much harder battle.
� Is the position believable?
� Is the position one that your target audience will care about and notice?
� Is the position too broad or too narrow?
� Is the position clear and understandable?
Value Positioning
Your product's position, along with your pricing and distribution channels, will also determine its value position. The value position is basically the product's perceived ranking of either high-quality/high-cost, average-quality/average-cost, low-quality/low-cost, or even average-quality/low-cost or higher-quality/lower-cost. What you are trying to get across to your target audience is the value/cost relationship of your product as it relates to the user.

Marketing Mix Strategy
As we mentioned earlier, your marketing mix is the combination of elements that make up the entire marketing process. It requires the right combination, however, so be careful when putting it together. Let's go over the Ps you need to address in your strategy section.

Product Strategy
The first P is product. You may be thinking, "Haven't we talked about the product enough already? Geez!" Yes, we have talked about the product and its strengths and weaknesses, but as part of your strategy you also need to think about elements of the product that can be strategic to its success, such as its packaging and warranty. These elements help create the value the customer sees in the product. So, let's talk about packaging and its importance as far as your strategy goes.
Packaging
The main thing to remember about your packaging is that it communicates to the person buying it right up until they make the decision to plunk down their money and take it home. If it's sitting on a shelf with eight similar products, it can't just look nice, it has to scream its message out in order to get noticed. Your packaging should be noticeable within three seconds in a store-shelf situation. But can packaging really make a difference in your strategy? Of course it can. Think about the convenience factor as well. Remember Pringles? Think about the products you buy that are well-protected by their packaging and are convenient to use because of the packaging. You just might buy them again because you like their convenience. Also, don't forget to consider your competitor's packaging. How can you make yours better?
Price Strategy
The next P is price. How do you know how to price your product or service? Your product's price often communicates as much to the consumer as its advertising. People perceive a product's value based on its price in many situations -- it depends on what your product is and who your market is.
Here is an example: An established restaurant that had just started getting fresh seafood daily from the coast (which was about a four-hour drive away) and was charging eight dollars for a typical seafood dinner entree. They couldn't sell it at all. Rather than lower the price or drop it from their menu, they decided to raise the price to $12.95. The fish sold like crazy. The moral of the story is that people are leery of cheap seafood.
The moral for you is: Be wary of super low pricing. Your customers are looking for value, not the cheapest product they can find. Price your product strategically by looking at:
� The competition (or lack of it) your product faces - If your product is one of a kind, particularly if it's in the technology field, then higher initial prices may be more palatable to consumers (and even expected).
� The sensitivity (or insensitivity) of your customers to pricing for your type of product (as in the case of airlines)
� The price elasticity (the lower the price the more you sell and vice versa) - Keep in mind what you have to sell in order to make a profit, and then chart out the variations in prices and quantities to sell in order to pinpoint the right one.
� The value of the product as it relates to the value of the price - People may pay more for a similar product if they think they will get more out of it.
� The positioning you've established for your product
Write the pricing strategy section of your marketing plan and back up your pricing decisions with current data about competitors' prices, price surveys, etc.
Place Strategy
The third P stands for place, although it's really referring to distribution. I guess you can think of it as the "place" of purchase. The strategy behind how you sell and distribute your product is a very important element of your marketing mix. Do you want your product to be available everywhere? If you do the math, that could be a very lucrative strategy. Or, do you want to create demand for it because it's exclusive and hard to find, requiring the right connections or even traveling to large cities? (The latter would also allow for higher pricing, by the way.)
Just like with pricing, the places where your product is available say a lot about both the quality and "status" of the product. Your channels of distribution must match the image goals of your product. In other words, if you're selling hand-made exotic wood picture frames with luxurious cloth matting, you probably don't want to go to Wal-Mart to sell them. You would use the high-quality, luxury-item image and sell them in an exclusive boutique or other shop. On the other hand, if your product is a mid-line car-care product, then Wal-Mart would be perfect.
Here are some things to remember when planning your distribution strategy:
� Match your product's "image" with that of the distribution channel and with your customers' perception of your product.
� Stay on top of changes in the market that should also make you change your distribution strategy.
� Make sure your product can get the attention it needs in your chosen channel -- both from the sales staff (are they knowledgeable?) and from a shelf-space standpoint (how many competing products does the distributor also carry?).
Promotion Strategy
The fourth and final P is promotion. This is the communications strategy of your plan. Here you'll plan not only the message you want to use, but also the tools you'll use to spread it to the world. Your promotion section should actually have six categories:
� advertising
� public relations and publicity
� direct marketing
� promotions and events
� product/company marketing materials
� premium items
� sales force
Basically, it should cover every communication mode that would appeal to your target market and help drive them to not only be aware of, but also to act on your offer. This would also include other things like client/customer newsletters, a company Web site, etc. It is in this section of your plan that you should make certain you are following an Integrated Marketing Communications plan. This means that each of these tools must follow the same rules and spread the same message. Having separate PR groups and promotions groups and sales groups makes the job very difficult unless you make sure they are all in agreement about what you are saying and how you are saying it.
Advertising
Your task now is to translate all of your objectives into a specific advertising message to meet your goals. Your advertising strategy (aka creative strategy) will need to address not only the awareness-building requirements of your plan, but also attitudes and actions you want to provoke in your audience. Set your advertising strategies to portray exactly what you are going to communicate in your message. This should be based on the positioning you've established and should be tested and refined until it says exactly what you need it to say. It has to portray your product in the right light and bring to mind the right image.
For this section of your marketing plan, clearly describe the creative strategy. Include the following:
� Advertising promise - The promise you are making to your audience in your advertising
� Support for the promise - Bulleted statements that support your claims
� Advertising tone - The emotional images conjured by your message that are appropriate for both the product and your audience
� Rationale - Statements referring back to your product/market research that back up your creative strategies
The actual finished creative effort typically comes after (or else during) this exercise and should be detailed in your product's Advertising Plan.
You will also need to identify which types of media you will be using to carry your message. This is referred to as your Media Plan (another separate document) and can include magazines, newspapers, billboards, Web banners, radio spots, TV spots, sponsored TV and radio programs, product packaging and inserts, movie trailers, posters and flyers, directory listings, and in-store displays.
When writing this advertising section of your marketing plan, keep your strategies clear and focused on what you are trying to achieve. For example, if you know you are introducing a new product in nine months, then one strategy could be to announce the product with a series of ads in a trade publication. Tie in your display advertising strategies with your other media strategies to form a cohesive chain of communication to your target audience.
We'll go over reach and frequency, impression rates, and how to select specific media vehicles within each category on the next page of this article.
Public Relations and Publicity
Public relations can be a very powerful tool in your marketing belt. Often, however, it is an afterthought, while it should actually be one the first things you tackle as you develop and bring to market a new product or service. Begin planting your PR seeds early in the game.
The mantra of your public relations staff should be the Integrated Marketing Communications idea. Their most important function is to ensure that everything the press sees or hears is controlled and is consistent with the image plan. It is therefore recommended that only your PR people actually communicate with the press. This includes all areas of PR, such as corporate announcements, defensive PR, and marketing PR.
PR won't just happen. You have to work at it, plan it, and execute the plan. There is a whole set of tools for public relations and publicity, just as there is for advertising. These include:
� news releases
� feature stories and interviews
� exclusives
� opinion pieces
� photos
� speeches or appearances at seminars, conventions, etc.
� local, regional or national talk shows and other programs
� online chats and forums
� community involvement
� lobbying activities
� social responsibility activities
There are two elements to a PR plan:
� What you want to communicate
� A hook to make it newsworthy and interesting
Use this section of your marketing plan to determine those two pieces of information. Here are some strategy ideas for types of information to communicate to the press:
� Prior to your product release, submit sneak previews to the press.
� Find a good spokesperson to help promote your product.
� Find the right angle for your press release.
� Include both trade press and consumer press.
� Build the excitement (hype-up) in your story by finding a new twist on the information.
� Offer co-sponsorships for media to events you are planning.
� Create your own scheduled media blitz.
� Schedule press releases so that various media sources publish information that builds on itself and progressively includes new tidbits of information.
� Build your newsworthy info on one of the product's benefits used in its positioning.
� Develop an interesting and fun idea centered around your product's release or upgrade.
Write out your PR strategies for your marketing plan and include specifics. Remember, this section will act as the guide for scheduling, which we'll cover next.
Direct Marketing
Direct marketing, or database marketing, is growing exponentially with the emphasis on very tightly targeted efforts. The growth in e-mail and Internet use, along with the general upward trend in all media subscriptions, is making it an easier and more profitable way to market your product than it was in the past days of mass mailings.
With a database (either a purchased one or your own customer database) of names and very specific demographic information, you can select specific subsets of groups very easily and send very targeted messages about your product or service. By more finely targeting your marketing efforts, you'll also improve your response rates simply because you can come closer to reaching the exact profile of your best customers.
You'll also need to think about the purposes of your direct marketing efforts. Here are some examples uses of direct marketing:
� Generating inquiries
� Opening doors
� Building traffic (for your store, Web site , trade show , etc.)
� Generating awareness (for new product introductions, etc.)
� Fund raising
� Selling products (mail order)
Make sure you've determined the purpose of your direct mail prior to selecting the specific tool, because some tools are inherently better for certain purposes.
Your direct marketing options include:
� USPS direct mail
� Self-mailers
� Mailing packages that include a letter, brochure, and response card
� Post cards (used as inexpensive reminders)
� Mailed premium items and other types of gifts
� Opt-in e-mail campaigns (aka permission marketing) - Make sure your clients are requesting your e-mails, otherwise it's spam .
� Fax campaigns - Remember, you can only fax to existing customers. Faxing to non-customers is actually illegal.
� Telemarketing
Here are some tips to improve your direct marketing efforts:
� Test your lists. Try a test mailing of 500 or less to determine the quality of the list prior to sending out your larger scheduled mailing.
� Test your mailer design. Divide your mailing into groups that each get a slightly different design, and track the results. You may be surprised at how much better some designs and color combinations do than others. This is particularly valuable if your marketing schedule includes a lot of direct mail projects.
� Supplement your large, expensive catalog mailing with more frequent and inexpensive post card mailings. This will reinforce your message so you get more mileage out of the catalog and better ROI (return on investment).
� Include an easy-to-understand and prominent response card.
� Include a deadline for action so your recipient will be encouraged to respond quickly rather than wait and think about it.
� Include an incentive for action. This could include an early bird discount, a free copy of some publication, or a free trial offer of something.
Detail your direct marketing strategies as they relate to your overall marketing mix. For example, you may be planning a PR blitz that is to be followed by an ad in a prominent publication that is then to be followed by a direct mail piece that requests some action, such as a request for a sales representative to call, or even the option to purchase the product.
Promotions and Events
Because your advertising efforts primarily affect the opinions of your target audience and don't always create an immediate action (at least not initially), you also need to plan special promotions that will encourage quick action. A promotion, as opposed to advertising, is based on incentives to act, such as a two-for-one sale, a price discount, or a free gift with purchase. Promotions are useful for encouraging potential customers to try your product and hopefully increase your base of loyal customers.
Here are some examples of promotion types used by marketers today:
� Price discounts/sales
� Coupons
� Samples
� On-pack or in-pack discounts - or even near-pack discounts (from point-of-purchase displays)
� Rebates
� Premium items - either in the package or sent by mail
� Sweepstakes/games
� Packaging
� Events
It is important to watch the promotions your competition offers, but be careful about always reacting with a similar promotion. It is easy to lose market share if you overuse promotions. Customers begin to buy only when your product is on sale. A better strategy is to competitively price your product in the first place, and then use some of the money you would have spent on promotions to improve your products or increase your advertising instead. If your product is better, and you've advertised this, then the customer may have more inclination to buy your product even though the competition's is cheaper... I mean, less expensive.
Sales promotion does have a place in your marketing efforts. Just remember to avoid the loser promotions. These include:
� Doing the same promotion more than twice - For some reason, the magic number is two (for promotions that worked the first time, anyway).
� Boring promotions - People will snooze through contests that don't seem to fit the positioning of the product. If there's no connection, typically they won't work.
� Premium offers - "Send three proofs-of-purchase and $3.99 for shipping and handling to get this great coupon organizer!" Overused and usually disappointing to the consumer.
� Overpromising odds of winning - Don't make consumers think they're going to win every time they open a soda.
Just like everything else in your marketing mix, your promotions have to stay on target with your objective and your marketing message or position. To put together promotions that work, you should keep that in mind and put on your "customer" hat. What would get you excited about a product or service? What would be fun and give you the feeling that you really have a chance to win? What could you win that would make you think more highly of the product being promoted? What is your most desirable prize?
Once you've brainstormed some ideas, make sure you make it simple to register, provide good odds, and have a unique idea that is of great interest to your market.
Special Events
If you're planning special events as a way to promote your product or business, then there are a few other guidelines that will help you stay on target and be more successful. Sponsored events are increasing in popularity and account for billions of dollars annually for marketing. They are extremely useful when launching a new product, increasing a product trial, or building consumer relationships with the company name. They require a lot of planning, resources (money and people), and can flop without proper advertising, but they can also launch a product to success very quickly.
Here are few tips to give your event a better chance of success:
� Make sure the event ties in with your company and product.
� Make sure your company and product name are very prominent.
� Make sure your audience knows why it should come. In other words, make sure there is a compelling reason to attend.
� Make sure there is some newsworthiness to the event so you'll also get some PR.
� Make sure your marketing message and position are clearly communicated.
Detail each promotion or event and refer back to the specific marketing objective it addresses. Scheduling and costs will be covered in the Action Plan and Implementation section of your plan.
Now, when writing your promotion strategies, address these issues as they relate to the promotion ideas you've come up with:
� Type of promotion
� Incentive for the promotion
� Open or closed promotion - Open promotions don't require any action from the customer. An example would be a sale. Closed promotions require the customer to do something to take advantage of the promotion. An example would be a rebate, or a contest entry.
� Delivery method for the promotion
You're getting close -- now we just have to cover your sales force strategies, and then you can move on to scheduling and implementation, and, finally, evaluating the whole effort!