HOW TO WRITE A MARKETING PLAN

Purpose of Marketing Plan

A marketing plan provides direction for your marketing activities. Think of it as a road map, with detailed directions on how to get to your destination. Sure there may be a few bumps in the road, perhaps a diversion or two, but if the marketing plan is carefully researched, thoughtfully considered and evaluated, it will help the organization achieve its goals. The marketing plan details what you want to accomplish with your marketing strategy and helps you meet your objectives

Allows the organization to look internally in order to fully understand the impact and results of past marketing decisions. Allows the organization to look externally in order to fully understand the market in which it chooses to compete. Sets future goals for marketing efforts that everyone in the organization should understand and support.

Basic elements of marketing plan

A marketing plan includes these elements: Summary and Introduction Marketing Objectives Situation Analysis Strategies

Summary and Introduction

marketing plan should start with an executive summary. The summary gives a quick overview of the main points of the plan. It should be a synopsis of what you have done, what you plan to do, and how you are going to get there. Although the executive summary appears at the beginning of the plan, you should write it last. Writing the summary is a good opportunity to check that your plan makes sense and that you havent missed any important points.
Your

Marketing Objectives
Your marketing objectives should be based on understanding your strengths and weaknesses, and the business environment in which you operate in. They should also be linked to your overall business strategy.

For example, suppose your business objectives include increasing visitation by 10 percent over the next year. Your marketing objectives might include targeting a promising or emerging new market segment to help achieve this growth.

As with any strategic initiative a marketing plan should start with objectives. Your marketing objectives will guide your entire marketing initiative and be used for evaluation. Without objectives you may get off-track and will not know when you have reached your ultimate goal.

Objectives must: 1. Be measurable in quantitative terms, such as number of visitors, sales volume, and so forth. By having quantitative objectives, you will have a clear target to strive toward and will know when the objective has been achieved. 2. Be framed within a specific time period.

3. Be outcome based. In other words, what is the end result you are looking for?

Example:

The overall goal of Bisbees tourism marketing program is to create enhanced public awareness through a comprehensive marketing campaign that will result in increased overnight visitation. Bisbee has 290 rooms in various hotels, motels and bed & breakfast establishments; they would like to see a 10 percent increase in occupancy. The city also has approximately five dozen retail and service merchants, as well as more than 30 lodging and bar and restaurant establishments.

Bisbees marketing program has the following objectives: Increase overnight visitation from leisure travelers thus positively increase visitation by 10 percent. Increase the length of time visitors stay in Bisbee and convert day trip visitors to overnight visitors thus positively impacting bed tax revenues; increase length of stay from day to one overnight. Promote the community as a viable and worthy destination of choice in the off-season (May through December), especially capitalizing on summer traffic. Maximize limited marketing dollars to enhance Bisbees desirability as an overnight destination to targeted audiences during the high-season (January through April).

Goal: Increase number of newsletter subscribers by 25 people per week. 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.

Goal: Keep visitors at our site an average of 2 more pages per visit. 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.

Situation Analysis

A situation analysis details the context for your marketing efforts. In this section you will take a close look at the internal and external factors that will influence your marketing strategy, this is called a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis combines the external and internal analysis to summarize your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

A strength is an asset or a resource that can be used to improve a communitys competitive position A weakness is just the opposite, a resource or capability that may cause your community to have a less competitive position. Opportnities are set of positive circumstances Threats are viewed as problems that focus on your weaknesses and which can create a potentially negative situation

You need to look for opportunities that play to your strengths. You also need to decide what to do about threats to your business and how you can overcome important weaknesses. Example:

INTERNAL

EXTERNAL

Strengths

opportunities

+ _
weakness threats

Example:

Strength: A destination with amazing natural assets; Weakness: Hiking paths are in disrepair; creek is dry during summer months; Opportunities: Initiate a volunteer tourism program where visitors can help build and maintain trails. Threats: Target market also views another town with more dollars to have similar assets.

SWOT analysis might help you identify the most promising customers to target.

Target Markets

The concept of target markets is one of the most basic, yet most important aspects of marketing. There is no such thing as the general public. It is unrealistic to think that you can attract everyone . Defining your target market helps you decide where to commit resources and what kinds of promotional methods and messages to use

Define your target market(s) specifically in terms of:

demographics: age, income, marital status, employment status. psychographics: reads magazines, attends sporting or cultural events, dines out once a month, member of a frequent club. residence: where does your market live?

social group: affluent couples without children, affluent families with one or more kids, young families with one or more children, singles. activities: what do they want to do, includes vacation versus business travelers, visiting friends and family versus strictly vacation travel, as well as specific activities such as visiting cultural sites, resort visits, and golf motives or benefits: what are people trying to get out of product or service, what are they looking for? past experience: have the people in your market visited your area before (i.e., repeat visitors) or are they first time visitors?

If you're selling your products with a website, also answer these questions:

-What is their level of experience on the net?

-Have they purchased on the net before? -Are they using a Mac or a PC? -Which browser are they using? -Are they accessing the net through home or work?

Example: The following are examples of selection of target markets based on demographics, residence (geographic location), and activities.

Prescott targets cultural heritage tourists, outdoor enthusiasts, and climate-conscious travelers who match their demographic profile. Prescott area lodging organizations estimate that more than 75 percent of their visitors come from the Phoenix metro area. The area is also accessible for those traveling by automobile from the contiguous states of California, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Texas. They target mature travelers with time and discretionary income.

BRIDAL GOWN SHOP-RECYCLED DREAMS Recycled Dreams will be targeting low- to middle-income brides to be as well as the parents of the bride. Traditionally, it is the parents of the bride who are responsible for the costs associated with the wedding. Not everyone follows tradition however, it is increasingly the trend for the wedding couple to be responsible for the costs associated with the wedding production. For this reason both the couple, and the bride's parents, will be targeted

The wedding couple is likely to be interested in the rental of attendee's bridal wear because the couple is usually young, just getting started, and not yet financially secure. A wedding in general is a large expense and the couple is typically looking for ways in which costs can be cut, yet will have no real effect on the event. In addition, the couple has other financial responsibilities such as the wedding rings and honeymoon that money is obviously tight. Even if the couple does not pay for the rentals and pass the costs onto the attendees, the attendees are likely to be in similar financial conditions as the couple and could in theory put the money saved from the rental into a nicer gift.

The other group to be targeted is the parents of the bride. This segment is likely to appreciate the option of renting bridal wear instead of purchasing it for several reasons. They are likely to recognize that the attendees of the bridal party do not typically care about the dresses that they must wear. With this in mind, they are more likely to spend the saved money from the rental on some other expense in the wedding that will be more meaningful. This is assuming that they will end up spending the money saved in some other way. They may also choose the renting option as a way to save the money. As many know, weddings can get very expensive upwards of $20,000-30,000 is not unheard of. Saving a few thousand dollars is certainly appealing.

Marketing Strategies
Strategies are simply action plans that detail how the marketing variables of product, price, place and promotion (commonly referred to as the four Ps of marketing) are used to attain the marketing plans annual objectives and overall strategies. Your marketing plan is how you put your marketing strategy into practice. Its worth highlighting the main points of your strategy in your marketing plan. To understand the market well, you will need to break it down into different segments groups of similar customers or travelers. For example, you can break the business market down into businesses of the same size and in the same sector.

For each segment, you need to look at what customers want, what you can offer and what the competition is like. You want to identify segments where you have a competitive advantage If you are targeting new customers, you need to be sure that you will be able to reach them.

Once you have decided what your target market is, you also need to decide how you will position yourself in it. For example, you might offer a high quality product at a premium price or a flexible local service. Some businesses try to build a strong brand and image to help them stand out. Whatever your strategy, you want to differentiate yourself from the competition.

This section should incorporate your target markets, especially those that are primary. Consider the four Ps: Product: specifically define what you are offering your visitors, and how it is different from what is offered by others. Price: the price for your product and a justification of your pricing decision. Place (distribution): the way in which you will get your product to your market(s); directly offered to visitors or via travel agents and/or tour operators. If you choose to focus on more than one market, prioritize your markets to help you decide where resources should be committed. Promotion: the way you plan to promote your product. This section includes your advertising, publicity, sales promotion and public relations strategies. Your media schedule should be included in this part of the marketing plan

If you sell a service, you can extend this to 7 Ps: People: for example, you need to ensure that your employees have the right training. Process: the right process will ensure that you offer a consistent service that suits your customers. Physical evidence: the appearance of your employees and premises can affect how customers see your service. Even the

quality of basic items such as menus, can make a difference

Product The next step is to write about your product. Sit down with a piece of paper and answer these questions: What is unique about my product? What can my product give someone that no other product can give them?

What emotions can I evoke when someone hears or reads about my product? Greed - will it save them money, make them money, make them look like they have money? Leisure - will it save them time? Happiness - does it provide relaxation? (hobbies or travel) Pride - is it something that will make them proud - make them achieve? Health - will it improve health or ease their pain or make them look and feel younger? Belonging - will it make them feel as if they belong to something an exclusive group? Basic Needs - does it fulfill basic needs - hunger, sleep, shelter, safety? Love - does it involve romance?

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. examples of a Unique Selling Proposition for businesses "Are you tired of yo-yo dieting? The Nutricounter is calorie counter made fun and easy. 100% satisfaction guarantee."

Some elements of comparison and sample USP's: Delivery Dominos Pizza, "Domino's delivers, 30 minute delivery or your money back." Durability Energizer, "Outlasts all other batteries.... It keeps going and going and going." Performance/Efficiency M&M's, "Melt in your mouth, not in your hand." (Well, that's a type of performance!) Tide, "You bought a high efficiency washing machine... Why wouldn't you buy a high efficiency detergent?"

What it's made out of Ragu, "It's in there!" (I hated those Ragu commercials, but I sure do remember them.) Provides feelings of self worth NIKE, "Just do it." Kia, "Who wouldn't be proud? Darn good cars. Darn good warranty." (Now that's my kinda commercial.) "Feelings of self worth" is one that you can really delve into. Go back to the article, Product for more ideas

Guarantee/Warranty Midas Muffler, "Guaranteed for as long as you own your car." Price Walmart, "Rollback the prices." Convenience or ease of use 7-11, "Open all night." Dunkin Donuts, "Time to make the donuts..." impying that whenever you're ready for a donut, the donuts will be ready for you. Choice Verizon, "Whatever you want, whatever you need." JCPenney, "It's all inside." Saves money Geico, "A 15 minute call could save you 15% or more on car insurance."

Bonuses or Extras Here's an article on that one: 10 Free Bonuses That Can Ignite Your Profits!

Process of making the product Stouffers, "Nothing comes closer to home." Burger King, "Flame broiled the way you like it."
(If you have a home made or handmade or personalized product, you can really develop a strong USP.)

Customer Service Burger King, "Have it your way." (This was an older Burger King USP)
The ONLY one Paxil, "The only mediation proven effective for social anxiety disorder." (Can you tell I like to watch the soaps?)

For the betterment of society Phillip Morris, "Working to make a difference, the people of Phillip Morris." (This one really irks me, should read, "Working to bring you lung cancer and liver disease..." but, I have to give credit where credit is due, they are doing a heck of a job at re-branding.)

Expert's Choice Metamusil, "The Doctor's natural choice." Solves a problem thingamajob.com, "Don't get lost in cyberspace. Life 2.0 starts here."

Dependability First National Bank, "Here Today... Here Tomorrow... We have stood the Test of Time." Maytag, "The dependability people." Complementary Services Are there other services that complement the main service that you are offering? (Full Service or Service Added)
Targeting Service We do one thing and we do it better than everyone else.

The Cambridge Strategy Group provides much needed skills and experience to small business founders to help their businesses start moving in the right direction. Our services are tailored specifically to the unique needs of small and emerging businesses and focus on practical, short-term actions that can improve overall business execution. With a shortage of available talent plus the typical budget pressure usually associated with small businesses, our services provide a cost-effective alternative to obtaining highly-skilled marketing and strategy resources.

Pricing Strategies

Pricing is probably one of the toughest problems you will face. There is no particular solution when you are trying to price your goods or services. Price = product + service + profit + image Price will need to include: the cost of producing your product the cost of providing any needed services that may accompany the product. the amount of profit that you need to make in order to stay in business. you can play "image" into your price - are you trying to portray the best quality or the lowest price. This may also depend on your branding strategy.

Before you consider your image, take a look at your competition. What are they charging? If your USP (unique selling proposition) has nothing to do with your price, then you will want your price to be comparable to your competition. If your USP has everything to do with your price - for instance LOWEST PRICE IN TOWN or BEST QUALITY IN THE NATION then you will need to adjust your prices accordingly.

Pricing Strategy The pricing strategy portion of the marketing plan involves determining how you will price your product or service; the price you charge has to be competitive but still allow you to make a reasonable profit. The keyword here is "reasonable"; you can charge any price you want to, but for every product or service there's a limit to how much the consumer is willing to pay. Your pricing strategy needs to take this consumer threshold into account.

The most common question small business people have about the pricing strategy section of the marketing plan is, "How do you know what price to charge?" Basically you set your pricing through a process of calculating your costs, estimating the benefits to consumers, and comparing your products, services, and prices to others that are similar. Set your pricing by examining how much it cost you to produce the product or service and adding a fair price for the benefits that the customer will enjoy. Examining what others are charging for similar products or services will guide you when you're figuring out what a "fair" price for such benefits would be.

The pricing strategy you outline in your marketing plan will answer the following questions: What is the cost of your product or service? Make sure you include all your fixed and variable costs when you're calculating this; the cost of labour and materials are obvious, but you may also need to include freight costs, adminstrative costs, and/or selling costs, for example. How does the pricing of your product or service compare to the market price of similar products or services?

Pricing techniques

Competitive pricing Odd pricing Price lining Leader pricing Geographical pricing

Captive product pricing By product pricing Opportunistic pricing Bundling

Advertising And Promotion Plan

Essentially the Advertising and Promotion section of the marketing plan describes how you're going to deliver your Unique Selling Proposition to your prospective customers.

So think first of the message that you want to send to your targeted audience. Then look at these promotion possibilities and decide which to emphasize in your marketing plan:

Advertising - The best approach to advertising is to think of it in terms of media and which media will be most effective in reaching your target market. Then you can make decisions about how much of your annual advertising budget you're going to spend on each medium. What percentage of your annual advertising budget will you invest in each of the following: the Internet television radio newspapers magazines telephone books/directories billboards bench/bus/subway ads direct mail cooperative advertising with wholesalers, retailers or other businesses? Include not only the cost of the advertising but your projections about how much business the advertising will bring in.

Sales Promotion - If it's appropriate to your business, you may want to incorporate sales promotion activites into your advertising and promotion plan, such as: offering free samples coupons point of purchase displays product demonstrations Marketing Materials - Every business will include some of these in their promotion plans. The most common marketing material is the business card, but brochures, pamphlets and service sheets are also common.

Publicity - Another avenue of promotion that every business should use. Describe how you plan to generate publicity. While press releases spring to mind, that's only one way to get people spreading the word about your business. Consider: product launches special events, including community involvement writing articles getting and using testimonials Your Business' Web Site - If your business has or will have a Web site, describe how your Web site fits into your advertising and promotion plan.

Tradeshows - Tradeshows can be incredibly effective promotion and sales opportunities - if you pick the right ones and go equipped to put your promotion plan into action.

Develop A Marketing Budget

For your advertising and promotional plan For costs allocated for advertising and promotions For advertising and promotional materials For a list of advertising media to be used

Operating an effective marketing plan requires money, so you will have to allocate funds from your operating budget to cover advertising, promotional and all other costs associated with marketing. Develop a marketing budget based on the cost for the media you will use, and the cost for collecting research data and monitoring shifts in the marketplace

METHODS OF MARKETING BUDGET

1. Percentage of revenues This is by far the most talked about method of determining your budget. This method works by taking a fixed percentage of your revenues (thats every penny your company brings in) and allocating that amount for marketing.

2. Percentage of net sales Similar to taking a percentage of revenues, this determines your marketing budget as a fraction of your net sales. This method is a little bit less aggressive than the last method, since you exclude expenses from your calculations. As with the first method, this method will take a lot of trial and error to find the percentage that works well for your company.

3. Everything you can afford In the realm of fast-growing small business, this is definitely one of the most popular answers. The idea is to set aside the money you need to keep your business alive (presumably your family too), and throw everything else at building popularity. Proponents of this budgeting method will say that it helps grow your business quickly, and that you can worry about other things once youre established in the marketplace. If you choose to budget with this model, make sure you understand the risks youre taking.

4. A hair more than the competition This method is simple in principle: find out how much your competitors are spending, and use just-a-bit more than that to market your company. The reality of doing this is a lot more difficult than it seems, since it can be very hard to find out exactly how much your competitors are spending. If you do manage to find out that information, this method can be a great way to figure out how much to spend marketing.

5. Desired customer growth This is a great way to determine your budget if you have a specific number of new customers as your goal. It does, however, take a lot of information to implement properly. First, you have to figure out how much it costs to get a new customer. Then, you multiply that cost by the number of new customers you want to acquire. The result is the amount youll need to budget in order to hit your target.

6. Industry specific A lot of industries have specific projections as to the amount youll need to spend on marketing if you want to make it. The best way to get these numbers is to find an association or organization that represents your industry and ask them for some averages. Once you have the averages, you can refine the actual costs based on your own situation and experience.

7. Spend nothing, market for free You might be amazed at how many people think its a good idea to spend nothing on marketing. While I dont think its possible to launch a company without spending anything at all on marketing, you can actually come close. At the end of the day, though, it usually comes down to thisif dont want to spend any money on marketing, then plan on spending a lot of time. Time is money, money is time. If you dont spend one, plan on spending the other.

Low-Budget High-Impact Marketing Plan

several reasons why a low-budget marketing plan is a must for small business in today's advertising bloated society: Expensive ad exposure does not necessarily translate to increased sales. Just ask Super Bowl advertiser Pet.com, whose sock puppet commercial was a hit with consumers, but left the company bankrupt. Every marketing dollar spent should produce a good return in sales. Your target customers need to hear your marketing messages at least 7 times to influence a buying decision. Using marketing & sales strategies outside your budget, doesn't allow you to repeat your message often enough to make an impact. Marketing impact can be greatly improved by using multiple marketing channels. Prospects will likely become buyers if they: read about your company in the newspaper, attend a seminar, take home a brochure, and visit your small business website. The further you can "stretch your marketing dollars" to reach your target market in multiple channels, the higher the impact of your marketing message.

Low-Budget High-Impact Marketing Plan Techniques

Get A Piggyback: Hitching a ride on the marketing of another company can save your small business time and capital. Find The Right Target: A critical part of your marketing plan is targeting the right customer. For a low-budget high-impact marketing plan to work, find customers who are easy to identify and affordable to reach. Forget the mass market and go for small niche markets Make Yourself News Worthy: A mention of your company in the right media can help deliver your marketing message in a low cost manner. Form a Joint Venture: Forging an alliance with a group of small companies or a large corporation can give your marketing plan the ultimate "bang for the buck." A joint venture will lower your costs, enabling you to enter into new markets and create new distribution opportunities. Maximize Referrals: The most cost-effective method of reaching new customers is by referrals from satisfied customers. A satisfied customer telling others about your small business is more effective than any fancy ad campaign. Spend time to get customer referrals on a weekly basis.

Distribution channel
distribution - channel strategy 1.Market factors "buyer behaviour"; buyer needs 2.Producer factors 3.Product factors

Distribution Intensity

Intensive distribution aims to provide saturation coverage of the market by using all available outlets. Selective distribution involves a producer using a limited number of outlets in a geographical area to sell products. Exclusive distribution is an extreme form of selective distribution in which only one wholesaler, retailer or distributor is used in a specific geographical area.

DIRECT TO END USERS

SELL THROUGH A DEALER NETWORK

SELL THROUGH A VAR (VALUE-ADDED RESELLER)

You have a sales team that sells directly to Fortune 100 companies. You have a second product line for small businesses. Instead of using your sales team, you sell this line directly to end-users through your website and marketing campaigns.

You have two markets and two distribution You sell a product to a channels. You sell a company who bundles it product through a with services or other geographical network of products and re-sells it. dealers who sell to end- That company is called a users in their areas. The Value Added Reseller dealers may service the (VAR) because it adds product as well. Your value to your product. A dealers are essentially VAR may work with an your customers, and you end-user to determine have a strong program the right products and to train and support configurations, then them with marketing implement a system that campaigns and includes your product. materials.

Different types of distribution channels

Direct/sales team Direct/internet: Direct/catalog: Wholesaler/distributor. Value-added reseller (VAR): Consultant: Dealer: Retail:. Sales agent/manufacturers rep:

Distribution Channels Key Concepts & Steps

Evaluate how your end-users need to buy Match end-user needs to a distribution strategy Identify natural partners Build your distribution channel Minimize pricing conflicts Drive revenue through the channel