Marketing Plan
Use this template as a basis for preparing your marketing plan, for assistance refer to
your marketing guide or for more specific advice consult your business support or
development officer at Dorset Sure Start. Note that some sections will require some
market research as this is essential in determining your markets. Therefore, if you
haven’t already done so this is the best place to start and again support is available
should your require any.
1. Introduction
Provide a brief statement that answers the following questions:
- What is the essence of your business (what do you offer)?
- What is the overall aim of your business?
- How do you set out to achieve this aim?
- Are there any major factors which may affect your business?
1.1
Mission Statement
Your mission statement should affirm your philosophy and direction.
Example mission statement - “We provide high quality, affordable and accessible
after school care to children aged five to eleven, in a safe and supportive
environment, and work in partnership with parents in the provision of this childcare”.
2. Current Market position
What is the current market position of your business in terms of the marketing mix, use
the following sub headings:
Product (What services do you offer, who are your competitors, what is your market position)
Place (where do you operate from, where are you located, how does this compare to your
competitors)
Price (What is your pricing policy, do you offer discounts, how do your prices compare to your
competitors)
Promotion (What types of promotional techniques do you currently employ)
People (Quality of your staff, recruitment policies, training plans)
Processes (Written procedures you have in place to ensure the consistency of your service/
meet Ofsted National Standards)
Physical Evidence (What does the appearance of your premises and your staff send out to
your customers)
3. External Environment
What factors or changing trends within the external environment have the ability to impact
upon your business? Use the following sub headings to analyse key contributing factors?
Social (eg. changes to the work life balance, falling birth-rate, local housing developments)
Legal (eg. Ofsted changes)
Economic (eg. increase to minimum wage, tax credits, childcare vouchers)
Political (eg. Extended Schools Agenda,10 Year Strategy for childcare, Every Child Matters)
Technological (eg. security, internet banking, BACS payments)
4. S.W.O.T Analysis
Analysing your businesses strengths and weaknesses are pivotal to setting your
marketing objectives and identifying your unique selling points and key issues.
TIP: it is very difficult to assess your own business objectively, so get someone else that
is close to you to help you!
Strengths
Weaknesses
To analyse your businesses opportunities and threats consider the implications that the
external influences that you identified in the preceding section (3) will have on your business.
Try to consider ways of minimising your threats and/or overcoming them with your
opportunities.
Opportunities
Threats
5. Target Markets
Provide a brief statement that answers the following questions to analyse your customers:
- Who are your customers?
- Is there currently a market niche which is not being catered for?
- Are parents currently satisfied with what you offer or are they looking for change?
- Can you offer them something new which really meets their needs?
- Will you generate enough business in your target market to survive?
- Can you communicate to this market effectively?
6. Positioning statement
Provide a brief description of where you want to be, use your S.W.O.T analysis and target
market section to help you chose the market segments in which you will compete, also
make sure you are mindful of external influences. For example with the falling birth rate
and extensions to maternity leave it may no longer prove financially viable to offer
childcare solely for babies.
7. Objectives
What are your future objectives for your business, make sure these are SMART (Specific,
Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound). For example you want to increase
the amount of working parents that regularly use the setting by 10% over the next 6
months. Consider the following areas as a basis to set your SMART objectives:
-
Occupancy
Income
Customer base (target markets)
8. Action Plan
For each of your identified objectives what actions are you going to pursue to achieve
them and how are you going to target customers or potential customers? Ensure that you
link back to the preceding sections and consider the elements of your marketing mix that
are crucial to achieving each objective, for example Price and Place (if you are targeting
parents from areas of identifiable areas of deprivation, reducing your price might be key).
Also, remember to make the actions appropriate to the group you are targeting.
Going back to the earlier example (increasing working parents by 10% in the next 6
months) what actions are you going to employ to achieve this, make sure this is
achievable within your budgetary constraints and within the allowed timeslot (NB. this is
not an inclusive list).
Example
Objectives
Increase
working
parents
Actions (refer to your marketing guide for promotional
techniques and remember to exploit your marketing mix)
 Contact DSSU childcare co-ordinator and offer 10%
discounts to DCC employees.
 Send local businesses promotional items (diaries,
pens etc)
 Contact local employers direct and make them aware
of your OSC, ask them to display literature in their
staff rooms.
 Open till 6pm and offer hot meals
 Make links with Job Centre Plus.
 Advertise on railway platforms.
Your Action Plan
Objectives
Actions
Cost
Timeframe
01/01/2006
£xxx
01/01/2006
Cost
Timeframe
9. Monitoring and Evaluation
Remember this is a working document and will need to be continually reviewed to ensure
the continued success of your business. For example, to make sure that your business
remains market orientated you will need to regularly monitor changing trends within the
environment and keep focused on what your customers want and be willing to adapt and
change accordingly. It is also necessary to assess the success of your promotional
techniques to ascertain whether they are cost effective and are the right fit for your
business. Remember, creating a brand image and developing business relationships (eg.
media contacts) are not things that will happen overnight so don’t give up if you don’t
experience immediate results. However if you do a large leaflet drop without any
response you may wish to re-think your approach to this for the future, for example you
may need to change the wording used or the area in which you dropped the leaflets.
Provide a brief statement on the following sub headings:
- How do you intend to monitor the success of your actions?
- How regularly will you keep these up to date?
- How will you determine what your customers want?
- How will you pursue future markets?
Tip: access an electronic copy of this template from your business support officer as this will
not only make your plan look more professional, but you may also be able to copy and paste
some of your text directly into your business plan saving you a lot of time in the long run!