The Marketing Plan Part 3 Developing the New Venture Business Plan PowerPoint Presentation by Charlie Cook The University of West Alabama Copyright © 2006 Thomson Business & Professional Publishing. All rights reserved. Looking Ahead After studying this chapter, you should be able to: 1. Describe small business marketing. 2. Identify the components of a formal marketing plan. 3. Discuss the nature of the marketing research process. 4. Define market segmentation and its related strategies. 5. Explain the different methods of forecasting sales. Copyright © 2006 Thomson Business & Professional Publishing. All rights reserved. Student 7–2 Marketing Philosophies • Three distinct marketing philosophies are the production-, sales-, and consumer-oriented philosophies. • A small business should adopt a consumer orientation to marketing, as that philosophy is most consistent with long-term success. • Small business marketing consists of numerous activities, including market analysis and determining the marketing mix. Copyright © 2006 Thomson Business & Professional Publishing. All rights reserved. Student 7–3 The Marketing Plan • The marketing plan should include sections on market analysis, the competition, and marketing strategy. • The market analysis should include a customer profile. • Four areas of marketing strategy that should be discussed in the marketing plan are decisions affecting the total product and/or service, distribution decisions, pricing decisions, and promotional decisions. Copyright © 2006 Thomson Business & Professional Publishing. All rights reserved. Student 7–4 Marketing Research • Marketing research involves the gathering, processing, reporting, and interpreting of marketing information. • The cost of marketing research should be evaluated against its benefits. • The steps in marketing research are: –identifying the informational need –searching for secondary data –collecting primary data –interpreting the data gathered Copyright © 2006 Thomson Business & Professional Publishing. All rights reserved. Student 7–5 Market Segmentation • A focus strategy relies on market segmentation, which is the process of dividing the total market for a product or service into groups, each of which is likely to respond favorably to a specific marketing strategy. • Three types of market segmentation strategies are (1) the unsegmented approach, (2) the multisegment approach, and (3) the singlesegment approach. Copyright © 2006 Thomson Business & Professional Publishing. All rights reserved. Student 7–6 Market Segmentation (cont’d.) • The unsegmented strategy—when a business defines the total market as its target—is also known as mass marketing. • A firm that determines that two or more market segments have the potential to be profitable and then develops a unique marketing mix for each segment is following a multisegment strategy. • A firm that follows a single-segment strategy recognizes that several distinct market segments exist but chooses to concentrate on reaching only one segment. Copyright © 2006 Thomson Business & Professional Publishing. All rights reserved. Student 7–7 Sales Forecasting • A sales forecast is an estimation of how much of a product or service will be purchased within a market during a defined time period. • The forecasting process may be either a breakdown or a buildup process and may be either direct or indirect, depending on the predicting variable. Copyright © 2006 Thomson Business & Professional Publishing. All rights reserved. Student 7–8 Key Terms small business marketing market analysis marketing mix customer profile marketing research secondary data primary data market market segmentation segmentation variables benefit variables demographic variables unsegmented strategy (mass marketing) multisegment strategy single-segment strategy sales forecast breakdown process (chain-ratio method) buildup process direct forecasting indirect forecasting Copyright © 2006 Thomson Business & Professional Publishing. All rights reserved. Student 7–9