Module 21
Marketing Plan
THE BUSINESS PLAN
The Marketing Plan Marketing plays a vital
role in successful business ventures. How
well you market you business, along with a
few other considerations, will ultimately
determine your degree of success or
failure.
The key element of a successful marketing
plan is to know your customers -- their
likes, dislikes, expectations. By identifying
these factors, you can develop a
marketing strategy that will allow you to
arouse and fulfill their needs. Identify your
customers by their age, sex,
income/educational level and residence.
At first, target only those customers who
are more likely to purchase your product
or service. As your customer base
expands, you may need to consider
modifying the marketing plan to include
other customers.
Develop a marketing plan for your
business by answering these questions.
(Potential franchise owners will have to
use the marketing strategy the franchisor
has developed.)
Your marketing plan should be included in
your business plan and contain answers to
the questions outlined below.
1. Who are your customers? Define your target
market(s).
2. Are your markets growing? steady? declining?
3. Is your market share growing? steady?
declining?
4. If a franchise, how is your market segmented?
5. Are your markets large enough to expand?
6.How will you attract, hold, increase your market
share? If a franchise, will the franchisor provide
assistance in this area? Based on the
franchisor's strategy? how will you promote your
sales?
7. What pricing strategy have you devised?
Module 22
Marketing Plan
• Steps for Creating the Marketing Plan
One of the fundamental procedures involved in
any successful business operation is creating
and implementing a marketing plan. A market is
a particular group of buyers—or in the case of
libraries, users or clients—who needs services.
A marketing plan consists of several
components, each of which is described below.
Before writing a marketing plan, it is necessary
to define your target market and to understand
its needs. This involves conducting market
research, which Eric Lease Morgan describes as
using transaction log analysis, circulation
records, user surveys, focus group interviews,
and information interviews to provide insight on
what your customers really expect.
To write a marketing plan, follow the numbered
outline below.
1. Prepare a mission statement.
The mission statement clearly and succinctly
describes the nature of the business, services
offered, and markets served—usually in a few
sentences. Sometimes for larger companies it’s
combined with a vision statement that can be
two to three paragraphs in length. Some
examples of mission statements can be found at
http://www.csuchico.edu/mgmt/strategy/mod
ule1.
2. List and describe target or niche markets.
In this section, list and describe potential groups of users
or clients. After you create the list, identify various
segments of a market. Segments can include specific
types of people in a company by role—for example, chief
executive officer, chief financial officer, or marketing
director. Department heads are another type of market
segment. For segmenting the consumer market,
consider age groups. In addition, niche markets are an
integral part of marketing. Within a target market of
attorneys, for instance, there may be niche groups such
as trial or malpractice attorneys. In some instances,
targeting by firm size is an important consideration.
3. Describe your services.
As mentioned above, it’s necessary to conduct
market research to understand your market and
to identify the services they require. At the same
time, inventory the services you currently offer
and identify new services you wish to provide.
Determine what it will take to provide these
services in terms of staff, expertise, and costs.
4. Spell out marketing and promotional strategies.
Various strategies work better for different target markets and,
therefore, several may be required to triumph. The key for
successful marketing is understanding what makes someone want
to use or buy services and what type of marketing strategy they
respond to. This requires you to learn needs, problems, industry
trends, and buzzwords. To get up to speed for a particular business
market, read trade journals and attend professional conferences to
meet prospective users or buyers in person. Become active in
various groups whenever possible and form strategic alliances. Find
out what works best for the markets you serve.
This is a trial-and-error process that requires testing and interaction
with clients or prospective clients, although reading case studies
and interviewing and consulting with libraries that have already had
marketing achievements is one way to save time. To this end, I have
included some references at the end of this article that contain
success stories of other libraries.
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Basic marketing strategies include the following:
Network, either in person or electronically, by participating in discussion groups online
where your target markets congregate.
Direct marketing involves sending out sales letters, capability brochures, flyers, or
special offers on a regular, repeated basis to the same group of prospects. Direct
marketing can only work if you speak the language of your target market and contact
them regularly.
Advertise in print media or directories, often with a specific offer to reap the benefit of
an immediate response or sales. Advertising lends credibility (image advertising) and,
like direct marketing, must be continuous.
Devise training programs that increase awareness about your services.
Write articles for local media or professional journals and newsletters that describe
the benefits of your services.
Direct or personal selling is the one-on-one selling, often on site at a prospect’s office
or company. Direct sales are a particularly costly form of marketing since you only
reach one person at a time. However, if you present your services to a group of
people at a company, such as people from a particular department or several
department heads, direct sales can be beneficial.
Send out publicity and press releases through local newspapers, radio, and television
stations.
Participate in trade shows at the local or regional level.
When a strategy works, repeat it. But if it fails,
and you have done it right, drop it. The ability to
develop and implement each of the strategies
above requires learning and honing new skills. It
will most likely be necessary to read marketing
and sales books, attend courses or workshops,
or hire consultants and specialists to assist you
as necessary.
5. Identify and understand the competition.
As part of the market planning process, you must learn
about your competitors and how to position yourself in
relation to them. Describe your strengths and what you
want to emphasize. Once you identify both direct and
indirect competition (for example, the Internet as indirect
competition), you can determine how and why your
services are special and benefit users in a particular
way. You can compete based on value, price, product, or
service, or some combination of these. Your unique
position in the marketplace must be touted in your
marketing programs and marketing literature.
• 6. Establish marketing goals that are
quantifiable.
Marketing goals can include setting the number
of new clients you would like to acquire, the
number of people you would like to reach, or the
amount of income you would like to generate. Be
realistic and practical in establishing your goals.
Take a good look at the available skills and
resources that you can commit to implement and
integrate your goals into your marketing plan
effectively. Study the budget requirements for
the strategies you select and plan accordingly.
7. Monitor your results carefully.
By monitoring results, you determine which of your
marketing strategies are working and which are not.
Identify strategies that generate leads and sales. This
involves tracking and evaluating customers’ responses
to each marketing strategy. Survey or interview regular
users for comments about why they find a service
important. As you get to know your repeat clients better,
meet with them for detailed feedback and ask them for
ideas and suggestions about how you can introduce your
products and services to more prospects who are just
like them. Client comments are invaluable for creating or
enhancing your market literature, and you can also learn
and incorporate terms or language common to a
particular user group through this process. Just as
valuable, these interviews lead to statements that can be
used as testimonials (with permission of course) and in
future brochures and promotional activities.
Hints and Tips for Beginners
• Concentrate your efforts on finding customers who provide you with
ongoing or repeat business.
• Create a customer profile based on interviews as a way to
understand existing clients. When you know why a customer comes
back, you will be able to identify more of the same.
• Stay focused on your target markets.
• Don’t scatter your efforts. This is especially important for directing a
particular marketing strategy to a specific group.
• Be persistent. Marketing projects are the sorts of things that often
need to be repeated over and over before permanent change is
achieved.
• Be prepared to revise your plan as you learn what works and what
doesn’t.
• Don’t be afraid of failure. When a strategy fails, view it as part of
trial-and-error that you can learn from, and as a natural part of the
process.
• This Is Really a Plan for Success
Any successful business must have knowledge about
prospective or current clients and must implement a
marketing plan that is regularly revised. Marketing is
beginning to catch on in libraries, and librarians are
hearing more and more about it. Unlike the longer-term
strategic planning documents, marketing plans in
libraries should be revised annually, like a business
model, and should reflect changes and revised goals
based on the previous year’s experience.
• A marketing plan is an important tool for making your
library victorious in this age of change, where working
smarter is necessary to achieve your desired results.
Module 23
Marketing Plan
• How Marketing Plans Work
by Lee Ann Obringer
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Planning your company's marketing program is a
process much like the one you go through as a young
person deciding what you want to do with your life. You
go through phases of:
learning and discovery of the world around you
development and self-realization of skills, strengths and
weaknesses
goal setting based on those strengths and weaknesses
setting strategies for achieving your goals
planning your attack
working through that plan to make it happen
This mirrors the process your business must go
through in planning your marketing.
In these slides, we'll talk about how to know your
business, know your market, understand your
strengths and weaknesses, and find the
opportunities within those strengths and
weaknesses in order to plan your marketing and
make it happen.
What is Marketing?
According to the Dictionary of Marketing
Terms, marketing is
"the process of planning and executing the
conception, pricing, promotion, and
distribution of ideas, goods, and services
to create exchanges that satisfy individual
and organizational goals."
Everyone is Responsible for
Marketing
The thing to remember is that, in reality, the marketing
department crosses over into the entire company.
Everyone in your company should be aware of the
marketing message, visions, and goals of the company,
and should reflect that message in everything they do
that is related to the product and your customers.
This is referred to as Integrated Marketing
Communications, and means that every contact with
customers and potential customers, whether it's through
advertising, personal contact, or other means, should
carry a consistent message about the company and
product.
In effect, every employee is a sales
person, and every employee is a customer
service representative. If they give mixed
messages about what your business is,
then your customers and potential
customers will have a distorted picture.
Research and Analysis
The research and analysis stage of your planning process is very
important. On the following pages, we'll go over the steps you need to
follow in order to build your plan. It is important to understand that each
step builds upon the previous step. You'll build your plan layer by layer.
1.
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Research and analysis are critical because they lead
you to identifying your product's target audience, as
well as its strengths, weaknesses, threats and, most
importantly, opportunities.
Knowing the threats and opportunities your product
faces helps you more realistically set your sales goals
and objectives.
Knowing your opportunities, target audience, and sales
goals will give you the information you need to set your
marketing goals to take advantage of the opportunities
and meet the sales goals.
4. Knowing your marketing objectives will give
you the information you need to set your
positioning, pricing, distribution, and other
marketing strategies.
5. Having your strategies set will give you the
road map to set up the tactical elements of your
marketing plan, such as advertising,
promotions, branding, packaging, etc. -- all of
those things you have to tailor to your market.
6. Once your tactical elements are determined,
you can determine your creative element,
budgets, and calendar.
Business Review
In order to put together a good plan for marketing, you have to have a
thorough knowledge of your product. Perform an exhaustive review of :
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features
benefits
life cycle stage
safety
reliability
appearance and packaging
technology level (if applicable)
sales history
seasonality
pricing history
distribution history
promotion history
other areas specific to your product
Market Review
• the size of the market
• the segments of the market
• who your primary competitors are
– what your competitors' strengths are
– what your competitors' weaknesses are
• who your target audience is, and
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what their needs are
what their desires are (yes, this is different)
what their tastes are
what their buying patterns are
their preferred distribution method
their opinion of your competitors' product
their opinion of your product
features they would like to see in your product
• the seasonality of the market
• the market growth, shrinkage, or flattening
• Pay close attention to market segments. Markets
have become increasingly fragmented. Market
segments can be based on price, quality,
product use, or even benefits consumers find
through a product's use. If you're a small
business, then finding the right market segment
is very important. It can help you target your
efforts and compete more efficiently.
Module 24
Marketing Plan (Cont.)
PEST
• PEST stands for Political factors, Economic factors,
Social factors, and Technology factors. These are all
elements that may have an effect on your future
business. Make a list of all factors that may be either
beneficial or detrimental to the success of your
marketing efforts or business.
• Political factors include regulatory issues that affect
your product line (e.g. ergonomics issues and the current
regulatory rulings), legal aspects such as patents and
copyrights, or just the current political climate.
• Economic factors include current financial forces on
your target market. Is there currently a recession? Is the
stock market falling or rising?
• Social factors include changes in social trends, fads, or
demographic groups as they affect your target market
and its current opinions. This could include changes in
shopping habits, such as the increase in online shopping
or the super-mall trend. It could also include the aging of
your current target market, or the population increase in
the over-50 group.
• Technology factors include everything that affects your
product, its market, or information-gathering efforts of
your market that come as a result of changes in
technology. This would include the Internet, wireless
communications, handheld electronic devices, and
anything else technology-driven that is affecting your
product or service.
SWOT
• SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities and Threats and is critical to your
marketing plan.
As mentioned before, your marketing plan builds
upon itself, and one of the anchoring steps is the
identification of SWOT.
By completing the review of your business and
your market, you should be armed with the
information necessary to identify your SWOTs
and PESTs.
• Your strengths and weaknesses are determined
by internal elements, while opportunities and
threats (OT) are dictated by external forces.
Sometimes it is recommended to identify your
opportunities and threats first in order to more
quickly bring to light the product strengths or
weaknesses that should be considered first. For
example, if you discover that your competitor is
losing an exclusive distribution contract in the
next two months, you could use this information
to quickly fill that gap in the market. However,
many of your threats will be based on
weaknesses you've discovered.
Regardless of which you cover first, you need to understand what to
look for. To come up with your OT, ask yourself these questions.
Were any problems or opportunities identified in your:
• company's philosophy or mission?
• product features, benefits or quality?
• product's competitive advantage? (Is there a competitive
advantage?)
• distribution methods or distributor satisfaction?
• pricing structures? Is it priced much higher or lower than the
competition?
• target market's awareness of your product?
• target market's attitudes toward the product (or its category)?
• target market's brand loyalty?
• competition's activities? (new product launches, price changes, new
companies, etc.)
• overall market? (shifts in needs, trends, behaviors, etc.)
When coming up with your opportunities list, think
specifically in terms of these processes:
• Problem solving - What problems do customers
currently have with the product that aren't necessarily
bad enough to warrant not using it or even complaining,
but could benefit from improvement? For example,
interviewing a customer might bring to light a statement
like, "My potato chips always get crushed in the grocery
bags on the way home from the store." Enter Pringles
brand potato chips. New packaging might just give your
product or service an advantage in the market.
• Product use cycle - What steps does the buyer
go through to purchase, use, and dispose of the
product? This method might bring to light new
product ideas (or just enhancements or
packaging ideas), services, or other value
options.
• Ideal scenarios - Sometimes customers' "I
wish..." statements can lead to whole new spin
on a product. For example, someone at some
point probably said "I wish I could check my email from anywhere!" Enter the wireless
communications addition to the PDA line.
Other areas may also need to be addressed depending
on your company, product or market.
Now identify strengths and weaknesses. Strengths can
be defined as any available company resource that you
can use to improve your market share or financial
performance. Weaknesses are any company resource
that may cause you to lose a competitive advantage,
position or financial state. Rate your product (or
company) strengths in these categories on a scale of
one to five. You can also rate each by importance.
Remember, many of your weaknesses will be based on
the threats you identified above.
External - Market-oriented
• Company/product reputation
• Market share
• Company's/product's ability to meet the needs and trends of the
market
• Value your company brings to the market
• Quality of your product
• Quality of your customer service and support (or other area of
service)
• Quality/effectiveness of past promotions and other marketing efforts
• Pricing
• Distribution
• Geographical advantages
Internal
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Operational leadership
Financial strength
Manufacturing capabilities
Responsiveness of workforce
Expand on these categories as needed for your product or company.
Also keep in mind that, often, a threat can also be an opportunity,
and a strength can also be viewed as a weakness, all depending
upon the viewer's perspective. For example, you may see your large
selection of products as a strength, while your customers may
consider it confusing and see it as making it difficult to find what they
need. Put yourself in the consumer's shoes and be objective when
making your determinations.
• Be sure to check out the SWOT Worksheet found on the Marketing
Tools page.
Module 25
Marketing Plan (Cont.)
The Marketing Plan Outline
Executive Overview
• Market Review
– Trends overview
– Market segments
– Target market
• primary
• secondary
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Competitive Review
Product and Business Review
Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
Goals and Objectives
– Sales objectives
– Marketing objectives
• Strategies
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Positioning
Product
Pricing
Distribution
Communications/Promotion
• Action Plan and Implementation
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Media plan
Budget
Schedule
Assignments
• Evaluation
– Lead tracking systems
– Sales reviews
Executive Overview
Usually, the first section of a marketing plan is the Executive
Overview. The executive overview summarizes your plan for a
quick review by your executives. Although it comes first in the
marketing plan, the executive summary is usually written last, after
you have analyzed, wordsmithed, and ironed out the details of your
plan. So, once you have the meat of your plan written, come back to
this section and write your executive summary.
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The executive summary should briefly cover:
Market Overview
Competitive Overview
Product Overview
SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats)
Goals and Objectives
Strategies
Action Plan and Implementation Schedule
Evaluation Methods
Market Overview
• In the research phase of this exercise, you did the
legwork necessary for the first few sections of your
business plan. Now you just need to get the information
compiled in a clear and concise document so you can
make use of it and others can read and understand (and
support) it.
• With that end in mind, go through the piles of market
research and worksheets you've completed and start
making some sense of everything. Once you have a
handle on it, begin by writing a good overview of the
market. You can actually pull some information from your
business plan as long as the market information there is
current and specific to the products you're planning for. If
you don't have a business plan, or access to it, then the
questions you need to answer in this overview are:
• How big is the potential market?
• Is the market growing, flat, or shrinking?
What changes do you see happening?
• Is the market segmented by pricing,
quality, age, income, or product usage?
• Who is your target audience?
• Who are your competitors?
Market Segmentation
• Because it is hard (and expensive) to be all things to all
people (or markets), it is wise to target specific segments
of your market, particularly if you are in a smaller
business. Not only will this allow your to reach more of
the people who will ultimately buy your product, but
targeting segments may also reduce the competition you
face. Finding your niche is often the key to success for
small and medium and even large businesses.
• Your market may naturally be segmented by price,
quality, region, customer age, income, buying behavior,
industry or anything else. Typically, price and quality are
the most evident, followed by product use and the
benefits consumers get from using the product. Some
segments will be very distinct, and some will be more
subtle.
• Determine the segments of your
market and describe the ones you are
going to target. Keep in mind that
your product might cross into several
market segments. Finally, remember
to address each of these segments
when you are planning your
marketing activities.