.
How to Write
a Marketing Plan
Marketing Starts with Your Customers
Your marketing plan details how you intend to meet your
customers’ needs and communicate the benefits of your products or services to
them. When deciding about market positioning, pricing, promotions, and sales,
your customers should be top of mind.
The Four Key Components of Your Plan
Your marketing plan should describe how you will segment
your target market, how you will position your products or services
compared to your competition, what your pricing strategy will
be, and how you will effectively reach and influence
your customers.
1. Your Target Market
Your target market is a group of customers that has a
similar need for a product or service, money to purchase the product or
service, and willingness and ability to buy it.
To identify your target market and best serve your market,
you need to:
- Know
your customers
- Understand
what your customers need
- Why
they buy
Because you have limited time, resources, and budget, you
cannot be everything to everyone. To effectively reach customers, you need to
segment your target market into one primary market on which you focus most of
your energy, and at most three secondary markets.
You can segment your target market along four key
characteristics:
- Demographic: Who are your customers? Include information such
as:
- Age
- Gender
- Family size
- Family life cycle (single, married with or without
kids, divorced)
- Income
- Occupation
- Education
- Religion
- Nationality
- Ethnicity
- Geographic: Where do they live? Include information such as:
- Their
country
- Region
(e.g. Pacific, Prairies, Eastern seaboard)
- City
and density (rural, urban)
- Climate
· Psychographic: Why
do they buy? Include information such as:
- Social
class (lower, middle, upper)
- Lifestyle
(leisure activities, exotic vacationer, saver)
- Personality
(gregarious, authoritarian, ambitious)
2. Your Market Positioning
Positioning is the image of your product or service that you
create in the mind of your target market. Your goal is to create an image
that’s unique, differentiated, and definable in the mind of your customers. To
position your product or service, try the following:
It’s essential that all of your marketing materials support
the position or image you are creating.
It’s also critical for you to know your present and
potential competitors, both direct and indirect. Examine their strengths and
weaknesses relative to yours. This will help you select a market position that
provides a competitive advantage.
Your overall position should emphasize those factors that
your customers value most, and those which make you stand out from your
competition.
3. Your Pricing Strategy
Price is a very important factor in your marketing plan. It
affects:
Key factors that affect your pricing strategy include:
4. Your Promotion Strategy
Promotion is the activity of informing, persuading, and
influencing your customers’ purchase decisions.
The type and scope of promotional activities that you need
to undertake will depend on what the promotion is intended to do, and what
goals and objectives you want to achieve. There are a number of reasons for
promotional activities:
Your choice of promotional activities will be determined by
a number of factors, including:
1. Advertising. There
are three core reasons for advertising:
2. Sales promotion. Sales promotions focus on short-term incentives to encourage
sales of your products and/or services.
3. Publicity and Public Relations. Also generally known as PR, publicity and public relations
exercises expose your company to the public:
4. Personal Selling. This type of promotion involves a direct, face-to-face
relationship with your customer. It includes explaining or demonstrating the
features and benefits of your products and/or services in an attempt to
persuade the customer to buy.
- Behaviouristic: How do they buy? Include information such as:
- The purchase occasion (household staples, special
occasion)
- Benefits sought (quality, service, economy)
- Consumption status (from never having tried your
product to frequent purchaser)
- Usage frequency (light, medium, heavy)
- Loyalty (not, somewhat, devout)
- Readiness to buy (unaware, aware, informed,
interested, desirous, intending to buy)
- Attitude toward product (enthusiastic, positive,
indifferent, negative, hostile)
- Create a list of your competitive advantages. Advantages might include higher quality, lower
cost, or better technical support.
- Select the “right” competitive advantage for your
product or service.What
you choose, or which “bundle of benefits” you choose, will depend on who
amongst your competitors has chosen the same position. Some competitive
advantages might be too costly to develop, inconsistent with other
services or products, or simply not strong enough in the marketplace.
- Your sales volume and profits
- The actions of your competitors
- The image of your products and/or services, your
company, and your presence in the marketplace (i.e., your retail
location, your website, etc).
- Your customers' ability and willingness to buy. Ability to pay is determined by your customers’ income
level. Willingness to buy is determined by your customers' taste, need,
perceived value, and where your products and/or services rank on your
customers' level of importance.
- Perceived value of your product or service. You can determine the perceived value of your product
or service by asking your customers how much they would be willing to pay
for the same service in a different setting. Or, if you are contemplating
adding a new feature or benefit to your product or service, ask them how
much they would be willing to pay for the improvement. It is perceived
value that decides the price that your customers are willing to pay.
- Your costs. Your prices must cover both your fixed and variable
costs, and allow you a reasonable margin for profit.
- Your competition. How do your prices compare to similar products
and/or services offered by your competitors? Do you offer extra features
or benefits for which you can charge a premium? Have you clearly
differentiated your business and your products and services from those of
your competitors (both direct and indirect)?
- Introduce a new product or service
- Enter a new market
- Obtain a new dealer outlet (for manufacturers or
distributors)
- Increase or maintain sales
- Build or maintain the image of your business and of
your products and/or services
- Support other selling efforts
- Reach customers inaccessible by your salespeople
- Educate the public
- Objectives
- Product/service type
- Market segment
- Stage in the life cycle
- Competitive activity
- Distribution channels utilized
- Information. If
you are opening a new store or introducing a new product, you must build
consumer awareness of your existence. Promotion of a new store(s), or
products that are early in their product life cycle, should be
geared towards providing information.
- Persuasion. You
want to persuade potential customers that you have the product or service
that best their needs.
- Awareness/Reminder. You want to regularly remind your customers that
your product or service is still available, the unique benefits of your
product or service, and/or where they can purchase it.
- Consumer promotions include samples, coupons, rebates, contests, and
demonstrations.
- Trade promotions include buying allowances, free
goods, co-operative advertising, and dealer sales contests.
- Sales force promotions include bonuses, contests, and sales rallies.
- Trade shows allow you to show your product, meet new buyers, learn
more about your competition, and monitor changes in your industry.
- Publicity are
programs and activities that give your company exposure through news
releases, feature stories, and editorial comments. To obtain this
exposure for your business, it can be helpful to research effective
campaigns/events of others in a related industry.
- Public relations is the promotion of your company’s image and identity.
The intent of PR is to create goodwill, a good reputation, and positive
word-of-mouth by promoting your company’s good work or services.
Remember, word-of-mouth from a satisfied customer is one of the most
persuasive forms of promotion.
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