Marketing Plan Contents and Presentation

Practical presentation There are many formats for marketings plans and every company does it a little differently, but the outline that follows is a very complete format. Using this format will produce a 30 to 40 page plan. Many companies prefer an abridged format that would yield a 10 to 20 page plan. 1. Title Page 2. Executive Summary 3. Current Situation- Macroenvironment o Economy o Legal o Government o Technology o Ecological o Sociocultural o Supply chain 4. Current Situation- Market Analysis o Market definition o Market size o Market segmentation o Industry structure and strategic groupings o Porter 5 forces analysis o Competition and market share o Competitor`s strengths and weakness o Market trends 5. Current Situation- Consumer Analysis o Nature of the buying decision o Participants o Demographics o Psychographics o Buyer motivation and expectations o Loyalty segments 6. Current Situation- Internal o Company resources  Financial  People  Time  skills o objectives  mission statement and vision statement  corporate objectives  financial objectives  marketing objectives  long term objectives o corporate culture 7. Summary of Situation analysis o External threats o External opportunities o Internal strengths o Internal weakness o Key success factors in the industry o Our sustainable competitive advantage 8. Marketing research o Information requirements o Research methodology o Research results 9. Marketing Strategy- Product o Product mix o product strengths and weakness  perceptual mapping o product life cycle management and new product development o brand name, brand image, and brand equity o the augmented product o product portfolio analysis  B.C.G Analysis  G.E. Multi factoral analysis  Quality Function Deployment 10. Marketing Strategy- Market share objectives o By products, o By customer segments, o By graphical markets 11. Marketing Strategy- Price o Pricing objectives o Pricing method (eg: cost plus, demand based, or competitor indexing) o Pricing strategy (eg: skimming, or penetration) o Discounts and allowances o Price elasticity and customer sensitivity o Price zoning o Break even analysis at various prices 12. Marketing Strategy- promotion o Promotional goals o Promotional mix o Advertising reach, trequency, flights, theme, and media o Sales force requirements, techniques, and management o Sales promotion o Puplicity and public relations o Electronic promotion (eg.: Web, or telephone) 13. Marketing Strategy- Distribution o Geographic coverage o Distributional channels o Physical distribution and logistics o Electronic distribution 14. Implementation o personnel requirements  assign responsibilities  give incentives  training on selling methods o financial requirements o management information systems requirements o month-by-month agenda  PERT or critical path analysis o monitoring results and benchmarks o adjustment mechanism o contingencies (What if`s) 15. financial Summary o assumption o pro-forma monthly income statement o contribution margin analysis o breakeven analysis o Monte Carlo method o ISI: Internet Strategic Intelligence 16. scenarios o Prediction of Future Scenarios o Plan of Action for each Scenarios 17. Appendixes o pictures and specifications of the new product o results from research already completed

Marketing Plan

Meaning and Concept A Marketing Plan is a written document that details the actions necessary to achieve a specified marketing objective(s). It can be for a product or service, a brand, or a product line. It can cover one year (referred to as an annual marketing plan), or cover up to 5 years. A marketing plan may be part of an overall business plan. Solid marketing strategy is the foundation of a well-written marketing plan. While a marketing plan contains a list of actions, a marketing plan without a sound strategic foundation is of little use. Measurement of Progress The final stage of any marketing planning process is to establish targets (or standards) so that progress can be monitored. Accordingly, it is important to put both quantities and timescales into the marketing objectives (for example, to capture 20 per cent by value of the market within two years) and into the corresponding strategies. Changes in the environment mean that the forecasts often have to be changed. Along with these, the related plans may well also need to be changed. Continuous monitoring of performance, against predetermined targets, represents a most important aspect of this. However, perhaps even more important is the enforced discipline of a regular formal review. Again, as with forecasts, in many cases the best (most realistic) planning cycle will revolve around a quarterly review. Best of all, at least in terms of the quantifiable aspects of the plans, if not the wealth of backing detail, is probably a quarterly rolling review - planning one full year ahead each new quarter. Of course, this does absorb more planning resource; but it also ensures that the plans embody the latest information, and - with attention focused on them so regularly - forces both the plans and their implementation to be realistic. Plans only have validity if they are actually used to control the progress of a company: their success lies in their implementation, not in the writing'. The most important elements of marketing performance, which are normally tracked, are: Sales analysis Most organizations track their sales results; or, in non-profit organizations for example, the number of clients. The more sophisticated track them in terms of 'sales variance' - the deviation from the target figures - which allows a more immediate picture of deviations to become evident. `Micro- analysis', which is a nicely pseudo-scientific term for the normal management process of investigating detailed problems, then investigates the individual elements (individual products, sales territories, customers and so on) which are failing to meet targets. Market share analysis Relatively few organizations, however, track market share. In some circumstances this may well be a much more important measure. Sales may still be increasing, in an expanding market, while share is actually decreasing - boding ill for future sales when the market eventually starts to drop. Where such market share is tracked, there may be a number of aspects which will be followed: • overall market share • segment share - that in the specific, targeted segment • relative share -in relation to the market leader Expense analysis The key ratio to watch in this area is usually the `marketing expense to sales ratio'; although this may be broken down into other elements (advertising to sales, sales administration to sales, and so on). Financial Analysis The `bottom line' of marketing activities should at least in theory, be the net profit (for all except non-profit organizations, where the comparable emphasis may be on remaining within budgeted costs). There are a number of separate performance figures and key ratios which need to be tracked: • gross contribution<>net profit • gross profit<>return on investment • net contribution<>profit on sales There can be considerable benefit in comparing these figures with those achieved by other organizations (especially those in the same industry); using, for instance, the figures which can be obtained (in the UK) from `The Centre for Interfirm Comparison'. The most sophisticated use of this approach, however, is typically by those making use of PIMS (Profit Impact of Management Strategies), initiated by the General Electric Company and then developed by Harvard Business School, but now run by the Strategic Planning Institute. The above performance analyses concentrate on the quantitative measures which are directly related to short-term performance. But there are a number of indirect measures, essentially tracking customer attitudes, which can also indicate the organization's performance in terms of its longer-term marketing strengths and may accordingly be even more important indicators. Some useful measures are: • market research - including customer panels (which are used to track changes over time) • lost business - the orders which were lost because, for example, the stock was not available or the product did not meet the customer's exact requirements • customer complaints - how many customers complain about the products or services, or the organization itself, and about what.

Marketing paradigms

Meaning and Concept A marketing paradigm is a set of procedures and attitudes that, taken together, define how marketing is done. The traditional marketing pradigm Marketing is at least as old as civilization, but modern marketing as an applied art and science began in the 1960s and 70s. It originated in consumer markets where relatively low-valued products were sold to mass markets using mass media. Marketing theory held that the first step was to determine customer needs, then next, produce a product or service that will satisfy these needs. The underlying philosophy was that all the firm's strategic decisions were driven by customer expectations. This core idea has gone though many incarnations in the intervening decades, and gone under various names including: marketing orientation, customer driven, the marketing philosophy, customer intimacy, customer focus, and market driven as a discipline has seen a gradual evolution, refining its key concepts, adding many new concepts, and broadening its scope. For example, there has been a gradual shift from mass marketing to segmented marketing to mass customization. Marketing has also broadened its scope to include industrial markets (introducing the concepts of long-term marketing relationships, microsegmentation, and buying centers) and to include electronic markets (introducing the concept of personalized marketing) and to include channel management (introducing the concepts of supply chain marketing programs and distributor marketing programs). New marketing paradigm Starting in the 1980s, there was a group of theorists that felt this gradual evolution was unsatisfactory. They saw marketing, not as a continuously evolving discipline, but as an established discipline ripe for a paradigm shift. They felt that a radical new perspective was required. These theorists are typically associated with either relationship marketing, customer experience management, or network marketing. Relationship marketers, for example, feel that the shift from single transaction marketing to long-term relationship marketing will require a complete revamping of the discipline. Customer experience marketers feel that the relationship marketers started in the right direction but were derailed by their dependence on customer relationship management software, which caused them to lose focus of the individual customer's experience of the service encounter. Network marketers stress the interconnectedness of market actors and transactions and can be seen as the application of systems thinking to marketing. Whether we envision a gradual history of evolution, or a radical paradigm shift probably has more to do with factors associated with the individual's psyche than with any objective or empirical system of change categorization. One thing is certain however, marketing is being greatly enriched by these contributions.

Marketing mix

Meaning and Concept The marketing mix approach to marketing is a model of crafting and implementing marketing strategies. It stresses the "mixing" or blending of various factors in such a way that both organizational and consumer (target markets) objectives are attained. The model was developed by Neil Borden (Borden, N. 1964) who first started using the phrase in 1949. Borden claims the phrase came to him while reading James Culliton's description of the activities of a business executive: (An executive is) "a mixer of ingredients, who sometimes follows a recipe as he goes along, sometimes adapts a recipe to the ingredients immediately available, and sometimes experiments with or invents ingredients no one else has tried." (Culliton, J. 1948) When blending the mix elements, marketer(s) must consider their target market. They must understand the wants and needs (see Maslow) of the market (customer) then use these mix elements in constructing (formulating) appropriate marketing strategies and plans that will satisfy these wants. The mix must also meet or exceed the objectives of the organization. As Borden put it,"When building a marketing program to fit the needs of his firm, the marketing manager has to weigh the behavioral forces and then juggle marketing elements in his mix with a keen eye on the resources with which he has to work." (Borden, N. 1964 pg 365). The most common variables used in constructing a marketing mix are price, promotion, product and place (also called distribution). First suggested by Jerome McCarthy (McCarthy, J. 1960), they are sometimes referred to as the four P's. McCarthy's four P's look at marketing from the perspective of the marketer. It describes what variables marketers have to work with, and hence is sometimes referred to as a marketing management perspective. Another set of marketing mix variables were developed by Albert Frey. He (Frey, A. 1961) classified the marketing variables into two categories: the offering, and process variables. The "offering" consists of the product, service, packaging, brand, and price. The "process" or "method" variables included advertising, promotion, sales promotion, personal selling, publicity, distribution channels, marketing research, strategy formation, and new product development. More recently, Bernard Booms and Mary Bitner built a model consisting of seven P's (Booms, B. and Bitner, M. 1981). In addition to product, price, promotion, and place, they included people, physical evidence, and process. "People" was added, to recognize the importance of the human element in all aspects of marketing. They added "process" to reflect the fact that services, unlike physical products, are experienced as a process at the time that they are purchased. "Physical evidence" or "peripheral clues" reflects the physical surroundings associated with a service encounter or retail location. Other marketing theorists include "partners" as a mix variable because of the growing importance of collaborative channel relationships. One more P, packaging, has been added to this list by some people. The rationale is that it is very important how the product is presented to the customer, and the packaging is often the first contact that a customer has with a product. The marketing mix model is often expanded to include sub-mixes. For example, the promotion variable can be further decomposed into a promotional mix consisting of advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, publicity, direct marketing, undercover marketing, viral marketing, and e-marketing. Within the promotional mix, advertising can be further broken down into an "advertising media mix" that specifies how much emphasis is placed on television ads, radio ads, newspaper ads, internet ads, magazine ads, etc.

Marketing Management Activities and functions

Marketing management therefore encompasses a wide variety of functions and activities, although the marketing department itself may be responsible for only a subset of these. Regardless of the organizational unit of the firm responsible for managing them, marketing management functions and activities include the following: Marketing research and analysis In order to make fact-based decisions regarding marketing strategy and design effective, cost-efficient implementation programs, firms must possess a detailed, objective understanding of their own business and the market in which they operate. In analyzing these issues, the discipline of marketing management often overlaps with the related discipline of strategic planning. Traditionally, marketing analysis was structured into three areas: Customer analysis, Company analysis, and Competitor analysis (so-called "3Cs" analysis). More recently, it has become fashionable in some marketing circles to divide these further into five "Cs": Customer analysis, Company analysis, Collaborator analysis, Competitor analysis, and analysis of the industry Context. The focus of customer analysis is to develop a scheme for market segmentation, breaking down the market into various constituent groups of customers, which are called customer segments or market segments. Marketing managers work to develop detailed profiles of each segment, focusing on any number of variables that may differ among the segments: demographic, psychographic, geographic, behavioral, needs-benefit, and other factors may all be examined. Marketers also attempt to track these segments' perceptions of the various products in the market using tools such as perceptual mapping. In company analysis, marketers focus on understanding the company's cost structure and cost position relative to competitors, as well as working to identify a firm's core competencies and other competitively distinct company resources. Marketing managers may also work with the accounting department to analyze the profits the firm is generating from various product lines and customer accounts. The company may also conduct periodic brand audits to assess the strength of its brands and sources of brand equity. The firm's collaborators may also be profiled, which may include various suppliers, distributors and other channel partners, joint venture partners, and others. An analysis of complementary products may also be performed if such products exist. Marketing management employs various tools from economics and competitive strategy to analyze the industry context in which the firm operates. These include Porter's five forces, analysis of strategic groups of competitors, value chain analysis and others. Depending on the industry, the regulatory context may also be important to examine in detail. In Competitor analysis, marketers build detailed profiles of each competitor in the market, focusing especially on their relative competitive strengths and weaknesses using SWOT analysis. Marketing managers will examine each competitor's cost structure, sources of profits, resources and competencies, competitive positioning and product differentiation, degree of vertical integration, historical responses to industry developments, and other factors. Marketing management often finds it necessary to invest in research to collect the data required to perform accurate marketing analysis. As such, they often conduct market research (alternately marketing research) to obtain this information. Marketers employ a variety of techniques to conduct market research, but some of the more common include: • Qualitative marketing research, such as focus groups • Quantitative marketing research, such as statistical surveys • Experimental techniques such as test markets • Observational techniques such as ethnographic (on-site) observation Marketing managers may also design and oversee various environmental scanning and competitive intelligence processes to help identify trends and inform the company's marketing analysis.

Marketing management

Introduction Marketing management is a business discipline focused on the practical application of marketing techniques and the management of a firm's marketing resources and activities. Marketing managers are often responsible for influencing the level, timing, and composition of customer demand in a manner that will achieve the company's objectives. Definition and scope There is no universally accepted definition of the term. In part, this is due to the fact that the role of a marketing manager can vary significantly based on a business' size, corporate culture, and industry context. For example, in a large consumer products company, the marketing manager may act as the overall general manager of his or her assigned product category or brand with full profit & loss responsibility. In contrast, a small law firm may have no marketing personnel at all, requiring the firm's partners to make marketing management decisions on a largely ad-hoc basis. In the widely used text Marketing Management (2006), Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller define marketing management as "the art and science of choosing target markets and getting, keeping and growing customers through creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value”. From this perspective, the scope of marketing management is quite broad. The implication of such a definition is that any activity or resource the firm uses to acquire customers and manage the company's relationships with them is within the purview of marketing management. Additionally, the Kotler and Keller definition encompasses both the development of new products and services and their delivery to customers. This view is also consistent with the perspective of management guru Peter Drucker, who wrote: "Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two--and only these two--basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business." But because many businesses operate with a much more limited definition of marketing, such statements can appear controversial, or even ludicrous to some business executives. This is especially true in those companies where the marketing department is responsible for little more than developing sales brochures and executing advertising campaigns. The broader, more sophisticated definitions of marketing management from Drucker, Kotler and other scholars are therefore juxtaposed against the narrower operating reality of many businesses. The source of confusion here is often that inside any given firm, the term marketing management may be interpreted to mean whatever the marketing department happens to do, rather than a term that encompasses all marketing activities -- even those marketing activities that are actually performed by other departments, such as the sales, finance, or operations departments. If, for example, the finance department of a given company makes pricing decisions (for deals, proposals, contracts, etc.), that finance department has responsibility for an important component of marketing management -- pricing.

Marketing Basics for the Small Business

The essence of marketing is to understand your customers' needs and develop a plan that surrounds those needs. Let's face it anyone that has a business has a desire to grow their business. You can achieve these purposes in four different ways. They include: • Acquiring more customers • Persuading each customer to buy more products • Persuading each customer to buy more expensive products or up selling each customer • Persuading each customer to buy more profitable products All four of these increase your revenue and profit. Let me encourage you to focus on the first which is to acquire more customers. Why? Because by acquiring more customers you increase your customer base and your revenues then come from a larger base. How can you use marketing to acquire more customers? • Spend time researching and create a strategic marketing plan. • Guide your product development to reach out to customers you aren't currently attracting. • Price your products and services competitively. • Develop your message and materials based on solution marketing. The Importance of a Target Market When it comes to your customers keep in mind the importance of target marketing. The reason this is important is that only a proportion of the population is likely to purchase any products or service. By taking time pitch your sales and marketing efforts to the correct niche market you will be more productive and not waste your efforts or time. It's important to consider your virtual segmentation by selecting particular verticals to present your offerings to. Those verticals will have the particular likelihood of purchasing your products and services. Again, this saves you from wasting valuable time and money. Marketing Differs between Small Businesses and Larger Companies If you are like the majority of small business owners your marketing budget is limited. The most effective way to market a small business is to create a well rounded program that combines sales activities with your marketing tactics. Your sales activities will not only decrease your out-of-pocket marketing expense but it also adds the value of interacting with your prospective customers and clients. This interaction will provide you with research that is priceless. Small businesses typically have a limited marketing budget if any at all. Does that mean you can't run with the big dogs? Absolutely not. It just means you have to think a little more creatively. How about launching your marketing campaign by doing one of the following: • Call your vendors or associates and ask them to participate with you in co-op advertising. • Take some time to send your existing customers' referrals and buying incentives. • Have you thought about introducing yourself to the media? Free publicity has the potential to boost your business. By doing this you position yourself as an expert in your field. • Invite people into your place of business by piggybacking onto an event. Is there a concert coming to town, are you willing to sell those tickets? It could mean free radio publicity. If that is not your cup of tea, how about a walkathon that is taking place in your area, why not be a public outreach and distribute their material? When you do spend money on marketing, do not forget to create a way to track those marketing efforts. You can do this by coding your ads, using multiple toll-free telephone numbers, and asking prospects where they heard about you. This enables you to notice when a marketing tactic stops working. You can then quickly replace it with a better choice or method. Getting Started By being diligent in your marketing and creating an easy strategy such as holding yourself accountable to contact ten customers or potential customers daily five days a week you will see your business grow at an exceptional rate. The great thing is it will not take a large marketing budget to make it happen.