Marketing Plan
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Marketing Major Martin de Tours School of Management Assumption University
THE MARKETING PLAN
An Introduction
As a marketer, you will need a good marketing plan to provide direction and focus for your brand, product, or company. With a detailed plan, any business will be better prepared to launch a new product or build sales for existing products. Nonprofit organizations also use marketing plan to guide their fundraising and outreach efforts. Even government agencies put together marketing plans for initiatives such as building public awareness of proper nutrition and stimulating area tourism.
The Purpose and Content of a Marketing Plan
Unlike a business plan, which offers a broad overview of the entire organization’s mission, objectives, strategy, and resource allocation, a marketing plan has a more limited scope. It serves to document how the organization’s strategic objectives will be achieved through specific marketing strategies and tactics, with the customer as the starting point. It is also linked to the plans of other departments within the organization. Marketing plans may be developed for a single brand, a product line, or a business unit that markets multiple product lines. Although the exact length and layout will vary from company to company, a general marketing plan usually contains the following 6 sections: 1. Executive summary 2. Situation analysis 3. Marketing strategy 4. Financial projections 5. Implementation controls Smaller businesses may create shorter or less formal marketing plan, whereas corporations frequently require highly structured marketing plans. To guide implementation effectively, every part of the plan must be described in considerable detail.
MARKETING PLAN GUIDELINE 1. Executive Summary (1-2 pages)
The executive summary contains enough information for the readers to become acquainted with the full document without reading it. Usually, it contains a statement of the problem, some background information, a description of any alternatives, and the major conclusions. Someone reading an executive summary should get a good idea of main points of the document without becoming bogged down with details.
2. Situation Analysis
This section presents relevant background data on sales, costs, the market, competitors, and various forces in the environment. How do we define the market, how big is it, and how fast is it growing? What are the relevant trends? What is the product offering and what critical issues do we face? Firm will use all this information to carry out a SWOT analysis. 2.1 Market Summary Market summary includes size, needs, growth, and trends. Describing the targeted segments in detail provides context for marketing strategies and detailed action programs discussed later in the plan. • Market Segmentation (1-2 pages) Describe the brand’s current target market in terms of demographic, geographic, and behavior factors. Segmentation variables: Geographic: Region, Country, city Demographic: Age, Family size, Gender, Income, Occupation, Education, Religion, Generation, and Social class Psychographic: Lifestyle, Personality Behavioral: Occasions, Benefits, User status, User rate, Loyalty status, Readiness stage • Market Growth (1-2 pages) Explain market and segment growth over past periods and the forecast market and segment growth. Explain any factors affecting the market and segment growth. Market Trends (1-2 pages)
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Explain the nature of market and market and segment trends that will affect the brand’s performance. • Market Needs (1 page) Analyze the target market’s current needs and explain how the brand can satisfy the needs.
2.2 Competition Analysis (2-4 pages) The purpose of this section is to identify key competitors (both of direct and indirect), describe their market positions, and briefly discuss their strategies in terms of: • Target markets served • Product attributes • Pricing • Promotion • Distribution including the distributor network • Services offered • Strength & Weakness Note: Comparison tables, graphs, and charts are needed. 2.3 Product Offering (2-3 pages) This section summarizes the main features of the company’s various products. It describes the company’s product for the following details: • Product attributes • Pricing • Distribution • Promotion • Services offered • Current product life cycle 2.4 SWOT Analysis (2-3 pages) Evaluate the company’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats involved in a project or in a business venture.
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2.5 Keys to success (1 page) Identify the important keys to success of the brand.
3. Marketing Strategy
Here we define the mission, marketing and financial objectives, and groups and needs that the marketing offerings are intended to satisfy. Then, we establish the product line’s competitive positioning, which will inform the game plan to accomplish the plan’s objectives. 3.1 Mission (1 page) An organization’s statement of what customers it serves, what needs it satisfies, and what types of products it offers. 3.2 Marketing Objectives (1 page)
Specify the marketing objectives for the coming year in terms of: • Market share • Customers (number/percentage growth) • Level of brand/company awareness • Product trials Note: The percentage description is suggested.
3.3 Financial Objectives (1 page) Specify the financial objectives for the coming year in terms of: • Sales growth by volume and growth percentage by segments Profitability growth Ratios (use common financial ratios and other metrics associated with marketing in the industry) Note: The percentage description is suggested. 3.4 Target Market (1 page) If you have planned to change target market, identify your objective and details of your plan. Explain details of segmentation variables for your target market. 3.5 Positioning (1-2 pages) Describe current market positioning of the brand. If you have planned to change market positioning, identify objectives and details of your plan. The •
term “positioning” refers to the consumer’s perception of a product or service in relation to its competitors. In evaluating market positioning, the company needs to compare its position in terms of product positioning and brand positioning. The company would draw out the map and decide upon a label for each axis. They could be price and quality, or comfort and price. Note: Comparison graph is needed • Product-positioning Map: two-dimensional perception comparing different products in different product categories. •
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Brand-Positioning Map: two-dimensional perception map comparing different brands of product in same product category.
Example of Product and Brand –positioning map
3.6 Marketing Mix (3-4 pages) Explain in details regarding the suggested marketing mix (product, price, place, and promotion) to accomplish the objectives • Product: identify your plan related to existing products or new products by specifying features/attributes offered, category of product, branding strategy, packaging, and labeling. Pricing: identify pricing strategy for the existing / new products. It should indicate factors influencing pricing strategy such as costs, competition, customer expectation, and economic situation.
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Distribution: identify distribution plan for the product (s) in details including objective of the plan, type of channels. Promotion: describe how the product will be promoted. Integrated marketing communication consists of six major areas – advertising, sales promotion, public relations and personal selling, direct marketing and event marketing – though not all may be used. Timetables for promotion are important since certain types of promotions (Most information in this section can be shown in tables and graphs.) Specify promotional objectives and cost for each IMC tool planning to use.
4. Financial Projections (2-3 pages)
Financial projections include sales forecast, an expense forecast, and break-even analysis for the coming year. 4.1 Sales Forecast Show the forecasted sales volume by month. 4.2 Expense Forecast Show the expected costs of marketing, broken down into finer categories. 4.3 Break-even analysis Shows how many units the firm must sell monthly to offset its monthly fixed costs and average per-unit variable costs. Note: If assumption is made, explain details.
5. Implementation Controls (1-2 pages)
The last section of the marketing plan outlines the controls for monitoring and adjusting implementation of the plan. Controls help the company measure results after the plan is implemented and identify any problems or performance variations that need corrective action. 5.1 Implementation (Gantt chart format) Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule. Gantt charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project. 5.2 Contingency Planning In case the objectives of the marketing plan cannot be achieved, suggest the alternative plan to achieve the objectives.