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Your Business Marketing Plan
Your Marketing Strategy
It might sound silly, but it's good to get the core of your
marketing plan written down, just so people can see what the
rest of your plan is aiming at. Keeping your strategy in mind
can also be good when you receive offers to place ads here,
there and everywhere - you can ask yourself whether it really
fits in with your overall strategy.
Your Competitors
You should have a list of everyone in your area who could be
considered to be a competitor, followed by how you plan to
differentiate yourself from them.
Advertising
Your marketing plan should contain a comprehensive list of all
the advertising you plan to undertake. This includes a website,
advertising in newspapers, leaflets, and so on. For each method
of advertising you should list an estimated cost, and the number
of customers you expect the advertising to bring in. This allows
you to work out your 'cost of acquisition', which is how much
you need to spend on advertising to bring in a customer. The
market works out so that this will be more for higher-end
customers, and less for lower-end ones.
Pricing
Your marketing plan should also list all of the pricing policies
you plan to have, as well as any special offers that you think
will be good. That doesn't mean that you can't make up new
offers later, but it's still good to have some on the plan for
the long-term.
An Example
The Catering & Cake Co.: Marketing Plan
Strategy: Our marketing strategy will be to advertise
sufficiently that we will be the first company coming to mind
when catering is needed in the Anytown/Othertown area. Marketing
will be especially targeted towards people arranging weddings
and people planning corporate events, so we will always be
looking out for new ways to reach these customers. We will not
repeat any marketing effort where the COA proves to be more than
20% of the profit those customers provide.
Competitors: In the Anytown area, the established catering
companies are Cathy's Catering and Funfoods. Cathy's Catering
mainly cater for low-end corporate events, while Funfoods
specialise in food for children's parties. Our position in the
middle-market means that we would be unlikely to provide
children's birthday cakes, and could provide a higher-quality
alternative to Cathy's Catering for corporate customers.
The company that we believe would be our main competitor is
Luxury Food and Cakes, based in the Othertown area. They serve
the same kinds of food we plan to, and to similar events.
However, we differentiate ourselves from them by offering our
food at far lower prices. While they use more expensive
ingredients, our taste tests have shown that most consumers are
unable to tell in blind taste tests which food cost more.
Offering mostly indistinguishable quality at a lower price gives
us a powerful way to move in on Luxury's customers.
Advertising (in order of decreasing cost-effectiveness):
Leafleting. $0.01 printing per leaflet, 10,000 leaflets, plus
delivery at $100 = $200. Projected 50 customers. COA $4. Local
newspaper. $500 per half page, run once monthly. Projected 100
customers, COA $5. Corporate mailshots. $0.10 printing per mail,
100 mails, plus delivery at $20 = $30. Projected 3 customers,
COA $10 (however, customers are high-value). 'Weddings'
magazine. $200 quarter page, quarterly. Projected 20 customers,
COA $10.
Pricing: Basic catering: cost + 50%. Deluxe catering: cost +
70%. Cake: cost + 100%. Large cake: cost + 80%. Personalised
cake (large only): cost + 120%.
Special Offers: Business is slower in winter than in summer, so
there are special winter deals. For example, we plan to offer
'every third person free' on basic catering to give extra value
for corporate functions in the winter months (November,
December, January, February). There will also be a 'free
champagne' offer with the deluxe catering in these months.
About the author:
Original Source: Articles-Galore.com
Information supplied and written by Lee Asher of The Home Income Portal
Home of Serious Online Business Options.