Developing an effective marketing plan requires time and expertise. Here is a simple outline to help get you started. Please contact us you think you can use some professional help. :)
Marketing Plan Outline
1. Executive Summary – A brief overview of the proposed plan for management
2. Marketing Situation – Relevant background data on the market, product,competition, distribution, and market trends
Market Situation – defines market size, growth and key segments
Product Situation – Provides sales, profit, trends, cogs, spend, distribution history by product
Competitive Situation – Describes major competitors size, share, strategies, spending, and comparisons
Distribution Situation – Describes each distribution channel and its relative importance in terms of percent of total sales, volume, distribution costs, growth potential, and competitive status
Target Market Situation – Describes end users in demographic, psychographic, and lifestyle terms; actionable information such as buyer wants, needs, attitudes, perceptions; segment growth or decline and why
Macro-market Situation – Demographic, economic, technological, political, social, cultural trends that have a direct impact on the company
3. Situation Analysis – External opportunities and threats, internal strengths and weaknesses, and issues facing the organization
4. Objectives – The goals of the plan in the areas of sales, market share, and profit
Marketing objectives may include sales revenue, sales volume, market awareness, distribution channels, average price
Financial objectives may include gross sales, cost-of-goods, gross margin, net profit, cash flow, return on investment
5. MarketingStrategy – The approach to how the marketing objectives will be achieved
Descriptions of target markets, segments and customers, product lines, distribution/sales channels, unique positioning/messaging, pricing, marketing/promotional spend, research and development and market research plans
6. Action Programs – The details of what will be done, who will do it.Whenitwillbedone, and how much it will cost.
7. Projected Profit-and-Loss Statement – The expected financial outcomes of the plan.
8. Controls – Indicates how ]the plan will be monitored, measured, and refined.
About the Author: Mark Schmukler, Sagefrog Marketing Group, Strategy and Managing Partner, leads Sagefrog's marketing strategy, research, and interactive marketing practices. He brings more than 25 years of global marketing and consulting experience to his work. He managed worldwide marketing accounts and worked on famous branding campaigns for Kodak. He also helped pioneer e-Business in the late 90s when he was recruited by VerticalNet to lead their global business development and execute some of the largest Internet deals in history.
Early in his career, Mark cofounded Desktop Graphics (the makers of DrawArt™ desktop publishing software) and Doyle Consulting (a management consulting firm specializing in growing early-stage health and information technology companies).
Mark has a very diverse educational background. He studied Engineering, Computer Science, Business and Pharmaceutical Marketing at Penn State, Rochester Institute of Technology, Wilmington College, Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and St. Joseph's University.
Too many small businesses struggle to determine what it is that they do and who they want to sell to. Not defining a company’s niche is one of the biggest contributors to a company’s failure.Sure, if you ask a small business owner what his company does, he may be to ramble off a quick elevator pitch, but chances are he will struggle to give you a clear and concise description of what his company sells, what his target markets are and how he markets those services.
Merriam-Webster dictionary defines niche as: a: place, employment, status, or activity for which a person or thing is best fitted <she finally found her niche>b:a habitat supplying the factors necessary for the existence of an organism or species c: the ecological role of an organism in a community especially in regard to food consumption d: a specialized market.
As Judy Sunblade, president of New England Coaching describes it, “defining your niche puts a stake in the ground - it allows you to focus your marketing message and to target the buying motives of that market.” Successful entrepreneurs and small business owners know this and the core of their business and marketing plans are developed around what their niche market is.
Successful companies know this and it is why they survive and grow!Successful salespeople know this and it is why they are consistently on top!
Coca Cola makes soft drinks.Their mission is: “At the Coca Cola Company we strive to refresh the world, inspire moments of optimism and happiness, create value and make a difference.”They do not make alcoholic beverages, office furniture or car parts.Sure, they may license their name for a few products which helps their branding efforts, but their core business is being the number one soft drink company in the world.PERIOD!
McDonalds is the number one fast food chain in the world.Their annual reports states “We are delivering simple, easy and enjoyable restaurant experiences for customers.” They sell to families and people on the “go”!If you go into any McDonalds, you will be hard pressed to not see children eating French fries and playing with the toy they just received in their Kid’s Meal.What you do not see are display racks selling electronic gadgets, hardware or books. They know their target market and sell to it!
What is your niche?How do you market to those you have planned to sell to?Are as successful as you had planned to be?Do you want to be more successful?
About the Author:
PUMA Sales Management specializes in partnering with entrepreneurs, professional service organizations and fast growing small businesses to assist them in driving their sales higher through sales and marketing training, lead generation and eMarketing efforts. www.pumasm.com
Marketing Research Company, on their revamped website, allows free access to 35 market research white papers, some of which are published in well-known market research journals. White papers cover topics such as customer satisfaction and loyalty research, segmentation, new product development and general research, statistics and methodologies.
PHILADELPHIA, PA – July 29, 2009 (PRWeb) – TRC Market Research (trchome.com) announced today their new information-rich and easy-to-navigate website that allows free access to market research white papers and published articles. The TRC library houses 35 market research white papers and published articles that focus on topics related to customer satisfaction and loyalty research, market segmentation, and new product development as well as general research, statistics and research methodologies.
Of particular interest is a white paper titled You May Get More Than What You Pay For that talks about Smart Incentives, one of TRC’s proprietary research tool, that helps elicit much richer and more actionable responses from open-ended questions. Smart Incentives are a way to reward survey respondents for coming up with the most innovative ideas. The white paper was also published in Quirk’s Marketing Research Review in November, 2005.
The white paper titled Database Scoring with Object Based Segmentation talks about addressing a common business dilemma: whether to segment using an attitudinal segmentation scheme or a demographic segmentation scheme. The statistical technique called object-based segmentation offers a solution. In object-based segmentation, a large number of segments are initially formed using demographic or transactional variables (alternately “variable data”) already available in the database. These segments are then used as the “respondents” in another segmentation analysis in which the variables are the attitudinal measures that are likely to yield rich segments. Once this analysis is completed, it becomes easier to classify the population of interest since the objects were formed using variables already available in the database.
Satiscan™ and Regression Analysis: A Comparison looks at the outputs of traditional regression analysis (which only considers the direct impact of each independent variable on the dependent variable) and compares it with Satiscan™ - a technique also able to identify relationships among independent variables. The inability of traditional regression to specify these relationships may cause incorrect estimation of the relative importance of each independent variable. The practical effects of this can be quite important since the results of key driver analysis are often used to make decisions about where to allocate resources or focus improvement efforts. As Satiscan™ reveals in a typical analysis, not all independent variables have direct impacts on the dependent variable, and sometimes only a few of them do. Consequently, failure to appreciate the true importance of a driver can result in lost opportunities and/or serious misallocation of service improvement resources.
New Product Development: Stages and Methods white paper lays out a framework and identifies key methods that are the most likely to be useful at each stage of product development process. The focus is on methods that use quantitative data collected mainly online, thus bringing more validity and flexibility to the process while maximizing the speed to market.
Qualitative Data in Surveys: Lessons from the Black Swan essay is about the analysis of qualitative data obtained from quantitative studies. The thesis is that the framework used to analyze such data is different from that used for directly obtained qualitative data from methods such as IDIs and focus groups. Understanding the difference between quantitative and qualitative frameworks for data analysis can help derive more value when the qualitative data are collected in a quantitative survey. The white paper refers to an informative and entertaining book The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb which argues that real data are either distributed normally (from “mediocristan”) or not (from “extremistan”).
The articles are authored by Rajan Sambandam, TRC’s Chief Research Officer. Some are also authored by Rich Raquet, TRC’s President and Michael Sosnowski, TRC’s Senior Vice President.
About the Author:
About TRC Market Research, a consultative custom market research firm
TRC Market Research is a full-service custom market research company dedicated to answering business questions. The market research firm specializes in satisfaction and loyalty research, linking survey data to financials, tricky new product development efforts and segmentation.
Philadelphia-based TRC Market Research is affiliated with the Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO) and the American Marketing Association.
For more information, call 215.641.2225 or visit www.trchome.com
A couple of months ago, Domus, Inc., a full-service marketing communications agency in Philadelphia, began its own agency blog (Domus agency blog). So far, it's been a resounding success, but not just because of the traffic being generated and the connections occurring between us and the market. As importantly, it has become a creative outlet for our staff to think about and expound upon current, relevant topics. With a schedule of one entry per week from a variety of voices within the agency, we've published posts in areas such as branding, client service, internet marketing, resource management, and strategic consulting. Each post has required at least one person (but usually more) to consider not just what needed to be published, but what was actually occurring in the agency, with our clients, and in the market in general. As such, we as an agency have become more focused and more effective in our every day activities.
Domus' success with its blog is not unique. Other organizations who embrace this new medium also experience successes in ways they had not previously imagined. Consider what it might do for you and your organization.
There are a number of great ways to promote your online business offline. Combining offline advertising with your online presence will create momentum and increase your profits. There are a number of ways to promote your business offline. Generate traffic. Produce sales. Increase profits. Those words are gold to every business with a Web site. But an overwhelming majority of entrepreneurs don't ever reach their goals of gold. This is mainly because there seems to be an unwritten code of Web advertising. It states you can only be successful on the Internet if you are using online advertising methods like search engines, banner ads and buying online ad space. True, this should be a factor in any company's marketing efforts but there's an old rule of advertising you should Consider... offline. There are three main offline-advertising mediums worth investing in to drive people to your site. Print, television and radio ads are fairly inexpensive and have the power to promote your dot com presence effectively. It's cheaper and more effective than you think.
Print Newspaper advertising and Direct Mail advertising are easy ways to get your message in front of a large audience. When placing these kinds of ads you want to put them in the business opportunities or work at home section of the classifieds. If you are only going to run them one day a week focus on the Sunday edition as this normally has the highest circulation. If possible run the ad consistently as this will build some familiarity with the readers and will lead to better response. Be sure to find out the circulation and compare the cost with the circulation to find the best deals. Solo direct mail can be very affective in reaching a specific demographic.Using a targeted list/ database, you can focus on the type of customer you want, not the ones you don’t.If you've researched your list, you have a higher chance of hitting potential customers instead of the trash can. You've made your list and checked it twice, so-to-speak. It's the perfect list. Now it's time to write. Define your objectives before you start writing. Stay focused and hit the points of your objective. If you get off track, your reader is going to stop reading. Spend a lot of time on your headline. Just remember how you feel when reading mail that comes to you. After you read that headline, do you keep reading? The headline can make or break your direct mail campaign. Does price really matter? Not unless you know what you're getting for that price. Hook your reader with all of the product benefits. By the time they get to the end, they should be saying, "I can't live without that!" And then you let them in on the price. Even if the price is extremely low, you have to tell potential customers about the product first. Disclosing this price shouldn't put people into shock. Is your product priced according to the market? If you're selling a new teddy bear, it should be priced within reason. Not many people will pay $90 for a tiny teddy bear, right? Truth is, a lot of direct mail goes unanswered because the products are unreasonably priced. Success!
Your potential customer read all the way through your mailing. Now what? Did you tell the reader what you want them to do? You can't sell if you don't tell. Your readers need a call to action. Tell them to send in the card, call you, etc. Then tell them again. Once your direct mail is ready to go, test several smaller mailings before sending out a huge chunk. Test each of these mailings by changing a few items when you send them out. Have two or more sales letters you test against each other. By testing, you will find out which of those mailings are bringing in more responses and - hopefully - more orders. Stick with the clear winners. Remember the saying; Direct mail is a waste of money for a lot of people. But it doesn't have to be for you. Understanding direct mail deadly mistakes -- and avoiding them -- will lead you to sales success!
Flyers the next offline advertising method I am going to talk about in this article is a simple flyer. These are a great way to get your website in front of a wide audience. Make 1000 copies and dedicate yourself to handing out all of them in the next 7 days. Here are just a couple of places to hand these out: around your neighborhood or a large neighborhood nearby, place stacks at local restaurants, dry cleaners or other places of business, or go to your local college campuses and find areas you can place your flyers. Novelty advertising there are loads of novelty ways to advertise. Use your imagination and be original. Depending on the product you could have your web address printed on t-shirts and give them away to tourists. If you make them bright enough they will wear them with big smiles on their faces all day advertising your website try printing on mouse mats, pens, balls or any other novelty item. It doesn't even always have to be related to your product to get good results although a related gimmick can work wonders.
Radio/TV
A 30- or 60-second radio spot is quite a bargain. Rates vary depending on your area's population. Even still, you can negotiate a cheaper price and receive a better rate if you buy a bulk amount of commercials. One of the many advantages of radio is that you can target your audience. Specific age groups and lifestyles are all defined by the station's format. Ratings also help determine this information and can help you choose the best station and time slot for your company's commercial. The key components of your radio commercial include your name, address, telephone number and selling message. But be sure to ask listeners to visit your site. Repeat your URL at least twice and, again, tell them what they'll gain by visiting. Television Get ready to shatter the myths about television commercials. You don't have to be a major corporation or have tons of disposable ad dollars to hit the airwaves. Buying airtime on your local television station is actually very affordable. But for an even lower rate, check the cable TV companies in your area. Airtime is significantly lower than broadcast television ad rates. You also have the added benefit of reaching a specific target audience. Your cable operator can even gear the commercials to a zip code or local community. Infomercials aren't too far behind commercials as a low-cost, traffic-building tool. Even a 15-minute infomercial can explain your products/services and promote your Web site at the same time. Just like with print, make sure your URL is prominently displayed in your commercial and/or infomercial. Keep in mind, not everybody has a big screen TV at home and this can make a huge difference to a potential customer with a 19" screen. Conclusion New technology forces us to adapt to new advertising means. But sometimes old school techniques are overlooked when, in fact, they can actually help propel business into the money-making wave of the future. Don't just do it once and be happy with your results, if something works keep repeating it and as you make money put more money into your venture.
Team and a Dream's Skip Shuda provides a short introduction on the "Marketing Pyramid of Needs" in this five minute screencast (http://www.screencast.com/users/SkipShoe/folders/Jing/media/60730e35-f9b9-41ea-865a-6b5a69c3a664).
This simple framework encourages you to follow the three simple marketing steps towards mastery of "See it, Say it and Be it". By walking up each step of the pyramid, you can ensure that you have all the elements in place for a successful marketing effort. It can also help you to answer questions like, "When am I ready for a Blog?" or "Can Social Media really help my company?". If you haven't done the necessary preparatory work, then your premature marketing efforts can be wasted.
Furthermore, the framework sets the stage for the successful measurement of marketing efforts. A marketing metrics dashboard is a key component to ensure that you stay on the path to Market Mastery once you've started your journey. The framework is discussed in more detail on a recent article at the HP Logoworks Blog article "See it. Say it. Be it. Multi-Channel Marketing in a Web 2.0 World" by Skip Shuda.
Visit www.cheaprevolution.com to read more articles.
By: Skip Shuda
About the Author: As an advisor-builder with a sense of adventure, Team and a Dream® founder Skip Shuda has worked with numerous startups since 1983, including Destiny WebSolutions, which he founded in 1994. Destiny was named the 1998 Startup Company of the Year and grew to $25 million in annualized revenues and 120 team members in 2000
As the leader of Team and a Dream, Skip has a passion for working with Internet startups using his experience, lessons and tools to assist fellow entrepreneurs. Team and a Dream helps to accelerate the launch of web businesses through a focus on the creation, refinement and deployment of strong eBusiness models. Their work involves market and competitive assessments, internet marketing and social media strategies. Skip is an active participant and speaker in the Philadelphia entrepreneurial community. His work includes teaching at the Wharton Small Business Development Center and consultation with the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern PA, two key economic development engines in the Philadelphia region. He runs the Integral Philly Meetup community.
Lehigh Valley Marketing Firm Continues its Excellence in Website Design and Development
May 1, 2009, Lehigh Valley, PA—Altitude Marketing, Lehigh Valley's fastest growing integrated marketing firm, is pleased to announce the launch of a new website for Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania (BFTP/NEP). From design to copywriting, programming to hosting, Altitude handled the entire project start-to-finish. Visit the website at nep.benfranklin.org.
The leading-edge design and organization of the BFTP/NEP site entice visitors through an innovative "website-within-a-website" technology. This unique feature enables visitors to navigate through the entire site without ever leaving the home page. Deeper information is then available for visitors who want to click through for more details.
"When it comes to finding content, the fewer clicks that a visitor has to make, the better," said Justin Scheetz, senior web developer at Altitude Marketing. "We spend a lot of time up front--before we start designing or coding--making sure the site has intuitive navigation and keyword-rich content to drive traffic and convert customers."
All of Altitude Marketing's websites feature a user-friendly content management system that allows the client to create or remove pages, add text and upload images without any special technical knowledge.
"One of the biggest wishes we hear from our clients is the ability to control the content of their own website without having to pay some web developer to do it," says Stan Zukowski, vice president of Altitude Marketing. "Our content management system makes that possible. And unlike other agencies, we don't charge any monthly licensing fees for the technology." In addition, built-in tools allow clients to control their own keywords and other data that is critical for search engine optimization and marketing.
About the Author:
About Altitude Marketing
Altitude Marketing, located in Emmaus, PA, provides a wide range of expert integrated marketing services, including research and discovery; writing and brand messaging; web design, development and marketing; print and electronic communications; trade shows; and public relations.
Altitude Marketing clients appreciate our "View from 30,000 Feet." We lead with research, analysis and planning and follow with compelling writing, beautiful design, leading-edge technology and cost-saving project management.
Media Contact
Gwen Hoover
Director of Public Relations
Altitude Marketing
1020 Chestnut Street, Suite 201
Emmaus, PA 18049
610-421-8601
gwen@altitudemarketing.com www.altitudemarketing.com
While I don’t think PPC is a complete waste of time, I also don’t think it’s for everybody. It costs more because you pay for every click on an ad. This doesn’t necessarily guarantee your return on investment; it doesn’t always mean those clicks will convert!
According to a study, 4 out of 5 search engine users report that they never click on PPC results. I can attest to this. I have put on blinders to most ads and I rarely click on those I do see. Most users of the Internet today are pretty savvy. They know an ad when they see one, and only 30% of those folks will actually click on it.
However, there are benefits to PPC programs and paid search certainly can work for some businesses - if done correctly. If your bid for the appropriate targeted key words is successful, you’ll land on page 1 of a Google search. This can drive a lot of relevant traffic to your website all at once. But ultimately this is where usability, good copywriting, and calls to action really need to kick in! You still need to entice and encourage people to contact you or to purchase when they’ve landed on your website.
In summary, a decent balance of good old fashion SEO and internet best practices, in conjunction with a PPC campaign, can drive targeted and qualified traffic to your site.
For more information about organic SEO and internet marketing, contact Marilyn @ phillymarketing AT gmail DOT com or visit http://phillymarketing.wordpress.com.
Do you have a brand new site? How long will you have to wait before it appears on search engines? The truth is, that it could be several months. If you do nothing, it could be years. We offer a couple of suggestions for getting you started on launch day.
One important thing I should mention is that I assume you have a website that is SEO-friendly. If it is completely designed in flash, it is not. If it contains frames, it is not. If it is made up of images, it is not. This will make things a lot harder. I have seen websites that are beautifully designed in flash or frames that don’t appear on any search indexes ever after several years. You couldn’t even find their company name on the SERP’s. The content of this article actually assumes that you have appropriately designed your site. If you’re not sure then it’s best to get an SEO Analysis or Assessment so you can at least begin the process appropriately.
One of the main things you need is to start building a network of incoming links. We’ll tackle relevancy later on but for now, let’s focus on ways for getting sites to link to you.
- Incoming Links (external links) –Significant links are those who have a Page Rank in excess of 3/10 (as determined by the popularity of a website). Yahoo.com, for example, has a Page Rank of 10/10, which is very valuable. Consider getting additional links to your site by submitting to directories that have a high page rank like Yahoo! (Page Rank - 10), Superpages.com (Page Rank - or Dmoz.org (Page Rank -9) to take advantage of valuable incoming links. Some of these are free, others charge a nominal fee while Yahoo! charges $299 for submission to their directory. A better place to start is http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php where you can find a list of directories, paid and free, that could be valuable to you.
- Optimized Press Releases – When launching your website, it’s a great idea to prepare a press release to let people know. If you’re not planning on doing a full press release, we encourage you to consider an optimized press release online. Often more valuable than regular press releases, those that have been optimized can really boost your visibility online. In addition to the increased visibility, we like to select those services that offer the ability to set anchored links. One of these is PRWebdirect.com. Not only is it important to choose your keywords appropriately, but to set your anchored links to offer greatest value to both the user and your website.
Some of these are free, others will charge a small submission fee. Another that we have had great success with is www.arrivenet.com. The key is first of all to write the press release, secondly to set the anchored links and the final one is to add tags below the article.
- Buy Text Links – While you should be careful not to overdo this, there are some benefits at least initially, that you could gain from purchasing text links. One of the more predominant ones is http://www.text-link-ads.com/
- Link Exchange – Another good way to generate links is to tap into your existing network. You may want to consider having a links page set up. While you are probably only offering a 0/10 link exchange, many of your partners would not mind the additional exposure on another site.
- Articles – Positioning yourselves as the experts is the field is not only valuable for your brand but it can also garner some good incoming links. Writing an article on “Selecting a Widget” or “Widget Solutions: Renting vs Buying” can be very useful for generating online visibility. These articles can then get picked up through a variety of sources but should be submitted to as many content hubs as possible. Some of the better ones are: o www.goarticles.com o www.isnare.com o www.submityourarticle.com o www.articlecity.com o www.exchangenet.com o www.article-directory.com o www.freezinesite.com
In addition, there are article distribution services like isnare.com.
- Blog/Forum Participation – one method that can be more time-consuming is to participate in user forums and user blogs. Essentially there are a lot of relevant sites out there to encourage user participation. When adding a post or responding to one, make an attempt to place your signature with a link to your website, preferably using some of your top keywords.
- Pay-per-Click, Paid Inclusion – a good way to kick-start your new site and launch your online marketing campaign is to establish an online advertising program. Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search Marketing are two of the first places that should be considered.
- Google Sitemap – Google offers an xml generated sitemap tool that let’s GoogleBot (Google’s spider/crawler) know when your content is updated or pages have been added. Go to www.google.com/webmasters/sitemap and follow the instructions for creating one.
These are just a handful of ideas to get you started. It can be a time consuming prospect but can also be very valuable. You already know that people are out there looking for you or a company like you. Hopefully they don’t find a company like you first.
If you would like more information please see www.DinkumInteractive.com, call Rick Simmons at 267-626-9094 or email Rick@DinkumInteractive.com
About the Author: Article Written by Paul Flemming, Project Manager at Dinkum Interactive
