Marketing Plan Template Step 5 & 6
Step 5 5.1 Marketing Strategy
Once you've created and agreed your ‘goals' then you need to create the strategy to achieve them. Two key factors are identified 1) who do you want to be targeting to achieve your goals? Effectively, identifying your ‘target market segment'? Cover off the following points when identifying this segment:
- New or existing clients?
- How they buy?
- Where do they come from?
- What influences them?
- How do they use your services?
And 2) your ‘differential advantage' ie: what have you got that will attract your ‘target market segment' away from competitors and to buy your products and services. Think about these areas:
- What will motivate the market towards you rather than your competitors?
- What have you got that will meet the needs of your selected segment?
- What are the advantages you can offer over your competitors?
- What are your competitors up to and how do you compete?
Step 6
6.1 The Marketing Mix
These are effectively the resources that you identify and utilise for implementation of your plan. In other words, the tactics you apply to implement your marketing strategy. Once you've set your strategy you need to develop an understanding of how you are going to achieve it - what are your methods?
Traditionally you may have heard of the ‘4 p's of Marketing' - however, particularly in service driven organisations, two more decisions need to be considered; process and people.
Let's take a look at each element of the ‘marketing mix' and address the areas that you need to be thinking about when creating yours. Not all categories will be relevant to you - however, these are the factors commonly considered:
Product
Product variety Product presentation Product packaging
Product features Sizes Product design
Brand name Guarantee
Pricing
List price Geographical pricing Fixed pricing
Discounts Allowances Payment terms
Allowances Credit terms Value pricing
Promotion
Sales team Client promotion Advertising
Public relations Trade promotion Direct marketing
Publicity Third party deals
Place (Distribution)
Location Accessibility Intermediaries
Process (Service)
Pre-sales Post-sales Point of sale
Performance Standards KPI* monitoring
*Key performance indicators - measures you put in place to monitor performance
People
Training Incentives Culture
6.2 Mixing the Mix
The categories above need to be considered when putting together your ‘plan of attack' to the market. In simple terms, consider each point and whether or not it is relevant to your marketing plan.
The tools (ie: the marketing mix) you use to execute your plan are dependent upon your overall marketing goals.
It may be that there are no ‘People' implications within your plan. And therefore, you would not have to document it.
However, if one of your goals was to move into France and gain 20 French clients by the end of the year - then you would document under ‘People', whether you would consider either employing French speaking people whilst in the UK, or train your own team.
for more information on The Marketing Mix see my blog post Getting to Grips with the Marketing Mix
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