Marketing Planning
Create a road map to track your businesses marketing strategy
What is Marketing Planning?
Marketing planning is the process of coordinating and outlining the marketing objectives of your business and developing strategies and tactics to achieve them.
A marketing plan is a comprehensive document that outlines your overall marketing efforts. It is a road map that outlines how your business will implement your marketing strategy using elements of the marketing mix to achieve your business objectives. The plan will result in generating and nurturing leads from your target market so that you can turn them into customers.
The marketing mix includes product, pricing, place/distribution, promotion, people, process and physical evidence.
Franchise Development Marketing Planning
If you are a franchisor you will need to align your marketing objectives with those of your franchisees and vice versa.
An integrated marketing plan will align your overall marketing efforts across the franchise network.
The key elements of marketing planning offered to our clients are set out below.
Situational Analysis
The development of an effective marketing planning begins with an assessment of the market you are in and defining your value proposition. This will also encompass your target market and customers, how environmental pressures might affect what you offer, as well as how your business is differentiated from competitors.
Business Objectives
An effective marketing plan will help support your overall business strategy and goals to get you to where you want to be.
Marketing Objectives
Your marketing objectives tie into your overall business objectives but also focus on the areas of the business that marketing can influence.
Target Market and Buyer Persona
Identifying your target market and buyer persona allows you to focus your marketing budget and brand message on a potential customer that are more likely to buy from you.
Unique Selling Proposition
Having a strong unique selling proposition (USP) is important as it distinguishes your business from competitors. This might include: providing a unique or superior product or service, delivering lower prices or better customer service.
Marketing Strategies
Marketing strategies are the approaches to your goals, for example, entering new markets, developing new products, improving the competitive position of your business, maintaining your competitive position, harvesting part of your business or exiting the business.
Selected Marketing Strategies
What opportunities are there for your business to: sell more of your existing product or services to existing customers (market penetration strategy), introduce your existing product range to a new customer group (market development strategy), augment or improve your existing product offer (product development strategy) or move into a new market with a new product offering using the skills within your business (diversification strategy).
Product or Service Strategy
Encompasses: product quality, image, branding, features, support, customer service, availability, warranties.
Pricing and Positioning Strategy
Encompasses: positioning, discounts, credit, payment methods, free or value added elements.
Place/Distribution Strategy
Encompasses: trade channels, sales support, segmented channels.
Promotional Strategy
Encompasses: marketing communications, personal promotion, sales promotion, PR, branding, direct marketing.
People Strategy
Encompasses: individuals on marketing activities, individuals on customer contact, recruitment, culture, training and skills, remuneration.
Physical Evidence Strategy
Encompasses: sales/staff contact experience of brand, product packaging, online appearance
Process Strategy
Encompasses: customer focus, business-led, IT-supported, design features, research and development.
Brand and Messaging Strategy
Your brand messaging should refer to your underlying value proposition conveyed and language used in your content.
Implementation and Control
Implementation and control will ensure you marketing activities are working.
Implementation of the Plan
The efficient use of capital, human and marketing resources should be ensured during the process of implementation of the marketing plan.
The effectiveness of the plan depends on the level of involvement of your leadership team in planning and implementing the marketing tasks.
Involvement in the process will require coordination between departments, vertical and horizontal information flows, training and evaluation of personnel, organisational resources to implement the plan and an organisational culture based on market focus, values and customer orientation.
Management Control
The existence of a control process will identify where your business stands in relation to a future position. Progress towards your overall business objective can be observed, measured and redirected if any gaps appear in your actual and desired position.
The types of controls in marketing plan implementation may include: control of the annual plan (analysis of sales, market share, financial indicators), control of profitability (the profitability of the product, region, customer segment), control of efficiency (the effectiveness of the sales staff, advertising, sales, promotion), strategic control (ranking of the effectiveness of marketing, marketing audit, social responsibility)
Financial Projection and Budgets
The financial projections and budget section of the marketing plan focuses on all of the financial information relevant to the project.
Other Marketing Strategy Services Offered Include:
Any of the above strategies can be used in franchise development.
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