5. Marketing Plans and the Right Partners
KEY POINTS
- The right partners are those people who share your interests.
- Only when there is mutual value will there be good advice.
- Look at how others have successfully sold their product before formulating your marketing plan.
MARKETING PLAN
Now the serious part of the process begins… The marketing plan
This is what the plan must contain:
- Your report always begins with an Executive Summary which tells briefly what your plan is all about and what it hopes to achieve.
- You need to be in a position of identifying your customer base. That is your target audience, the people who are likely to want to buy your product.
- Your unique selling proposition that distinguishes your product from others instantly (we talked about that in the branding section)
- Finally how are you going to get your product to market? What is your distribution plan? If your plan is via on-line selling how are you going to get your products to your customers?
Now your plan does not have to be “centimetre perfect” but it does need to seriously address what marketers call the “ 4 P’s”
THE 4 P's
Product – your product needs to conform to some sense of reasonableness. By that I mean, what size should it be (e.g. 100gms, 200gms or 500gms) How should it be presented for sale? You need to think about how appealing your finished product will look to your potential customers.
Price – how much are you going to charge for your product?
Position – do you intend for your product to be in the high end or the low end of the market.
Promotion – going back to the segment on communication – revisit this segment and see what it is you decided upon. How are you going to promote your product to potential customers?
TASK: WRITE YOUR MARKETING PLAN
Your task is to create your marketing plan, guided by the marketing plan steps. Set your plan out in the heading given above and write 25 words about each section.
Alternatively you can use our MARKETING PLAN TEMPLATE.