Many people include their marketing plan as a section in
their business plan. Really, though, marketing is important enough
that it deserves a plan of its own, separate from the technical
details of the business. Here’s what your marketing plan should
include.
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.
