Marketing Plan

Learning Goal: Create a Marketing Plan.

A marketing plan is a part of an overall business plan. The marketing plan we will be developing is based on the data learned from the problem-solving process. It's critical to understand that a marketing plan can not be written until the audience is understood. Once we know who is buying the product, where they are, what they do, and how they behave we increase the probability of successfully connecting them with the product/service.

The Marketing Canvas is based upon the business model canvas. This means the marketing model canvas is built in iterations as strategies are proven to work. For instance, you could believe localized Google Adwords are the best manner to advertise your lawn care business. You decide to allocate $10.00 a day to Google Adwords. At the same time, you start a platform for sharing revenue with Parents as Teachers, an organization that seeks to help children through educating parents in quality childrearing practices. After 2 weeks you find that Google Adwords has only brought you five lawns at $50 a week, at a cost of $50. Through your Parents as Teacher partnership, you have added fifteen lawns at $55 a week, at a cost of $100 in revenue sharing. Instantaneously, you would shift more resources from your marketing model to the partnership with Parents as Teachers.

The Marketing Canvas is not meant to be a definitive statement. It is an evolving paper that should change over time.

Overview

1. Objective of Marketing

A great marketing plan requires a clear objective. For our project there is more than one objective as we seek to merge the concepts of money and mission. The focus of the money goal is on the generation of money through the sale of donuts. The mission goal should target how you seek to expand the influence and awareness of the charity being represented by the group.

  1. Money Objective
  2. Mission Objective

Specific

    • A specific goal has a much better chance of being achieved than a general goal. Use action verbs and be precise about what must be accomplished.
    • Example: $70 dollars of revenue.

Measurable

    • Write your goal in a way that you can measure your progress. This helps you stay on track, reach your targets and get excited about your achievement. This motivates you to continue working toward your goals.
    • Example: If we do not make $70 in revenue we fail.

Attainable

    • When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them happen. A good goal should stretch you but also be realistic and attainable so you can experience the sweet taste of success.
    • Example: This is attainable based on selling 47 promotional items of coffee and a donut for $1.50.

Relevant

    • Connect your SMART goal to a larger purpose.
    • Example: The goal connects to our desire to create a profit generating distribution channel for donuts at WCA.

Time Bound

    • Goals without a timeframe have little meaning or urgency. Committing to a time frame helps you stay focused and helps prevent your goals from being overtaken by the day-to-day crises that inevitably come up in life. Choose periods that work best for what you are trying to achieve, or conclude with specific events to participate in.
    • Example: Thursday morning from 7:00-7:45.

2. Customer Segment

The question in this segment is "For whom are we creating value?" As you should have learned through developing your business model, the customer defines the product. This is true even if the customer does not know they need the product yet. That is the job of marketing, to ensure future buyer hears the informing, persuading or reminding. In addition to listing all the customer segments, it is also critical to list most important target audience first numbering down to the least important.

Your Customer Segment portion of the marketing plan should include the following elements:

    • Customer Type
    • Primary and Secondary Audience
    • Customer Segment
    • Marketing Type

3. Value Proposition

After seeing the chart above you may still have some questions about what your Value Proposition (VP) is. Let me start by saying what the VP is not. The VP is not donuts. Everyone will have Krispy Kreme donuts and they are being produced and purchased at the same price. Therefore, cost is not the VP. The value proposition will come from the unique experiences you create and the mission you support.

Again, the value proposition has been developed and should be validated with data through the product development process.

  • Newness - Satisfy an entirely new set of needs that customers previously didn't perceive because their was no similar offering.
  • Performance - Improving product or service performance has traditionally been a common way to create value.
  • Customization - Tailoring products and services to the specific need of individual customers.
  • "Getting the Job Done" - Value can be created simply by helping a customer get certain jobs done.
  • Design - Design is an important but difficult element to describe. Think of beautiful things that you see as an accessory to who you are.
  • Brand/Status - Customers find value in the simple act of using and displaying a certain brand.
  • Price - Offering a similar value at a lower price is a common way to satisfy the needs of price-sensitive Customer Segments.
  • Cost Reduction - Helping customer reduce costs is an important way to create value.
  • Risk Reduction - Customers value reducing the risks they incur when purchasing products or services.
  • Accessibility - Making products and services available to customers who previously lacked access to them is another way to create value.
  • Convenience/Usability - Making things more convenient or easier to use can create substantial value.

4. Brand and Theme

The marketing theme is the slogan for the campaign. It is the overarching message that will be given through promotion and reinforced throughout all components of the campaign. Theme is used to create a lasting image of an experience that enables customers to remember longer.

The goal of theme is to help you craft a holistic experience that centers around a certain subject, product or cause. We see this in the example above about Walmart. There theme is creating a brand strategy that helps consumers identify with their stores.

Walmart

  • Theme: Save Money. Live Better
  • Logo - Features a bright sun looking object
  • Low cost provider of goods
  • Attempts to be personal and connect with the common person

5. Marketing Mix

The marketing mix is broken up into multiple segments throughout the marketing plan canvas. People are denoted in the customer segment section and promotion is discussed lated in section 6. That leaves us with price, place, and product to describe.

  • Price - determining price is discussed in two lessons.
    • Costs and Profits comes from unit 1. This lesson outlines how we determine the cost of producing one unit.
    • Finance, to be covered in 2 chapters, discusses how packaging, additional items and sales promotions impact price.
  • Place - Outline where you are going to distribute your product. Understand distribution is most commonly determined by your access to capital. It takes a lot of money to fill up a couple of 1,000 Target stores with inventory. Your place should always start with a test market, limited market area, and then have plans for how to expand your reach. In some cases, people chose not to grow as they do not like the effects of growth on their business model.
  • Product - Product in this instance is loosely defined as to what you are selling (product, service, event, idea)

6. Promotional Mix

Understanding promotion at this point comes from our brief lesson on marketing. There are 5 types of promotion:

    • Advertising
    • Public Relations
    • Direct Marketing
    • Personal Selling
    • Sales Promotion

You need to build a marketing plan utilizing a mix of these strategies. At this point, rely on the experience you have been impacted by positively and negatively in your life. What promotion works for you or your parents and what does not.

Lesson Information

Presentation

Marketin Plan.pdf

Vocabulary

Additional Reading

Student Activity

Develop a marketing plan for your product.

Download and print the MarketingPlan-Template.pdf and complete all sections.

Template