Presenting your Marketing Strategy
We have talked about what a Marketing Strategy is; it’s a plan of action designed to promote and sell a product or service, this will need to encompass every stage of your product delivery. But what exactly is IN this strategy? In this lesson we will explore the finer details of what you should have in any Marketing Strategy document and discuss the following topics:
- Marketing Plan
- Internal & External Environments
- Mission Statement
- Marketing Objective
- Research
- Planning and Development
- Packaging
- Pricing
- Marketing Mix
- Distribution
- After-sales
Marketing Plan
The marketing plan is the application of your marketing strategy: strategy is the thinking, and planning is the doing
Internal & external environments
These are very difference spaces.
Internal is within the walls of your company – its where you develop positioning statements and craft your messaging, a positioning statement formal might be:
For [insert Target Market], the [insert Brand] is the [insert Point of Differentiation] among all[insert Frame of Reference] because [insert Reason to Believe].
For affluent women aged 35-49 the A Tully Design Company is the only company that offers bespoke resin infused handcrafted wooden products for the home among all the wood craftspeople in Ireland because we know how important it is to have unique artistic pieces in the home to feel proud of.
External is what the market sees and hears – it needs to be customer friendly and easily digestible
Mission statement
Think of this as your goal, what you want to ultimately achieve
To be Ireland’s premier craftsmen of handcrafted resin infused wooden objects for the home or office
Marketing objective
The marketing objective is how you are going to realise your mission statement… This needs to be SMART!!!!
We’re going to introduce a suite of products online and offline that will generate a profit of 10% by the end of Q3 2017.
Research
Collect, organise, and document data to help you find out if there is a market for your proposed product or service
A typical research program will have the following steps:
- Definition the objective & what the problem is that you’re trying to solve
- Determine your research design, figure out how you will gather your data (surveys? data research? focus groups? interviews? field research?)
- Design & prepare your research instrument(s) as defined in step 2
- Collect your data (spreadsheets, databases, etc.)
- Analyse your data (excel or bespoke analysis tools)
- Visualise your data and communicate results (charts, etc.)
Planning and Development
With your research done, you need to start planning and developing your new product or service to meet the expectations of your target market(s).
Alternatively, you may be modifying an existing product or service; for many people in this situation, they are entering into a fine tuning exercise to ensure what they have fits the market as well as possible.
Packaging
What you wrap your product or service in can mean success or failure in meeting your goals
Care needs to be taken to meet the expectations of your market
- Colours (bright, subtle, none…)
- Quality (thickness of material, quality of paper/card, rounded edges…
- Size… etc…
Pricing
This is the perceived value of your product, or how much the customer will feel comfortable paying for it
Consider your profit margin and the TRUE cost of producing a product:
- Materials and Manufacturing
- Storage and Transportation
- Marketing and Sales
- After-sales, Support and Training
- Taxes, Fees and Charges
- Etc.
Marketing Mix
How will you promote this product/service to get it sold!! What mix of promotional activities will you employ??
- Advertising (TV, Radio, Banners, Social Media Ads, etc.)
- Vouchers (paper or digital)
- Sales, special offers
- Product Placement
- Sponsorship
- Good Deed activities (ties in with Corporate Social Responsibility)
Distribution
How will you move your product or service
- Physically (shipped) or virtually (downloads)?
- Retail outlets, eCommerce (self hosted or 3rd party?)
After-sales
An after-sales service can be defined as any help or information that a company might provide to its customers after the purchase of a particular product or service. You’ll need to consider what level of after sales will you want or can to commit to. Bear in mind this has both a financial and time cost.
You might want to consider providing a subscription based after-sales service for longer term support and/or an education facility that would help you finance a better quality service.
After-sales is something that can make or break repeat sales or referrals so take it very seriously!!
Up Next
Next we’ll talk about using market analyses in the development of a marketing strategy, evaluate risks, and forecasting sales.