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The Marketing Plan

Creating a Marketing Plan

Every business needs a strategic plan and a business plan, yet many entrepreneurs don’t realize a marketing plan is equally vital. The Marketing Outline is the first step in the Marketing Plan, and our consultants provide the Marketing Outline as visionary (big-picture) overview of your marketing needs.

Unlike a business plan, the Marketing Plan focuses on the customers. A marketing plan includes numbers, facts, research and objectives, but it is not primarily numerical; it is strategic. It is your plan of action—what you will sell, to whom you will sell it and how often, at what price, and how you will get the product to the buyer. Here’s a closer look at putting together a marketing plan that works:

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Event Marketing, Event Planning, Website Enhancement and Search Engine MarketingStep One: Define your product. The first part of the marketing plan defines your product or service and its features and benefits in detail, then shows how it is different from the competition’s. The more clearly and succinctly you describe your product in your marketing plan, the better you’ll communicate with your target customer.

Markets and products have become extremely fragmented. There are hundreds of special-interest magazines, for example, each targeted to a very specific market segment. It’s the same with restaurants, cars and retail clothing stores, just to name a few industries.

Positioning your product competitively requires an understanding of this fragmented market. Not only must you be able to describe your product, you must also be able to describe your competitor’s product and show why yours is better. Positioning your product involves two steps. First, analyze your product’s features, and decide how they differentiate your product from its competitors. Second, decide what type of buyer is most likely to purchase your product. Pricing and placement are critical to competitive positioning. In today’s marketing culture, pricing cannot be separated from the product.

Event Marketing, Event Planning, Website Enhancement and Search Engine MarketingStep Two: Describe your target customer. Developing a profile of your target customer is the second step in an effective marketing plan. You can describe customers in terms of demographics—age, sex, family composition, earnings and geographical location—as well as lifestyle. Ask: Are my customers conservative or innovative? Leaders or followers? Timid or aggressive? Traditional or modern? Introverted or extroverted? How often do they purchase what I offer? How much of it at a time? Are there peak buying periods or times of the year when people won’t buy my product or service?

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Event Marketing, Event Planning, Website Enhancement and Search Engine MarketingStep Three: Market Research. Once you know your product and ideal customer, the next step is to identify and assess your strategic business opportunities with the most relevant, current and credible research available. We assist with an unbiased source for timely market research that will help you understand your competition and develop on-target business plans. We help support this research with marketing campaigns, sales strategies, sales support, product development strategies, and annual budgets that are critical to the success and growth of your business. With this component in place, you are guaranteed a fast, easy and cost-effective tool to locate the market research you need to make effective strategic marketing decisions.

Event Marketing, Event Planning, Website Enhancement and Search Engine MarketingStep Four: Step Four: Step Four: Step Four: Create a communication strategy. Your target customer must not only know your product exists but must also have a favorable impression of its benefits. The matrix of communication alternatives is known as the Marketing Mix. Once you have completed your research and looked at every angle of your business, you now start to pull this information together to enable a plan of action. This action plan (sometimes referred to as a "Marketing Calendar") considers how you will promote the key messages about the business offering over time, and within a marketing budget. 

The success of a good marketing plan boils down to balancing a good mix of marketing solutions to drive your plan. The marketing mix examines your product to help you decide whether it is in demand or in decline; it examines the price you intend to change and the best type of pricing policy to serve the need; the best place to distribute your product and the best type of promotion you should use for the best results. If your research is thorough and you have considered the mix, you chances of success selling your products or services will have improved dramatically.

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Other Marketing Plan Considerations:

Find out what your target customers read and listen to. You need to know this to get their attention. In addition to where to place your message, consider how frequently customers need to receive it. This part of the marking plan should spell out your promotional objectives. What do you want to achieve? Do you want people to recognize your company name? Know where you’re located? How much money can you spend to get your message across? What media are available, and which will work best? Finally, how will you evaluate the results?

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Ask yourself the right questions and analyze your answers, and you’ll come up with a marketing plan that will help you achieve your goals. Then, when you'd like our assistance to implement your strategy, please give us a call.

Call Tony @ Arise for more information -  (503) 913-3993

 

Our office is located in Beaverton, OR -  a short distance west of Downtown Portland off Highway 26 near Cornell Road.

 

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