What is your goal for being here tonight? What are you looking to accomplish or take away from tonight?
Whenever I do these type of presentations, I always have two goals. The first one is simple and somewhat intangible, but the second is more concrete and measureable.
For everyone here today to walk away with the beginnings of a real marketing plan that they can use to increase their sales and their market share.
For everyone here today to walk away with the beginnings of a real marketing plan that they can use to increase their sales and their market share.
Before I begin any journey, I check a map to see where I am going. There are always interesting things to see along the way and I want to know what they are so I won’t miss anything. Time is too precious to spend just wandering around (unless that is the intent of the allotted time). So our roadmap for tonight is very simple….
Here is my 4 step plan to developing your marketing plan. Some of the things you may have heard about before, like the 4 P’s, other things you may never have heard about before like the “Purple Cow” theory.One of the main points of tonight is to communicate and share ideas. You can’t excel in a vacuum, you need to be able to breath and share ideas. Tonight I will ask you to share ideas and possibly do some brainstorming with the group. You challenge will be to open up a bit and expand your mind to the world of possibility.
So let’s get started with trying to understand just what a marketing plan is.
Simple quote, but sometimes hard to carry out. These words however are the foundation for every successful business person. One thing that I will tell you tonight is that you need to put any fear of failure you may have out of your mind. You are either involved in a small business or about to become involved in a small business so you can’t be afraid to fail.Failure is a part of success. Remember the famous Edison quote, “I learned 2,000 ways to not make a light bulb.” Where would we be if he had quit after his first failure?
Your marketing plan will be comprised of many pieces and parts, but it will be yours. Don’t be afraid to look to others for inspiration or guidance. Find someone who you think is a good marketer, then pick their brains. The majority of human beings love to help others, so finding someone who is successful and willing to share some insights shouldn’t be too hard.Some people advocate that you build the product first, then you build the marketing around the product. Other people say you create the marketing build the product around the marketing. How you approach it is up to you but there advantages to both approaches and disadvantages. Just remember, to question everything and don’t accept that the answer that “this is the way that it has always been done, there isn’t any other way.” There is always another way, maybe it isn’t better, but there is always another way.Lastly, like the Benjamin Franklin quote I sent out yesterday, “if you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail.”
Now that we have an simple understanding of what a marketing plan is, let’s begin to lay the foundation that the rest of your plan will be built on.
Each one of you has a SWOT worksheet in front of you. The SWOT analysis can be as simple or as complex as you would like it to be, but is should be at the core of everything that you do.
Let’s start off with your strengths. What are you good at?What are the Internal factors that you possess that give you strength. Internal factors are what motivates you to get out of bed each morning?Simply put, what do you enjoy doing and are good at?Also consider external factors. What are the external factors that make you strong and can give you an advantage? Is it your location, is it the availabiltiy of cheap raw materials?Lets take two minutes and fill out the strength portion of the worksheet and keep in mind both the Internal & External factors.
Now let’s look at your weaknesses. Simply put, these are the things that you aren’t good at, or that put you at a disadvantage. Some people may list these items as the things that keep you up at night.What are the internal areas that you are weak in? Is it accounting, managing, sales?Also consider external factors. These could be the same things that you listed as external strengths.Lets take two minutes and fill out the weakness portion of the worksheet and keep in mind both the Internal & External factors.
What are your opportunities?Are you looking at a niche or an existing product segment?If you are an existing business, what are your internal opportunities? Where can you find efficiencies that will make you better?What are your external opportunities? Can you find raw materials cheaper somewhere else? Are you aware of areas that are underserved or ignored?Two minutes to examine your opportunities.
What are your threats?Dan Pink in his book, “A Whole New Mind” states that because of the globalization of the worlds economy there are people in other places of the world that can do things cheaper and because of automation, things can be done faster as well.If you do things by hand, is it possible that someone else can do it faster and cheaper?Do you live and die by the price of Oil?Take a look around, what are your threats? You have two minutes.
Once you have figured out your SWOT analysis, you are now ready to move onto your market analysis. The market analysis can be considered the Framework that sits on your foundation.To begin with when you are looking at a market analysis you need to look at the size of your market. In today’s world you can almost always say that your market size is global, but is that really what you want to look at?How easy would it be to break into the pain reliever market or the flat screen TV market?Where do you go to find information pertaining to market size? You can look for: Government Data Trade Associations Financial Data for public corporations Customer SurveysThe point is, there is generally data available, you may have to dig for it, but it exists somewhere. So find it and use it. Don’t just rub your tummy, and ask a couple of friends what they think. Base your decisions off of facts, not conjecture.
As you dig through the market size data you should be able to find information that covers several years. This will help you determine what the growth rate will be going forward.Review the historical data and begin to ask questions like: What was the economic climate then? What were the costs of the raw materials? What were the barriers to entry?Then, take the historical information and begin to extrapolate future trends. If the historical growth rate is 10%, what factors contributed to that and are those factors still applicable today? If so, go ahead and use that 10% estimate going forward. If there are changes in the factors that contribute to the growth, then adjust your forecast accordingly.
Just because the sales numbers are big, that doesn’t always guarantee success.When examining the profitability of a market segment you need to consider the following things:What are the barriers to entry? How much will it cost me to become a player?What are the threat of substitute products?What is the buying power of the market? If I am marketing a $10,000 piece of household equipment to low to middle class households, what are my chances of hitting my sales goals?Who are the competitors? How long have they been in the game?
Lastly we need to examine the trends that exist within the market that we are looking at.How price sensitive is the market? Are you willing to pay $20 for a bottle of Ibuprofrin?What is the production capacity of the market?How sensitive are you to fluctuations in raw material pricing?What are the levels of service and support that already exist within the marketplace?
Is your idea/business aimed at a Target/Niche market, or are you looking at something that has mass appeal?Here are the questions that you need to ask yourself before you jump in with both feet:Is it doable?Is it worth doing?Can I do it?Do I want to spend the next umpteen years of my life doing it?Now lets look at the two elements of a marketing plan. The first is the Tactical preparations.
The tactical preparations are like the overall strategy for the battle. These preparations involve the 4 P’s of marketing – Product, Price, Promotion and Place.