CHAPTER- 4

S.I.W.S COLLEGE MARKETING PLAN

4.1 MARKETING PLAN:

Marketing plans: focuses on customer acquisition and retention and the resources
required to do this effectively and implement specific marketing functions.
Effective marketing plans should be realistic, include sufficient competitor analysis
and have a long-term as well as short-term focus.
“A Marketing plan is a written document that summarizes what the marketer has
learned about the market place and indicates how the firms plans to reach its
marketing objectives”.1

The marketing plan is one of the most important outputs of the marketing process
underlies on effective analysis of the industry, business and product situation.

The marketing plan will include the market research; your choice of location (if
that’s a factor); the prospect group(s) you’ve targeted; your competition, branding,
and positioning; the product or service you are selling; and pricing, distribution,
and promotion.

4.2 What you need to do

4.2.1. Define your business

 Your product(s) and/or service(s)

 Your industry: Is it growing, declining, or holding steady?
 Your geographic marketing area: local, regional, national, or global
 Your competition
 How you differ from the competition, or what makes you special
1
Marian Wood definition

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 Your pricing structure

 The competition’s promotion methods
 Your promotion methods
 Your sales and distribution methods

4.2.2. Define your prospects and clients or customers

 Your current client base: age, sex, income, job title, etc. (i.e., demographics)
 How your customers learn about your product or service: Internet, email,
public relations, advertising, direct mail, word of mouth, Yellow Pages, etc.
 Patterns or habits your customers and prospects share: where they shop,
what they read, watch, and listen to
 Qualities your customers value most about your product or service:
selection, convenience, service, reliability, availability, affordability, your
impeccable good looks, etc.
 Qualities your customers like least about your product or service: can they
be adjusted to serve your customers better?
 Prospective customers whom you aren’t currently reaching
 Profiling your typical “best” client

4.2.3. Define your competition

 Number of competitors within your marketing area

 Are there no competitors? If so, that’s usually a big, red flag that prospects
aren’t buying what you’re selling
 Does you industry have a high or low barrier to entry? If it’s low,
competitors can crop up quicker than a jackrabbit after quad espresso

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4.2.4. Define your plan and budget

 Previous marketing methods you have used to communicate with your

prospects
 Methods that have been most effective
 Developing your strategy
 Developing action plans
 Developing a marketing calendar
 Developing the budget to make it all happen

In the sections below, we’ll review the first two sections of an effective marketing
plan.

4.2.5. Executive Summary

A business plan executive summary is, well, a summary of your overall plan. This
may be just for you or you may share it with others including an advisory board or
mentor.

4.3 FEATURES OF MARKETING PLANS:

 It is a Written document which helps in stating the objectives of the

organization and also to ensure that what area has to be concentrated for
developing and what area is left out. It facilitates easy communication of
objectives to all people within and outside the marketing department in the
organization.

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 The marketing plans are used for directing and controlling the marketing
effort. It operates at two levels , strategic( Long term) and tactical (Short
term). The Strategic Marketing Plan layout the target markets, and the
value proposition the firm will offer, based on the analysis of the best market
opportunities.
The Tactical Marketing Plan specifies the marketing tactics, including
product features, promotion, merchandising, pricing, sales channels and
service.
 The marketing plans should be customer oriented based on the customer
needs and wants. This helps in providing unpromising commitment to the
customer satisfaction while delivering goods and services.
 The purpose of marketing is to identify the segment of customers (target
Market) for the business and convert the needs into suitable wants and
generate the required profit at the unit level.
 Market analysis i.e. marketing environment scanning has to be done
SWOT analysis and identify and analyze market opportunities.
 Marketing planning involves developing Marketing Mix for achieving the
marketing objectives. These are the detailed functional plans that help in the
marketing process.
 The Marketing plan should be competitor oriented, the plan should be able
to tackle competition and ensure survival and growth in future.
 The marketing plan should be developed in accomplishing marketing goals
they are extending the existing market share, expanding profits, meeting
competition, building strong sales image etc. So marketing plan should
accomplish all marketing objectives.

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 Marketing plan is a continuous process, it starts with identifying the target

market and ends with marketing opportunities.
 Marketing plan provides direction, which work has to be done first
according to the action plan that been formulated.
 Marketing plan should be flexible , it should be able to be changed
according to the marketing environment (external & internal) .
 Marketing planning requires a lot of team work. It is not a one man show

The marketing plan then, is a dynamic document which focuses on bringing

Marketing strategies to life, serving as a roadmap for carrying out marketing

activities and implementing marketing strategies.

4.4 STEPS IN MARKETING PLAN:

It is a multi-step process, which considers the following:

1) Formulating a strategy of your company or your division and making sure that
appropriate linkages are made between company strategy and marketing
activity planning.
2) Analyzing the environment within which you do business to make sure you
consider the marketplace, the industry, competitors, and other influences.

3) Carrying out market profiling, enabling you to identify market segment, target
customer types, and overall demand. Additionally, analysis of the industry and
competitors, coupled with analysis of customer types, enables the creation of
demand possibilities and the resulting forecasts. It also allows you to formulate
appropriate value propositions, and to position the product’s key benefits to the

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target audience, and finally, why a customer would choose your solution versus
the competition. and expressing key values and benefits to the target audience

4) The marketing mix, which considers a combination of activities which come

together harmoniously, in bringing the product to market and sustaining it while
in the market, which includes:

i. Deciding on which products meet the need of identified market targets

ii. Pricing those products so that the true, competitive value is recognized by the
market targets.

iii. Defining promotional programs to reach those targets, this can include
Communications and advertising programs.
iv. Creating channels to effectively distribute your products to your target
audience.
v. Determining who you’ll need to work with in successfully bringing the
product to market, including sales teams (to make sure that volumes can be
attained),

vi. Launching new products or product line extensions as needed.

vii. Training the sales force to competitively position the product or service.
viii. Budgeting of marketing programs so that the appropriate sales goals and
Corporate strategies can be attained.
ix. Executing on the plan - creating marketing project plans, and understanding
dependencies on other organizations. Also included are measurements
to determine the success of your marketing activities.
x. Identifying risks

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4.4.a Step 1 – Define the Strategy

Strategy is carried out as a multi-step process, defined as:

1) Assessing the current situation (where you are)

2) Identifying the desired end state or goal (where you want to be)
3) Mapping a path to achieve the goal (the strategy)
4) Creating measurements to determine success factors
5) Re-assessing the situation and revise the strategy

Each is described below:

SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and

threats. The overarching goal of SWOT is to determine where the company’s
products, services, or product lines fit within the context of the internal and the
external environments. Conducting this analysis helps you to figure out where it is
today, and where it needs to be in the future. An outcome of the SWOT analysis is
to help you define what you’re good at and to leverage those strengths to determine
the opportunities you might be able to take advantage of. Weaknesses reveal your
vulnerabilities. By harnessing this data, you’ll have a way to validate and guide
your marketing investments. From this exercise, you can also derive some key
marketing objectives which carry through to the next exercise

4.4b. Step 2 – Business Environment Analysis

Analyzing the business environment is situated as Step 2 in this template to

emphasize its importance in data gathering. Steps 1 and 2, formulating strategy and
business environment analysis can actually go hand in hand. The reason is that
these are surveying techniques that allow you to put the information into

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perspective.
Business environment analysis actually can help feed SWOT analyses. The reason
for this is that the business environment influences your strategies. For example, an
competitive threat influences how you identify or prioritize new opportunities.

Marketing professionals often refer to environmental analysis as ‘scanning.’

Business environmental analysis is not a one-time event; it is an on-going effort. It
is incumbent on team members to adopt a focus on scanning the horizon and be
constantly on the look out for shifts and changes. Since the marketplace is always
changing, your awareness helps you to understand business drivers and an
evolving customer need, which leads to the identification of market opportunities,
alert you to potential problems with customers, competitors, and the industry in
general. Another area on which you may with to focus when deriving strategies for
products or markets has to do with understanding of Key Business Issues – what
are the compelling issues impacting current marketing strategies and programs?
Are there overwhelming issues relating to unmet demand or business need
which has been uncovered?

4.4c. Step 3 – Market Profiling

Market profiling involves the market research that needs to be carried out. The
ultimate goal is to identify the attractiveness of the marketplace and the
competitive posture you wish to assume. From this, you can determine the ultimate
demand for your product or service with respect to market share, revenue potential,
and ultimately, the profitability of your products and services. Market profiling is
made up of the following activities:

A. Analyzing the industry in which your company compete. Here are some

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approaches to identifying the characteristics of the industry:

a) Identify if there are any political issues in the geographic area of interest
b) Determine the general state of the economy.
c) Understand any of the societal trends or issues which may be prevalent
In your area of interest.
d) Consider the state of the technologies used in this market space
e) Secure actual growth rates of the industry using visuals to show the trend
lines.
f) Find out if there are any trends you can discern being used within this
industry space.
g) Determine how products and services are actually delivered from supplier to
customer.
B. Understanding the competitors with whom you compete. In order to carry this
out, here are some suggestions:

a. Make a list of competitors, along with the products they offer. Can you determine
the total revenue of all competitors combined? This could give you a rough
estimate of the size of the overall marketplace.

b. Determine the brand images of each of the competitors.

c. Identify how each of the products are positioned in the market and with respect to
other competitors.

d. Find out who their suppliers are.

e. Determine the number of employees on staff, and whether they are hiring more
people or cutting back, and why.

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f. Make a list of the kinds of activities they engaged in over the past year
or two. For example, did they introduce new products, adjust their
prices, embark on advertising campaigns, etc.

i. Take this list and figure out what you think they might do next, and…
ii. Make a list of the kinds of things you might want to compete.
iii. Use the following table to create a profile for each competitor

C) Identifying market segments and ultimate customers to pursue.

Market segments represent groupings of customer types who have similar needs.
Market segmentation helps the product manager or marketing manager to tailor a
specific marketing mix to satisfy the needs of a group of customers (a segment).
Market targets are sub-groups with similar needs. For each of the following
exercise, you may be broadly defining market segments, or defining market
targets within those segments. The more finely focused your efforts, that is, on
your target markets, the more focused your marketing programs will be. Since
customers are driven by needs (problems that need to be solved), your complete
understanding of these segments, and the targeted groups will help you with
more finely tuned marketing programs. Use this questioning technique to help
you:
a. Name the segment or segments
Use age, geography, or other means
Example – People living in the northeast states
b. Define the target
Use more detailed categorizations
Example – Employed males aged 50-60 living in New York
State with incomes over $75,000

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D) Define the buying process.

Depending on the kind of product and the market (business to consumer products
versus business to business products), you need to be able to define how people
make purchasing decisions. In businesses, the decision maker may be different
than the actual user of the product. Consumers, depending on whether the product
is a daily staple, durable necessity (cars, appliances, etc.), or impulse
item, the buying process is different.

E) Forecasting sales volumes and market share.

Most people equate forecasting to short-term estimates of sales or unit volumes.

Forecasting to evaluate market opportunities and potential profitability is a long-
range planning activity and is more complex. The reason becomes clear when
considering that all businesses try to create forecasts so they can put business and
marketing programs into perspective. For example, marketing programs may
require periodic investments or product groups may be considering the launch of a
new or improved product, or businesses may be considering expansion into new
markets. Therefore, key decisions are made based on forecasts. Unfortunately,
most forecasts are inaccurate. That’s because they are forecasts. It is a difficult task
at best especially in industries where market conditions can change rapidly.

However, we can try to minimize the errors of forecasting by trying to understand

as much about the market environment as possible so that we can determine if
there is a market for a product or service, where that market is and how much of
it can be captured over what period of time? Once the market is understood and

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believed to be attractive, one can then determine what investment should be

made in marketing activities to access that market. Your market share forecasts
may be driven by some of the following (although these will vary by industry and
market):

a. The maximum number of customers in a market area

b. The number of customers whose needs create an interest in specific products and
Services
c. The rate at which customers actually use products
d. The affordability of products being offered
e. The value and benefits of the products being offered
4.4d. Step 4 – Marketing Mix

Once the market segments and the market targets are determined, actionable
elements of the marketing plan can be uncovered. The Marketing Mix is a
commonly used term appearing in many marketing publications and is used widely
by marketing managers and product managers to describe the framework for actual
marketing plans and programs for a company. To describe the marketing mix, one
expression has become predominant – the 4Ps, which include:

a) Product – a complete description of the product, its attributes, and how its
benefits and value are positioned in the marketplace.
b) Price – A translation of the value or willingness of a customer to pay for the
product.
c) Promotion – how customers are informed about the product or how
businesses communicate benefits, value, pricing actions, or product
attributes.

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d) Place (distribution channels) – the manner in which businesses deliver

products to customers.

The marketing plan should contain a description of all of the elements of the
marketing mix. Imagine that each P is a lever in a ‘marketing machine.’ As the
product moves through the market, the product team and/or marketing managers
will be making adjustments to those ‘levers’ of the marketing mix. The goal for
this section of the marketing plan is to define each of the elements of the marketing
mix and how those elements will come together in a sound plan.

In managing the Marketing Mix, it is important to understand that no one lever is

pulled on its own. These levers are adjusted in a synchronized, holistic manner in
response to a variety of observed conditions or data about market conditions. For
example, your promotional mix may be made up of a series of print advertising
campaigns, events, and email advertising. The pricing programs may include
promotional tie-ins and discounts, and your promotional campaigns may focus
only on select channels.. Additionally, the marketing mix activities should be
accompanied by market driven metrics. Metrics may focus on things like customer
satisfaction, revenue growth, market share, customer retention rates, etc. The
company may establish many metrics which may need to be modeled or analyzed
using simulations or sensitivity studies to show how one specific marketing mix
model and the variables which may influence market
outcomes.

Key practices to consider in the marketing mix are the creation of value
propositions and in positioning the product. The Value Proposition is used to
define and prove the economic or strategic benefit of the product or service for a
given target market. It must be expressed in the customer’s terms. The proof

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should be expressed clearly (e.g., improves revenue, saves time by…, improves
operating efficiencies by…., enables more rapid decision making with…ensures
higher levels of quality or integrity)

The Product Positioning Statement is a tool to describe how you wish your
company and your product to be perceived by your target audience. You may wish
to start with a statement describing your company or your division: Who are you?
(your company, business unit?) – as an optional contextual opening statement. This
is particularly useful if you combine company positioning (as advocated by Ries &
Trout) with product positioning.

To prepare your positioning statement we need:

1) The name of the product

2) The target market
3) An understanding of the needs of that market and how those needs are to be
satisfied with your product or service
4) How your product or service is better than that of the competition.

4.4e. Step 5 – Resources Identification

None of the elements of a marketing plan can be carried out unless the
contributions of all resources are known and understood. Depending on the size of
the company and degree of specialization, the resources should be identified, the
known work items should be defined, and the timelines and schedules should be
clear to all stakeholders.

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4.4f. Step 6 – Launching Products and/or Services

If the marketing plan includes the introduction of a new product, a line-extension,

or derivative, a formal launch plan should be established. The product launch is an
intense series of activities and tasks that actually begins in the early product
development phase. The product launch should be treated as a complex project
with a variety of dates and deliverables, and is a representation of the confluence of
development and marketing activities, and is best achieved through efficient cross-
functional team interactions. There are complex dependencies between cross-
functional team members.

4.4g.Step 7 – Training the Sales force

As products and services evolve, the sales force should have updated information
and training so they are prepared to qualify customers and represent the value and
benefits provided by the products and services they represent. Whether or not the
sales force is direct or indirect, they need to be equipped with the right tools to
drive the revenue objectives of the firm. This section is devoted to defining the
work needed to help the sales force to sell. It should be written simply and
concisely and in an objective style, and should include:

1) The markets on which you’re focusing.

2) Overviews about the products, services, or solutions overviews they’ll be
selling.
3) Methods to qualify opportunities and to understand customer needs.
4) Methods to capture the customer’s attention by providing compelling value
propositions.

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5) Positioning for the product against the competition.

6) Customer references.
7) Resources where more information is available for sales teams.

A. Selling Strategy – Provide a paragraph or some bullets that can be used to

help the sales teams to be successful .
B. Describe the product, service or solution. If there are simple diagrams or
product architectures, they should be included here. Furthermore, provide
the following:

a) List price and possible discounts

b) A marketplace summary, including segments, targets, and ideal
customer profiles. Also, help them to identify key buyers, users,
influencers, or decision makers, if the situation warrants this.
c) The availability dates, which correspond to the established market
windows.
C. Teach the Sales force to get the customer’s attention and get them excited
about what’s being offered. Each target group has a specific set of needs.
These were identified during the market segmentation and targeting.
Compelling information which serves to surprise customers and prospects
because of your knowledge and understanding of their specific issues and
challenges will be highly beneficial to establishing rapport. The following sub-
sections establish this framework for you, and were described in other parts of
this marketing plan.
a) A description of the market segment and the target groups in this segment
b) Listing of observed customer issues and challenges, which may be articulated
as‘needs.’

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c) The value proposition (see earlier sections on this topic) which can be used to
describe the benefits of the product, service or solution
d) The positioning statement. Pay particular attention to your advantages versus
the competition.
e) e. An analysis of the competition

4.4h. Step 8 – Budgeting

No marketing or business plan is complete without a financial plan. The budgets

established for is marketing plan should be prepared within the context of the
financial targets for the firm. Furthermore, the financial plan establishes some of
the metrics against which actual performance will be evaluated as the plan is
executed.

4.4i. Step 9 – Executing

Just like the Launch plan, the marketing plan is usually carried out by a number of
individuals from other business functions, or other groups within the marketing
department. If, for example, there is a pricing team, and their programs are
dependent on the advertising and promotion team’s work with outside agencies,
their work plans need to be coordinated and the associated dependencies identified.
As the marketing teams meet together, or with the cross-functional product team,
the deliverables and metrics should be fully understood so that program status and
issues can be communicated.

Every dimension of the marketing plan requires an investment. Whether it’s

carrying out a research project or investing in a big advertisement. All activities are

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planned to drive business. Therefore, measurements need to be put into place to

determine whether the investment yielded the intended results.

Typical measurements might consider:

a) Did the marketing program generate the number of sales leads?

b) Were the numbers of sales leads sufficient to create proposals which led to
new business?
c) Did the advertisement generate more visits to the website?
d) Did the new product generate higher levels of customer satisfaction?

It is up to the person, team, or organization to determine which metrics to use, the

frequency with which they are evaluated, and the follow on action plans which
clarify or redirect the business in deriving new marketing initiatives.

4.4j. Step 10 – Risk Analysis

As described, all operational elements and project plans need to come together
seamlessly, results tracked against performance metrics, and corrective actions
taken. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. This section should be used to
articulate the risks and issues that may emerge if deadlines aren’t met or results
aren’t achieved. The mere mention of these items is only the first step. The real
challenge is to define the alternative action plans should a specific condition be
encountered .

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4.5 Contents of the Marketing Plan

1. Executive summary and Table of Contents.

The marketing plan should open with a brief summary for senior management of
the maingoals and recommendations.

The table of contents outlines the rest of the plan and all supporting and
operational detail.

2. Situation Analysis: This section presents relevant background data on sales,

costs, the market, competitors, and the various forces in the macro environment.

Firms will use all this information to carry out a SWOT analysis. How do we
define the market, how big it is, and how fast it is growing? What are the relevant
trends? What is the product offering and what critical issues do we face Firms will
use all this information to carry out a SWOT analysis.

3. Marketing Strategy: Here the product manager defines the mission, marketing
and financial objectives, and groups and needs that the market offerings are
intended to satisfy. The manager then establishes the product line’s competitive
positioning, which will inform the “game plan” to accomplish the plan’s objective
all this requires inputs from other areas such a purchasing , manufacturing sales
finance and human resources

4. Financial Projections: Financial projections include a sales forecast, an expense

forecast and a break-even analysis. On the Revenue Side, the projections show the
forecasted sales volume, by month and product category. On the Expense Side,
they show the expected costs of marketing, broken down into finer categories.

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The Break-even Analysis shows how many units the firmmust sell monthly to off-
set its monthly fixed costs andaverage per unit variable costs.

5. Implementation Controls: This last section of the marketing plan outlines the
controls for monitoring and adjusting implementation of the plan.It spells out the
goals and budget for each month and quarter, so management can review each
period’s results and take corrective action as needed. Firms must also take a
number of different internal and external measures to assess progress and suggest
possible modifications. Sometimes, contingency plans are included which outline
steps the management would take in response to specific environmental
developments, such as price wars or strikes

4.6 HOW A MARKETING PLAN SHOULD BE?

 A marketing plan should be simple and should be easily understandable by

the marketing teams. It should be precise and clear planning and easy
implementation of the plan should be their.
 Marketing plans should identify the specific action to be taken for the
implementation of the objectives. It should be measurable and a concrete
one.
 All objectives formed should be realistic.
 It should be comprehensive ie. It should contain all the elements for
formulating them .
 It should be goal oriented.
 Marketing plans should highlight the core objectives of the organization. It
has to explain what exactly has to be done Hence it should be clear and
avoid ambiguity.
 It should be measurable.

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 A marketing plan should act as a ready tool to provide guidance and

direction concerned with the implementation of the same.
 A marketing plan should be focused to meet the desired objectives.
 It should be time bound.
 It should be future oriented.
 It should be flexible.
 It should be consumer oriented.
 It should be competitive.
 All the people responsible in the implementation of the plan should support
and be committed and acceptable with the plan . They should support the
plan.

4.7 Case

If you were running an airport and wanted to find out the probability of success
for a retail store selling travel supplies and impulse items, you might need to
find out how many passengers go through the airport every day. You would
need to understand the number of planes, their capacity and schedules in
order to figure out how many people would actually be passing through a
given area, and then make assumptions about the number of people who
would have an interest in shopping in that store. Further, you would want to
figure out how much an average purchase might be in that store and multiply
that amount by the number of people who you believe might go into that store.

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4.8 Conclusion

A marketing plan, like other plans, is a roadmap, enabling a business to define its
current situation (where are we?), its goals (where do we want to go?) and the path
to get there (the marketing strategy and the tactical plans, as represented by the
marketing mix). Carrying out this process requires a degree of discipline, structure,
and some creativity. It cannot be emphasized enough that market profiling and
research be carried out on an ongoing basis. The marketplace is filled with so many
dynamics, that by not paying attention, you could lose your competitive advantage.

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