Marketing plan

STEP 1: Understand the market

• The microenvironment
1. Competitors: freelancers offering accounting related services,
bookkeepers, accountants, accounting firms, online accounting firms
2. Customers
3. Publics
4. Marketing intermediaries
5. Suppliers
• The macro environment
1. Target audience: Gen X, Millennials
2. Political environment: regulations
3. Economic environment: consumers have now adopted a back-to-
basics sensibility in their lifestyles. focusing on value for the money
4. Cultural environment: most Americans believe in individual freedom,
hard work, getting married, and achievement and success.
▪ People’s view of themselves: personal pleasure, wanting fun,
avid pursuit of career and goals
▪ People’s view of others: participate in online networking
▪ People’s Views of Organisations: need to find new ways to build
consumer & employee confidence
▪ People’s Views of Nature: A long-term trend has been people’s
growing mastery over nature through technology and the belief
that nature is bountiful.
▪ People’s Views of the Universe: renewed interest in spirituality,
perhaps as a part of a broader search for a new inner purpose.
People have been moving away from materialism and dog-eat-
dog ambition to seek more permanent values—family,
community, earth, faith—and a more certain grasp of right and
wrong. Rather than calling it “religion,” they call it “spirituality.”
One recent survey found that whereas Americans have
become less religious in recent years, the share of people who
feel a deep sense of “spiritual peace and well-being” as well as
a deep sense of “wonder about the universe” has risen.
5. Technological: keep up-to date with latest developments

Responding to the Marketing Environment: “There are three kinds of companies:

those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who
wonder what’s happened.”
companies take a proactive stance toward the marketing environment. Rather than
assuming that strategic options are bounded by the current environment, these firms
develop strategies to change the environment. Companies and their products often
create and shape new industries and their structures
Competitive marketing intelligence is the systematic monitoring, collection, and
analysis of publicly available information about consumers, competitors, and
developments in the marketplace. The goal of competitive marketing intelligence is
to improve strategic decision making by understanding the consumer environment,
assessing and tracking competitors’ actions, and providing early warnings of
opportunities and threats.

Tools available:
1. observing consumers firsthand
2. benchmarking competitors’ products
3. conducting online research
4. monitoring social and mobile media in real-time.

Sources of data:
the U.S. Small Business Administration offers dozens of free publications and a website (www.sba.gov) that give
advice on topics ranging from starting, financing, and expanding a small business to ordering business cards.

Other excellent research resources for small businesses include the U.S. Census Bureau (www.census.gov) and the
Bureau of Economic Analysis (www. bea.gov).

online product and service review sites, use internet search engines to research specific companies and issues, and
scour competitor and customer web, mobile, and social media sites.

In summary, secondary data collection, observation, surveys, and experiments can all be used effectively by small
organisations with small budgets. However, although these informal research methods are less complex and less
costly, they still must be conducted with care. Managers must think carefully about the objectives of the research,
formulate questions in advance, recognise the biases introduced by smaller samples and less skilled researchers,
and conduct the research systematically

Marketing Research: can allow for deeper, more focused probing, especially into
the whys and wherefores of consumer attitudes and behaviour.

Conduct research to understand the above-mentioned factors of micro & macro

environment:
1. Define the problem and research objectives: The market researcher “must first
ask smart questions”

After the problem has been defined carefully, set the research objectives.
▪ Can have Three types of research objectives:
➢ Exploratory: is to gather preliminary information that will help define the
problem and suggest hypotheses.
➢ Descriptive: is to describe things, such as the market potential for a
product or the demographics and attitudes of consumers who buy the
product.
➢ Causal: is to test hypotheses about cause-and-effect relationships.

2. Developing the research plan for collecting information

To meet the manager’s information needs, the research plan can call for
gathering secondary data, primary data, or both. Secondary data consist of
information that already exists somewhere, having been collected for
another purpose. Primary data consist of information collected for the
specific purpose at hand.

Sources for secondary data: IBA e-database

 Sources for primary data collection: online marketing research; internet and
mobile surveys, online focus groups, consumer tracking, experiments, and
online panels and brand communities.

3. Implementing the research plan for collecting and analysing data

▪ smart companies capture information at every possible customer touch
point. These touch points include customer purchases, sales force
contacts, service and support calls, web and social media site visits,
satisfaction surveys, credit and payment interactions, market research
studies—every contact between a customer and a company.

4. Interpreting the report findings

STEP 2: Understand the customer

research consumer buying decisions in great detail to answer questions about what
consumers buy, where they buy, how and how much they buy, when they buy, and
why they buy.
How do consumers respond to various marketing efforts the company might use?

Factors influencing buying behaviour of the customer:

Buying Decision Behaviour and the Buyer Decision Process:
Complex buying behaviour:
1. Highly involved & perceive significant differences among brands
2. This buyer will pass through a learning process, first developing beliefs about
the product, then attitudes, and then make a thoughtful purchase choice.
Marketers of high-involvement products must understand the information-
gathering and evaluation behaviour of high-involvement consumers. They
need to help buyers learn about product-class attributes and their relative
importance. They need to differentiate their brand’s features, perhaps by
describing and illustrating the brand’s benefits through printed promotional
materials or in-depth online information and videos.
3. After the purchase, consumers might experience post-purchase dissonance
(after-sale discomfort) when they notice certain disadvantages of the
purchased carpet brand or hear favourable things about brands not
purchased. To counter such dissonance, the marketer’s after-sale
communications should provide evidence and support to help consumers
feel good about their brand choices.
The buyer decision process:

Need Recognition: At this stage, the marketer should research consumers to find out
what kinds of needs or problems arise, what brought them about, and how they led
the consumer to this product.

Information search: A company must design its marketing mix to make prospects
aware of and knowledgeable about its brand. It should carefully identify consumers’
sources of information and the importance of each source.

Evaluation of alternatives: By knowing the importance that you assigned to each

attribute, the marketer could predict and affect your car choice more reliably.
Marketers should study buyers to find out how they evaluate brand alternatives. If
marketers know what evaluative processes go on, they can take steps to influence
the buyer’s decision.

Purchase decision: purchase decision will be to buy the most preferred brand, so
aim to deliver on the customer perceived value.

Post-purchase behaviour: sellers should promise only what their brands can deliver so
that buyers are satisfied.

Thus, the marketer’s goal is to deeply understand the ongoing customer journey,
mapping customer touch points and experiences in detail. By understanding the
customer journey, marketers can work to create brand experiences that will result in
positive purchase behaviour, engagement, and brand advocacy over time.
Five characteristics are especially important in influencing an innovation’s rate of
adoption.
Relative advantage
Compatibility
Complexity
Divisibility
Communicability

The new product marketer must research all these factors when developing the new
product and its marketing program.

Listen & watch the feedback very closely to provide better solutions than
competitors
• Work hard to ensure good word of mouth
• Online social networks
• Buying decision affected by personal factors such as
1. Age
2. Occupation
3. Lifestage (PRIZM)

SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF B2B MARKETS

Linkedin.

from helping customers define problems to finding solutions to supporting after-sale

operation. In the short run, sales go to suppliers who meet buyers’ immediate
product and service needs. In the long run, however, business-to-business marketers
keep customers by meeting current needs and by partnering with them to help
solve their problems.

Many business buyers prefer to buy a complete solution to a problem from a single
seller rather than buying separate products and services from several suppliers and
putting them together. The sale often goes to the firm that engages business
customers deeply and provides the most complete system for meeting a customer’s
needs and solving its problems. Such systems selling (or solutions selling) is often a key
business marketing strategy for winning and holding accounts.

Major influences on business buyers

Business buying process:

Problem recognition: business marketers often alert customers to potential problems

and then show how their products and services provide solutions.

General Need Description: In this phase, the alert business marketer can help the
buyers define their needs and provide information about the value of different
product characteristics.

Product Specification: Product value analysis is an approach to cost reduction in

which components are studied carefully to determine if they can be redesigned,
standardised, or made by less costly methods of production. The team decides on
the best product characteristics and specifies them accordingly. Sellers, too, can
use value analysis as a tool to help secure a new account. By showing buyers a
better way to make an object,

Supplier Search: The supplier’s task is to get listed in major directories, create a robust
online presence, and build a good reputation in the marketplace. Salespeople
should watch for companies in the process of searching for suppliers and make
certain that their firm is considered.

Proposal Solicitation: when the item is complex or expensive, the buyer will usually
require a detailed written proposal or formal presentation from each potential
supplier. Business marketers must be skilled in researching, writing, and presenting
proposals in response to buyer proposal solicitations. They should be skilled at
connecting digitally with buyers to understand their needs and requirements.
Proposals should be marketing documents, not just technical documents.
Presentations should inspire confidence and should make the marketer’s company
stand out from the competition.

Performance Review: The seller’s job is to monitor the same factors used by the
buyer to make sure that the seller is giving the expected satisfaction.

Business-to-Business Digital and Social Media Marketing: For example, B-to-B

technology giant IBM uses a wide array of digital and social media not just to
engage and support its business customers directly but also to tell the compelling
IBM brand story and to keep the company relevant, contemporary, and accessible
STEP 3: DESIGNING A CUSTOMER VALUE–DRIVEN STRATEGY AND MIX

Market segmentation:

Segmenting Consumer markets:

Using Multiple Segmentation Bases: Personicx and other such systems can help
marketers to segment people and locations into marketable groups of like-minded
consumers. Such rich segmentation provides a powerful tool for marketers of all
kinds. It can help companies identify and better understand key customer segments,
reach them more efficiently, and tailor market offerings and messages to their
specific needs.

business marketers also use some additional variables, such as customer operating
characteristics, purchasing approaches, situational factors, and personal
characteristics.

Segmenting international markets based on geographic, economic, political,

cultural, and other factors

Requirements for Effective Segmentation

To be useful, market segments must be

• Measurable. The size, purchasing power, and profiles of the segments can be
measured.
• Accessible. The market segments can be effectively reached and served.
• Substantial. The market segments are large or profitable enough to serve. A
segment should be the largest possible homogeneous group worth pursuing with a
tailored marketing program. It would not pay, for example, for an automobile
manufacturer to develop cars especially for people whose height is greater than
seven feet.
• Differentiable. The segments are conceptually distinguishable and respond
differently to different marketing mix elements and programs. If men and women
respond similarly to marketing efforts for soft drinks, they do not constitute separate
segments.
• Actionable. Effective programs can be designed for attracting and serving the
segments. For example, although one small airline identified seven market segments,
its staff was too small to develop separate marketing programs for each segment.

Market Targeting:

Evaluating Market Segments:

1. segment size and growth: right size and growth” is a relative matter. The
largest, fastest-growing segments are not always the most attractive ones for
every company. Smaller companies may lack the skills and resources needed
to serve larger segments. Or they may find these segments too competitive.
Such companies may target segments that are smaller and less attractive, in
an absolute sense, but that are potentially more profitable for them.

2. segment structural attractiveness:

less attractive if:

• aggressive competitors
• Low barriers to entry
• Substitute products
 • High power of buyers
• Powerful suppliers

3. company objectives and resources:

A company should only enter segments in which it can create superior
customer value and gain advantages over its competitors.
Targeting strategy: individual & micro-marketing.

DIFFERENTIATION AND POSITIONING

Beyond deciding which segments of the market, it will target, the company must
decide on a value proposition—how it will create differentiated value for targeted
segments and what positions it wants to occupy in those segments.

A product position is the way a product is defined by consumers on important

attributes—the place the product occupies in consumers’ minds relative to
competing products. Products are made in factories, but brands happen in the
minds of consumers.

Consumers position products with or without the help of marketers. But marketers do
not want to leave their products’ positions to chance. They must plan positions that
will give their products the greatest advantage in selected target markets, and they
must design marketing mixes to create these planned positions.

Positioning Maps: In planning their differentiation and positioning strategies,

marketers often prepare perceptual positioning maps that show consumer
perceptions of their brands versus those of competing products on important buying
dimensions.

Differentiating & positioning steps:

1. Identifying Possible Value Differences and Competitive Advantages: To the
extent that a company can differentiate and position itself as providing
superior customer value.
An alert company can find ways to differentiate itself at every customer
contact point in the customer journey. In what specific ways can a company
differentiate itself or its market offer? It can differentiate along the lines of
product, services, channels, people, or image.
Even when competing offers look the same, buyers may perceive a
difference based on company or brand image differentiation. A company or
brand image should convey a product’s distinctive benefits and positioning.

2. Choosing the Right Competitive Advantages:

Today, in a time when the mass market is fragmenting into many small
segments, companies and brands are trying to broaden their positioning
strategies to appeal to more segments.
A difference is worth establishing to the extent that it satisfies the following
criteria:
•Important. The difference delivers a highly valued benefit to target buyers.
•Distinctive. Competitors do not offer the difference, or the company can
offer it in a more distinctive way.
• Superior. The difference is superior to other ways that customers might
obtain the same benefit.
• Communicable. The difference is communicable and visible to buyers.
• Preemptive. Competitors cannot easily copy the difference.
• Affordable. Buyers can afford to pay for the difference.
• Profitable. The company can introduce the difference profitably.
3. Selecting an Overall Positioning Strategy:
value proposition—the full mix of benefits on which a brand is differentiated
and positioned. It is the answer to the customer’s question “Why should I buy
your brand?”

4. Developing a Positioning Statement: Company and brand positioning should

be summed up in a positioning statement.
 The statement should follow the form: To (target segment and need) our
(brand) is (concept) that (point of difference).
Example: “For value- and convenience-seeking buyers, Brandless is an online
food and household goods retailer that makes better stuff accessible and
affordable to more people in a responsible way.”

Communicating and Delivering the Chosen Position:

Once it has chosen a position, the company must take strong steps to deliver and
communicate the desired position to its target consumers. All the company’s
marketing mix efforts must support the positioning strategy. Positioning the company
calls for concrete action, not just talk. If the company decides to build a position on
better quality and service, it must first deliver that position. Designing the marketing
mix—product, price, place, and promotion—involves working out the tactical details
of the positioning strategy.
THE MARKETING MIX:

Product & service:

Each level adds more value.

Product & service decisions:

• Quality: companies choose a quality level that matches target market needs
and the quality levels of competing products.
• Features: a competitive tool for differentiating the company’s product from
competitors’ products. Being the first producer to introduce a valued new
feature is one of the most effective ways to compete.
How can a company identify new features and decide which ones to add? It
should periodically survey buyers who have used the product and ask these
questions: How do you like the product? Which specific features of the
product do you like most? Which features could we add to improve the
product? The answers to these questions provide the company with a rich list
of feature ideas. The company can then assess each feature’s value to
customers versus its cost to the company. Features that customers value
highly in relation to costs should be added.
• Product Style and Design: Design is a larger concept than style. Style simply
describes the appearance of a product. Styles can be eye catching or yawn
producing. A sensational style may grab attention and produce pleasing
aesthetics, but it does not necessarily make the product perform better.
Unlike style, design is more than skin deep—it goes to the very heart of a
product. Good design contributes to a product’s usefulness as well as to its
looks.
Product designers should think less about technical product specifications
and more about how customers will use and benefit from the product.
• Branding: A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, or design or a combination
of these that identifies the maker or seller of a product or service. Consumers
view a brand as an important part of a product, and branding can add
value to a consumer’s purchase. Customers attach meanings to brands and
develop brand relationships. As a result, brands have meaning well beyond a
product’s physical attributes.
• Packaging: Packaging involves designing and producing the container or
wrapper for a product. An important marketing tool as well. Not every
customer will see a brand’s advertising, social media pages, or other
marketing content. However, all consumers who buy and use a product will
 interact regularly with its packaging. Thus, the humble package represents
prime marketing space.

• Product Support Services: Customer service is another element of product

strategy. A company’s offer usually includes some support services, which
can be a minor part or a major part of the total offering. Support services are
an important part of the customer’s overall brand experience. Lexus knows
that good marketing doesn’t end with making a sale. Keeping customers
happy after the sale is the key to building lasting relationships.

PRODUCT LINE DECISIONS

A product line is a group of products that are closely related because they function
in a similar manner, are sold to the same customer groups, are marketed through
the same types of outlets, or fall within given price ranges.

The major product line decision involves product line length—the number of items in
the product line. A company can expand its product line in two ways: by line filling
or line stretching. Product line stretching occurs when a company lengthens its
product line beyond its current range. The company can stretch its line downward,
upward, or both ways.

PRODUCT MIX DECISIONS

A company’s product mix has four important dimensions: width, length,
depth, and consistency.

Width: refers to the number of different product lines the company carries.
Length: refers to the total number of items a company carries within its
product lines.
Depth: refers to the number of versions offered of each product in the line.
Consistency: of the product mix refers to how closely related the various
product lines are in end use, production requirements, distribution channels,
or some other way.

SERVICES MARKETING

Steps to take:
1. the service provider’s task is to make the service tangible in one or more ways
and send the right signals about quality.
PRICE DECISIONS:

Value based pricing:

Economic considerations.

Personalised pricing: adjusting prices in real time to fit individual customer situations,
locations, and buying behaviours.

Responding to price changes:

STEP4: ENGAGING CUSTOMERS & COMMUNICATING CUSTOMER VALUE

Promotional mix:

Sales promotion: Short-term incentives to encourage the purchase or sale of a

product or service.
Personal selling: Personal customer interactions by the firm’s sales force to engage
customers, make sales, and build customer relationships.
Direct & digital marketing: Engaging directly with carefully targeted individual
consumers and customer communities to both obtain an immediate response and
build lasting customer relationships.
Public relations
Developing effective marketing communication:

communications process should start with an audit of all the potential touch points
that target customers may have with the company and its brands. For example,
someone purchasing a new wireless phone plan may talk to others, see television or
magazine ads, visit various online sites for prices and reviews, and check out plans at
Best Buy, Walmart, or a wireless provider’s kiosk or store. Marketers need to assess
what influence each communication experience will have at different stages of the
buying process. This understanding helps marketers allocate their communication
dollars more efficiently and effectively.

the sender’s encoding process must mesh with the receiver’s decoding process. The
best messages consist of words and other symbols that are familiar to the receiver.
The more the sender’s field of experience overlaps with that of the receiver, the
more effective the message is likely to be. Marketing communicators may not
always share the customer’s field of experience. For example, an advertising
copywriter from one socioeconomic level might create content for customers from
another level—say, wealthy business owners. However, to communicate effectively,
the marketing communicator must understand the customer’s field of experience.

companies must be prepared to “flip” the communications process—to become

good receivers of and responders to messages sent by consumers.

1. Identifying the Target Audience: The target audience will heavily affect the
communicator’s decisions on what will be said, how it will be said, when it will
be said, where it will be said, and who will say it.
2. Determining the Communication Objectives: marketing communicators want
to help build customer–brand relationships and guide customers through the
five As of the customer journey: awareness (I know about the product),
appeal (I like the product), ask (I want to know more about the product and
be more engaged with the brand), act (I’m buying and relating to the
product), and advocacy (I’m telling others about the product).9 The goal is
to create content experiences that will keep customers on the path from
brand awareness and preference to purchasing the brand and advocating it
to others.
3. Designing a Message:
 • Message Content. The marketer has to figure out an appeal or theme
that will produce the desired responses. There are three types of
appeals: rational, emotional, and moral. Rational appeals relate to the
audience’s self-interest. They show that the product will produce the
desired benefits.
• Message Structure. Marketers must also decide how to handle three
message structure issues. The first is whether to draw a conclusion or
leave it to the audience. Research suggests that, in many cases, rather
than drawing a conclusion, the advertiser is better off asking questions
and letting buyers come to their own conclusions. The second
message structure issue is whether to present the strongest arguments
first or last. Presenting them first gets strong attention but may lead to
an anticlimactic ending. The third message structure issue is whether to
present a one-sided argument (mentioning only the product’s
strengths) or a two-sided argument (touting the product’s strengths
while also admitting its shortcomings). Usually, a one-sided argument is
more effective in sales presentations
• Message Format. The marketing communicator also needs a strong
format for the message. In a print ad, the communicator must decide
on the headline, copy, illustration, and colours. To attract attention,
advertisers can use novelty and contrast; eye-catching pictures and
headlines; distinctive formats; message size and position; and colour,
shape, and movement.
4. Collecting Feedback After sending the message or other brand content, the
communicator must research its effect on the target audience. This involves
asking target audience members whether they remember the content, how
many times they saw it, what points they recall, how they felt about the
content, and their past and present attitudes toward the brand and
company.