MARKETING

Mentor: Jennifer Mae Langaman

Credits to: Mr. Dennis Alejandria for the slides &
Mr. Stephen John Obero for this opportunity to teach
How do I MARKET myself?

Activity: Getting to know each other

Strategies for marketing yourself successfully and
effectively:

1. Identify your niche.

2. Recognize your professional expertise & line of
industry.
3. Share your wisdom.
4. Community affiliation.
5. Service to others.
6. Social awareness and advocacy.
7. What is your message to the world that you apply to
yourself.
3
 Chapter 1
MARKETING is all
around us
 What is
MARKETING to you?
Activity: Words
7 P’s

6
Marketing

7
Marketing = Selling = Hitting the target?

8
GENERAL PERCEPTION

• Direct Mail Offers

• Tele Sales Marketing
• Selling via Kiosks outside stores
• Email Offers
• Brochures

9
TEXTBOOK DEFINITION

Marketing is a SOCIAL and MANAGERIAL

process by which individuals and organizations
obtain what they need and want through creating
and exchanging value with others.

10
LET’S BREAK IT DOWN

• Is a process
• By which companies create VALUE
• For customers and themselves

11
2 Goals of Marketing

1. Attract new customers by promising

SUPERIOR VALUE
2. Keep and Grow current customers by
delivering SATISFACTION

12
How to achieve these goals?

1. Sell products, services, brand

2. Know the customer’s need, want & demand

13
LET’S BREAK IT DOWN FURTHER
• Is a process
• By which companies provide
SOLUTIONS (Products, Services, Experiences)
• To customer PROBLEMS (Need, Want,
Demand)
• For which customer pays back (Financial
Benefits)
• And Relationships are built
14
The process of identifying NEEDS and WANTS
are Critical = SATISFACTION

Understand the customer needs to maintain the

relationship.

15
LET’S BREAK IT DOWN FURTHER

• Marketing tells companies what they should

DEVELOP
• Marketing INFORMS customers “Hey Look
we have developed this.”
• What happens next?

16
In Short, Marketing is

“Putting the right products and

services in the right place on the
right price, at the right time.”

17
 Why Study
MARKETING?
Why Study Marketing?

• We live in a consumer culture

• Shopping is a social activity
• Products confer status
• Behavioral trends
• Products inspire trends
• Trends inspire products
• Entertainment
• Sponsorship is important
• Blurring of lines between advertising and entertainment

19
Why Study Marketing?

• Marketing affects your business

• Every business needs marketing
• May or may not be professional
• Marketing affects your life
• Concepts apply to more than business
• Career
• Relationships

20
Marketing’s impact
on our daily lives
 Chapter 2
Basic MARKETING
Concepts
 The Marketing concept:
Satisfying your customers’
needs/ wants
What is a NEED?

• State of Felt Deprivation

• Basic requirements of your daily life such as food, shelter, love,
etc.
• In developing countries, Needs are still the focus of marketers

24
Recognizing needs
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

25
What is a WANT?

• Need, that is re-shaped by knowledge and

culture
• You ask for burger or pizza, rather than just food

26
What is a DEMAND?

• Where knowledge and culture and Buying

Power comes into play
• You ask for a McDonald’s fries, Starbucks coffee
• Brand is established at this level.

27
Is it a WANT or a DEMAND?

28
How to satisfy customer Needs/Wants?
1. The Healer– Understand, Listen, Validate their
perspective
2. The Visionary-Win-win situation; get excited about what
you have to offer
3. The Oracle-action plan/feature/benefits are laid out;
inform customers what to expect
4. The warrior-co-creation with the client

29
 Market Segmentation:
Developing a Target Market
Market Segmentation

4 Methods of segmentation

1. Demographic segmentation – gender, income, ethnicity, education

2. Geographic segmentation – location, regional basis, zip code,
weather
3. Psychographic segmentation – interests, lifestyles, attitudes
4. Behavioral segmentation - behavior

31
32
Group Activity: 15 mins

Market Segmentation: Car Industry

33
4 P’s of Marketing
What is Marketing?

35
36
Marketing Mix

37
 Product/service

• the whole bundle of ‘satisfactions’, either tangible such as a physical product, or

intangible such as warranties, guarantees or customer support that support that
product.
• design; specification and functionality; brand name/image; performance and
reliability; quality; safety; packaging; presentation and appearance; after-sales
service; availability; delivery; color/flavor/odor/touch; payment terms.

38
Product/Service
The principal tools that marketing managers use to manage product issues are as follows.:

1. Product/service life cycle

39
Product/Service
2. Unique positioning proposition

For marketers the term is synonymous with the idea of a slogan or strap line that
captures the value of the product in the mind of the user. It should position your
product against competitors in a manner that is hard to emulate or dislodge.

Another strategy is to set out to own the word and turn it into an ad­jective.
Hoover with vacuum cleaners and FedEx with overnight delivery are examples of
this approach.

3. Product range

4. Branding
40
Group Activity: 20 mins

Slogan / jingle making

Create a catchphrase or that catchy tune in order to

make your selected product stand out among the
mass consumers

41
Pricing

Skim vs Penetrate
Skimming involves setting a price at the high end of what you believe the market will bear.
This would be a strategy to pursue if you have a very limited amount of product available
for sale and would rather ‘ration’ than disappoint customers. It is also a way to target the
‘innovators’ in your market who are happy to pay a premium to be among the first to have a
new product. To be successful with this strategy you would need to be sure that competitors
can’t just step in and soak up the demand that you have created.

Penetration pricing is the mirror image; prices are set at the low end, while being above your
costs. Prices are competitive, with the deliberate intention of eliminating your customers’
need to shop around. Slogans such as ‘everyday low prices’ are used to emphasize this policy.
The aim here is to grab as much of the market as you can before competitors arrive on the
scene and hopefully lock them out. The danger here is that you need a lot of volume either of
product or hours sold before you can make a decent profit. This in turn means tying up
more money for longer before you breakeven.
42
Pricing

Danger of low pricing

Aside from the obvious possible problems of the cash-flow implications of

stretching out the break-even horizon and quality/image issues, it is an
immutable law that raising prices is a whole lot more difficult than low­ering
them. It is less of a problem if the market as a whole is moving up, but raising
a price because you set it too low in the first place is a challenge to say the
least.

43
Pricing

Value pricing
Another consideration when setting your prices is the value of the product or
service in the customer’s mind. His or her opinion of price may have little or no
relation to the cost, and he or she may be ignorant of the price charged by the
competition, especially if the product or service is a new one. In fact, many
consumers perceive price as a reliable guide to the value they can expect to receive.
The more you pay, the more you get.

44
Pricing

Real-time pricing
The stock market works by gathering information on supply and demand. If more people want to
buy a share than sell it, the price goes up until supply and demand are matched. If the information
is perfect (that is, every buyer and seller knows what is going on), the price is optimized. For most
businesses this is not a practical proposition. Their customers expect the same price every time for
the same product or service – they have no accurate idea what the demand is at any given moment.

However, for businesses selling on the internet, computer networks have made it possible to see how
much consumer demand exists for a given product at any time. Anyone with a point-of-sale till could
do the same, but the reports might come in weeks later. This means that online companies could
change their prices hundreds of times each day, tailor­ing them to certain circumstances or certain
markets, and so improve profits dramatically.

45
Pricing

Internet auction pricing

Once the prerogative of the fine art and antiques markets, auctioning is a fast-
growing pricing strategy for a whole host of very different types of business. The
theory of auctioning is simple. Have as many interested potential buyers as possible
see an item, set a time limit for the transaction to be completed and let them fight it
out. The highest bidder wins and, in general, you can get higher prices than by
selling through traditional pricing strategies.

46
Marketing Mix

47
Promotion and advertising

1. What do you want to happen?

2. If that happens, how much is it worth?
3. What message will make it happen?
4. What media will work best?
5. How will you measure the effectiveness of your e ffort
and expense?

48
Promotion and advertising

What do you want to happen?

• Do you want prospective customers to visit your website; phone, write to you or e-mail you;
return a card; or send an order in the post?

• Do you expect them to have an immediate need to which you want them to respond now, or is it
that you want them to remember you at some future date when they have a need for whatever it is
you are selling?

• The more you are able to identify a specific response in terms of orders, visits, phone calls or
requests for literature, the better your promotional effort will be tailored to achieve your
objective, and the more clearly you will be able to assess the e ffectiveness of your promotion and
its cost versus its yield.

49
Promotion and advertising

How much is that worth to you?

Once you know what you want a particular promotional activity to achieve, it becomes a little easier
to estimate its cost.

The ‘benefit’ should be much greater than the cost of the advertisement, so it seems a worthwhile
investment. Then, with your target in mind, decide how much to spend on advertising each month,
revising that figure in the light of experience.

50
Promotion and advertising

Deciding the message

Your promotional message must be built around facts about the company and about
the product. The stress here is on the word ‘fact’, and while there may be many
types of fact surrounding you and your products, your customers are interested in
only two: the facts that influence their buying decisions, and the ways in which your
business and its products stand out from the competition.

These facts must be translated into benefits.

51
Marketing Mix

52
Promotion and advertising

The message should follow the AIDA formula: get Attention, capture Interest, create Desire and encourage
Action. Looking at each in turn:

Getting attention requires a hook. Colour, humour and design are tools used to focus people on your offer and
away from the masses of dis­tracting clutter that occupy minds.

Interest is achieved by involving people in some aspect of the product, perhaps by posing a question such as one
diet company does with its challenge ‘would you like to loose 2 kg in 2 weeks?’.

Desire is about showing people the end result they could achieve by having or using your product. Every
speedboat advertisement has a beautiful bikini-clad girl posing on the bow, the inference being that if you
owned the boat you would be sure to get the girl too.

Action means provoking a painless way for people to start the buying process. Free trial, money-back
guarantee, offer only lasts this week and so forth are examples of the strategies used to achieve this result.

UACCA – Unawareness, Awareness, Comprehension, Conviction, Action is another acronym used in this
context.
53
Promotion and advertising

Choosing the media

Your market research should produce a clear understanding of who your potential customer group are, which
in turn will provide pointers as to how to reach them.

54
Promotion and advertising
2 Types of Advertising Media

Above the line (ATL) involves using conventional impersonal mass media to promote products and services,
talking at the consumer.

• TV, cinema and radio advertising: The vast array of local newspapers, TV channels and digital radio stations
can make this a more targeted advertising strategy than has been the case.
• Print advertising in newspapers, magazines, directories and classified ads: Print of all forms has the merit of
having a long life, so it can be used for handling more complex messages than, say, radio or TV.
• Internet banner ads act as a point of entry for a more detailed advert.
• Search engines: Search engine advertising comes in two main forms. PPC (pay per click) is where you buy
options on certain key words so that someone searching for a product will see your ‘advertisement’ to the
side of the natural search results. Google, for example, offers a deal where you pay only when someone clicks
on your ad and you can set a daily budget stating how much you are prepared to spend, with $5 a day as the
starting price.
• Podcasts, where internet users can download sound and video free, are now an important part of the E-
advertising armoury.
• Posters and billboards.
55
Promotion and advertising
Below the line (BTL) talks to the consumer in a more personal way using such media as:

• Direct mail – leaflets, flyers, brochures: Response rates are notoriously low, often less than 1 per cent
resulting in sale, but direct mail has the merit of being a proven method of reaching specific targeted
market segments.
• Direct e-mail and viral marketing: The latter is the process of creating something so hot that the
recipients will pass it on to friends and col­leagues, creating extra demand as it rolls out. Jokes, games,
pictures, quizzes and surveys are examples.
• Sales promotions, including point of sales material: Activities carried out in this area include free
samples, try before you buy, discounts, coupons, incentives and rebates, contests, and special events such
as fairs and exhibitions.
• PR (public relations): This is about presenting yourself and your business in a favourable light to your
various ‘publics’ – at little or no cost. It is also a more influential method of communication than general
advertising – people believe editorials. There may also be times when you have to deal with the press –
anything from when you are trying to get attention for a new product to handling an adverse situation,
say if your product has to be recalled for quality reasons, or worse.
• Letterheads, stationery and business cards are often overlooked in the bale for customer attention, but
are in fact often the first and perhaps only way in which a business’s image is projected.
• Blogs, where the opinions and experiences of particular groups of people are shared using online
communities.
56
Promotion and advertising

Other Advertising Strategies

Push or pull

Pull advertising is geared to drawing visitors into your net if they are actively
looking for your type of product or service. Search engines, listings in on- and off-
line directories, Yellow Pages and shopping portals are examples here.

Push advertising tries to get the word out to groups of potential cust­omers in the
hope that some of them will be considering making a purchase at about that time.
Magazines, newspapers, TV, banner ads and direct mail both on- and off-line are
examples here.

57
Place

Place (distribution and logistics)

Place is the fourth ‘P’ in the marketing mix. This aspect of marketing strat­egy is
about how products and services are actually delivered into the customer’s hands.

If you are a retailer, restaurant or hotel chain, for example, then your customers
will come to you. Here, your physical location will most prob­ably be the key to
success. For businesses in the manufacturing field it is more likely that you will go
out to ‘find’ customers. In this case it will be your channels of distribution that are
the vital link. For many businesses delivering a service the internet will be both
the ordering and fulfilment vehicle.

58
Place

Channels of Distribution:
• Retail Stores
• Wholesalers and distributors
• Cash and carry
• Mail order
• Internet
• Door-to-door selling
• Party-plan selling

59
Group Activity: 20 mins

Apply Marketing Mix

Product
Price
Promotion
Place
Report in 10 mins

60
 Chapter 3
The Marketing Plan
Parts of Marketing Plan
Parts of Marketing Plan
1. Market Research
2. Barriers to entry
3. Threats and Opportunities
4. Product/Service features and benefits
5. Target customer
6. Key competitors
7. Positioning/niche
8. How will you market your product/service
9. Promotional budget
10. Pricing
11. Location/Proposed Location
12. Distribution channels
13. 12-month sales forecast 63
Market Research

DEFINITION

systematic collection, analysis & interpretation used to develop a marketing

strategy or solve a marketing problem

STEPS/PROCESS

1. Determine the problem and set objectives

2. Collect the information
3. Tabulate the data
4. Analyze the data

64
Market Research

2 Kinds of Research
1. Primary market research is information you gather yourself. This could
include going online or driving around town to identify competitors;
interviewing or surveying people who fit the profile of your target
customers; or doing traffic counts at a retail location you’re considering.
2. Secondary market research is information from sources such as trade
organizations and journals, magazines and newspapers, Census data and
demographic profiles. You can find this information online, at libraries,
from chambers of commerce, from vendors who sell to your industry or
from government agencies.

65
Market Research

This section of your plan should explain:

• The total size of your industry

• Trends in the industry – is it growing or shrinking?
• The total size of your target market, and what share is realistic
for you to obtain
• Trends in the target market – is it growing or shrinking? How
are customer needs or preferences changing?

66
Barriers to entry

Barriers to entry-any obstacle that prevents a new firm entering a

market
Legal – Gov’t related Technical-industry Strategic Brand Loyalty
specific
1. Patents 1. Start up costs 1. Predatory Pricing
2. Licenses/Permits 2. Sunk costs 2. Limit Pricing
3. Red tape- 3. Economies of 3. Heavy advertising
excessive paper Scale
work 4. Natural monopoly
4. Standards and
regulations
5. Insurance

67
Barriers to entry

What barriers to entry does your start-up face, and how do you
plan to overcome them? Barriers to entry might include:

• High start-up costs

• High production costs
• High marketing costs
• Brand recognition challenges
• Finding qualified employees
• Need for specialized technology or patents
• Tariffs and quotas
• Unionization in your industry
68
Barriers to entry

Barriers to exit-any obstacle that prevent a firm leaving a market

1. Undervaluation of assets
2. Redundancy costs
3. Penalties for leaving contracts early
4. Sunk costs-costs that cannot be recovered

69
Threats and opportunities

Once your business surmounts the barriers to entry you

mentioned, what additional threats might it face? Explain how the
following could affect your startup:

• Changes in government regulations

• Changes in technology
• Changes in the economy
• Changes in your industry

70
SWOT Analysis
Can you tell
Who determines your prices?
Who determines your market share?
Who determines your profit level?
Who determines how fast you grow?
72
Measuring the Market

73
Competitive position

It follows that if market share and relative size are

important marketing goals, you need to assess your
products’ and services’ positions relative to the
competition in your relevant market. The techniques
most used to carry out this analysis are SWOT and
perceptual mapping.

74
75
SWOT Analysis

The purpose of the SWOT analysis is to suggest possible ways to

improve the competitive position and hence market share while
minimizing the dangers of perceived threats.

76
77
 78

https://bstrategyhub.com/swot-analysis-of-apple-apple-swot-2018/
Group activity: 20 mins

Apply the SWOT analysis

79
SWOT Analysis

80
81
Personal SWOT Analysis

82
SWOT Analysis worksheet
Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats
Product/ Service
Offering

Brand/ Marketing

Staff/HR

Finance        
Operations/        
Management
Market        
Can any of your strengths help with improving your weaknesses or combating your threats? If so,
please describe how below.
 
Based on the information above, what are your immediate goals/next steps?
 
Based on the information above, what are your long-term goals/next steps?
  83
Product/service features and benefits
Describe all of your products or services, being sure to focus on the customer’s point
of view. For each product or service:

• Describe the most important features. What is special about it?

• Describe the most important benefits. What does it do for the customer?

In this section, explain any after-sale services you plan to provide, such as:

• Product delivery
• Warranty/guarantee
• Service contracts
• Ongoing support
• Training
• Refund policy

84
Product/service features and benefits
Activity: Convert the following features into benefits

1. Coffee cup with handle

2. Pen with removable cap
3. Sunglasses with polarized lenses
4. Toothpaste with stain-removing formula
5. Car with anti-lock brakes

85
Target customer
Describe your target customer. (This is also known as the ideal customer or buyer persona.)

You may have more than one target customer group. For instance, if you sell a product to
consumers through distributors, such as retailers, you have at least two kinds of target
customers: the distributors (businesses) and the end users (consumers).

Identify your target customer groups, and create a demographic profile for each group that
includes:

For consumers: For businesses:

• Age • Industry
• Gender • Location
• Location • Size
• Income • Stage in business (startup, growing,
• Occupation mature)
• Education level • Annual sales 86
Target Market vs Target Customer

Target Consumer – specific group of consumers who are the focus

of a company’s advertisements

This focus is communicated through media and the use of

television, movies, audio, and print capabilities

Target Market vs Target Customer

Target customer is a specific group within the Target Market

87
Types of Markets
A market is simply any group of actual or potential buyers of a product.
There are three major types of markets.

1. The consumer market. Individuals and households who buy goods for their
own use or benefit are part of the consumer market. Drug and grocery items
are the most common types of consumer products.

2. The industrial market. Individuals, groups or organizations that purchase

your product or service for direct use in producing other products or for use in
their day-to-day operations.

3. The reseller market. Middlemen or intermediaries, such as wholesalers and

retailers, who buy finished goods and resell them for a profit.
88
Three steps to follow when identifying your market:
1. Identify Why A Customer Would Want To Buy Your Product/Service

• For example, if a toothpaste has a stain-removing formula, that’s a feature. The

benefit to the customer, however, is whiter teeth.
• An example is anti-lock brakes; they are features on a car, but the benefit to the
consumer is safety.

2. Segment Your Overall Market

• For example, there are many different consumers who desire safety as a benefit
when purchasing a car. Rather than targeting everyone in their promotional
strategy, a car manufacturer may opt to target a specific group of consumers with
similar characteristics, such as families with young children. This is an example of
market segmentation.

3. Research Your Market 89

Market Segmentation
Case Study…A president of a management training firm had been marketing to
Fortune 500 companies more than a year. She received some business, but the
competition was fierce. One day, she received a call from the owner of a
manufacturing plant who needed to have managers trained. The president agreed to
take the job, and found out there was virtually no competition for plant
manufacturing training services, because it was less glamorous to train in a
manufacturing plant than in executive offices of the Fortune 500 companies. The
president decided to change her marketing strategy and target only manufacturing
plants. Their promotional material reflected this change. Within six months the
company increased its revenues by 80 percent and created a competitive edge by
segmenting its market.

90
Market Segmentation

Case Study… Career Options, a job placement firm, has a target market of the
unemployed. While it’s true that anyone looking for a job is a potential customer,
developing a focused marketing strategy to reach such a broad market would be
difficult, if not impossible.

Instead, Career Options should target the following segments within the broad
group of people seeking employment: recent college graduates and professionals in
transition. Both groups share one important characteristic — they need a job — but
the two groups have different characteristics, different needs and wants. New college
graduates, for example, are young and often unsure of career paths. They have little
experience in resume writing and interviewing. Professionals in transition may be
dealing with the trauma of being fired or laid-off. They usually have a defined set of
skills and a career path.

91
 Methods of Market Segmentation
Types of Geographic Demographic Psychographic Behavioristic
Market
Consumer Local, state, Age, income, gender, Lifestyle, fun-seeking, family brand, loyalty, cost,
Market regional, profession, education, stage, trendy, hobbies, status how frequently and
national family size, seeking, sports enthusiasts, at what time of year
homeowner, marital conservative, forms of customers in a
status entertainment, socially responsible segment use and
consume products
Business Local, state, Geographic location, Business style, industry leader, brand, loyalty, cost,
Market regional, size of the company, business stage, innovative, how frequently and
national annual revenue, employee relations, conservative, at what time of year
number of branches, trade associations, socially businesses in a
number of responsible, business segment use and
employees, industry, products/stable, services used, consume products
age of company employee friendly, publication
subscriptions, workforce style,
management style
92
Key competitors

One of the biggest mistakes you can make in a business plan is to claim you have “no
competition.” Every business has competitors. Your plan must show that you’ve
identified yours and understand how to differentiate your business. This section
should:

• List key companies that compete with you (including names and locations),
products that compete with yours and/or services that compete with yours. Do
they compete across the board, or just for specific products, for certain customers
or in certain geographic areas?
• Also include indirect competitors. For instance, if you’re opening a restaurant
that relies on consumers’ discretionary spending, then bars and nightclubs are
indirect competitors.

93
Competitor data Collection plan
     
 
Price
 
 
     
 
Benefits/Features
 
  
     
 
Size/profitability
 
 
     
 
Market strategy
 
  94
 Competitive Analysis Worksheet
Carpenters/ Importance to
FACTOR Me Parlor Massage Parlor
Electricians Customer
Services          
Price          
Quality          
Selection          
Service          
Reliability          
Stability          
Expertise          
Company
         
Reputation
Location          
Appearance          
Sales Method          
Credit Policies          
Advertising          
95
Image          
Competitive Analysis Worksheet

96
Positioning/Niche

Now that you’ve assessed your industry, product/service, customers and

competition, you should have a clear understanding of your business’s niche (your
unique segment of the market) as well as your positioning (how you want to present
your company to customers). Explain these in a short paragraph.

97
Perpetual Mapping

98
How you will market your product/service
Marketing may include:
In this section, explain the marketing • Business website
and advertising tactics you plan to use. • Social media marketing
• Email marketing
Advertising may include: • Mobile marketing
• Online • Search engine optimization
• Print • Content marketing
• Radio • Print marketing materials (brochures,
• Cable television flyers, business cards)
• Out-of-home • Public relations
• Trade shows
Which media will you advertise in, why • Networking
and how often? • Word-of-mouth
• Referrals
What image do you want to project for your business brand?

What design elements will you use to market your business? (This includes your logo, signage
and interior design.) Explain how they’ll support your brand.
99
Promotional Budget

How much do you plan to spend on the marketing and advertising outreach
above:

• Before start-up (These numbers will go into your start-up budget)

• On an ongoing basis (These numbers will go into your operating plan
budget)

10
0
Marketing expenses strategy chart

  Target Market 1 Target Market 2 Target Market 3

     
One-Time
Expenses

     
Monthly or
Annual Expenses

     

Labor Costs

10
1
Pricing

How do you plan to set prices? Keep in mind that few small businesses can
compete on price without hurting their profit margins. Instead of offering the
lowest price, it’s better to go with an average price and compete on quality
and service.

• Does your pricing strategy reflect your positioning?

• Compare your prices with your competitors’. Are they higher, lower or
the same? Why?
• How important is price to your customers? It may not be a deciding
factor.
• What will your customer service and credit policies be?

10
2
Pricing Strategy worksheet
Business Name  
Which of the following pricing strategies will you employ? Circle one.
     
Cost Plus Value Based Other:
   
The costs of making/obtaining Based on your
your product or providing your competitive advantage
service, plus enough to make a and brand (perceived
profit value)

Provide an explanation of your pricing model selection.

Include strategy info on your major product lines/service offerings. List industry/market
practices and any considerations to be discussed with your mentor.

10
3
Location/Proposed location

If you have a location picked out, explain why you believe this is a good
location for your start-up.

If you haven’t chosen a location yet, explain what you’ll be looking for in a
location and why, including:

• Convenient location for customers

• Adequate parking for employees and customers
• Proximity to public transportation or major roads
• Type of space (industrial, retail, etc.)
• Types of businesses nearby

Focus on the location of your building, not the physical building itself.
10
4
Distribution channels

What methods of distribution will you use to sell your products and/or
services? These may include:

• Retail
• Direct sales
• Ecommerce
• Wholesale
• Inside sales force
• Outside sales representatives
• OEMs

If you have any strategic partnerships or key distributor relationships that

will be a factor in your success, explain them here.
10
5
Distribution channel Assessment Worksheet
  Distribution Channel 1 Distribution Channel 2 Distribution Channel 3
     
Ease of Entry

Geographic      
Proximity
     
Costs

Competitors’      
Positions
Management      
Experience
Staffing      
Capabilities
Marketing      
Needs 10
6
12-month sales forecast

If, like most start-ups, you haven’t sold anything yet, you’ll need to create
estimates based on your market research, your proposed marketing
strategies and your industry data.

Create two forecasts: a “best guess” scenario (what you really expect) and a
“worst case” scenario (one you’re confident you can reach no matter what).

Keep notes on the research and assumptions that go into developing these
sales forecasts. Financing sources will want to know what you based the
numbers on.

10
7
Marketing Plan

After reading the Marketing Plan section, the reader should understand who
your target customers are, how you plan to market to them, what sales and
distribution channels you will use, and how you will position your
product/service relative to the competition.

10
8