Before you write the specifics of your 8 to 10 page plan, write just one paragraph that defines what you believe the purpose of your marketing plan to be.
For example, you might begin by writing that the purpose of the Your Name Bookstore marketing plan is to sell the maximum number of children's books at the lowest possible selling cost per book. The target market will be individuals who have or have an interest in children (parents, grandparents, godparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, etc.).
This will be accomplished by positioning the books as being so valuable to the members of the target market that they are perceived to be worth more to them than the selling price. Your marketing tools to be used will be a combination of classified advertising in magazines and local newspaper, direct mail, sale at seminars and publicity in newspapers and on radio and television. The major marketing activity will be direct mail. Thirty percent of sales will be allocated to marketing, may discover you have invested your advertising dollar in vain. Focus on those methods of marketplace advertising that will be read, seen, or heard by your target audience.
Marketing plans are as unique and different as each of us, although there are some strong common threads. A young contracting company, located in a town of 40,000, but within a marketing area of 150,000, may use marketing tools very similar to a two-person computer education organization located outside a city of 500,000, in a market area of 600,000 people . A retail stereo store in the heart of the urban metropolis (population 1 million) may elect to spend its advertising budget in a very different manner.
In each situation, however, the owner determines at the beginning of the year the dollar amount that will be spent annually on marketing and its distribution. For example, the contracting company, grossing $4,000 monthly in sales, may be willing to spend 7.5 percent of its sales dollars for marketing--a total of $300 per month or $3,600 per year. The computer firm, taking in $20,000 per month, may invest 10 percent in marketing $2,000 monthly or $24,000 per year. The stereo business, averaging $50,000 in monthly sales, may spend an aggressive 12.5 percent in marketing giving then a monthly budget of $6,250 for marketing each month or a budgeted total of $75,000 per year.
Each company has a logo, business cards, stationary, and invoice forms. Each also invested in professional marketing expertise before they began to spend their marketing budget.
The contractor used a variety of marketing methods, including circulars, brochures, signs on bulletin boards, classified ads, a small Yellow Pages display, a weekly newspaper ad, monthly direct mail campaign and free seminars.
And while this year (1993) George is spending 75 percent of his gross revenue on advertising, next year this same $300 budget will represent only 5 percent of his sales. That is how much he expects his sales to increase as a result of his consistent marketing program.
If you are interested in defining your marketing plan and are not sure what the industry norms may be, an excellent resource would be the Troy Almanac of Business & Financial Ratios, found in many library reference departments.
Dr. Peacock is former director of the Regional Small Business Development Center,
Rutgers University School of Business, Camden.
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