BUS 505

Marketing

Marketing Plan

What is Marketing plan

Why a Marketing plan exists

Components of Marketing plan

Objectives of this week

Marketing Plan

Every business needs a marketing plan

It’s not important if it is a long or short plan, it needs to be there

A good marketing plan answers to the questions:

Who?

What?

When? And

Where?

• Who is the target customer?

• What are the different products and services through which a company can

build its position in the market?

• What will be the budget of spending on the marketing activities?

• When and where will be the different activities implemented?

• What are the targets of sales and profits an organisation needs to achieve?

Marketing Plan

To identify needs and wants of consumers

Identifying the demand for your product or service

To identify the best method of satisfying your customers

To increase sales and identify best activities to do so

To identify competitor strength and weaknesses and to analyse an

organisation’s competitive advantage over competitors

To identify new areas of product development

To identify an effective marketing strategy against competition

To build long term profitable relationships with customers

Why Marketing Plan

Lets see how important is marketing plan then.

Form groups in your class with students next to you. Size of group is based on number

of students in the class.

Each of the groups choose a well known company (better to choose companies from

New Zealand.) Use internet and uncle Google.

Now answer these questions:

1. What is the main product of this company?

2. What need of consumers are they addressing?

3. What is the competitive advantage of this company over competitors?

(If you do not know what is competitive advantage, read about it then)

4. Who are the main competitor of this company?

Now your tutor will choose 3 of the groups to come and present their findings and

discuss with class, how to overcome those competitors?

Class Activity

Components of marketing plan

Depending on the company marketing plans may include different

components

All the components are important in a marketing plan

A good marketing plan is clear to any reader and is as brief as

possible

Each section of marketing plans then could be extended to include all

minute details for operational teams

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Marketing plans may include:

Executive summary

Table of content

Situational analysis

Goals and objectives

Analysis of opportunities and issues

Marketing strategy

Monitoring and evaluation

Components of marketing plan

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Executive Summary:

A short and precise explanation of the plan

This section is designed for top level managers and executives

Since they do not have enough time to read all 60 pages of your

marketing plan, we provide a very brief section

Executive summary is not more than one page in general

This section includes main strategies, suggestions and expected

results

Components of marketing plan

Lets write an executive summary together:

In the same groups as the first activities, we will practice executive summary writing.

The difficulty is you always write your executive summary at the end of the plan, but it

comes at the beginning.

To start use uncle Google to find some samples of executive summary.

In the group, choose a member’s resume (from education to working experiences) and

try to summarize the entire resume in 1 paragraph.

Note 1: Most important parts of the resume must not be deleted.

Note 2: Imagine the place you applied for a job asked you to do it. Does your summary

catch your future employer’s eyes?

Note 3: 3 groups will present their summaries in 1 minute elevator pitch style.

Note 4: Tutor will decide which one would he/she hire.

Class Activity

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Situational Analysis:

Situational analysis determines what is happening around the

company including external environments and markets

Situational analysis includes:

o Micro environments

o Market situation

o Competitive situation

o Target Buyer

o Product Situation

o Distribution situation

Components of marketing plan

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Components of marketing plan

Situational Analysis:

• Micro environments

o It refers to external marketing environment such as PESTEL.

o Impact of external environment factors on you marketing activities

and products

• Market Situation

o This is analysis of markets including market segments, expansion

options and size

o It is also important to look into size of the market

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Components of marketing plan

Situational Analysis:

• Competitive situation

o A company should know its competitors

o Knowing competitors means, knowing their strategies, market

shares, objective and strengths and weaknesses

• Target Buyer

o Understanding target audience or end users

o Their needs and also proper segmentation

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Components of marketing plan

Situational Analysis:

• Product situation

o Product demanding and pricing

o It is also imperative to know your product’s life cycle

• Distribution situation

o A company uses various methods of distribution and it must be

included in marketing plan

Question:

Can you think of 3 different distribution channels for a cake shop?

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Marketing goals and objectives:

Goals and objective must be realistic for a marketing plan

Objectives must be quantified (in numbers). E.g. the company will

increase market share by 5%.

Goals and objective must be in points and precise

Class activity:

In the groups you have, write 5 goals and 5 objectives for marketing of

NTEC in an international market. Choose the market yourself.

Components of marketing plan

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Opportunity or issue analysis:

This section analyses external opportunities and threats. (OT)

It also looks at internal strengths and weaknesses (SW)

Other methods could be used to analyze environments such as PESTEL or

Porter’s five forces.

Remember this is marketing plan so all the analysis must be towards

marketing not business in total.

Components of marketing plan

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Marketing strategy:

Aim of a marketing strategy is to communicate benefits of product or service

to customers

Marketing strategy must be in line with company’s objectives and overall

strategies

A good strategy defines a position for the product. A position such as a

different product, a replica or a low cost.

Finally a good strategy includes a good action plan

Components of marketing plan

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Monitoring and evaluation:

A cycle that never ends during marketing process

Monitoring starts from the very beginning

KPI are introduced in order to measure success of failure

Monitoring is not there to catch people but to assess and improve the

team or processes.

Components of marketing plan