rose pub--25 ideas by d_thorwart

ASP

IRE

PR

ESS

25 Steps to a Successful Product Launch Marketing Strategy Planning for Aspire Press The planning part of the marketing manager’s job is emphasized for good reason. The “one-time” strategy decisions—the decisions that decide what business the company is in and the strategies it will follow—usually determine success—or failure. Deborah Thorwart 10/23/2012

Christian Solutions to Life’s Problems

http://www.goodreads.com/photo/author/3715.Joni_Eareckson_Tada

http://www.rose-publishing.com/

25 Steps to a Successful Product Launch

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25 Marketing Ideas for Aspire Press, a division of Rose Publishing.

Created by Deborah Thorwart, Marketing Consultant.

25 Winning Marketing Strategies for Success

1. Importance of Planning

2. Sound Marketing Research

3. Build on Past Experience

4. Target Marketing

5. Strong Marketing Mix

6. Knowledge of Demographic

7. Profitable Product

8. Building Brand

9. Celebrity Not Format

10. Authors as Experts

11. Brand Awareness

12. Christian Living

13. Solutions to Life Problems

14. Developing Distribution Channels

15. Pricing

16. Promotion

17. Publicity

18. Implementation

19. Control

20. Competition

21. Timing

22. Trending

23. Improvement and Correction

24. Implications for the Future

25. Onward and Upward


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Contents 25 Winning Marketing Strategies for Success .............................................................................................. 2

Part I .............................................................................................................................................................. 5

Importance of Planning ................................................................................................................................. 5

Sound Marketing Research ........................................................................................................................... 6

Defining the Problem—Step 1 .................................................................................................................. 6

As Related to Rose Publishing ............................................................................................................... 7

Analyzing the Situation—Step 2 ............................................................................................................... 7

Getting Problem-Specific Data—Step 3 .................................................................................................... 7

As Related to Rose Publishing ............................................................................................................... 7

Interpreting the Data—Step 4 .................................................................................................................. 8

Solving the Problem—Step 5 .................................................................................................................... 8

Build on Past Experience ............................................................................................................................... 8

Target Marketing .......................................................................................................................................... 9

Strong Marketing Mix ................................................................................................................................. 10

Knowledge of Demographic ........................................................................................................................ 11

As Related to Rose Publishing ............................................................................................................. 11

Part II ........................................................................................................................................................... 12

Profitable Product ....................................................................................................................................... 12

Implications ............................................................................................................................................. 13

Building Brand ............................................................................................................................................. 13


Celebrity Not Format .................................................................................................................................. 15


Authors as Experts ...................................................................................................................................... 17

Brand Awareness ........................................................................................................................................ 18

Christian Living ............................................................................................................................................ 20

Issues of the Heart .................................................................................................................................. 20

Authors Listen to Audience ..................................................................................................................... 21

Inspiration to Impact ............................................................................................................................... 21

Solutions to Life’s Problems ........................................................................................................................ 21

Part III .......................................................................................................................................................... 22


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Developing Distribution Channels .............................................................................................................. 22

Pricing.......................................................................................................................................................... 23

Profit-Oriented Objectives ...................................................................................................................... 23

Sales-Oriented Objectives ....................................................................................................................... 24

Status Quo-Oriented Objectives ............................................................................................................. 24

Promotion ................................................................................................................................................... 25

Publicity ....................................................................................................................................................... 27


Part IV .......................................................................................................................................................... 29

Implementation .......................................................................................................................................... 29

Control ........................................................................................................................................................ 29

Competition ................................................................................................................................................ 31


Timing.......................................................................................................................................................... 33

Trending ...................................................................................................................................................... 34

Future Trends: Online Marketing and Technology Predictions ............................................................. 35

Implications ............................................................................................................................................. 36

Part V ........................................................................................................................................................... 37

Improvement and Correction ..................................................................................................................... 37

Implications for the Future ......................................................................................................................... 38

Onward and Upward ................................................................................................................................... 39


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Part I

Importance of Planning Good plans are the building blocks of marketing management. You will see how marketing strategy

leads to a marketing plan and ultimately to implementation and control.

Marketing strategy planning means finding attractive opportunities and developing profitable

marketing strategies. But what is a marketing strategy? A marketing strategy specifies a target market

and a related marketing mix. It is the big picture of what a company will do in some market. It consists

of two interrelated parts: 1) a target market which is a fairly homogeneous group of customers to

whom a company wishes to appeal and 2) a marketing mix, the controllable variables the company puts

together to satisfy this target group. The marketing mix is usually reduced to four basic variables:

Product

Place

Promotion

Price

The customer is not part of the marketing mix, but the target of all

marketing efforts.

There are many marketing mix decisions to be made. Therefore a

plan is developed. A marketing plan is a written statement of a

marketing strategy and the time-related details for carrying out the

strategy. It spells out the following in detail: 1) what marketing mix

will be offered, to what target market, and for how long; 2) what

company resources (shown as costs) will be needed at what rate

A Marketing Strategy—

Showing the Four Ps of a

Marketing Mix

Marketing Planning

Set objectives

Evaluate opportunities

Plan marketing strategies

Develop marketing plans

Develop marketing

program

5 Member

Strategic

Planning

Management

Team

Control Marketing Plan(s) and program

Measure results

Evaluate progress

Implement marketing plan(s) and

program

Adjust plans as

needed


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(month by month, perhaps); and 3) what results are expected (sales and profits, perhaps monthly or

quarterly). The plan should also include some control procedures—so that the management team

knows if things are going wrong.

Sound Marketing Research The marketing research process is a five-step application of the scientific method that includes:

1. Defining the problem.

2. Analyzing the situation.

3. Getting problem-specific data.

4. Interpreting the data.

5. Solving the problem.

The scientific method is a decision-making approach that focuses on being objective and orderly in

testing ideas before accepting them. With the scientific method, managers don’t just assume that their

intuition is correct. Instead, they use their intuition and observations to develop hypotheses—educated

guesses about the relationships between things or about what will happen in the future. Then they test

their hypotheses before making final decisions. The scientific method forces an orderly research

process.

Defining the Problem—Step 1 Company objectives should shape the direction of the whole business. Company objectives guide

managers as they search for and evaluate opportunities—and later plan marketing strategies.

Marketing objectives should be set within the framework of larger, company objectives. Firms need a

hierarchy of objectives—moving from company objectives to marketing department objectives. For

each marketing strategy, firms also need objectives for each of the four Ps—as well as more detailed

objectives. Both company objectives and marketing objectives should be realistic. Ambitious objectives

are useless if the firm lacks the resources to achieve them.

Defining the

problem

Analyzing the

situation

Getting

Problem-specific

data

Interpreting

the data

Solving the

problem

Early

identification

of solution

Feedback to previous steps


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To define a problem, we have to understand what a problem is. A problem is the independent variables

that cause an organization’s performance measures to be below objectives. Our strategy planning

framework is useful for guiding the problem definition step—as well as the whole marketing research

process.

As Related to Rose Publishing

Set measurable company objectives.

Evaluate market opportunities.

Define the problem(s).

Develop marketing plan(s).

Analyzing the Situation—Step 2 When the marketing manager thinks the real problem is beginning to surface, a situation analysis is

useful. A situation analysis is an informal study of what information is already available in the problem

area. It can help define the problem and specify what additional information—if any—is needed. The

situation analysis is especially important if the marketing manager is dealing with unfamiliar areas. It is

important that management understand the problem area—including the nature of the target market,

the marketing mix, competition, and other external factors. A situation analysis is a fact-finding

mission.

Getting Problem-Specific Data—Step 3 The next step is to plan a formal research project to gather primary data. The most widely used form of

qualitative questioning in marketing research is the focus group interview, which involves interviewing

6 to 10 people in an informal group setting. The focus group uses open-ended questions to get group

interaction—to stimulate thinking and get immediate reactions. This form of qualitative research can be

used to prepare for quantitative research. Focus group interviews help marketing managers refine their

ideas about what target customers like and dislike about the product the firm is marketing or wishes to

launch into the marketplace. The ideas can then be tested in a representative sample. Qualitative

research can provide good ideas—hypotheses. But we need other approaches—perhaps based on more

representative samples and objective measures—to test the hypotheses.

When researchers use identical questions and response alternatives, they can summarize the

information quantitatively. Samples can be larger and more representative, and they can use various

statistics to draw conclusions. Most survey research is quantitative research. Survey questionnaires

usually provide fixed responses to questions to simplify analysis of the replies. This multiple-choice

approach also makes it easier and faster for respondents to reply. Fixed responses are also more

convenient for computer analysis, which is how most surveys are analyzed.


Rose Publishing needs to develop partnerships with local church women’s ministries in test

marketplaces. We need to hold focus groups of 6-10 women, and then survey a representative sample

of the whole women’s ministry group.


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Interpreting the Data—Step 4 After the data is collected, it has to be analyzed to decide what it all means. In quantitative research,

this step usually involves statistics. It is usually impossible for marketing manager to collect all the

information they want about everyone in a population—the total group they are interested in. Typically

only a sample, a part of the relevant population is studied. How well a sample represents the total

population affects the results. Results from a sample that isn’t representative may give a misleading

picture. An estimate from a sample—even a representative one—usually varies somewhat from the

true value for a total population. When interpreting sample estimates, managers should think of them

as suggesting the approximate value and not as absolutes.

Even if the sampling is carefully planned, it’s also important to evaluate the quality of the research data

itself. Managers should be sure that the research data really measures what it’s supposed to measure.

Many of the variables marketing managers are interested in are difficult to measure accurately. A

respondent may be perfectly willing to cooperate—and be part of the representative sample—but just

not able to remember the answer to the question the researcher is asking. Examples of this are in

asking: How much did you pay for the last book you purchased? What was the name of the book?

Where did you buy it? Who wrote it?

Validity problems are important in marketing research because most people want to help and will try to

answer—even when they don’t know what they are talking about. Validity concerns the extent to

which data measures what it is intended to measure. Further, a poorly worded question can mean

different things to different people—and invalidate the results.

Besides sampling and validity problems, a marketing manager must consider whether the analysis of the

data supports the conclusions drawn in the interpretation step. Sometimes the math is calculated

exactly, but the data is misinterpreted because the researcher doesn’t understand the management

problem. Interpretation problems can be subtle but crucial. Marketing managers must decide whether

all of the results support the interpretation and are relevant to their problem.

Solving the Problem—Step 5 In the problem solution step, managers use the research results to make marketing decisions. If

research doesn’t have action implications, it has little value—no matter how fascinating these tidbits of

information are that come from the research process. When the research process is finished, the

marketing manager should be able to apply the findings in marketing strategy planning—the choice of a

target market or the mix of the four Ps. If the research doesn’t provide information to help guide these

decisions, the company wasted research time and money. I emphasize this step because it is the reason

for and logical conclusion to the whole research process. This final step must be anticipated at each of

the earlier steps.

Build on Past Experience At this point, you may not envision what is to come to pass because of launching Aspire Press into the

marketplace. You have simply looked into growing your business by developing a product line to meet

the needs of an underserved demographic of the Christian Living population of women. You have just


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combined this—in stride—with the steady growth and day-to-day business activities of Rose Publishing.

In assessing the decisions you have made that helped you grow, you will realize that nothing you have

done is all that unique or unconventional. The success you have had is confirmation that the things that

are supposed to work really do work and the things that aren’t supposed to don’t. A lot of building a

business is listening to your own common sense, and then taking the necessary steps to turn the

theories into practice. Common sense is the essence of common business principles that add hardcore

profit to the bottom line of any business. Some sound business practices are as follows:

Commit (early on) to quality.

Be smart enough to know when you’re lucky.

Grow slowly.

Diversify your expertise.

Hire the best to teach you what you don’t know.

Look to world markets.

Look to timing as being critical to selling.

Know short-term greed can compromise long-term profit.

In marketing, we position products into a marketplace. A company can also position itself for the future.

In a sense, positioning is a matter of determining what someone is really buying when they buy your

product or service and then conveying those impressions and motivations to the buyer. Before a

customer can buy your product in a store, you must persuade a distributor to carry your product or

service. Positioning demands intelligence, savvy, and forethought and, at its highest level, becomes an

art form with a tangible payoff: your product or service is practically presold. This often requires

converting human emotions into product characteristics: “Be a winner by going with a winner.”

And Rose Publishing is a winning expert in the field of publishing—with a large market share of religious

readership and many awards for excellence and achievement within its industry. When you approach

decision-makers in existing or future channels of distribution, what they are really buying from you

when they buy your product or service is your proven, publishing savvy—in other words, your expertise.

Therefore, you must convey the confidence imbedded in a premise of expertise. With this confidence

will come the expectation from the distributor that you are an innovative leader in the publishing

industry; and by joining the Rose Publishing team, they will “be a winner by going with a winner.”

Target Marketing

A market segment consists of a group of customers who share a similar set of wants. It is important to

realize that the marketer does not create the segments; the marketer’s task is to identify the segments

and decide which one(s) to target. Segment marketing offers several benefits over mass marketing.

The company can create a more fine-tuned product or service offering and price it appropriately for the

target segment. The company can more easily select the best distribution and communications

channels, and it will also have a clear picture of its competitors, which are the companies going after the

same segment.


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A homogenous segment is determined through surveying the market in relation to the customers’ wants

or needs and the ability of the seller to meet those needs. A market, by definition, consists of both a

buyer and a seller and their interchange and exchange of goods and/or services for something of value.

Marketing research helps the marketer know the psychographics and demographics of a population and

to target a segment.

A Marketing Manager’s task is to identify market opportunities and to prepare marketing strategies and

programs to capture sales in the identified target markets. I would implement direct marketing in

approaching your audience. Direct marketing is the use of consumer-direct channels to reach and

deliver goods and services to customers. Direct marketers seek a measurable response, typically a

customer order. Direct marketing can be used to build long-term relationship with the customer.

Traditional direct-marketing channels have been growing rapidly due to their cost-effectiveness and

return on investment (ROI) by reaching marketing niches, but electronic marketing is showing even

more explosive growth. The growth of the Internet, e-mail, mobile phones, and fax machines has made

product selection and ordering much simpler for shoppers.

Direct marketing benefits both buyers and sellers. Customers can do comparative shopping by browsing

through mail catalogs and online shopping services. Business customers also benefit by learning about

available products and services without tying up time in meetings with salespeople. Benefits to the

seller include the ability to buy mailing lists containing the names of almost any group. They can

customize and personalize their messages. Direct marketers can build continuous relationships with

each customer. Also, direct marketing can be timed to reach prospects at the right moment, and

directing marketing material receives higher readership because it is sent to more interested prospects.

Direct marketing is cost-effective, measurable, and permits testing of alternative media and messages in

search of the most cost-effective approach. Although direct and online marketing are booming, an

integrated approach to marketing communication with minor roles relegated to the promotional mix,

including advertising and sales-promotion, is still important.

Strong Marketing Mix

Product

Physical good

Service

Features

Quality level

Product lines

Packaging

Branding

Place

Objectives

Channel type

Market exposure

Kinds and

locations of stores

Managing

channels

Promotion

Objectives

Promotion

blend

Salespeople

Advertising

Sales promotion

Publicity

Price

Objectives

Flexibility

Level over

product life cycle

Geographic

terms

Discounts

Areas of Marketing Strategy Decision Organized by the Four Ps


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Identifying a company’s market is an important issue. Market-oriented managers develop marketing

mixes for specific target markets. Product decision making is concerned with developing the right

product for the target market. Place is concerned with all the decisions involved in getting the right

product to the target market. To do this a channel of distribution is developed. The third P—

Promotion—is concerned with telling the target market about the right product. In addition to

developing the right product, place, and promotion, the right price must also be decided. In setting

price competition in the target market must be considered, as well as the cost of the whole marketing

mix, and an estimation of the customer reaction to possible prices. All four Ps are needed in a

marketing mix—they all contribute to the whole. When a marketing mix is being developed, all final

decisions about the Ps should be made at the same time.

Knowledge of Demographic The chosen marketing concept for Rose Publishing is to have it aim all its efforts at satisfying its

customers—at a profit. Basic to this concept is showing interest in customer’s needs, and even

addressing their wants. A marketing orientation moves away from a production orientation, which is

making easy to produce products and then trying to sell them. Instead of just trying to get customers to

buy what the firm has produced, a marketing-oriented firm tries to produce what customers need. At

the core of a marketing concept are 3 basic ideas: 1) customer satisfaction, 2) a total company effort,

and 3) profit—not just sales—as an objective. Ideally, all managers should work together because the

output from one department may be the input to another. The central focus of all company effort is its

customers.

The cultural and social environment affects how and why people live and behave as they do—which

affects customer buying behavior and eventually the economic, political, and legal environment. A

marketer needs to identify current attitudes and work within these constraints. Psychographics, the

analysis of a person’s day-to-day pattern of living as expressed in his activities, interests, and opinions—

sometimes referred to as AIOs or life-style analysis, helps the marketing determine these attitudes.

Demographic data and trends tell the marketer a lot about a society and its culture. Understanding the

demographic dimensions is also important for marketing strategy planning because markets consist of

people with money to spend.

But in marketing we must keep in mind that it may cost more to satisfy some customer needs than any

customer is willing to pay. So profit—the difference between a firm’s revenue and its total costs—is the

bottom-line measure of the company’s success and ability to survive. It is the balancing point that helps

the company determine what needs it will try to satisfy within the total cost of its effort.


Based on our current product line of Bible reference products, Rose Publishing’s demographic is college

and post graduate, higher income, evenly split male/female. The new demographic for the Christian

Living product line under the imprint, Aspire Press, is mainly women, age 35-55, married with two

children, household income below $50,000, high school graduate with an 8th grade reading level, and

Christian. More needs to be learned about this new demographic, and it needs to be determined if this

is the only demographic to be targeted—or if there are fringe markets to be targeted. But the reader is


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not the only customer group that Rose Publishing will deal with in the launch of its new imprint. There

are two other groups to be considered: distribution channel decision-makers and industry influencers—

translating to women’s ministry leaders.

Part II

Profitable Product When Rose Publishing sells a book, is it just selling pieces of paper between two sheets of cardboard

with ink imprints? The answer is no. You are really selling the satisfaction, use, or benefit the customer

wants. When distributors buy a product, they’re interested in the profit they can make from its

purchase. The idea of Product as potential customer satisfaction or benefits is very important.

Sometimes, business managers get wrapped up in the technical details, like the paper, cardboard and

ink. But most customers just want a product that satisfies their needs.

A marketing concept with a market-orientation and customer-centered focus is concerned about how

product quality is viewed by customers. From a marketing perspective, product means the need-

satisfying offering of a company, and quality means a product’s ability to satisfy a customer’s needs or

requirements. These definitions focus on the customer—and how the customer thinks a product will fit

some purpose. Quality and satisfaction depend on the total product offering; therefore we want to

think of a product in terms of the needs it satisfies. Customer satisfaction is incorporated into marketing

strategy planning. The proof that a strategy is working is measured in sales through profitable price

points—so the bottom-line is that the proof that a strategy is working is measured in profit and the

benefit that provides to all stakeholders in the company’s

Goods and/or services

are the product.

Because a good is a

physical thing, it can be

seen and touched. On

the other hand, a service

is a deed performed by

one party for another;

services are not

physical—they are

intangible. What we sell

are goods—how we sell

is a service. Not only is it

important to focus on excellence in quality and design of our physical product, it is importance to

demonstrate excellence in service to those customers to which we interact personally.

The Customer Concept

Starting

Point

Individual

customer

Focus

Customer

needs and

values

Means

One-to-one

marketing

integration

and value

chain

Ends

Profitable

growth

through

capturing

share, loyalty,

and lifetime

value


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Whereas, currently, we will practice the marketing concept by working at the level of customer

segments, the future of marketing is moving to a customer concept where we can shape separate offers,

services, and messages to individual customers. The goal of the customer-concept is to achieve

profitable growth through capturing a larger share of each customer’s expenditures by building high

customer loyalty and focusing on customer lifetime value. The ability of a company to deal with

customers one at a time has become practical as a result of advances in factory customization, the

Internet, and database marketing software.

Implications Customers are value-maximers. They form an expectation of value and act on it. Buyers will

buy from the company that they perceive to offer the highest customer-delivered value, defined

as the difference between total customer value and total customer cost.

A buyer’s satisfaction is a function of the product’s perceived performance (designed usage) and

the buyer’s expectations. Recognizing that high satisfaction leads to high customer loyalty, total

customer satisfaction should be both a company goal and marketing tool.

Quality is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears on its

ability to satisfy stated or implied customer needs. Total quality management programs need to

be implemented if the company is to be profitable in a more main-stream capital venture, such

as Aspire Press’s Christian Living line of product. Total quality is the key to value creation and

customer satisfaction.

Losing profitable customers can dramatically affect a company’s profits. The cost of attracting a

new customer is estimated to be five times the cost of keeping a current customer happy. The

key to retaining customers is relationship marketing. To keep customers happy, marketers can

add financial or social benefits to products, or create structural ties between the company and

its customers.

Marketing managers have two responsibilities in a quality-centered company.

o First, they must participate in formulating strategies and policies designed to help the

company win through total quality excellence.

o Second, they must deliver marketing quality alongside production quality. Each

marketing activity—marketing research, sales training, advertising, customer service,

and so on—must be performed to high standards.

Building Brand There are so many brands—and we’re so used to seeing them—that we take them for granted. Yet

branding is an important decision area. Branding means the use of a name, term, symbol, or design—or

combination of these—to identify a product. It includes the use of brand names, trademarks, and

practically all other means of product identification. Well-recognized brands make shopping easier.

Brand promotion has advantages for branders as well as for customers. A good brand reduces the

marketer’s selling time and effort. And sometimes a firm’s brand name is the only element in the

marketing mix that a competitor can’t copy.

The following conditions are favorable to successful branding:


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1. The product is easy to identify by brand or trademark.

2. The product quality is the best value for the price. And the quality is easy to maintain.

3. Dependable and widespread availability is possible.

4. The demand for the general product class is large.

5. The market price can be high enough to make the branding effort profitable.

6. There are economies of scale. If branding is really successful, costs should drop and profits

should increase.

7. Favorable shelf locations or display space is available.

Achieving brand familiarity is not easy. Brand acceptance must be earned with a good product and

regular promotion. Brand familiarity means how well customers recognize and accept a company’s

brand. The degree of brand familiarity affects the planning for the rest of the marketing mix—especially

where the product should be offered and what promotion is needed. A good brand name can help build

brand familiarity. It can help tell something important about the company or its product. Building

brand familiarity is difficult and can be expensive.

We are going to brand ROSE PUBLISHING as a family brand. A family brand is the same brand name for

several products. Examples of family brands are Keebler snack food products and Sears’ Craftsman tools

and Kenmore appliances. The use of the same brand for many products makes sense if all are similar in

type and quality. The main benefit is that the goodwill attached to one or two products may help the

others. Money spent to promote the brand name benefits more than one product—which cuts

promotion costs for each product. Family brands can also speed acceptance of new products, such as

the Aspire Press imprint. This benefit is most likely to be seen in distribution channels. At the general

public end of the spectrum, it is best to promote brands individually.

Since it is important that Rose Publishing’s established imprint, its academic line of product, maintains

its own identity from that of Aspire Press, we will use individual brands—separate brand names for

each product—because it is important for each imprint to have a separate identity as they vary in quality

and type. With individual branding comes the opportunity to utilize different positioning efforts in each

target market. Marketing defines positioning as follows: Positioning is the act of designing the

company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market. The end

result of positioning is the successful creation of a customer-focused value proposition—a convincing

reason why the target market should buy the product.

Short and simple

Easy to spell and read

Easy to recognize and remember

Easy to pronounce

Can be pronounced in only one way

Can be pronounced in all languages

Suggestive of product benefits

Adaptable to packaging/labeling needs

Not offensive, obscene, or negative

Always timely (does not get out of date)

Adaptable to any advertising medium

Legally available for use

Characteristics of a Good Brand Name


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Packaging involves promoting and protecting the product. Packaging is strategic and important to both

sellers and customers. Good packaging makes products easier to identify and promotes the brand at the

point of purchase, and even in use. Branding and packaging can create new and more satisfying

products. Packaging offers special opportunities to promote the product and inform customers.

Variations in packaging can make a product attractive to different target markets. A specific package

may have to be developed for each strategy. Customers see brands as guarantees of quality, and this

leads to repeat purchasing. For marketers, such routine buying means lower promotion costs and

higher sales.


You must separate the academic imprint from the Aspire Press imprint of Christian Living. They must be

maintained as two distinct entities each with their own individuality and personality. You state that you

“are receiving flack” from your existing demographic of academic readers. A solution to this may be in

how you package and position each imprint in the marketplace. One idea is to keep your current

website intact with little format changes. In other words, do not change the look or functionality of this

website because these customers like it or else they would not be complaining. What we can do to

unite the family brand of ROSE PUBLISHING is to develop a portal that links interested customers to

another website designed exclusively for the Christian Living line of product under the imprint, Aspire

Press, and package and position it to our target demographic of women. Each website would then be

enhanced to incorporate the likes and dislikes of each target audience to make the websites as user

friendly as possible. And, a separate imprint could be developed under the publishing masthead of

ROSE PUBLISHING for the academic line already being produced, distributed, and sold. With the

introduction of the new imprint, Aspire Press, it is perfect timing to brand and introduce an academic

imprint.

Celebrity Not Format A celebrity is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination

and influence in day-to-day media. The term implies great popular appeal, prominence in a particular

field, and is easily recognized by the general public. People gain celebrity status due to media attention.

A celebrity is then a public figure that is commonly recognizable in mass media. They become known as

media personalities.

Although, in America’s celebrity culture, celebrity is a term synonymous with wealth and commonly

denotes a person with fame and fortune, we are not looking to acquire this kind of celebrity. Celebrity

known for its fame and fortune is sometimes denigrated by the general public as being overpaid and

publicly overrated compared to normal people, or what society would label the “average Joe.” We want

to create celebrity longevity by achieving success with innate talent, passion, diligence, discipline, self-

motivation and tenacity; in other words, by building a reputation in our authors of being people of

integrity and excellence.

Sad but true, celebrity is a commodity—it sells and is sold to the public. To market an author into

celebrity status involves the use of personal branding, a term that came about in the 1980s concerning

the marketing of people as personal brands. We are going to combine the principles of personal


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branding with principles of product branding so that our authors project personality that can be

captured by mass media. We are going to personify these brands by delivering a picture of human

qualities to the public that evoke emotional reactions in this audience and create relational bonds

between them and our authors. Because after all, our authors are just people—really too the average

Joe—that have decided to share their stories of tragedy and triumph publicly with others.

Echoed by experts on personal branding is the sentiment, “People buy your personality and ideas long

before they buy your products and services.” What all this means—for Rose Publishing’s success and

our authors—is that the Personal Brand and how we market ourselves, and our clients, are far more

important than price, product and, yes, even smarts. A Personal Brand is not something you can choose

to have or not have. Everybody—and every company—has a Personal Brand. What you can choose is

whether the Personal Brand is positive, negative or neutral.

What is a personal brand? A Personal Brand is the personal identity that stimulates a meaningful

emotional response in another person or audience about the qualities or values for which that person or

business stands. It is what come to the minds of the public when they think about your brand—some of

the values or qualities that can come to mind are trust, honesty, credibility—you get the picture. Yet the

purpose of marketing is to make sure the public gets this same picture.

The single most important step in building an effective Personal Brand is accepting that what you think

of yourself or your client is nearly irrelevant: Branding is all about what others think. The branding

message is targeted to the public and controlled by the marketer. Building the Personal Brand, you

begin by identifying the emotion you want to evoke in your audience. Then you identify the word or

phrase that reflects that emotion, and which you want others to associate with you or your client. Lastly,

you must consistently engage in intentional behavior that promotes and reinforces the word or phrase

you have chosen.

Anyone whose success depends upon or requires the cooperation of another individual or group needs a

great Personal Brand. Now, more than ever, she who has the best Personal Brand wins. Manufacturing

no longer drives the American economy. Service providers do. Products we can touch and feel are no

longer the focus of the majority of commercial transactions; people and their Personal Brands are.

Today, the American economy is dominated by three disciplines: professional service providers,

technology specialists, and sales and marketing experts. There are three reasons why this shift away

from a product-driven economy to a service-driven one makes Personal Branding more important than

ever: (1) the customer’s buying strategy, (2) fierce competition and (3) information overload. A Personal

Brand provides three distinct advantages over the competition: (1) focus, (2) a powerful reserve of

goodwill and (3) the potential for superstar status.

A Personal Brand provides a defined focus and point of centralization for all business and career

development activities—which most of the competition lacks. The proper focus can be extraordinarily

powerful. A great Personal Brand should influence just about everything: dress, communicating what

you or your client does, entertaining, networking, etc. If you are passionate about the Personal Brand,

the intensity of focus and the intentionality of actions will propel you or your client to levels never


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imagined. A great brand also builds up a reserve of goodwill for those times when mistakes are made.

Everyone makes mistakes, no matter how good you are. A person’s ability to recover from major

mistakes depends upon how she responds to the crisis and the amount of goodwill she has to draw

upon. The true superstar emerges only when extraordinary talent meets powerful charisma. In terms

of superstar status, it’s not due to fame or money. A real superstar is someone who can inspire and

mobilize a massive number of people for the purpose of driving positive change.


The Women's Forum is a women's Ministry Leadership Training Event, and it presents a rare opportunity

for leaders of all ages to gather in one location to share ideas, strategies, information, and inspiration

related to women's ministry. Leaders will gain insight to develop an effective ministry plan that is

intentional and creative. As church ministry leaders are a target audience and part of the "distribution

channels," I feel this is a networking opportunity that should not be missed. My idea is to enroll the

marketing manager and Michelle Borquez as attendees to network among these women. It will give the

new marketing manager an opportunity to multi-task by first hand introducing one of Aspire Press's

authors and inspirational speakers personally to Women's Ministry Leaders from across the country, and

maybe the globe. When ready to roll-out a new marketing effort and launch a new capital venture, you

must be aggressively assertive and hit the pavement running when opportunity presents itself. This will

also be the roll-out of the personal brand which is to become Michelle Borquez under the imprint,

Aspire Press.

Authors as Experts Books cannot be interviewed, nor are they experts. I would put the line of Christian Living authors in a

self-help genre. Each author and each book they write will need their own individual marketing

campaign, but an objective of the brand, Aspire Press, is to establish each author as an expert on their

subject matters. When it comes to book publicity and book marketing, media are typically very

responsive to self-help books and authors. Self-help authors are ideal for radio and TV interviews and as

expert sources for newspaper, magazine, broadcast, and Internet Media outlets. Self-help authors are

experts who provide useful, meaningful, and important information to media audiences—precisely what

producers and editors are looking for.

From personal experience, our authors know with conviction that God heals hurting hearts. Having

turned tragedies to triumphs has given them expertise on the issues of the heart on which they write.

Our books share that experience with others who do not know how to articulate their emotions so

expressively, but are still looking for solutions to life’s problems. Yet reality is we are not giving away

free advice. The end-product—the physical goods which incorporate the authors expertise—is being

sold and sold at a price.

Therefore, we will strategically craft a celebrity image and a skilled presentation and introduction of an

author to the media. We will cultivate this celebrity by targeting local and regional media, and groom

each author in a way in which larger media will respond. We will accentuate the personal brand of each

author, and build their credibility with the media to establish each author as a leading expert in their


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field. An end objective is to have media calling us to arrange interviews instead of us always soliciting

them.

We will also craft public perception. In marketing, people’s perceptions are more important than

reality. Perception is rather scientific—it is the process by which an individual selects, organizes, and

interprets information inputs to create a meaningful picture of the world. A key point of perception is

that perceptions can vary widely among individuals exposed to the same reality. People can emerge

with different perceptions to the same object because of three perceptual processes that will only be

named: selective attention, selective distortion, and selective retention.

We will strategically build images for each author. An image is synthetic. It is planned—created

especially to serve a purpose—to make a certain kind of impression. A person's image is a visible public

personality as distinguished from an inward private character. By our very use of the term we imply that

something can be done to it—the image can always be more or less successfully synthesized, doctored,

repaired, refurbished, and improved. Therefore, image is a public portrait especially painted to attract

our audiences to it. Yet at Aspire Press, we want our images to be honest reflections of our authors and

represent authenticity, but they will be very consciously and carefully projected.

Brand Awareness Image-making is sometimes seen as a negative activity. The simple fact that someone's image and

public appearance can be consciously constructed, projected, and manipulated is very discomforting and

troubling for some people. They consider it improper and unethical behavior, and have used it as the

basis for many of the most damning and recurring criticisms of public relations. Among other things,

they assert that public relations is all window-dressing, that it lacks meaningful substance, that it deals

only with images and not with reality, that it relies on deception and misrepresentation, and that it is

inherently fraudulent and manipulative.

Such critics claim public relations' images create facades for people and organizations that are no more

real than the false-front sets movie makers use to re-create New York City or the Old West on

Hollywood sound stages. And, just as movie makers want, and expect, audiences to perceive their sets

as reality and to believe they're seeing Tombstone or Singapore or the command deck of a starship,

public relations practitioners want their audiences to believe the images presented to them are real.

But, the critics argue, images are never real. They're artificial, not natural, and because they're artificial,

they're false by definition. So, these critics conclude, images and the public relations practitioners who

use them are inherently deceptive and misleading rather than helpful and informative.

As much as we might want to defend public relations, we have to admit that the critics are right about

some images, some practitioners, and some public relations activities. There have, in fact, been and

probably will be more fraudulent, immoral, unethical, and even illegal uses of images by some public

relations practitioners. But, they're the aberrations. A few instances of misbehavior do not mean that

all images, all image-making, or all public relations activities are inappropriate.


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So let’s talk about how to create and craft perception. Four promotional tools are useful for creating

brand awareness:

advertising,

sales promotion,

public relations, and

direct marketing.

Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by

an identified sponsor that advertise to various publics. Developing an advertising program is a five-step

process:

1. set advertising objectives;

2. establish a budget that takes into account stages in product life cycle, market share and

consumer base, competition, clutter, advertising frequency, and product substitutability;

3. choose the advertising message, determine how the message will be generated, evaluate

alternative messages for desirability, exclusiveness, and believability; and execute the message

with the most appropriate style, tone, words and format in a socially responsible manner;

4. decide on the media by establishing the ad’s desired reach, frequency, and impact and then

choosing the media that will deliver the desired results in terms of circulation, audience,

effective audience, and effective ad-exposed audience; and

5. evaluate the communication and sales effects of advertising.

Sales promotion consists of a diverse collection of incentive tools, mostly short term, designed to

stimulate quicker or greater purchase of particular products or services by consumers or the trade.

Sales promotion includes tools for consumer promotion, trade promotion, and business and sales force

promotion. In sales promotion, a company must establish its objectives, select the tools, develop the

program, pretest the program, implement and control it, and evaluate the results.

Tools Types

Sales Promotion

Consumer Promotion

samples, coupons, cash refund offers, prices off, premiums, prizes, patronage rewards, free trials, tie-in

promotions, cross-promotions, point-of-purchase displays, and

public appearances

Trade Promotion

prices off, advertising and display allowances, and free goods

Business and Sales-force Promtion

trade shows and conventions, contests for sales reps, and

speciality advertising


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Public relations involves a variety of programs designed to promote or protect a company’s image or its

individual products. Many companies today use marketing public relations to support the marketing

department in corporate or product promotion and image-making. Marketing public relations can affect

public awareness at a fraction of the cost of advertising, and is often much more credible. The main

tools of public relations are publications, events, news, speeches, public-service activities, and identified

media. In considering when and how to use marketing public relations, management must establish the

marketing objectives, choose the public relations messages and vehicles, implement the plan carefully,

and evaluate the results.

Direct marketing is an interactive marketing system that uses one or more media to affect a

measureable response or transaction at any location. Direct marketing, especially electronic marketing,

is showing explosive growth. Direct marketers must plan campaigns by deciding on objectives, target

markets and prospects, offers and prices, followed by testing the campaign and establishing measures to

determine the campaign’s success.

Companies are recognizing the importance of integrating their marketing communications. The aim is to

establish the right overall communications budget and the right allocation of funds to each

communication tool.

Christian Living Sometimes it’s only because Jesus lives that we can face our future. In the present, all our hope is gone.

But when we call on God—all things are possible.

Issues of the Heart Issues of the Heart are both positive and negative. Some negative issues are depression, anxiety,

unwanted pregnancy, violence, divorce, cancer, kids, drugs, alcohol, obesity, illness, unforgiveness—to

only name a few. We’ve turned away from God—we’ve become a society who doesn’t know right from

wrong because we have blurred the lines between them. As a result, we face negative issues in our

lives, and often we don’t know what to do with them, how to handle them, or where to turn. We need

God—we need what He freely offers us through the salvation found in our Lord Jesus Christ. And the

beauty of His love for us is that He heals broken hearts. God wants to bring freedom to our lives.

Rose Publishing, through its new imprint, Aspire Press, wants to bring that message of hope and

salvation to others through the words of our authors. Often our attitudes and outlooks determine the

course of our lives. Christianity offers solutions to life’s problems that our authors will share with our

publics. But we have to really decide who our publics are.

Are they just Christian women with problems, or are they broken women coming from all dimensions of

society, all cultures and all races? Are the premises and promises of God, and what our authors have to

say, only for Christian women struggling to cope with the twists and turns of life—the crooked paths

God promises to straighten when we turn to Him? Or are there masses of women crying out for sound

advice—principle that will bring salvation to them from their trials and tribulations of this life?


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I tend to think that with careful planning and faithful prayer, we will see God deliver to us, not only our

current target market, but hurting women from all over the world and from all walks of life. Our hearts

are crying, crying, crying out for Jesus Christ. When Rose Publishing delivers that message, through

effective marketing, it will be received because the Word of God does not return void.

The joy of the Lord is our strength. Positive issues that women look for guidance on are character,

enthusiasm, friendship, happiness, hope and dreams, kindness, leadership, life, love and romance,

simplicity—and this list could go on and on. In Christ, there is a never-ending supply of hope to be given

to others through this new imprint, Aspire Press. With God’s blessing, we will flourish and endure,

therefore it is important for us to plan for our future growth and prosperity.

Authors Listen to Audience Our success will come when we give an ear to our audience—when we allow our voice to be their voice.

Again, back to marketing, we are in business to determine and meet the needs of targeted markets of

people. As you are seeing, marketing uses hardcore business principles to guide us in its efforts, but

ultimately, the end-user—the customer, determines our success. One way to remain successful is to be

connected with our audience by listening to them and responding to them with Product that continues

to meet their ongoing needs in a life influx.

Inspiration to Impact We want to inspire the hearts of women to want to know Jesus by offering them Christian Solutions to

Life’s Problems, but we also want to impact them and impact the world with the message and

personification of Christ—we want to further the gospel to the uttermost ends of the earth. Herein lies

the key to our real success. God is our inspiration and the cornerstone upon which Aspire Press is to be

built.

We want to position ourselves as a mainstream publishing company with Christian values. Though we

have hard work ahead of us, we can rest in God by tapping into His wisdom—allowing His light to shine

through us as a beacon to a dark world—and be examples of worldly prosperity founded in Christian

values and Christian living. We not only want to be inspiring, we want to have impact on the world in

which we responsibly live.

Solutions to Life’s Problems The solutions to life’s problems that our author’s will communicate to our publics will come from their

hearts, through diligent study of the Word, and through life’s lessons. I heard Beth Moore say that

women are crying out for coping skills to the life’s problems. Therefore, we need to take into account

her knowledge of women and impart coping skills in our literature, DVDs, CDs, and whatever methods of

communication technology innovates. Fundamentals of our communication will be to:

Teach how;

Give tools;

Educate.

We will give expert advice and provide Christian leadership to women seeking to improve their lives

with Biblical principles that are sound common sense.


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Part III

Developing Distribution Channels Marketing channels are sets of interdependent organizations involved in the process of making a

product or service available for use or consumption. Marketing-channel decisions are among the most

critical decisions facing management. The channels chosen intimately affect all other marketing

decisions. Pricing and advertising decisions are impacted by the choice of distribution channels. In

addition, Rose Publishing’s channel decisions involve relatively long-term commitments with decision-

makers within these channels.

A marketing channel performs the work of moving goods from producers to consumers. It overcomes

the time, place, and possession gaps that separate goods and services from those who need or want

them. Members of the marketing channel perform a number of key functions:

They gather information about potential and current customers, competitors, and other actors

and forces in the marketing environment.

They develop and disseminate persuasive communication to stimulate purchasing.

They reach agreements on price and other terms so that transfer of ownership or possession

can be effected.

They place orders with manufacturers.

They acquire funds to finance inventories at different levels in the marketing channel.

They assume risks connected with carrying out channel work.

They provide for the successive storage and movement of physical products.

They provide for buyers’ payment of their bills through banks and other financial institutions.

They oversee actual transfer of ownership from one organization or person to another.

In my experience in television syndication, even though distribution involves the physical move of

product through designated channels to reach consumers, the relationships formed with the decision-

makers within the distribution network determine the success or failure of the entire effort. We are

dealing with people—individuals who often make judgments about us even before we’ve met them

based on what they’ve heard or what they know about our company.

In the business world, it is easy enough to adopt a corporate persona, or several corporate personae,

depending on the situation. But the real self—one’s true nature—can’t change color to suit its

environment. In any ongoing business situation, sooner or later—either subliminally or out in the

open—you are going to find that you are dealing with another person’s real self. Business situations

always come down to people situations. And the more—and the sooner—we know about the people

we are dealing with, the more effective we are going to be.

The day-to-day flow of business rarely provides the monumental act or the grand gesture. How people

relate to you in business is based on the conscious and unconscious statements we make about

ourselves. The way we dress, our phone manner, our efficiency, the way we phrase a letter, the way we

greet people all affect the impression we make on others. When dealing with distribution decision-

makers, we enter into the art of the deal. We are in the business of sales and negotiation. We are


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creating impressions by making people perceive us in the way we want to be perceived. It is an artful

form of positive manipulation—by controlling people’s impressions of us, we can make them want to do

what we want them to do.

Selling involves awareness of the opportunities we have every day for impressing others positively.

Creating the right impression can be as simple as treating people the way they want to be treated. If we

can create an overall, ongoing impression of competence, effectiveness, maturity, and fair-minded

toughness—the kind of people other people want to do business with—then the favorable impression

we have created will probably be a lasting one. Deals with distributors, in existing and future channels,

will come together and goods will physically move along the chain of supply and demand.

Pricing Price is one of the four major variables a marketing manager controls. Price level decisions are

especially important because they affect both the number of sales a firm makes and how much money it

earns. Guided by the company’s objectives, marketing managers must develop a set of pricing

objectives and policies. They must spell out what price situations the firm will face and how it will

handle them. These policies should explain 1) how flexible prices will be, 2) at what level they will be set

over the product life cycle, 3) to whom and when discounts and allowances will be given, and 4) how

transportation costs will be handled.

It’s not easy to define price in real-life situations because prices reflect many dimensions. People who

don’t realize this can make big mistakes. Price is what is charged for “something.” People may call it

different things, but any business transaction in our modern economy can be thought of as the exchange

of money—the money being the Price—for something. The nature and extent of this something

determines the amount of money exchanged. Pricing objectives should flow from—and fit in with—

company-level and marketing objectives. Pricing objectives should be explicitly stated because they

have direct effect on pricing policies as well as methods used to set prices.

Possible pricing objectives are:

Profit-oriented

Sales-oriented

Status quo-oriented.

Profit-Oriented Objectives A profit maximization objective seeks to get as much profit as possible. It might be stated as a desire to

earn a rapid return on investment or, more bluntly, to charge all that traffic will bear. Some people

believe that anyone seeking a profit maximization objective will charge high-prices—prices that are not

in the public interest. However, pricing to achieve profit maximization doesn’t always lead to high

prices. Low prices may expand the size of the market—and result in greater sales and profits. If a

company is earning a very large profit, it spurs competition as other companies enter the market.

Frequently, this leads to lower prices.


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A target return objective sets a specific level of profit as an objective. Often this amount is stated as a

percentage of sales or of capital investment. A target return objective has administrative advantages as

a company grows—they can create or eliminate divisions, or develop or drop products—to meet the

target rate of return. Companies that are leaders in their industries sometimes pursue only satisfactory

long-run targets. The public—and government agencies—expect them to set prices that serve the

public interest. As I’ve mentioned previously, “Short-term greed can compromise long-term profit.”

Ignoring this principle can have devastating, long-term effects on a company—moving it from a position

of stability to one of chaos. It can literally bankrupt a once prospering business. So therefore, it is best

to maximize profits while setting prices that serve public interests.

Sales-Oriented Objectives A sales-oriented objective seeks some level of unit sales, dollar sales, or share of market—without

referring to profit. Some managers are more concerned about sales growth than profits. They think

sales growth always leads to more profits. This kind of thinking causes problems when a company’s cost

are growing faster than sales—or when manager’s don’t keep track of their costs. Many companies seek

to gain a specified share (percent) of a market. A larger market share may give a firm a cost advantage

over competitors—because of economies of scale. In addition, it’s usually easier to measure a firm’s

market share than determine if profits are being maximized. A company with a long-run view may aim

for increased market share when the market is growing; the hope is that future volume will justify

sacrificing some profit in the short run. Of course, market share objectives have the same limitations as

straight sales growth objectives. A larger market share—if gained at too low of a price—may lead to

profitless “success.”

Status Quo-Oriented Objectives Managers satisfied with their current market share and profits sometimes adopt status quo objectives—

don’t-rock-the-pricing-boat objectives. Managers may want to stabilize prices, or meet competition, or

even avoid competition. This don’t-rock-the-boat thinking is most common when the total market is

not growing. A status quo pricing objective may be part of an aggressive overall marketing strategy

focusing on nonprice competition—aggressive action on one or more of the Ps other than Price. But

sometimes competitors will resort to price-cutting and thereby create price competition. You can still

maximize profits by maintaining stable price points, although inventive strategies for cost cuts in

production and distribution may be necessary—because product quality and integrity must be

maintained.

Competition spurs the economy, and sooner or later there is competition in most product-markets. And

in today’s competitive markets, more and more customers are demanding real value. Value pricing

means setting a fair price level for a marketing mix that really gives customers what they need. Value

pricing doesn’t mean bare-bones or low-grade; it doesn’t mean high prestige either if the prestige is not

accompanied by the right quality. The focus, therefore, is on the customer’s requirements. Rose

Publishing needs to develop Aspire Press as a value pricing leader. We need to deliver on our promises

and on customer expectations—because it builds customer loyalty. If you stop to think about it, value

pricing is simply the best pricing decision for the type of market-oriented strategy planning we’ve been


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discussing. To build profits and customer satisfaction, the whole marketing mix—including the price

level—must meet target customer’s needs.

Promotion Promotion is communicating information between seller and potential buyer or others in the channel to

influence attitudes and behavior. The marketing manager’s main promotion job is tell target customers

that the right Product is available at the right Place at the right Price. What the marketing manager

communicates is determined by target customer’s needs and attitudes. How the messages are

delivered depends on what blend of the various promotion methods the marketing manager chooses. A

marketing manager can choose from several promotion methods—personal selling, mass selling, and

sales promotion.

Personal selling involves direct spoken communication between sellers and potential customers. Face-

to-face selling provides immediate feedback—which helps salespeople to adapt. Although salespeople

are included in most marketing mixes, personal selling can be very expensive because of the costs

associated with a sales staff. So it’s often desirable to combine personal selling with mass selling and

sales promotion.

Mass selling is communicating with large numbers of potential customers at the same time. It’s less

flexible than personal selling, but when the target market is large and scattered, mass selling can be less

expensive.

Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation of ideas, goods, or services by an

identified sponsor. It includes the use of such media as magazines, newspapers, radio and TV,

signs, and direct mail. While advertising must be paid for, another form of mass selling—

publicity—is free.

Examples of Sales Promotion Activities

Price Deals

Promotion allowances

Sales contests

Calendars

Gifts

Trade shows

Meetings

Catalogs

Merchandising aids

Website

Contests

Coupons

Aisle displays

Samples

Trade shows

Point-of-purchase materials

Banners and streamers

Public appearances

Book signings

Website

Social media

Contests

Bonuses

Meetings

Portfolios

Displays

Sales aids

Training materials

Aimed at final

consumers or users

Aimed at distributors Aimed at company’s

own sales force


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Publicity is any unpaid form of nonpersonal presentation of ideas, goods, or services. Publicists

try to attract to the firm and offerings without having to pay media costs. Book publishers try to

get authors on radio and TV talk show because this generates a lot of interest—and book sales—

without the publisher having to pay for media time. One method to introduce our authors to

producers and editors is to hold press parties or media mixers. Realistically, in publishing,

media personnel are a target market. The better our relationship with media personnel, the

more likely we are to get media attention.

Sales promotion refers to promotion activities—other than advertising, publicity, and personal selling—

that stimulate interest, trial, or purchase by final customers or others in the channel. Sales promotion

may be aimed at consumers, at distributors, or even at our own employees.

The different promotion methods are all different forms of communication. Good marketers want

promotion to communicate information that will encourage customers to choose their product. They

know that if they have a better offering, informed customers are more likely to buy. Therefore, good

marketers are interested in 1) reinforcing present attitudes that might lead to favorable behavior or 2)

actually changing the attitudes and behavior of the company’s target market.

For a company’s promotion to be effective, its promotion objectives must be clearly defined—because

the right promotion blend depends on what the company wants to accomplish. It’s helpful to think of

three basic promotion objectives: informing, persuading, and reminding target customers about the

company and its marketing mix. All try to affect buyer behavior by providing more information. Even

more useful is to develop a very specific set of promotion objectives that state exactly who we want to

inform, persuade or remind, and why.

Potential customers must know something about a product if they are to buy at all. The informing

objective is particularly important during the introduction stage of the product life cycle for a really new

product concept. Here, informative promotion must educate consumers and build demand for the

general product idea—and not just the company’s own brand. When a product really meets consumer

needs better than other products, promotion may not have to do anything but inform consumers. But

when competitors offer similar products, the company must not only inform customers that its product

is available but also persuade them to buy it. A persuading objective means the firm will try to develop

a favorable set of attitudes so customers will buy—and keep buying—its product. The focus here is

building demand for the company’s own brand. If target customers already have positive attitudes

about a company’s marketing mix, a reminding objective might be suitable. This objective becomes

extremely important in dealing with messages from our competitors. Even though customers were

attracted and sold once, they are still targets for competitor’s appeals. Reminding them of their past

satisfaction may keep them from buying a competing product.

Most business firms develop a promotion blend of some kind because the three promotion methods

complement each other. And some promotion jobs can be done more economically one way than

another. But there is no one right promotion blend for all situations. Each one must be developed as


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part of a marketing mix—and should be designed to achieve a company’s promotion objectives in each

marketing strategy.

Publicity Public relations has often been treated as a minor element in the promotion mix, but the wise company

takes concrete steps to manage successful relations with its key publics. Marketing managers and public

relations specialists do not always talk the same language. Marketing managers are much more bottom-

line oriented, whereas public relations practitioners see their job as preparing and disseminating

communications; but these differences are disappearing. Many companies are turning to marketing

public relations (MPR) to directly support corporate or product promotion and image-making. MPR,

like financial PR and community PR, serves a special constituency, namely, the marketing department.

The old name for MPR was publicity, which was seen as the task of securing editorial space—as opposed

to paid space—in print and broadcast media to promote or “hype” a product, service, idea, place,

person, or organization. However, MPR goes beyond simple publicity and plays an important role in the

following tasks:

Assisting in the launch of new product;,

Assisting in repositioning a mature product;

Building interest in a product category;

Influencing specific target groups;

Defending products that have encountered public problems; and

Building the corporate image in a way that reflects favorably on its products.

As the power of mass-advertising weakens, marketing managers are turning more to MPR. They have

learned that MPR is particularly effective in building awareness and brand knowledge, for both new and

established products. MPR is also effective in blanketing local communities and reaching specific

groups. In some cases, the use of MPR has proved more cost-effective than advertising. Nevertheless, it

must be planned jointly with advertising. Clearly, creative public relations can affect public awareness at

a fraction of the cost of advertising, because the company does not pay for the space or time obtained

in the media. And some experts say that consumers are five times more likely to be influenced by

editorial copy than by advertising. In considering when and how to use MPR, management must

establish the marketing objectives, choose the PR messages and vehicles, implement the plan carefully,

and evaluate the results.

Whereas PR practitioners reach their target publics through mass media, MPR is increasingly borrowing

the techniques and technology of direct-response marketing to reach target audience members one on

one. How PR and direct-response marketing can work together to achieve specific marketing objectives

is as follows:

Build marketplace excitement before media advertising breaks: The announcement of a new

product offers a unique opportunity for obtaining publicity and for dramatizing the product.

Build a core consumer base: Marketers recognize the value of maintaining consumer loyalty,

because it cost far less to keep a customer than to get a new one.


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Build a one-to-one relationship with consumers: Marketers can use telephone hot lines and 800

numbers, plus the Internet, to build and maintain relationships with individual customers.

Turn satisfied customers into advocates: Customer databases and profiles can yield satisfied

customers who can become role models and spokespeople for the product.

Influence the influentials: The marketers uses targeted messages to influence the people, in

Rose Publishing’s case—ministry leaders, media, and let’s not forget the retail clerk—who

influence the targeted consumer in her buying or reading choices.

Implementing public relations requires care. One of the chief assets of publicists is their personal

relationship with media producers and editors. PR practitioners look at media producers and editors as

a market to satisfy so these media personnel continue to give time and space to their messages, which

are usually communicated in story form. MPR’s contribution to the bottom line is difficult to measure,

because it is used along with other promotional tools. The three most commonly used measures of

MPR effectiveness are 1)number of exposures; 2) awareness, comprehension, or attitude change; and 3)

contribution to sales and profits. But the most satisfactory measure is the bottom line—its impact on

sales and profit.


The publicity component of your marketing plan is probably the least expensive and most effective use

of your resources. Components of a publicity plan include:

Press releases announcing the book’s publication, author’s appearances, and news events that

relate to your book.

Feature articles online and in print that mention your book and author.

Excerpts, serial rights, from your book in online and print publications that are published before

the book is available for sale.

Reviews in online or print publications—these can be based on advance reading copies, folded-

and-gathered signatures, or on final books.

National/local radio appearances by the author or other spokesperson for the book.

National/local TV appearances by the author.

Author appearances in other venues, such as conventions or other speaking engagements.

Marketing public relations campaigns can contain the following elements:

Marketing and Publicity Budget.

Author Tour, including travel plans to support a national or regional tour to promote the launch

of Product.

Publicity. Publicity is about media exposure for your Product. Publicity events can include

excerpts (a reprinted portion of the book), features (a published article about the book), or

reviews (a critique of the book). Examples:

o Regional radio appearances in Nashville, Dallas and Los Angeles (all in Summer ’13)

o Publicity on your website (measured in visitors) and e-mail blast to list of subscribers

(measured number) on 6-13.

Advertising Plans, which include specifics.


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Promotion, which includes specifics.

Part IV

Implementation After a marketing plan is developed, a marketing manager is concerned with marketing

implementation—the process that turns marketing plans into action assignments and ensures that such

assignments are executed in a manner that accomplishes the plan’s stated objectives. A brilliant

strategic marketing plan counts for little if it is not implemented properly. Whereas strategy address the

what and why of marketing activities, implementation addresses the who, where, when, and how.

Strategy and implementation are closely related in that one layer of strategy implies certain tactical

implementation assignments at a lower level. Implementation of strategic decisions involve specific

actions and assignments. It also calls for skills in recognizing and diagnosing a problem, assessing the

company level where the problem exists, implementation skills, and skills in evaluating the results.

There are four identified skill sets for implementing marketing programs:

1. Diagnostic skills: When marketing programs do not fulfill expectations, was it the result of poor

strategy or poor implementation? The marketing manager needs to be able to assess and

determine outcomes of planning and implementation. If implementation, what went wrong?

2. Identification of company level: Implementation problems can occur in three levels:

a. The marketing function,

b. The marketing program, and

c. The marketing policy level.

3. Implementation skills: To implement programs successfully, marketers need other skills:

allocating skills for budgeting resources, organizing skills to develop an effective organization,

and interaction skills to motivate others to get things done.

4. Evaluation skills: Marketers also need monitoring skills to track and evaluate marketing actions.

Companies today are striving to make their marketing operations more efficient and their return on

marketing investments more measurable. Marketing costs can amount to 20 to 40 percent of a

company’s total operating budget. Companies recognize the high amount of waste in many practices:

too many meetings lasting too long, undue time spent in looking for documents, delays in receiving

approvals, and difficulties in coordinating vendor partners. Because of the increasingly complex nature

of business, the increased number of collaborators, and the global scope of operations, companies use

information technology to improve the management of their marketing practices. They need better

templates for marketing processes, better management of marketing assets, and better allocation of

marketing resources. This can be accomplished by using a variety of software that help companies and

enable marketers to greatly improve their spending and investment decisions, bring new products to

market more quickly, and reduce decision time and costs.

Control In spite of the need to monitor and control marketing activities, many companies have inadequate

control procedures. One study turned up these findings:


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Smaller companies do a poorer job of setting clear objectives and establishing systems to

measure performance.

Less than half the companies studied knew their individual product’s profitability. About one-

third had no regular review procedures for spotting and deleting weak products.

Almost half of the companies failed to compare their prices with those of the competition, to

analyze their warehousing and distribution costs, to analyze the causes of returned

merchandise, to conduct formal evaluations of advertising effectiveness, and to review their

sales force’s call reports.

Many companies take four to eight weeks to develop control reports, which are occasionally

inaccurate.

Types of Control

Prime Responsibility

Purpose of Control

Approaches

Annual-plan control Top management Middle management

To examine whether the planned results are being achieved

Sales analysis

Market-share analysis

Sales-to-exposure ratios

Financial analysis

Market-based scorecard analysis

Profitability control Marketing controller To examine where the

company is making and losing money

Profitability by:

product

territory

customer

segment

trade channel

order size

Efficiency control Line and staff management Marketing controller

To evaluate and improve the spending efficiency and impact of marketing expenditures

Efficiency of:

sales force

advertising

sales promotion

distribution

Strategic control Top management Marketing auditor

To examine whether the company is pursuing its best opportunities with respect to markets, products, and channels

Marketing-effectiveness rating instrument

Marketing audit

Marketing excellence review

Company ethical and social responsibility review

Types of Marketing Control


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Four types of marketing control needed by companies are: 1) annual-plan control, 2) profitability

control, 3) efficiency control, and 4) strategic control. The purpose of annual-plan control is to ensure

that the company achieves the sales, profits, and other goals established in its annual plan. The main

tools of annual-plan control are sales analysis, market-share analysis, marketing expense-to-sales

analysis, financial analysis, and market-based scorecard analysis. Profitability control seeks to measure

and control the profitability of various products, territories, customer groups, trade channels, and order

sizes. An important part of controlling for profitability is assigning costs and generating profit-and-loss

statements. Efficiency control focuses on finding ways to increase the efficiency of the sales force,

advertising, sales promotion, and distribution. Strategic control entails a periodic reassessment of the

company and its strategic approach to the marketplace, using the tools of marketing effectiveness

review and the marketing audit. Companies should also undertake marketing excellence reviews and

ethical/social responsibility reviews.

The future holds a wealth of opportunities for companies. Companies that are able to innovate new

solutions and values to marketing problems and opportunities—in a socially responsible way—are most

likely to succeed.

Competition To prepare an effective marketing strategy, a company must study its competitors as well as its actual

and potential customers. Companies need to identify competitors’ strategies, objectives, strengths,

weaknesses, and reaction patterns. They also need to know how to design an effective competitive

intelligence system. There are four main steps in designing a competitive intelligence system:

SETTING UP THE SYSTEM The first step calls for identifying vital types of competitive

information, indentifying the best sources of this information, and assigning a person who will

manage the system and its services. In smaller companies that cannot afford to set up a formal

competitive intelligence office, specific executives should be assigned to watch specific

competitors. Any manager who needs to know about a specific competitor would contact the

corresponding in-house expert.

COLLECTING THE DATA The data collected on a continuous basis from the field (sales

force, channels, suppliers, market research firms, trade associations), from people who do

business with competitors, from observing competitors, and from published data. The Internet

is creating a new arsenal for those skilled at gathering intelligence. Now companies place

volumes of information on the Websites to attract customers, partners, suppliers, or

franchisees, and that same information is available to competitors at the click of a mouse. Press

releases that never made it into the media are published on websites, so you can keep abreast

of new products and organizational changes. Help wanted ads posted on the Web quickly let

you know competitors’ expansion priorities. Trade association sites also hold valuable nuggets

of information.

EVALUATING AND ANALYZING THE DATA The data are checked for validity and reliability,

interpreted, and organized.


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DISSEMINATING INFORMATION AND RESPONDING Key information is sent to relevant

decision makers, and manager’s inquiries are answered. With a well-designed system, company

managers receive timely information about competitors via e-mail, phone calls, bulletins,

newsletters, and reports. Managers can also contact the market intelligence department or

colleagues on the company’s intranet when they need help interpreting a competitor’s sudden

move, when they need to know a competitor’s weaknesses and strengths, or when they want to

discuss a likely response to a contemplated company move.

A company’s closest competitors are those seeking to satisfy the same customers and needs and making

similar offers. A company should also pay attention to latent competitors, who may offer new or other

ways to satisfy the same needs. A company should identify competitors by using both industry and

market-based analyses. Competitive intelligence needs to be collected, interpreted, and disseminated

continuously. Managers should be able to receive timely information about competitors. Marketing

managers need to conduct a customer value analysis to reveal the company’s strengths and weaknesses

relative to competitors. The aim of this analysis is to determine the benefits customers want and how

they perceive the relative value of competitors’ offers.

A market leader has the largest market share in the relevant product market. To remain dominant, the

leader looks for ways to expand total market demand, attempts to protect its current market share, and

perhaps tries to increase its market share. A market challenger attacks the market leader and other

competitors in an aggressive bid for more market share. Challengers can choose from several types of

general attack; challengers must also choose specific strategies: discount prices, produce cheaper

goods, produce prestige goods, produce a wide variety of goods, innovate in products or distribution,

improve services, reduce manufacturing costs, or engage in intensive advertising.

There are two more kinds of marketers—a market follower and a market nicher. A market follower is a

runner-up firm that is willing to maintain its market share and not rock the boat. A market nicher serves

a small market segment not being served by larger companies. The key to nichemanship is

specialization.

As important as a competitive orientation is in today’s global markets, companies should not overdo the

emphasis on competitors. They should maintain a good balance of consumer and competitor

monitoring.


Just like Rose Publishing will be conducting intelligence on its competitors, there will be competitors

conducting the same intelligence on Rose Publishing. Knowing how intelligence data is collected gives

us an advantage as to the strategic decisions we make in releasing this internal data publicly. As

mentioned, image-making is crafted very consciously and carefully projected. Therefore, intelligence

decisions in communicating any information publicly involves strategy—and only releasing information

you want the other guys to know.


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Timing Companies that fail to develop new products are putting themselves at great risk. At the same time,

new-product development is risky. New products continue to fail at a disturbing rate. There are

reasons why new products fail. Some of them are:

A high-level executive pushes a favorite idea through in spite of negative market research

findings.

The idea is good, but the market size is overestimated.

The product is not designed well.

The product is incorrectly positioned in the market, not advertised effectively, or overpriced.

The product fails to gain sufficient distribution coverage or support.

Development costs are higher than expected.

Competitors fight harder than expected.

The product simply did not live up to customers expectations

The timing was not correct.

Up to now, Aspire Press has existed only as a word description, a drawing of sorts—a prototype. Now

you are ready to develop the idea to commercialization. This step involves a large jump in investment

that dwarfs the costs incurred in the earlier stages of development. At this stage, the company will

determine whether the product idea can be translated into a technically and feasible product. When

prototypes are ready, they should be put through rigorous functional tests and customer tests.

Consumer testing can take several forms, including focus group research as previously discussed.

When Rose Publishing moves ahead with commercialization, it will face its largest costs to date in the

development of Aspire Press. A major cost is marketing. Most new-product campaigns rely on a

sequenced mix of market communications tools. In commercializing a new product, market-entry

timing is critical. But timing is peculiar and particular.

Timing itself is not pragmatic. It is not a precept or a set of rules that can be followed, but a percept—

sensory signals that are picked up by the brain and then applied to the selling situation. When you

combine the perceptory nature of time with all the timing intangibles of selling—correct or appropriate

timing is almost always a judgment call. What this means is that those people, or companies whose

decisions are being made by people, who seem to be blessed with an innate sense of good timing are

really those people who are most sensitively attuned—to themselves, to their customers, and to the

selling environment itself. Any selling situation—whether it’s a simple transaction or a complex series of

maneuvers covering several years—gives off its own unique sensory signals, which are there for anyone

to pick up.

We can use our common sense when rolling out the Aspire Press Launch campaign. A calculated

strategy, as outlined in this report, reduces risk. Once we have segmented the market, chosen our

target customer groups and identified their needs, and determined its desired market positioning, we

are ready to develop and launch our new imprint, Aspire Press. The management team should


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participate with marketing in every stage of this process. We are a team and we succeed as a team—

and we fail as a team.

Trending The major responsibility for identifying significant marketplace changes falls to the company’s

marketers. More than any other group in the company, they must be the trend trackers and

opportunity seekers. Although every manager in an organization needs to observe the outside

environment, marketers have two advantages: They have disciplined methods—marketing intelligence

and marketing research—for collecting information about the marketing environment. They also spend

more time with customers and more time watching competitors.

Successful companies recognize and respond profitably to unmet needs and trends. Enterprising

individuals and companies manage to create new solutions to unmet needs. Many opportunities are

found by identifying trends. A trend is a direction or sequence of events that has some momentum and

durability. Megatrends are large social, economic, political, and technological changes that are slow to

form, and once in place, they influence us for some time—between seven to ten years, or longer.

Trends and megatrends merit close attention. A new product or marketing program is likely to be more

successful if it is in line with strong trends rather than opposed to them, but detecting a new market

opportunity does not guarantee success, even if it’s technically feasible. When technology changes, it

may take time before it revolutionizes an industry—an example of this is electronic books. Marketing

research is necessary to determine an opportunity’s profit potential.

Identifying and Responding to Major Global Forces Companies and their suppliers, marketing intermediaries, customers, competitors, and publics all operate in a macroenvironment of forces and trends that shape opportunities and pose threats. These forces represent “noncontrollables,” to which the company must monitor and respond. In the economic arena, companies and consumers are increasingly affected by global forces. These include:

1. The substantial speedup of international transportation, communication, and financial transactions, leading to the rapid growth of world trade and investment.

2. The movement of manufacturing capacity and skills to lower-cost countries.

3. The rising economic power of several Asian countries in world markets.

4. The rise of trade blocs.

5. The severe debt problems of a number of countries, along with the increasing fragility of the international financial system.

6. The increasing use of barter and countertrade to support international transactions.

7. The move toward market economies in formerly socialist countries along with rapid privatization of publicly owned companies

8. The rapid dissemination of global lifestyles.

9. The gradual opening of major new markets, namely China, India, Eastern Europe, the Arab countries, and Latin America.

10. The increasing tendency of multinationals to transcend their locational and national characteristics and become transnational firms.

11. The increasing number of cross-border corporate strategic alliances.


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12. The increasing ethnic and religious conflicts in certain countries and regions.

13. The growth of global brands in autos, food, clothing, and electronics.

Future Trends: Online Marketing and Technology Predictions An excerpt from a blog by Lee Oden:

What does 2012 hold in store for online marketing? The acceleration of innovation in online

technologies and the ways we can discover, consume and engage with information can be a challenge to

keep up with. But as digital marketers that are more than shiny object opportunists, seeing future trends

is exactly what we need to do in order to anticipate our place in the digital universe.

It’s not just about where you can sell stuff to people right now, but next month, next year, 5, 10 or more

out. That’s why I think the concept of discover, consume, and engage is so important, because it

transcends ideas like “social network” or “search engine” and focuses more on consumers and

technologies. Will we be using a search engine like Google in 5 years? Will we be using desktop

computers in 5 years? What will future social networks look like? Answers to those questions are

answers to the future of marketing and customer engagement.

Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and plenty of other large companies are innovating at amazing speed

to gain control of our attention. Some are doing it through devices, some through content, others

through infrastructure. A handful of companies have had a huge impact on what we do online and at the

same time, new companies, start-ups and individuals are creating amazing solutions. What are you

doing to see the bigger picture and what it means for your business?


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Rather than jumping sequentially from one thing to the next, marketers should consider developing

adaptive models that allow for rapid assimilation of new technologies and trends. As it stands,

companies may adopt early with some risk, move with the crowd giving up first mover advantage or

wait and see until it’s too painful not to change. The ramp up time to evaluate and adopt new

technologies and trends is expensive. As an example, over $100 billion has already been invested in

social business and that’s just a drop in the bucket compared to the next 5 years as companies

implement enterprise collaboration platforms and social technologies.

In order to survive and thrive, I think more companies are going to evolve their ability to adapt more

quickly, tune in to trends and data more efficiently and at the same time have the infrastructure and

partnerships that will allow them to evolve and innovate at greater speed.

From a practical level, the new internet no longer exists on your computer as consumers and content

shifts to tablet devices and smartphones. The search experience has not only become distinctly different

for consumers through user innovations like Siri, interface and back-end changes but also for marketers

trying to play Google’s game in achieving top search visibility.

Implications Successful companies realize that the marketing environment presents a never-ending series of

opportunities and threats. The major responsibility for indentifying significant changes in the

macroenvironment falls to a company’s marketers. Many opportunities are found by identifying trends

and megatrends. Within the rapidly changing global picture, marketers must monitor six major

environmental forces: demographic, economic, natural, technological, political-legal, and social-cultural.

In the demographic environment, marketers must be aware of worldwide population growth;

changing mixes of age, ethnic composition, and educational levels; the rise of nontraditional

families; large geographical shifts in population; and the move to micromarketing and away

from mass marketing.

In the economic arena, marketers need to focus on income distribution and levels of savings,

debt, and credit availability.

In the natural environment, marketers need to be aware of raw materials shortages, increased

energy costs and pollution levels, and the changing role of governments in environmental

protection.

In the technological area, marketers should take account of the accelerating pace of

technological change, opportunities for innovation, varying research and development budgets,

and the increase governmental regulation brought about by technological change.

In the political-legal environment, marketers must work within many laws regulating business

practices and with various special-interest groups.

In the social-cultural arena, marketers must understand people’s views of themselves, others,

organizations, society, nature, and the universe. They must market products that correspond to


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society’s core and secondary values, and address the needs of different subcultures within a

society.

The effect of all these changes is fragmentation of the mass market into numerous micromarkets.

Part V

Improvement and Correction Making an investment in a Marketing Manager is in effect establishing within Rose Publishing a

Marketing Department. The continued growth of the company will warrant additional investment in

marketing research, new-product development, advertising, sales promotion, and customer service.

Building an effective marketing department is a move that permits the CEO, and the other members of

the Strategic Planning Management Team, to obtain a more balanced view of company opportunities

and problems.

But departmental organization is increasingly being viewed as a barrier to smooth performance of

fundamental business processes. Many companies are now refocusing their structures on key processes

rather than departments. A company can have an excellent marketing department, yet fail at

marketing. Savvy business know that the customer is the center of its operations, and only when all

employees realize that their jobs are to create, serve, and satisfy customers does the company become

an effective marketer.

Many companies are beginning to realize that they are not really market-and-customer driven—they are

product-and-sales driven. Rose Publishing needs to transform itself into a true market-driven company.

This will require:

1. Developing a companywide passion for customers.

2. Organizing around customer segments instead of around products.

3. Developing a deep understanding of customers through qualitative and quantitative research.

The payoffs are considerable. Research is finding that the more aggressive a company’s customer-

focused strategy, the higher its productivity. The task is not easy. It will not happen as a result of the

CEO making speeches and urging every employee to “think customer.” The change will require a change

in job and department definitions, responsibilities, incentives, and relationships.

One of the most important steps a CEO can take to create a market-and-customer-focused company is

to empower employees. This can be achieved by rewarding employees for coming up with new ideas

and empowering them in customer-centered efforts. It is important to recognize the human resources

within a company, honor their achievements, and reward them for jobs well done.

In large companies entrenched in a product-and-sales driven orientation, it has taken a great amount of

money, planning, and patience to get managers to accept the fact that customers are the foundation of

the company’s business and its future. The beauty of introducing a market-and-customer driven


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orientation at Rose Publishing is that Rose can implement sound marketing principles at the inception of

it new marketing “department.”

Although being manned by one person at this time, I believe that you have seen that marketing is a huge

operation. Therefore, building on the foundations of the marketing principles laid out in this report, we

need to set reasonable goals for the future and generate ideas that are profitable in a changing

economy.

Implications for the Future Rose Publishing needs to vividly envision its future. Reality stops just short of imagination. I tend to

think big and to think outside of the box. Product lines I could see Rose Publishing developing under the

imprint, Aspire Press, are:

Stationery—day planners, journals, 2”x3” flip calendars, note cards, note paper, cards, photo

albums—with quotations from our authors dispersed throughout them.

T-shirts for women—fashionable T-shirts—again with Christian symbolism, verses, and sayings

from our authors. Soft cottons, v-necks, a little bling—big and small sizes—should all be

considered.

Coffee cups, tea cups, picture frames, and all things printable that are feminine and fit within

our vision.

We want to stay within the $.99 - $7.99 price points. To produce value and quality in our product lines,

we need to work with vendors who are also value and quality minded.

Technology and media are changing. The internet is the perfect venue for the resurgence of publishing.

Print, audio, and video are converging on this medium. If we dare to be visionaries and forward

thinkers, Rose Publishing will be an innovative leader in this mass medium. With the advancement of

digital technology, publishing is no longer just about printed text—audio and video elements come into

play with these converging mediums. Rose Publishing should embrace this future and help move

publishing into its next frontier. DVDs and CDs should immediately be produced along with printed

texts.

A focus group interview needs to be conducted on the $3.99 pamphlets to determine their long-term

profitability. I am not convinced that our targeted demographic does not read books, but that books

may not be affordable to them; they also may not like lengthy texts. Again, we need to survey this

demographic and produce product that meet their needs and wants within our $.99 - $7.99 price points.

We need to develop Aspire Press as a value leader.

Immediately, we need to focus on the vision seen by Rose Publishing in determining to hire a marketing

manager. We need to build a marketing department within that vision looking out to the peripheral.

We need to group and then determine how to regroup in order to move the company into a profitable

future.


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Onward and Upward What better goal is there for our future but to focus on that which moves and propels us, Onward and

Upward!

There is a lot of hard work to be done in making the imprint, Aspire Press, viable, popular, and

prosperous. This report has allowed you to see into the inner workings of marketing, as both an art

and a science. In learning about the power of perception and in how images are created in the minds of

an audience, you have come to realize that marketing is a craft.

Marketing does not exist in isolation. It is intertwined within all managerial aspects of the company with

its eye on the customer. I wanted you to see the spectrum of marketing so that you can make an

informed decision in developing your marketing and moving your company forward.

rose pub--25 ideas by d_thorwart

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