Hi, I'm Kathy thanks for checking out the fourth video inthe working for Wonka how to write a business plan series.
In this video we're going to go over themarketing strategy section of your business plan.
And I want to start by making sure that you understand the difference between a marketing strategysection of a the business plan, and an actual marketing plan.
A marketingplan is a very lengthy document that isresearch intensive and goes into the detail of the tactics that are going to be used, there's a lot of other stuff that goes in there too.
but it gets into details on tactics that will be used to marketyour product.
that's really not what needs to go intothe marketing strategy section of a business plan.
honestly, Isee a lot of entrepreneurs try to shove in tactics let's call them shiny objects,into this section of the business plan, kind of in an effort to distract the reader fromthe fact that maybe, haven't done their homework.
maybe theydon't really understand the market for the don't really know the consumer.
but they think if we put in there, thefact that we're going to get Eva Longoria to wear a t-shirt with thename of our product on it, no one will notice the other stuff that'smissing.
well first of all, no you're not gonna get Eva Longoriawear t-shirts naming your product, and yes people are going to notice.
at least the people that matter will notice.
If you're using this document toget financing, they don't care.
it's just not meantmuch important in this section.
the marketing strategy section of your business plan is really thepeople, place, and thing of your business.
The people being obviously your consumer, who you should know intimately.
the place is your market andyour industry, which you need to know this section at a statistical level.
and then thethings, are yes, marketing tactics, but it's really more whatdiscipline to marketing are you going to use, as opposed to whatspecific promotions are you going to run.
so let's start with themarket.
you have addressed your market earlierin the plan, but this is really where you add the meat to that industry detail sandwich.
youwant statistical information and hard facts on this size of your market.
get it indollars.
get it in volume.
get it geographically.
as muchinformation as you can on what this industry, what this marketlooks like.
and then you also wants to talk about the trends in this industry.
is a growing industry is it a decliningindustry? which actually maybe it's adeclining industry, because stale industry, and there's been no innovation and you're gonna change that.
even if your gonna change that, you stillneed to know what the size of that pie is that you're startingwith, so you can figure out what slice you gonna take for yourself.
or how muchbigger you can make that pie.
So an example of what trends might look,like we're gonna stay with the and how to build a better mousetrap, mousetraps that we've been talking about it earlier videos.
our trend might be mousestraps have beenhistorically steady growth industry.
this trend will continue toincrease has more gen-y cats enter the buying consumer base.
This new breed of consumer likes more gratification for less work,and therefore perfers to purchase mousetraps rather than actually hunting mice.
not apologized to the Gen Y people arewatching this.
I don't mean it.
so that wouldbe an example of a trend, that also gives a little insight into consumers and that's coming next.
in this section of your market you also want to list out who your key competitors.
and not just by name, list out what'stheir market share, by volume, by dollar by key customer, if youhave that information.
and you definitely want to list out who are the key customers in this area,because that's going to help drive the sales strategy section.
after themarketplace we're going to talk about who are the consumers.
who are these people that we think we'regoing to take take this money from? you want to list thedemographics, which is age, gender, race, geography.
psychographic, which doesn't mean yourconsumers crazy, it's their lifestyle, behaviors, attitudes.
and then their purchase behavior, howare they currently purchasing the product.
and even if it's not your products havethe currently purchase your competitor's product.
and how are they purchasing and using your product if you have a product.
an example of how all of that might look is let's say our primary target is a three toseven year old male feline, this cat lives indoors, in allregions in the US.
in is an estimated numbers and 23 gajillion.
I have no idea how much house cats thereare.
Nor do I care to know.
(dog person) an example of psychographics might be our target consumer is a laid-backlacksadaiscious fat cat.
he's a house cat that has beenspoiled by its owners, and therefore has lost the ability, and / or the desire tohunt for food.
and this could go on now for quite a bit.
such information as is really relevantto your business plan should go here.
example purchase behavior might be, dueto the slothful nature of the target's lifestyle, almost eighty percent of the target's mousetrap purchases are done online.
the remaining 20 percent off purchases take place at flea market and garage sales.
now that helps us understand where weneed to go when we start looking at the channels of trade that we're going to target with our sales.
now let's focus on the brand.
the most important thing you need to do is learn how to position at your brandin your consumers minds.
lot people find this confusing.
you can find more information on this aton Working for Wonka or shoot me an email and if you have a question.
the contactinformation is on Working for Wonka.
but start with this sentence.
if you canput your brand into this sentence you can work out positioning.
if you say "to my target, my brand is, and then give a frame ofreference.
it doesn't have to be at frame of reference in the same category.
it doesn't have to be competitive brand.
you just wanna say, what can Icompare this to that works with my point ofdifferentiation, my unique selling proposition.
so lets uses this for example let's say thatI had a used car dealership, I sold to low-income consumers, and Iincluded a dead body in the trunk a every car I sold.
But, you never knew what kind of dead body it was gonna be.
it might be a polar bear, it might be it a terrorist.
who knows.
It's a surprise.
well my frame ofreference might be cracker jacks.
you know there'salways a surprise in the box, and you never know what you're gonna get.
so for this sentence I would say to low-income consumers that would be the target for this brand, crappy cars is the cracker jacks.
that gives me a surprise with every sale,because it includes a dead body in the trunk.
Did that make sense? let's look at it for our mousetraps.
we might say to lazy cats, that's ourtarget, better mousetraps is the Fancy Feast.
Now fancy feast is that cat food brand that comes in a can you se the ads and it's always in a crystal you don't have to keep a frame ofreference that's in your category, as we just showed with the cracker jacks.
but it works well for this one.
so to lazy cats, better mousetraps is the Fancy Feast that turns dinner into a fresh gourmet meal, because the traps attract tastier, highend rodents.
if you're watching the other videos, youremember that our mousetraps come with flat screen TVs and bars andwhatnot and because of that, we get very rich rodents.
Rich tasting rodents for the cats.
so your position your brand and then you also want to list here what your core brand messaging is.
That doesn't mean what you're going to write on every label, it's what's the key message that you're going to communicate to your consumers.
so for crappy cars, that might be dead body with everypurchase.
or whatever silly message will work.
and then your pricing model.
You don't need to get into deep into financial, because you'll do that in the financial section, but you wanna say areyou opening price point in this category, or the opp, if you're selling the Walmart, are youthe high-end, and for better mousetraps, we would be.
We would be the luxury item in this category.
next you want to go into your sales strategy.
now this section confuses a lot of entrepreneurs, because a lot entrepreneurs think in marketing strategy or marketing plan in some cases is a list of targeted customers.
well Igot news for you a list of targeted customers is listtarget customers.
its call sheet for a sales manager.
That's not your marketing strategy.
your marketing strategy defines yourmarket, then defines and identifies your consumer.
figures out how your product isdifferent, how you're going to reach them, and then you build your sales strategy fromthat.
so from everything we've defined in better mousetraps it's a luxury item.
so we're going to go sell this mousetrap at at Mickey Mouse Neiman Marcus, and whatever other cartoon rodent and Speedy Gonzales Nordstroms.
we're also going to go sell, obviously, Home Depot, and Ace, and every place else.
but are sales strategies is going to be dictated by what we learned from the marketing strategy.
so you're going to list out who are the target customers based on what you've determined about yourcompany.
what channel trade are you going to goafter.
and then you're going to list some quantifiable goals.
so if you're a new brand, a new company, you could sayjust to get into the market.
or puts some revenue goals.
or if you're existing maybe you want to expand into different areas, different channels trade, whatever it is, it needs to bequantifiable goal, that you can go back and look at, and evaluate performance at the end ofthe year.
lastly we are going to talk about tacticalareas, but again, it's what sandbox in the marketing arena are you now playing in.
not exactly what castle are you going to build.
so for instancewe're going to do promotions we're going to do on-pac, we're gonna do in-pac, we're going to do sweepstakes.
we're goign to do a complete public relations campaign we're going to target lifestyle magazine like, i can'tthink of a single lifestyle magazine at the moment, we're goign to do discounting and couponing honestly based on what we just definedwithout this consumer is completely off strategy, so let's pretend we didn't saythat.
we could have a web presence and we'regonna have a complete social media campaign.
you can give a little bit of informationabout them, but do not make this section aboutthe bling and about Eva Longoria in a tightt-shirt.
it's not it's not worth it.
it's not what needs to go in here.
and that'sit.
that your marketing strategy section if you have questions on it as I said over to workingforwonka.
Com com shoot me an email, I'm happy to answer them.
or if you happened to be watching thisvideo on workingforwonk.
Com stick your question right in the comment section.
our next video will have the last twosections combined together – the finance and the operations section.
thanks forwatchin.
hope you learned some useful tips.
and I look forward to seeing on the nextvideo thanks.
Source: Youtube
