Angela is a young woman who recently opened an online craft business. Little by little, she is fine-tuning the different aspects of her business. She started by reviewing her business management plan and then drafted a communication plan with her friend Erica .
Working with well-defined goals is helping her to keep track of how her store is progressing. In addition, Angela is increasingly aware that the more she learns about marketing, the better her business is doing. That's why she has decided to sign up for a free course to learn how to make a marketing plan . Angela hopes that with a new marketing plan she will notice how her store becomes more and more profitable.
But since Angela is very restless, she can hardly wait for the course to start. So she has decided to review the course syllabus beforehand. While she reads the name of each topic, she looks in her notes from other courses to review. At the same time, she writes down questions that occur to her to apply the different lessons to her online store. The first question that occurs to her is:
How to create a marketing plan?
To test her knowledge, Angela tries to predict what the answer will be. Angela knows that a marketing plan is a strategy, a list of marketing actions that seek to improve brand image and sales . She then thinks about what steps are necessary to develop a marketing plan. Thanks to her experience in developing other plans, Angela knows what the first step should be.
1. Analyze the situation of the market and your business.
To check if her prediction was correct, Angela reads the topics in the first block of the course and is surprised. She was partly right; in fact, the first thing to do is to analyse the situation. But marketing is not just about improving sales . The course content talks about traditional marketing and relational marketing and places special emphasis on customer loyalty.
Reflecting on the topic, Angela remembers that her communication plan is focused on establishing relationships with her clients and creating a community. Well thought out, the marketing plan of most successful companies today is focused on this. Angela notes the term Relationship Marketing and tries to predict the next steps in developing a marketing plan. After thinking about it a bit, Angela is sure what the second step is, essential in any type of plan:
2. Define measurable and achievable objectives within a specific time frame.
Angela thinks of a goal, for example that in the next quarter her store usa mobile phone numbers database will have 10% more visitors than the previous quarter . Angela jots down some ideas and continues reading the course syllabus. The next block of the syllabus deals with…
Strategic marketing and operational marketing.
Angela remembers these terms from a previous course. Operational marketing was about actions taken to achieve short-term benefits. While strategic marketing focused on long-term benefits. Angela believes that both strategies are important, and that a good marketing plan should have both. This theme coincides with what Angela assumed would be the next steps in a marketing plan:
3. Define the general strategy to achieve the objectives.
Since this point of the marketing plan is planned for the long term, strategic marketing takes on special importance.
Angela believes that in her case her strategic line should focus on online resources: Identifying the weak points of her website design; developing a more defined personal brand that distinguishes her from other stores; finding a more effective way to promote her new products, etc.
A good marketing plan takes into account short and long term strategies
These are the first ideas that come to mind. But to make sure she doesn't miss any opportunities for improvement, Angela is planning to ask questions about strategic marketing when she starts the course.
With a strategy in mind the next step would be...
4. Define the specific action plan to implement the strategy.
Unlike the previous point, this point is more specific. Therefore, operational marketing techniques will be applied.
Angela is sure that there must be a way to develop an action plan without overlooking any of the essential aspects of a business. So she continues reading the course syllabus, and almost answering her questions is a concept that could help her develop her marketing plan.
Marketing mix
Angela is glad that the marketing mix will be covered in the course because it is a topic she would like to explore in more depth. Angela remembers that the marketing mix consisted of analyzing the four “Ps”:
Product: The product.
Angela reminds us that this section defines the characteristics of the products. Among them is their life cycle, that is, how the profitability of the products increases as they become popular and then decreases when the public loses interest. Estimating the life cycle of the products in advance helps to optimize profits.
The marketing mix helps to make the most of the product life cycle
Price: The price.
This is an area that Angela has a lot of headaches about. What should she price a product? When is it appropriate to run sales and when can she afford to raise prices? Angela knows that this has to do with the product life cycle and supply and demand. But she would like a marketing plan with a list of price ranges to stick to.
Place: The place.
Normally this would be where the products are sold. But since Angela's shop only exists online, the most important aspect of this section in her case is distribution. Angela has tested enabling the option to buy from different countries on her website. In some cases it was profitable, in others the shipping costs were prohibitive. She would like to know how to calculate from what distance it is best to charge shipping costs.