This has been supplied by Bill Fryer and is the one used by Proctor & Gamble. They are the best marketing company in the world. It looks deceptively simple:
1. Compile an exhaustive list of the facts.
2. Extract your pertinent facts.
3. Opportunities.
4. Short-term strategy.
5. Long-term strategy.
Yes, that really is it. Now let's look at it in more detail.
The first stage is all about research. You want to find out everything you can about your product, your customers, your competitors and your marketplace. Start at your office, on the internet or at the local library. Search out books on the subject, look up figures, census information, study maps, government reports, have a completely open mind and look for anything that could possibly be of interest.
Also, get out and talk to customers, existing and potential, talk to service people, get all of your competitor's information, buy their product. While you are doing this, take notes on the things you find out. And don't be tempted to stop too soon. More formal research tools like surveys and structured interviews can be used later if you have the money and time.
Stage two is about going over your information and extracting those facts that are most pertinent. I usually find there are about three to seven points that are of key importance. What are the really key issues that you can base your marketing strategy on? Is there some special piece of legislation coming up that is particularly relevant? Is there a niche that no one else is exploiting? Is there something unique about your product that customers want? Or better still, is there some modification you can make?
When you have your pertinent facts you need to list all the opportunities you have. This is the creative part. Marketing planning is all about thinking about your potential markets and how to sell to them. So think about each of your potential markets and how you can contact them. You will find there will be some markets which consist of a small number of highly profitable customers and others with a large number of low value customers. Think about which markets are most profitable. You also need to consider: cashflow - some big contracts can take ages to pay back; how to reach them - some markets, for example top business people, can be very hard to talk to; and how quickly you can start to communicate with them.
Rank your opportunities by profitability.
Now take the top five opportunities and put them into your short-term strategy, the next two-three years. Your long-term strategy is the rest.
Also, remember that while you are implementing your strategy your market will be changing, make sure you set up information flow channels that keep you in touch with the market. Is a very large competitor suddenly going all out for a niche market you had set your heart on? So keep researching.
Why we like this particular system.
This strategic marketing system is the one used by Proctor and Gamble, one of the world's largest companies. It's worked for them. And weI like it best because it's simple and can be applied to any size of business of project.
Also, when it comes to marketing planning everyone naturally wants to dive in at the creative stage (step three). Hence most people ask themselves the question, "how can we sell this product?" and then set about brainstorming a few ideas with colleagues, family and friends. This is normal, and you may be surprised to learn that it's also what a lot of very large companies do too. The problem is that you end up avoiding the whole raft of ideas you get when you research. The other thing is most of your competitors will not be researching - which gives you a big competitive advantage.
We often use a simple plan for developing a promotional strategy where one side of A4 is usually sufficient