Business Week 4 Project Deliverable 2: Marketing Plan (100 pts) Company Coca Cola

Page 107-Demographic Description

Begin describing your market by the most basic, objective aspects of the customer base. These details are the specific and observable traits that define your target market.

Demographic information is particularly useful when devising your marketing plan. Many marketing vehicles, such as publications, mailing lists, radio, and TV, accumulate this kind of data about the market they reach. Thus, you are better able to judge whether such vehicles are appropriate for your company.

Remember, you want to define those characteristics of your target market that meaningfully relate to the interest, need, and ability of the customer to purchase your product or service.

“It’s very difficult to create a new market, even if there’s a need. Developing a new market takes years, even if you’re 100% right about the need and the product. The best market to look for is a market that already exists, that is already being served, but being served in a marginal fashion.”

Eugene Kleiner

Venture Capitalist

In the previous definition of the target market for the Laurelwood dry cleaner, for instance, the definition “white-collar jobs” directly relates to the need for regular dry cleaning; “women” relates to the fact that most dry cleaning nationally is purchased by women; “commute by car” is important because the location is not near public transportation; and “$40,000–$80,000” relates to the customer’s ability to pay for dry cleaning while being less likely to afford the more-expensive cleaners.

On the Demographic Description worksheet on page 107, describe the demographic details of your target market, whether you are marketing to consumers or to businesses.

Geographic Description

Next, define the primary geographic area(s) you intend to serve. This definition should be as concrete as possible, indicating whether your business serves a particular neighborhood, city, state, region, nation, or portion of the international market.

Also, look at the density of the area — whether urban, suburban, or rural — and, if customers will be coming to your place of business, indicate whether the location is in a mall, strip center, business district, or industrial area, or will be a stand-alone facility. Some businesses define their geographic market by climate, serving only cold-weather or hot-weather locations.

“The decision to locate in Napa was a marketing decision. We could have made our product anywhere, but ‘Napa’ is associated with premium wines. We wanted Napa on the label.”

Eugene Kleiner

Venture Capitalist

If you are making your product or service available globally — especially online — you may be tempted to view the entire world as your geographic target market. However, even online, there are limitations to which geographic areas are your primary target markets. These limits may be due to issues of fulfillment (e.g., shipping goods), language, licensing, or legal issues, and there are certainly limits of realistic market demand from different areas.

Using the worksheet below and the one on page 108, describe the geographic details of your target customers, whether domestic or international.

Domestic Geographic Description

Demographic Description

Page 123- Two Competitive Analysis worksheets on pages 124–125 help you evaluate your competitive position in terms of both customer preference and internal operational strengths.

The worksheets enable you to give greater or lesser importance to each competitive factor, depending on the significance of those particular aspects. To complete each worksheet, give each factor listed a maximum possible number of points, ranging from 1 to 10, with 1 being least important to your overall target market and 10 being the most important. Place the maximum number for each factor in the Maximum Points column.

Competitive Analysis: Customer Perception Factors

Following the directions on pages 123 and 126, allocate points for each of the factors listed below for both your company and your competitors.

Competitive Analysis: Internal Operational Factors

Following the directions on pages 123 and 126, allocate points for each of the factors listed below for both your company and your competitors.

For instance, on the Competitive Analysis: Customer Perception Factors worksheet, let’s say your target market is extremely price sensitive but willing to travel a long way to get a bargain. The purchase price factor might be given a maximum of 10 points and the location factor a maximum of 2.

Once you have finished numbering the factors for your company and competitors, you will see how this weighting system gives you a better picture of the actual strength of your competitors as opposed to your own.

Keep in mind that you can also allot negative numbers. If, for example, your target market is interested only in items perceived as luxuries, having too low a price may be a liability. If your market is particularly socially conscious, the fact that your competitor conducts tests on animals may be a negative for the social image factor in their evaluation, giving you a competitive edge.

In your analyses, look both at specific competitors — particular companies you compete against — and at the overall type of competition. In the example of the Alaskan sports memorabilia store, for instance, the Competitive Analysis might have four competitors listed: each of the two specific retail stores in Seattle and Vancouver, mail-order dealers, and online dealers as categories.

“It’s always easier to have an enemy. ‘We try harder’ is a very good business plan. ‘They’re the old guys, we’re the new guys. Our job is to beat them’ — that’s a very clear message. You can raid the best people from your competitors, you can look at their business plan and see how they developed, and you can follow the good parts and throw out the bad parts. It’s straightforward.”

Andrew Anker

Venture Capitalist

If desired, you can include these completed worksheets in the Appendix of your plan, as well as use them for internal planning purposes.

Customer Perception Factors

When doing your analysis, consider these customer perception factors:

■	Product/Service Features. Specific inherent attributes of the product or service itself; if key features are particularly important, list separately.
■	Indirect/Peripheral Costs. Costs other than the actual purchase price, such as installation or additional equipment required.
■	Quality. Inherent merit of the product or service at the time it is provided.
■	Durability/Maintenance. Quality of the product/service over time; ease of maintenance and service.
■	Image/Style/Perceived Value. Added values derived from design features, attractive packaging or presentation, and other intangibles.
■	Customer Relationships. Established customer base and customer loyalty; relationships of sales personnel to customers.
■	Social Consciousness. Perception of the company, product, or service relative to issues such as environment, civic involvement, and the like.

“Get to know your competition over time; continually evaluate them as to approach, style, strategy, and personnel. You need a ‘book’ on your competition. While you maintain your own standards of performance, you look for voids in their game plan. Ask yourself how they would respond to different situations. While your own standards should dominate your performance, within those confines, you adapt to what is necessary to take on the competition.”

Bill Walsh

Former Coach and President

San Francisco 49ers

Internal Operational Factors

Internal operational factors that increase competitiveness include:

■	Financial Resources. Ability of the company to withstand financial setbacks, and to fund product development and improvements.
■	Marketing Budget/Program. Amount and effectiveness of advertising and other promotional activities.
■	Economies of Scale. Ability to reduce per-unit costs due to large volume.
■	Operational Efficiencies. Production or delivery methods that reduce costs and time.
■	Product Line Breadth. Ability to increase revenues by selling related products; ability for customers to purchase needed items from one provider.
■	Strategic Partnerships. Relationships with other companies for purposes of development, promotion, or add-on sales.
■	Company Morale/Personnel. Motivation, commitment, and productivity of the employees.

Page 131- Market Share Distribution

List below the current market leaders and the approximate percentage of the market each one commands.

Page 160- What Customers Want: The Five Fs

“The Five Fs,” described below, are a convenient way to sum up what customers want.

1.    Functions. How does the product or service meet their concrete needs?

2.    Finances. How will the purchase affect their overall financial situation — not just the price of the product or service, but other savings and increased productivity?

3.    Freedom. How convenient is it to purchase and use the product or service? How will they gain more time and less worry in other aspects of their lives?

4.    Feelings. How does the product or service make customers feel about themselves, and how does it affect and relate to their self-image? Do they like and respect the salesperson and the company?

5.    Future. How will they deal with the product or service and company over time? Will support and service be available? How will the product or service affect their lives in the coming years, and will they have an increased sense of security about the future?

Customers, of course, want to receive benefits in all these areas, and you should be aware of how your product or service fulfills the entire range of their needs. However, your primary message must concentrate on one or two of these benefits that most effectively motivate your customers and that stake out a competitive position for your company.

You communicate these benefits through every interaction you have with your customers, not simply through your advertising. Naturally, your company slogan and any words you use in advertisements deliver an overt statement to the potential customer. Perhaps the name of the business itself is a direct message, for example, “Toys ’R Us” or “Cheap Tickets.”

Success key terms

Ecommerce

Conducting sales and transactions on the Internet.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

The practice of purchasing ads to increase your website’s ranking and visibility on relevant search engine results pages — often called paid search.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Optimizing your website by planning content and design that leads to high rankings on search engine results pages when a user searches for relevant keywords.

Social Media

Content created by individuals and disseminated online through networking sites such as blogs, YouTube, and Facebook. Used for awareness, marketing, and customer communication and retention.

The Five Fs

Keeping the Five Fs in mind, describe the message you want to convey to customers about your product or service.

Page 171- Online Advertising

Even if you find most online ads bothersome, it’s a good bet that there are others you’re happy to see. For instance, if you’re looking for environmentally sensitive products — solar-powered heating, energy-efficient lights, recycled building materials, and so on — and come across a website listing and describing suppliers of such products, you’ll be thrilled. You won’t care that these companies paid to be listed; you’ll just be glad to find all of these resources in one location.

What’s important is that you design your own online ads to attract (not annoy) your target customers and then place them where potential customers are most likely to see them.

Some major types of online website advertising opportunities are: ■	Portal Sites/Directories. Portals and directories serve as online hubs — usually grouped around a common theme, topic, product, or location — where users come to look for information, products, and services. As such, portals can provide effective (and affordable) places to advertise your product or service.
■	Website Ads. Banner ads typically include graphics or photos as well as text, and are placed adjacent to the content of the webpage itself. Interested viewers can then click through to the advertiser’s website.
Another form of website advertising is interstitial ads — that is, ads that appear between (or before) other content and websites. With this type of ad, viewers become a captive audience. After they type in a website address, an ad appears before the actual site they want to visit opens. ■	Sponsorships. With a sponsorship, an advertiser pays to support a website, portion of a website, content within a website, or the organization behind the website. In return, the website gives the advertiser visibility and recognition. Often, this visibility takes the form of a static banner ad; however, it can also mean displaying the sponsor’s name, logo, or tagline in immediate proximity to content.
■	Online Classifieds. Some of the most effective ads are pure text (or, perhaps, text augmented with a few pictures) — the equivalent of online “classified” ads.

The best known is Craigslist (www.craigslist.org). While most people look for jobs or used goods on Craigslist, many businesses also use the site to advertise their products or services. Advertising on Craigslist takes time (you have to continually update your ad to stay visible), but, in most cases, it’s free.

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Affiliate Auction. Online auction sites, such as eBay, are more than just places for individuals to auction off used goods to the highest bidders. Representing huge online marketplaces, such sites have created myriad marketing opportunities for entrepreneurs. Since you can set up “stores” on these sites or list products as “Buy It Now” without conducting an auction, you can use auction sites as an advertising medium — just as you would online classified sites.

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Affiliate Programs. You can advertise your products or services on other people’s websites by setting up an affiliate program (which can also be thought of as pay-per-sale advertisements, since the hosting website only gets paid if the ad results in a sale).

Affiliate advertising offers incentives for others to place your ads on their sites in exchange for a piece of the action. For instance, if one of their site visitors clicks your ad, goes to your site, and makes a purchase, the originating site gets a commission on the final sale.

“What’s your ‘go to market’ plan to let potential customers know you exist? If people don’t know you exist, you’re not going to scale. How will you let people know you have a solution to their problem?”

Lauren Flanagan

Cofounder and Managing Director, BELLE Capital USA

Online Marketing Tactics