Marketing Plan sections 1-5 Look at Attachments

Economic – We need a clear, conservative, and honest picture of our economic standing.

1. We will begin with an evaluation of our startup capital, our lines of credit, and our initial roll-out cost

2. We will establish “phase lines” for each stage of our growth with clear goals that are both honest and challenging. For each scenario we must address immediate, mid-term, and long-term responses.

3. Establish hard choice contingencies when projected goals are not met and recovery plans for each possible scenario.

b. Marketing and its relationship with other functional areas of business

Importance of our Marketing – We will depend on the Marketing Team to make us a unique product not just another competing product.

i. Our ability to be the company our consumers want us to be along with giving them the tools to hold us to their standard will separate us from other companies. We will create a total customer relationship experience through social media posting, social and sport event sponsoring, 24/7 customer care, and of course our unique website that allows our customers to track the making of each bottle they drink and view and comment our how we do business.

4. Strategic Marketing

a. Planning Process

This process will involve –

i. Identifying our mission and goals of our organization

ii. Formulating strategies for achieving those objectives

iii. Devising operational plans to implement those strategies

iv. Setting in place evaluation mechanisms to ensure that the strategies have been effectively and efficiently implemented

v. Each step of our planning will following this process:

1. Situation – Where we are right now? Right now our company is just starting. We have a unique idea to sell a familiar product. Our capital is strong and our initial start-up cost is appropriate. We do not want to follow in the same exact footsteps of our future competitor, however, we want to analyze what made them successful and what mistakes to avoid.

· Target – Where do we want to be? In the short term we want to make a targeted buzz in the months approaching our launch emphasizing what makes us different. In the mid-term (1-5 years) we want to be established with our entire supply chain from start to finish, have 3-4 years of 10%-20% margins growth year over year, and be ready for our expansion.

· Path – How can we get there? We will do this with targeted marketing, sound financial management, and hire the right people who share the same ethics and over-all vision of our company.

5. Strategy

a. Organizational Levels

Corporate Level –

i. Mission Statement

1. Our mission is to provide the highest quality water in the most environmentally ethical way possible at a competitively affordable price.

ii. Corporate Objectives

1. Responsibly and ethically continue to lower overhead while increasing profit being mindful to pay our employees a fair wage for their efforts

Business Unit Level –

1. Transportation department will make every attempt to make every trip count by setting order minimums and evaluating routes to find the most efficient method. They will also higher highly qualified drivers and train them to the highest standard in order to avoid accidents and miss-deliveries.

2. Customer Service department will be profitable by living with one concept in mind. Customer Service is not a department, it’s an attitude. They will ensure that each encounter with a customer, vendor, or distributor is an opportunity to strengthen relationships and increase our market share through word of mouth advertisement.

3. Inventory Management department will be profitable by ensure our turns rates are high and our K-Factor (carrying cost) stays low. This will happen through careful understanding of the timing between purchasing at the right time so that inventory turns as quickly as possible.

Functional Level –

1. Each department will apply these marketing strategies for themselves in order to maximize the promotion of that department and the value it adds to our overall brand.

b. Goals and Objectives

Economic Objectives

i. Improving always and in all ways. We must always reduce overhead such as over-time, shipping fees, maintenance fees, etc…

Non-Economic Goals

1. We will high and train the most qualified employees and create not just a place of work but a corporate family that proved reasonable wages and benefits for our employees and an environment that promotes innovation and always practices an ethical work environment.

6. Planning Gap

a. Ethics in Marketing

Promotion –

Our product will speak for itself and will always be an honest and accurately labeled product. This along with our web-based accountability tool will provide complete transparency.

Pricing –

We will always place our vision of environmental responsibility above all. Second w will keep in mind that without our company being profitable we cannot accomplish our vision. Therefore, we will only price our product enough to make the margins which allow us to grow and accomplish our vision.

Distribution –

We will make every effort to negotiate fairly with our distributors and competitor in matters of crossing into markets, and increasing our negotiation power. If we all succeed, we all succeed.

References

Argosy University, Principles of Marketing. Retrieved from: http://myeclassonline.com/re/DotNextLaunch.asp?courseid=10032445&userid=22685240&sessionid=e629f15105&tabid=/LYKnxtBDMNpuA9wpnS3arTCnUwa9b773+xrrCjhVA5qp0nMutZuTpk3YOrlHrKu/xbuuLCAcH8TgUdIxztVpg==&sessionFirstAuthStore=true&macid=UbonXKwtXoiI/ZGeqEI1AQ4Ydzgdb2oapueTTenE05pGXwRmu1UDb9QYdWi4EUWEpyE0d41tSEDmt+bO/uWzT2iVPISmWpxJ6S/NRn45HYS/rrQdGYKrpYB8/nIIN7po3I1iB2nLdfawPm+IyuJTDoX6zGEopFhJQfJgp1b0pLjyNdPZSlW2Jdy6VN/31ozLwds1vPm+0Gsir5hrg0cNzqN7gJQkF2dhX6wOu/M+J8EppFZn8wDA3Q073g4erK7V