Essentials of a Marketing Plan.
- What is Marketing?
Marketing is the ability to bring yourself, your business, brand or product to the public sphere in a dynamic way that puts you, your brand, product or business at the back of people’s minds.
- What is a Marketing Plan?
A Marketing Plan is what you want to achieve, how you want to achieve it and when you want to achieve it. It’s the plan that brings out your business, product or brand to the public sphere, thinks of a dynamic way to present it and also a way to make sure people don’t forget about it – all within a time frame and fulfilling a specific goal.
- Have a specific goal
All Marketing Plan has a specific goal which would be the driver of your Marketing Plan.
- Do some research
You need to ask a lot of questions during research but here are a few of them.
- Who is my competitor?
- Who uses my product or service?
- Who are my target audience & where can I find them?
- Who is not using my product or service & how can I get him to start using it?
- What is the unique selling proposition of my brand, product or service?
- Perform a SWOT Analysis – Strength, Weakness, Opportunity & Threat.
- Know the medium or channel you want to reach your customers
How will you make your brand, product or service public? This is where the medium or channel of communication comes into effect. In 2017, those channels have increased greatly, there are more diversification as well as specialisation now but one thing is constant – The mix of different communication channels and medium brings out the best rewards in your Marketing Plan.
The mediums/channels are as follows;
- Television
- Radio
- New Media: YouTube, Facebook ads, Google Ads, Instagram Sponsored posts, Twitter ads.
- Print: Newspapers, Magazines
- Outdoor: Billboards, Banners, Flyers
- Transport: BRT