Creativebias Helpsheet: Marketing Planning

Marketing Planning

This helpsheet provides a starting point for understanding the concepts behind marketing, and includes some ideas for how to put them into action. A start-up creative business should still seek advice from business advisors and talk to local marketing companies to gain a more detailed perspective on what can be a complicated process.

What is Marketing?

Marketing can be defined as the task of creating, promoting and delivering products and services to consumers and businesses.

Marketing planning is an on-going process; it is not something that's done only at the start-up of a business. If you don't review and revise your marketing plan regularly, you could lose customers as your marketing, and subsequently your product or service, becomes less competitive and less relevant to them.

A major benefit of planning your marketing is that in compiling and developing the marketing plan, you will have thought through how long it will take to accomplish each step and what resources in terms of money, time or effort you will need. Without a marketing plan, you will not know when or whether you have reached your objectives.

Market Research

Market research is the process of systematically gathering, analysing and interpreting data about your product or service's market, customers and competitors, with the aim of improving marketing decisions.


It involves making sure your product or service is geared to the needs of the consumer that you have decided is the target market for your product. You might need to refine your project or service once you have done initial market research.


It is important to remember that marketing will not cover inadequacies in your product, so use feedback and market research to make sure the product or service is as good as possible before launching it. The best marketing available will be useless if your product or service is not up to scratch.

For more details on how to conduct market research and how it can help your business please see the Creativebias helpsheet Conducting and Using Market Research.

For useful 'INDUSTRY INTELLEGENCE' on a range of creative industries, visit the website www.creative-choices.co.uk

Planning Your Marketing

Once you have done your market research you should seek to establish:

• The appeal of your product/service to the customer/client.
  
• The channels it should be distributed through.
  
• The tone and style of your presentation and packaging.
  
• A pricing strategy.
  
• A promotion strategy.
  
• How you will gather constructive feedback in order to improve and modify any of the above.
  

Once you have these issues clear in your mind, you are ready to write your marketing plan.

The Appeal of your Product/Service

Defining the appeal of your product involves deciding:

• Who is going to use your product/service? - In general, which group of people will your business appeal to, and where are they?
  
• How is it different from other products/services already available? What is your unique selling proposition - your USP? What differentiates your product or service from competing brands? Your USP should be a big feature in your promotional campaign.
  

E.g. A photographer has established from his market research that no-one within Liverpool is offering to photograph bands within live venues in a classic black and white style of rock photography, which is his specialty. He has therefore worked out who is going to use his service and its unique appeal.

Distribution Channels

A channel of distribution is the method and route by which your product/service will reach your market.

E.g. A record label may use various channels to distribute their product such as CD's in high-street record shops and M.P.3s on websites.

Your chosen distribution channel must:

• Reach your target market effectively, and be presented in the style you are promoting
• Be cost effective
  
• Be efficient and reliable, to the extent that your product is always available to potential customers.
  

The Tone/Style of your Product/Service's Presentation and Packaging

The way you present your product or service defines the image that you portray to customers or clients. The tone and style should be defined by your:

• Target Market - Through market research and personal judgement you must decide on a tone and style that will appeal to your target market.
  

E.g. - If you are running a dance school for children you might use a colourful, vibrant and accessible typeface and colour scheme as it will appeal to children and depicts your business as being fun and approachable.

• Budget - You must work out how much money you can spend defining your tone and style. You can present your product or service stylishly whilst remaining in budget by using simple and clear packaging and presentation.
  

The tone and style of your presentation and packaging of your service or your product must be consistent throughout, from the way you present yourself when meeting potential clients to the style and colour scheme of your website.

Pricing Strategy and Sales Plan

Pricing your product or service is a very complex process. You should undertake a substantial amount of market research and perhaps seek guidance from a business advisor before you make a final decision.

The most important factor of your pricing strategy is that the price of your product or service covers all the direct costs incurred in creating the product or delivering the service. You then have to add a small amount, or margin, to cover indirect/non attributable costs.

• Direct Costs - These are costs directly attributable to the particular product or service such as specific materials, packaging and maybe transport.
  
• Indirect Costs- These are costs not directly attributable to a specific product or service such as lighting or heating for your office.
  

Once these costs have been taken into consideration you will need to work out a sales plan including your:

• Lowest possible price - enough to cover costs and break even.
  
• Highest possible price - the highest price that you think customers will be willing to pay.
  

Depending on your judgment and market research, you must fix a price between the two points.


Your pricing strategy is matter of balance, revenue is the result of:

Volume x Price


So within your sales plan you should also decide whether you are aiming to sell high quantities of your product/service at a low price or low quantities at a high price.

E.g. If you have predicted that you will sell 100 books at a price of £20 this will give you revenue of £2000

If you price at £12, in order to gain the same revenue you would need to sell 167 books.

Promotion Strategy

The main aim of your promotion strategy is to sell your product or service.

It can help to write a promotion brief, detailing all your future promotional activities. Within it you should define your:

• U.S.P.
  
• Channels
  
• Tone and Style
  
• Pricing
  

E.g. A sound engineer works specifically with electronic bands (U.S.P), in live venues in Liverpool (Channels), he has brand new equipment and a degree in sound engineering from L.I.P.A. and promises a professional and knowledgeable service (Tone and Style) for low cost (Pricing) in comparison to other engineers.

These are the messages that need to be communicated to potential customers and current clients, your promotion strategy should define how best to do this.

Promotion

Creative businesses need to adopt a more personal style of promotion in comparison to larger businesses.

To reach new customers and clients it is likely you will rely mainly on:

• Face to face contact/networking
  
• Word of mouth/recommendations from other clients
  

A good way to start may be to raise awareness by distributing flyers in your area and producing a simple brochure to leave with clients. Make sure your product, business name and contact details are clearly displayed and that the style and presentation ties in with your original objectives.

As you build up a customer base and your business develops you might also use:

• A website
  
• Advertisements in specialist magazines or other media
  

There may be specialist magazines or websites that the majority of your customers read, so they are the sort of places you should advertise your service or product.

The key to deciding which method of advertising to use is evaluating which is the most cost effective - calculate the costs of each method and make realistic assumptions about how many people it is going to reach.

Then, once it is in place, make sure you analyse whether it is reaching new customers effectively and what can be changed if it isn't.


Like all aspects of your marketing, your promotion strategy should rely on development through constant feedback from customers. Once you have a small group of customers you should ask them where they look for new services and products and specifically target these forms of media.

It is important that any positive feedback that you have from current customers is communicated to any potential future customers. You could use quotes from satisfied customers on your flyers or website to entice new ones, this may give your business more credibility.

What is e-marketing and how do I develop e-marketing strategies for my business?

E-marketing is the process of creating, distributing, promoting, and pricing goods and services to a target market over the Internet or through digital tools.

This can include placing advertisements on websites regularly visited by your target audience or in the newsletters published by those sites.

It can also include writing articles for placement on key websites and sending out emails and e-news letters to customers who have registered on your site to receive more information.

One of the most important things you can do is set-up your own website which will enable people across the world to find out about your product or service and order it online.


Some basic tips for e-marketing using websites and email:

• Use email as a quick, simple and direct way to contact customers and new potential customers - Create short and readable emails which grab the attention and include links to your website. Beware that the speed of email means that both good and bad feedback about your business will travel fast.
  
• Show detailed pictures and illustrations of your products that people couldn't see over the phone - If you are selling a service include links to websites of companies you have dealt with before and try and get some quotes from satisfied customers with links. Give as much information on your company and its products or services as possible.
  
• Illustrate in basic terms how using your website will save time and money for the customer - Guide first time customers through buying on your site, keep instructions simple, pages uncluttered and make sure all pages are interactive to keep the customer interested.
  
• Think of the web as one method of marketing amongst many - It may be that your company is better off not selling online but rather using the web to encourage offline sales. Don't put all your hope or finance into your website and don't depend on it for sales, because many consumers are still adjusting to web-based shopping. However, with determination and effective marketing, you can make substantial sales online.
  
• Consumers are still wary of privacy issues on the internet - inexperienced internet users will be particularly wary of entering credit card details into a website so make sure your site is secure and make it very clear to your customers that it is.
  

Business to Business

To increase your customer base it may help to form relationships with other businesses which offer similar or related services or products to yourself. This will enable you to gain access to other customer bases and you may be able to negotiate deals where you promote each others companies to clients.

E.g. A promoter who puts on gigs for bands in Manchester may get in touch with photographers or sound engineers in the city and swap flyers and promotional material or include links to each other's websites on their own as they are all dealing with a similar target market.

You should carry flyers or business cards with you at all times, as much business to business networking in the creative industries is through meeting people face to face.

Feedback

Throughout the marketing process you should be seeking feedback from:

• Current Customers - actively seek their opinions, and ask if there is anything you could be doing better, or anything else you could provide for them
  
• Potential Customers - why haven't they used your business yet? Would they be more likely to use it if something was different?
  

To entice potential customers into becoming regular clients it may be useful to offer services or products at reduced prices to begin with.

How do I produce a marketing plan?

Your marketing plan should only be written once you have worked out everything listed above. The plan needs to be updated as your product or service and the market around it develops.

It can help to build a marketing plan with the following headings:

• Mission Statement - write a few sentences defining what it is you're aiming to do with your company, and where you aim to be in 12 months. This is not only useful for potential customers but gives you a clear position to aim towards.
  
• What is your current position - Have you done market research? Do you know who your customers are and are likely to be in the future?
  
• S.W.O.T. analysis - Define your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
  

Where do you need to work hardest within your company? Where are the threats? Have you planned out risks? You must face up to threats and weaknesses and deal with them before they occur. What are the key issues and opportunities for your company?

Within a marketing plan, you should include:

• An analysis of the company's present position - including any sales you have already made, or marketing already in place.
  
• What factors outside the company could cause risk? - what social, technological or environmental changes could alter the plan?
  
• A marketing audit - showing the company's marketing strengths and weaknesses, especially in relation to the competition.
  
• A series of specific targets - including desired turnover and how much profit needs to be made to stay afloat, should cover the next 2 financial years.
  
• A project plan - giving details of dates by which targets will have been achieved and who is responsible for their delivery. See 'Managing Creative Projects' helpsheet for more information.
  
• A promotional overview - specifying the platform (website, posters, flyers), schedules and costs for advertising.
  
• A summary statement of marketing objectives and how they will be achieved.
  

All plans must take into account the financial situation of the company.

There is a link at the bottom of the page to a marketing plan which provides an excellent template for a developing business.

Links :

http://marketing.about.com/ - Large database of articles dealing with marketing for small businesses.

www.businesslink.gov.uk - Huge resource site, giving help and advice for starting a new business.

www.businessknowhow.com/startup/marketplanning.html offers an checklist style worksheet to help you think this through


www.businessplans.org/Market.htm gives sound advice on many aspects of marketing

http://www.businessballs.com/market.htm - This site contains ideas for writing out business plans, and blank templates.

http://www.chamberonline.co.uk/ - The chamber of commerce is a nationwide organisation which has localised offices to give businesses advice, help and contacts within their industry.

Books:

There are hundreds of books on marketing available from local libraries or available to buy over the internet. They vary in detail from detailed instructions for multi-national businesses to general tips for smaller businesses.
Some useful books are:

Guerrilla Marketing: Secrets for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business by Jay Conrad Levinson - Business & Economics - 1998

Ageless Marketing: Strategies for Reaching the Hearts & Minds of the New Customer Majority by David B Wolfe - Business & Economics - 2003

Ten Deadly Marketing Sins: Signs and Solutions by Philip Kotler - Business & Economics - 2004

The Marketing Plan: How to Prepare and Implement It by William M Luther - Business & Economics - 2001

Strategic Marketing Management by Robert J Dolan - Business & Economics - 1992