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How to write a marketing plan
- 1. How to write a Marketing Plan Claire Riches Travel Waves Marketing
- 2. Introduction • Who you are • Your business • Current Marketing Plan • What are you looking to learn today • Favourite holiday
- 3. • Travel Waves Marketing established Nov 2011 by Claire Riches • Provide: – Strategic consultancy in Travel & Tourism – Marketing services – design, print, online, email, advertising – PR – New business, product & services launches
- 4. Objectives for session To cover main steps to develop a marketing plan To review marketing tools to help in development of a marketing plan To provide formats to help you develop your Marketing Plan
- 6. Your marketing plan Provides a road map for your business
- 7. Your marketing plan • Allows you to look at: – The impact and results of past marketing activity – The market in which you operate – Your competition – Set future goals – Provide direction for your marketing efforts – Understand and support efforts to pursue new initiatives
- 8. A typical marketing plan includes • Executive Summary • Situation analysis • Target market • Marketing objectives • Strategies • Plans • Tracking & evaluation
- 9. Executive Summary • Complete this when you’ve finished your plan! • The summary gives a quick overview of the main points of the plan • Provides a synopsis of what you have done, what you plan to do and how you are going to get there
- 11. Conducting a Marketing Audit • External – the economic environment – the competitive environment – your market environment • Internal Review – Information about your business & performance metrics – Previous campaign analysis – 80:20 rule
- 12. The Economic Environment - PEST • Political – Government actions, local government • Economic – Income levels, employment levels, rate of inflation, rate of economic growth, customer confidence • Social and Cultural – Demographics (population growth/distribution, age), lifestyles and cultural values (changing beliefs, skills, family values) • Technological – IT & internet
- 13. • Who are your competitors? • What reputation do they have? • What is their marketing like? • What are their key strengths and weaknesses? • What is the threat of new entrants? • Rivalry amongst current competitors? Competitive Environment
- 14. The Market Environment • Total market size growth and trends • Market characteristics, growth and trends • Prices • Products • Distribution channels • Customers/consumers • Industry practices
- 15. Internal Audit • Sales • Profit margins • Costs • Market size & market share • Effectiveness of marketing mix • Review of your past marketing efforts • 80:20 rule
- 16. Conducting a SWOT Analysis
- 17. Target Markets
- 18. Target Markets
- 19. Create a Pen Portrait
- 21. Marketing Objectives • Clear - They should be an unambiguous statement of what needs to be done • Quantified - The predicted outcome of each activity should be quantified, so that its performance can be monitored. • Focused – Don’t be tempted to proliferate activities beyond the numbers which you can control & manage • Realistic - They should be achievable • Agreed - Those who are to implement them should be committed to them, and agree that they can do them
- 22. SMART Objectives • Specific - for example, you might set an objective of getting ten new customers per month • Measurable - whatever your objective is, you need to be able to check whether you have reached it or not when you review your plan • Achievable - you must have the resources you need to achieve the objective. The key resources are usually people and money • Realistic - targets should stretch you, not demotivate you because they are unreasonable and seem to be out of reach • Time-bound - you should set a deadline for achieving the objective. For example, you might aim to get ten new customers within the next 12 months
- 23. • To increase the average spend by customers by 10% • 10% increase in occupancy • To attract xx new customers per month • Increase midweek overnight stays from xx to xx • Improve shoulder season occupancy by 20% • Grow local business offer • Encourage locals to use facilities restaurant, afternoon tea & morning coffee • Wedding market Marketing Objectives
- 25. • Product – what you offer and how it meets your customers needs. What more can you offer to attract more customers • Pricing – what is your policy to match the competition, undercut them, or charge a premium price for a quality product and service • Place - how and where you sell • Promotion - how you reach your customers and potential customers Marketing Strategies
- 26. Planning how much it's going to cost • Basic Marketing Activities: those that need to be done for you to be in business such as newsletters, fresh content on your website, social media etc. Allocate a monthly budget to cover these. • Promotional Marketing: these activities often have higher costs as they need to be created and produced – brochures, flyers, print materials are typical expenses here. Get estimates for these items to give you an idea of what you need to build into your budget. • Marketing Projects: these are things like trade shows, website re-design, media campaigns. These items change from year to year so it is important to look at what you have spent in the past, get estimates for the upcoming year and build them into your plan.
- 27. Marketing Plan
- 28. • Awareness • New Customers • Customer loyalty • Conversion • Engagement • Market – Media - Message Marketing Plan - Tactics
- 29. • Advertising – Awareness – New product or service launch – New customers – High cost – Measurability? – Repetition needed Marketing Plan - Tactics
- 30. • Online – 80% of searches for travel – Website • Content • Images • Contact • Sign up – Traffic • PPC - Pay Per Click • SEO Marketing Plan - Tactics
- 31. • Customer loyalty – Recognition – Repeat bookings – Newsletters – Loyalty programmes Marketing Plan - Tactics
- 32. • Social Media – Free? – Facebook – Twitter – Tripadvisor Marketing Plan - Tactics
- 33. • PR – Target press your target customers read – Press trips – FAM trips Marketing Plan - Tactics
- 34. • Seasonality – Opportunities by season – Date driven promotions & events – Calendar of 2014 dates & events www.timeanddate.com/holidays/uk/2014 Marketing Plan - Tactics
- 35. Marketing Plan
- 36. Evaluation of activity • Ask new customers how they heard about you when they book • Use response codes where you can on activity to track results • Set unique telephone numbers on flyers and emails. • Track your website performance using analytics tools - the great thing with on-line activity is that it’s now far easier to measure marketing results.
- 37. • Did you reach your goal? • Was the marketing campaign successful? • Were you able to determine Return on Investment? • Did your efforts result in Conversion? – i.e were we able to convert an inquirer to a visitor? • Can you use your database to survey, capture additional information or to establish a Customer Relationship Management program? Evaluation of activity
- 38. In Summary • A typical marketing plan includes – Executive Summary – Situation analysis – Target market – Marketing objectives – Strategies – Plans – Tracking & evaluation
- 39. Templates • CIM Template • Word template
- 40. To find out more contact: Claire Riches 07515 663 835 claire@travelwaves.co.uk www.travelwaves.co.uk
- 41. Marketing Plan
Editor's Notes
- Allows you to look at:The impact and results of past marketing activityThe market in which you operateYour competitionSet future goalsProvide direction for your marketing effortsUnderstand and support efforts to pursue new initiatives
- No plan, no direction
- A typical marketing plan includesExecutive SummarySituation analysisTarget marketMarketing objectivesStrategiesPlansTracking & evaluation
- Provides an overview of the journey you want to takeAlthough the executive summary appears at the beginning of the plan, you should write it last. Writing the summary is a good opportunity to check that your plan makes sense and that you haven’t missed any important points
- Planning your journey – Creates a clear starting point and establishes where you are nowThe marketing audit has certain similarities to a financial audit in that it is a review or appraisal of your existing marketing activities. Carrying out a marketing audit provides the opportunity to review and appraise your whole marketing activity, enabling you to assess past and present performance as well as to provide the basis for evaluating possible future courses of action.Looks at both External & Internal factors
- This is your opportunity to put your own business under the microscope - do you know as much about your own situation as you should80:20 rule. To achieve the maximum impact, the marketing plan must be clear, concise and simple. It needs to concentrate on the 20 percent of products or services, and on the 20 percent of customers, that will account for 80 percent of the volume and 80 percent of the profit
- A great marketing tool to get started is to create a SWOT analysis for your business. Review the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats that you are facing to identify where you can create maximum impact with your marketing. Your Strengths and Weaknesses should be things that you directly control and can determine where as the Opportunities and Threats facing your business are external factors.Understanding your business environment is a key part of planningA SWOT analysis combines external and internal analysis to summarise your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. You need to look for opportunities that play to your strengths. You also need to decide what to do about threats to your business and how you can overcome important weaknesses. Your situation analysis should detail the context for your marketing. In this section take a close look at the internal and external factors that will influence your marketing strategy. You need to look for opportunities that play to your strengths. You also need to decide what to do about threats to your business and how you can overcome important weaknesses.
- Understand your ‘ideal customer’Assess and size your marketCreate a target customer experienceEstablish simple but effective techniques to manage the customer relationshipGather feedback and iterate your customer strategy over time
- Everyone wants the family market but what other markets can you attract to fill the year?GROUPS – activites, cooking, hunts, shooting – who can you partner with?Activity holidays?Groups?
- 4 Essential Reasons You Need To Create Customer Profiles:It simplifies your marketing efforts, alleviating the unknown and gives you confidence to market successfully.It identifies who your customer is, and allows targeted marketing that will work.It identifies who your customer is and ensures you don’t throw money down the drain, no longer can you throw enough mud and hope some will stick. Marketing has got clever.It gives you an insight into your customer, allowing you to listen to them and develop your product and service accordingly.. Elements to includeHow old are they? What socio economic grouping do they belong to? What motivates them? Where do they hang out? Who do they associate with? What technologies do they use? Where do they spend their surplus income?Who do they not identify with?What are their beliefs?Where do they live?Where do they work?Where do they learn?Where do they want to be?Creating a fictitious character to enable you to speak directly to them. To create this pen portrait you simply have to imagine who they are, what they are like and what drives them. Keep adding and moulding to the picture until you are happy that you can almost hear them speak to you. Anything you create afterwards can be held up to scrutiny by this imaginary friend. Some things you might consider are: What are they called?Who do they think they are?Who are they really?Who do they want to be?
- Setting clear marketing goals will help keep your business focused on what you want to achieve from your marketing budget, and can be a 'roadmap' if things go off-course. The sorts of objectives you might want to consider setting for your business could include:increasing your customer basedeveloping your brand identityresearching your customers, market or competitorsusing greener packagingdistributing your goods onlineusing different marketing channels and mixes to reach your customersBy gaining insight into your industry and market, and developing specific objectives, you can help your business grow and stay on track throughout the year.To make them as useful as possible, you should try to set goals which are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.
- Once you have decided what your marketing objectives are, and your strategy for meeting them, you need to plan how you will make the strategy a reality.
- . For example, you might use advertising, PR, direct mail and personal selling
- Allocating your marketing budget You should consider your marketing budget as an investment in creating awareness of what you do which, used effectively, will generate both customers and sales.How do you set the right budget for your business? You need to consider what marketing you are going to do and what you are looking to achieve. Most companies will spend between 3 & 10% of their turnover on marketing, depending on their overall profit margins.Consider building your plan around: Basic Marketing Activities: those that need to be done for you to be in business such as newsletters, fresh content on your website, social media etc. Allocate a monthly budget to cover these.Promotional Marketing: these activities often have higher costs as they need to be created and produced – brochures, flyers, print materials are typical expenses here. Get estimates for these items to give you an idea of what you need to build into your budget. Marketing Projects: these are things like trade shows, website re-design, media campaigns. These items change from year to year so it is important to look at what you have spent in the past, get estimates for the upcoming year and build them into your plan.
- How are you going to get to where you want to be
- Marketing plan implementationYour marketing plan should include a schedule of key tasks. This sets out what will be done, and by when. Refer to the schedule as often as possible to avoid losing sight of your objectives under the daily workload.ResourcesIt should also assess what resources you need. For example, you might need to think about what brochures you need, and whether they need to be available for digital distribution (by email or from your website). You might also need to look at how much time it takes to sell to customers and whether you have enough salespeople.CostThe cost of everything in the plan needs to be included in a budget. If your finances are limited, your plan will need to take that into account. You may also want to link your marketing budget to your sales forecast.ControlAs well as setting out the schedule, the plan needs to say how it will be controlled. A good schedule and budget should make it easy to monitor progress. When things fall behind schedule, or costs overrun, you need to be ready to do something about it and to adapt your plan accordingly. Monitor your resultsAlways measure results from your marketing activity to ensure everything you do is producing enough benefit to your business to warrant the money and time you are spending on it.
- Executive summaryOverview of plan Current Marketing SituationBackground on market, products, competition, distribution and macro-environment Opportunity and Issue AnalysisSummarises main opportunities and threats, strengths and weakneses, and issues facing business that the plan must deal with ObjectivesDefines the goals the plan wants to reach in the areas of sales volume, market share and profit Marketing Strategy – chosen routes to achieve goalsPresents the broad marketing approach that will be used to meet the plan’s objectives Plans – actions that will keep us moving along the routeAnswers What will be done, Who will do it, When will it be done and How Much will it cost