3.05 Employ Marketing information to develop a Marketing Plan

1. 3.05 Employ Marketing information to develop a Marketing Plan

2. Researching the Industry • Trends and patterns of change • Industry forces that affect your business – understanding competitive forces can help a business plan a strategy to succeed • ◦Barriers to entry • ▪barriers to entry – conditions or circumstances that make it difficult or costly for outside firms to enter a market to compete with the established firm or firms • ▪economics of sale – situations where the cost of producing one unit of a good or service decreases as the volume of production increases • ▪brand loyalty – loyalty to or the tendency to buy a particular brand of a product • ◦threats from substitute products • ◦sources of supply • ◦buyers' ability to bargain • ◦technology

3. Researching the Industry (con’t) • Industry demographics – includes the number of companies, annual revenues, and average size of the companies by number of employees • The competition • ◦market share – a portion of the total sales generated by all competing companies in a given market • ◦niche – a small, specialized segment of the market • ◦market positioning – the act of identifying a specific market niche for a product • ◦competitive advantage – a feature that makes a product more desirable than its competitors' products

4. Researching the Industry (con’t) • Competitive Intelligence – Competitive advantage – studying the competition is critical to finding your company's competitive advantage. The following list ways that are helpful to understanding your competition: • ◦visit competitors' outlet • ◦buy your competitors' products • ◦search the internet and your competitors' web sites

5. Researching the target customer • ◦creating a customer profile – a complete picture of a venture's prospective customers • ◦evaluating customers' needs • ▪customer needs analysis – pinpoints the features and benefits of your goods and services that customers value • ◦forecasting demand – three ways to forecast a demand figure: • ▪one, to use historical analogy products • ▪two, to interview prospective customers and intermediaries • ▪three, to go into limited production to test the market • Issues in entrepreneurship

6. Mass Marketing • Mass Marketing is trying to reach all customers with a single marketing plan

7. Competitive Analysis – section of a business plan that should demonstrate the proposed advantage of the business over its competitors. You can gather information on competitors the following ways: • ◦viewing their web site • ◦talking to their customers, vendors, suppliers, or • employees • ◦attending trade shows◦ • ◦searching newspaper and magazine databases

8. Adjusting to sales environment changes • ◦SWOT analysis – a strategic planning technique that analyzes a company's internal strengths and weaknesses, and studies opportunities and threats in the external sales environment • ▪Internal factors may include: • changes in spending on other parts of the company's marketing and promotional mix • changes in what is happening in different territories or markets • changes in sales management practices • changes in number of salespeople supervised by one person • ▪External factors may include: • intensity of competition-based • total market potential • concentration of potential high-volume buyers • geographic distribution of customers

9. Resources • Allen, K.A., & Meyer, E.C. (2006). Entrepreneurship and small business management (pp. 104,124-129,293 ). Woodland Hills, CA: McGraw-Hill Glencoe.