HOW TO PREPARE A MARKETING PLAN.
Generally, ethical marketing plan would contain some essential sections which are listed and discussed below:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: this contains between one or two page summary of the plan. It gives an insight into the plan, starting it main fact and recommendations. It may being like this: the 200x marketing 6 to achieve an increase of 10 million in sales over last year's figure of 30 million naira . a sum of 4 million resenting 10% of the expected sales figure which will be spent on promotions .
SITUATION ANALYSIS: this section is the first major part of the plan. It stays the business of the company and the salient features of the business as a general introduction. The major features of the situation facing the company and its operations are presented which will be addressed by the subsequent objectives, strategies and actions. Some of the questions answered by this section include:
Where are we coming from?
Where are we now?
How did we get to this point?
Where do we want to be?
How are we going to be there?
The situation analysis section is logically divided into four subsections background, normal focus, opportunities, and threats, strength and weakness.
BACKGROUND: this subsection gives the summary of sales and profit data for the past five years or thereabouts.
Depending on the data available, it indicates the total market size, market share, per unit in nigeria, sales volume in units, overhead, advertising expenditure, distributor expenditure and net operating profit in nigeria for the period of years indicated. These data should be followed by a description of vital fact and trend in the industry, market, distributors, pricing, promotions and competitors, the description of market should indicate the served market, major market segments, market size and trend, buying motives and behaviours. The competitors strength and weakness, strategies and market shears should be indicated.
NORMAL FORECAST: what are the expectations of the company under normal conditions. The normal focused concerning company cells and market size should be xplicit assuming no major charges happen in the market environment . a particular percentage say 10% increase can be added to the volume of market size 4 the preceding year to obtain the current year. An estimate of the sale false expectations figures could be used to arrive at the forecast. Two or more methods could also be used why an average Is peaked.
STRENGTH AND WEAKNESSES: this is the first part of the SWOT analysis SW, the other part is opportunities and threats ot . The strength and weakness take an objective view on the main internal strength and weakness of the company. There are issues affecting the company. The strength could be derived from the product, pricing strategy, promotion or distribution system or as a result of company being popular and known for quality products, the perception of consumers each public relations position et c. what is the strength to one company may be a witness to others. Management should indicate how the strength will be consolidated why the weakness could be improved upon and turned into strengths.
OPPORTUNITIES AND THREATS: this part takes an objective view of the external environmental factors that may affect the plans of the company. Opportunities And threats are imposed by internal marketing environment. They made arrived from the micro environment economic social cultural political legal geographical mortal or technical environments, the task environment suppliers marketing intermediaries, the market, the competitive environment or the public environment. for instance, an increase in workers salary banning of frozen chicken, textile e.t.c. maybe an opportunity. It may be a threat, depending on which industry the company belongs to. The opportunities should be sized and used to the advantage of the company while the diet should be addressed to see how they could be converted to opportunities.
Managers should know that not all threat call for some attention. They are expected to examine the chance of each identify threat to occur and how much it would cost. Management build and focus on the most probable and harmful threats and prepare plans ahead to meet the threat.
OBJECTIVES AND GOALS: objectives are goals they are aims which top management Would wish their organisation to achieve. They are related to the future and r essentially part of the marketing planning process. Why the situation analysis provides answer to the question concerning where the company is coming from, where it currently stands and where it might go, the objectives and goals selection spell out where the company should go. It is the responsibility of top level management to determine the overall goals and objectives of the company. this is done as a strategic imperative. Once stated, the departmental heads of work out how their department will achieve the target allocated to them. The goals could be stated both qualitatively and quantitatively where expected date of accomplishment are stated, objectives and goals become a working too.
Drucker considers objectives as in important in every area where performance and results directly affect the survival and prosperity of a business. Management should provide answers to the following questions. In what areas would excellence really have an extraordinary impact on the economic results of our business , to the point where it might transfer the economic performance of the entire business ? in what areas would poor performance threaten to damage economic performance greatly, or at least significantly?
STRATEGY STATEMENT: the strategy is a general description of the techniques which are to be used to achieve the stated objectives. The strategy is the basis of a detailed plan of action. According to kotler, a marketing strategy is a constant, appropriate, and feasible set of principles to which a particula Company hopes to achieve its long-run customer and profit objectives in a particular competitive environment. It provides answers to the question. How Shall we achieve results? Along with the main strategies are alternative strategies and contingency plans. a marketing strategy is not a collection of specific actions, but rather a statement that indicate goals and objective example to increase profit figure. Part of the strategies might include:
Reduction in cost of operation.
Increase in unit price of products.
Increase the overall sales volume etc.
STATEMENT OF TACTICS OR ACTION PROGRAMME: while strategies are board statement and outlines of how the manager hopes to achieve the stated goal, action plans are specific step to take to achieve the goals. These are called tactics.
BUDGET: The budget states the estimate of expenditure and revenue for the businesses. It is a projected profit and loss statement. The revenue side indicates the forecasted number of units that will be sold and average net released price while the expenditure side indicates the cost of production, physical distribution, and marketing once approved, the budget comes The basis for material procurement, production scheduling, manpower planning, and marketing operations.
CONTROLS: control involves the measurement and correction of the performance of subordinates to make sure that the objectives are attend im stop at every stage of marketing planning, there is need for control and evaluation.
CONTROLS ASKED THE QUESTION: how are we doing ? did we achieve the goals we set for ourselves? Controls deal with assessing whether plans have been carried out and results achieved and how to attend to deviations. Controls involves:
Determining objectives and establishing standards.
Execution of plans.
measuring performance against standards.
Feedback of results.
Correcting deviations from standards.
