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Business planning - Marketing planning
Step 3 - Marketing tools
To help you develop your marketing plan, you need to think which marketing tools are likely to be appropriate to your business. The promotion of the business will be the key to building sales and so this is a vital area to consider.
There are two main types of promotion and these are:
- Above the line promotion - above the line promotion is promotion that is carried out through independent media that enable a firm to reach a wide audience easily. These might include newspapers and television.
- Below the line promotion - below the line promotion is promotion over which the firm has direct control. It includes methods of direct promotion like direct mailing, exhibitions and trade fairs and sales promotions.
The choice of promotional techniques is likely to be heavily dependent on the sort of marketing budget that is available, and a business start-up is unlikely to looking as much at above the line promotion in its early days.
Choosing the appropriate medium for your promotion is important. The firm will want the maximum exposure to the most appropriate audience to ensure people are as aware as possible about the product, service or brand. Possible choices might include:
- Trade journals - these may be effective if your target market is a specialist one, but the journal needs to be one that is widely distributed. Examples of Trade Journals are Variety - covering film, television and stage industry, Air Transport World - aimed at airline managers and the Dental Digest - aimed at dentists! (For other examples watch 'Have I Got News For You'!)
- Newspapers and magazines - once again, you need to consider the target market very carefully. What age groups or socio-economic groups tend to read each of the possible newspapers and magazines? Are they one of your key market segments? Would a company advertising ride on mowers suitable for use in very large gardens be likely to advertise in the Daily Star?
- Cinema - the potential is there for a good impact with this type of promotion (smaller local adverts have now become common in cinemas), but are you hitting too broad an audience and is this form of advertising therefore cost-effective?
- Radio - there are now much larger numbers of local independent radio stations, but again you will need to look carefully that the station matches your target audience, and is it a cost-effective method?
- Direct mail - an increasingly common method of promotion. Can you identify your target market easily and perhaps buy a database of suitable names and addresses?
- Television - this can be an effective advertising medium, but is likely to be closed off to most business start-ups on grounds of cost. The average price for a 30 second ad in prime time TV can be around £80,000 rising to £120,000 during peak time viewing.
- Sales promotions / discount schemes - you could offer start-up discounts or vouchers that are delivered to people. Other possibilities might include competitions, product endorsements, free offers or perhaps special sales / credit terms.
- Exhibitions/trade fairs - once again, these may be effective if your audience is a fairly specialist one and the exhibition targets them effectively. The Motor Show, The Boat Show, The Ideal Homes Exhibition and the Chelsea Flower Show are all examples of exhibitions where relevant businesses might be keen to expose their products and services.
- Point of sale promotion - could you encourage outlets to have promotional materials to help with promotion where the product is sold? Look at the items available at the counter of your local supermarket, petrol station and newsagent!
- Personal selling - this method is most likely to be appropriate where the product is likely to be sold in large numbers to a small number of clients and would involve employing a sales representative.
The choice of which medium you use is likely to be down to a number of factors, and these might include:
- Cost
- How well the method reaches the target market
- The behaviour of competitors
- Legal restrictions
- How well the medium enables you to reach your desired marketing mix
- The effectiveness of the medium and the impact it has
There is a business planning case study that you may like to have a go at.
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