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Lesson Info

Marketing Plan And Measurement

So step five, which is really the marketing plan, is the medias of all in the sense that this is where all the previous four steps culminate. And you really are trying to turn all of these elements into a tangible, physical plan, what we call the marketing plan. And marketing plan, you know, some people... It would look like a business plan in a sense that you're making some choices along the way. But it's really a document that captures what is your intention, call it, in a years time, to grow the brand based on the choices that you have made. And the marketing plan serves you, serves your team, if you have a team, or even can be transformed into a business plan to gather investors or people that you're trying to bring into the business. And everything that we've talked along the way, the fours Ps, the target, the positioning, the equity, the vision, everything belongs into a marketing plan. So, as I said, so marketing plan, again, is a key document and it really expresses what you're...

trying to accomplish. And what we're gonna do is, as I explain the different sections of the marketing plan, I want you to think through that we're writing a document. Cause a marketing plan can be a physical document that you ultimately create. And it's a summary of what we have been studying, but also becomes a blueprint that you can reference back at anytime if you go astray, or if you're having second thoughts on your target, or your communication is not working. Okay, I invested in a Facebook campaign, nothing happened. It's either the message is wrong, the reach is wrong, or that's not the right vehicle, right? But if you have things on paper, you can question them, you can start with hypotheses. So it brings that discipline of the brand-building journey. I would really tell you if you stop at step four, without putting things on paper, you will not be able to actually complete your brand-building journey. Because it's the physical act of putting things on paper and declaring them, sharing them with others, going back and forth, adjusting here and there, knowing how they connect, that will really give you the clarity, again, principle number one of Star Brands, on what you're really trying to accomplish. So that's the importance of having the marketing plan and completing that step. So we're gonna write a document. So pretend we're gonna go through the different sections. And the intent here is, what I'm gonna do, is try to connect the pieces to the previous steps. So the executive summary, as you imagine in any business document, is just a clear statement, the summary, of what you intend to do with the brand that year. So an example of this, you know for the year ahead, I want to grow my brand by 10%, reaching this type of customer, doing leveraging these different tactics, and I'm going to measure it this way, and by doing so I'm gonna move the brand from X to Y, and I'm going to deliver this overall sales and this profit. You know, it should be a summary but so clear that anyone can play back what is it that your brand is trying to do in the next year. And it's common that you write it last once you have everything done because really it should read as a summary. That's the executive summary. Then you have background. And in the background, guess what goes in there? Your SWOT. Cause it's the summary of where you're starting from. You're giving, really, the context of where the brand is starting and what are the things that you're dealing with that you're going to use the marketing plan to overcome or accelerate in terms of your growth. So we have executive summary, you have the SWOT in the background, that's why we did it before, so you would put your paragraph or your quadrants here, whatever works best, and then you're going to transition to really telling the audience or yourself, and if that's where the background, this is where we are, this is where we intend to take the brand. Right, the vision and the desired brand trajectory. This is what we're on. This is the journey that we're on to accomplish. And then you have your goals and objectives, right? So, again, to the question earlier, that specificity of what are your sells, what's the market share expectation, what is the profit, will make it very tangible. And you can just put a chart in here where you would say you know, for the next year, I expect to grow my sales by 10% by getting this number of new customers and these type of products, and it's going to cost me X amount of dollars to do that, and this is the resulting profit of that. Right, again, those three metrics. And if you have an ability to articulate share, you know, I'm going to be the number one in my category, or I'm going to progress my market share, you can see roughly, you know, if that's a goal that you want to include. And again, this is the amount of people that you want to reach from the amount of people that are available. Okay? So we have vision and objectives, and then you can go into the meat of the document which is your marketing strategy, and this is where the four Ps surface again. Here's where you say okay, this is my positioning. You know, in your positioning, you put your equity pyramid, what we actually studied in step number two. This is my promise, this is my ideal. And then you move into this is my promotion strategy. That's where you would put your communication elements. If you have an idea, or if you have also the media plan. Okay, so I'm going to do TV and Facebook, or I'm just going to do a search campaign, or I'm just going to do flyers, or I'm just going to sample my product, you know, three times a month. Whatever the choice is, where you're going to sell your product, you would describe here. You know, my goal is to make it available at X number of retail stores, or I'm going to make my product available online. Whatever your choice is, and vice versa. Because we're talking about a marketing plan, it's very common that in the... that you would include a very detailed marketing budget which is basically the more specific measures on how much are you willing to spend to reach a customer. And you might not have that metric right away until you know, right? Until you've done a few experiments. This is the cost of acquisition of a customer. Then you can just multiply because it's very easy to say, I promise that I'm gonna grow 10%, so I need this number of customers, and if roughly I know it costs me $1.50, call it, to reach a new customer or for them to click on my link, or that's the cost of a search buy, then you can easily multiply that and become the math to highlight how much you're going to be spending in terms of marketing to reach the customers to support those sales that you want to generate. Then you will have a section on the measurement plan, and I will explain this in more detail, which is where you break down the goals that we've talked about, in terms of what you want to accomplish, in a simple plan that you can track over time. Again, you cannot wait a year to be done to know whether you had a successful year for the brand. The intent here is that you can measure progress. Now, an additional use of this section is that you can actually create a contingency plan, especially if you're a startup. You need to know what happens if you exceed your sales target, what happens if you're below the target. Very simple implications. If you sell less than what you built, you're either gonna have inventory, not enough money to pay payroll, or if you sell more, what if you're out of stock? That's a problem as well. And when you manage a brand, when you manage a business, you should be knowing up front what are those key variables, and even scenario plan. What are the things that could happen to you and your brand that you want to actively manage? That's a very important part of managing a business and managing a brand. You know, knowing the ups and downs and what you would do. And then, of course, if you're using the marketing plan to gather investors, or if you're trying to collect more support, or if you're actually just using it for yourself, then you would have a section where it says next step. What are the really... The tactical plan. What do I need to do month and month to accomplish the goal? That's where more of the activity system, or a critical path schedule, however you want to call it, but there's rigor in managing a brand so you wanna break down into tangible actions so you're following through, because even if it's paying your bills, you don't wanna be late, right? Even if it's hiring people if you need to hire people to put the product, that will be an activity system. Figuring out your marketing campaign, that's an activity system, right? So it will help you document all of those things in more detail. So it's a tangible blueprint on how you go about. So a few words on measurement plan is there's three things that you can do, and again this is the section where you would want to track your success but also becomes a contingency plan, is to think about: First, what are the core metrics that you really care about? And by now we should know that core metrics are sales, share and profit, but there are others from a consumer standpoint that you can track and measure. Trial, how many people purchased me for the first time? How many people repeated? How many people came back? So there's consumer metrics that you can track over time. Or, to the earlier question, on how do you know if you have the right amount of people, you can do a proxy of how many people do I think I'm reaching? You know, do I believe my communication is working or not? Did I get the distribution points that I needed? How many places am I available? You can also track your pricing. If you are not the one setting your pricing, you can see how far off. Maybe you set up your pricing but you're driving so many promotions that you're actually discounting your product without knowing it and losing profit as a result, right? So you can measure all of that. And then the second part is you wanna break it down in periods that are tangible. Right? So I recommend you should have at least monthly tracking, in terms of those core metrics. Now, if you are a product and service, you will probably be able to measure yourselves everyday. Right? But you should have clear goals and, again, you should break it down to the degree that is helpful for you to have milestones. I'm always pro-knowing whether you're in the right track earlier, sooner rather than later. You know, don't measure yourself to that because you're gonna be obsessed about it, but break it down, the core metrics that are available, because that will bring discipline to your process, and it will allow you making adjustments when you can actually catch when something has gone wrong or adjust, for example, if it's hopefully success ahead of your expectations, get ahead of the plan. And then finally, it's good to have a plan, just know up front. It's always better to know how you would react to something that is beyond your expectation up front because you will save time and action and you will probably protect more of your profit and will be able to come to better solutions. So that's also an important step of making sure that you're in the right trajectory. So, that measurement plan, again, it might sound quite tedious for numbers or contingency, but again, it's a dynamic market out there, right? Both the customer, the competitors, your product, there's new products all the time so you wanna be prepared. So that's why it's important to go into that. So we're now coming to the end and let me tell you you learned so much today, more than you realize. Once you go and take your notes, once you get those templates, and once you start applying for that brand, you will come up with a lot of questions and a lot of hypotheses on how these things come together, which I guarantee will bring you closer to achieve that clarity, to achieve that consistency, to achieve that desire to have that vision to deliver superior products, perhaps even a bold vision on how you can deliver higher order purpose, which are the things that we learned about what Star Brands do best. I really believe you're well-equipped with a tool that will really enhance your chances of success and I really only hope that there's better brands out there, more Star Brands and more sustainable, successful businesses and it's you guys, this audience today here and on the web, that you're the guys that will make that happen. So with that, we're officially wrapping up the five steps in the Star Brand model and now you just have to go and make it happen. Thank you so much. Can you let people know where we can find you online if they want to continue following your work? Absolutely. So you can find me on my website is buildstarbrands.com. Also, if it's easier, just my name carolinarogoll.com, you can reference it. And I'm active both on Twitter, my handle is @crogoll, and you can also find me on Facebook, my author and teacher page. So there's plenty of ways in which you can connect with me. And again, the book is a great resource which will go more in depth, and I think the templates that Jim mentioned will also break it down for you to make sure that you go and do the work yourself because, again, the brands are not born, they're made. You have to go and make your brand for it to really achieve the Stardom status, which is what we're aspiring for.