Build a marketing plan using old school journalistic style

There are as many ways to write a marketing plan as there are marketers in the business. Ultimately, each has to answer six fundamental journalistic questions, that is, akin to the 5 Ws (and one H) taught in any undergrad journalism school:  WHO am I selling to? WHAT am I selling? WHERE will I sell it? WHEN will I sell it? WHY will they buy it? HOW will I reach my customer?

WHO you are selling to is your demographic and psychographic, who they are and what makes them tick. “Everyone” isn’t helpful. Even products that have nearly 100% saturation identify their customers and those customers’ unique reasons for buying.

WHAT you are selling is less obvious than simply naming the product. It encompasses the reason the product was created, the problem it was meant to solve.

WHERE you sell it is key to reaching the correct demographic, above. You can’t reach the middle class at Tiffany’s, you can’t reach the super-rich at Target. And you can’t reach anyone if the display and packaging fails to engage the shopper.

WHEN you sell a product is more than seasonality, it can also, and more often does, involve identifying the ‘compelling event’ that triggers a desire for the product. Experience, such as a burglary that precipitates a security system sale; information,  such as a health alert on the news the encourages a purchase of a supplement are important to understand.

WHY will customers buy it? What alternative do they have? What are the competitive, ‘substitution’ products? What do people do without your product? What benefit does only your product offer? This is oversimplifying a critical part of the plan, so take some time to really study current and desired consumer behavior.

HOW will you reach them? This is the last part of the puzzle – the tactics. The ads, the media, social outlets, PR, events. The marketing mix that makes customers aware of and interested in your product or service.

The format and style of the marketing plan is not important. As long as it addresses and honestly answers these critical questions, it will improve your chances for success exponentially. 

It's good. Really good. It's TOO good.

Dear Nancy Brinker:

I'm a fan. What you've done for research is amazing. No one is a bigger supporter of the cause than I am. My mother herself was a victim of breast cancer so I say this with love, respect, and admiration:

Consider me 'aware'. I'm full of 'awareness'. I'm up to my eyeballs in 'awareness'. But like a pop song heard too many times, the pink thing has gone from helpfully ubiquitous to having the effect of the vandalism you'd expect from a Barbie-obsessed eight year old girl. It's too much of a good thing.

Your marketing - specifically, your brand communication - urgently needs a refresher because I can't be alone when I say I'm starting to tune it out like I do omnipresent graffiti in Queens.

To make a donation: http://ww5.komen.org/

The Cure For What Ails Ya?

The turn-of-the-(20th) century practice of ‘snake-oil’ salesmen travelling the country to sell remedies of questionable efficacy has returned in the form of ‘Patent Marketing’, a term I’ve coined to play off ‘Patent Medicine’, the term given these early ‘medicines’.

I am seeing a lot of ads for – and an increasing number of small start-ups buying – crowd-sourced logo development, marketing plan builders, and social media starter kits touted as an inexpensive equivalent for professional guidance - and by extension, purposeful reflection and consideration on the part of business owners themselves.

I understand the appeal of these services. We are a society of the easy fix, the cheap alternative, a society where Wal-mart sets the expectation. Plus, much of marketing and advertising can appear on the surface as obvious and intuitive. (The reason for this is that generally, 'the obvious and intuitive' was created by marketers who created that perception from the complicated and obscure, but I digress.) Marketing, it then appears, is certainly not the province of supposed ‘experts’ – many of which by my own admittance, aren’t worth a tinker’s damn themselves.

Still, it is simple due diligence to find a consultant with whom you can feel confident. One that knows, or is committed to learning, your industry and your business. One that will take your lead but feels confident not to necessarily follow it. One with relevant experience that allows them to apply past experiences and ask the right questions.

The idea of selling ‘Mad Libs’ style pre-written marketing plans or picking a logo contest winner is worse than doing nothing at all: it is potentially destructive. It allows sloppy thinking, hides what might be an under-capitalization of the business, reinforces marketing as a support, and therefore, optional, function, and suggests that marketing’s end game is a document or advertisement, and not an ongoing process of communication with stakeholders.

Your business is unique. Can what you are selling be reduced to a document like an off-the-shelf lease agreement? If the communication with your customers can be reduced to being positioned like every other business that purchases your same ready-made document, then perhaps that’s all the differentiation that you can muster for your own product or service. And ultimately that’s another way these services are truly destructive, providing insufficient differentiation and discounting the real value of your product or service.

Snake oil remedies were touted as a cure for ‘what ails ya’, but were generally loaded with opiates that made the patient feel good for just long enough for the salesman to pack up his wagon and move on. If you are in business for the long haul, you’ll need a better prescription.