Download Marketing essentials

Marketing essentials
What is ‘marketing’?
Simply put, marketing is all about your organisation, the products you offer and how you promote them.
It’s an essential checklist to maximize the chance of your success which will take the format of your
marketing plan.
Often people use the word ‘marketing’ as though it were just another word for ‘advertising’. Some seem to think that
marketing is just another word for ‘promotion’. Neither is true. Marketing is a far broader topic that holds promotion as a
sub-function of marketing, and advertising as a sub-function of promotion. In the broadest sense, marketing incorporates
everything about understanding markets. Marketing is basically the strategic part of your organisation.
Marketing essentials
You’ve launched your new organisation already or you may have just been given the green light by Nominet Trust to develop
a brand new digital concept which you’re convinced is going to fly successfully with your target audience.
However the concept and specifically the service you’re offering at this stage may be based more on gut instinct than on a
more formal marketing plan approach and market research.
Marketing is essential to the success of your organisation. However, despite an understanding and awareness of marketing
being so crucial, outside of marketing circles, there’s typically a lack of awareness or misconception to what exactly this is
and its importance.
In this section whilst we follow the traditional four Ps and seven Ps of marketing to provide a handy framework, we cut
through the jargon to provide some handy basic hints on marketing essentials to shape your marketing plan.
We want to ensure you have a good grasp of what marketing is, and how to use marketing to massively improve your
organisation.
It may be common sense or instinctive perhaps as you probably live and breathe your organisation and it’s remit, but
whatever your current understanding of marketing, this handy checklist will work as a foundation to support you in
developing and maintaining successful marketing and communications plans and the success of your product and
organisation.
1.1
Produced in conjunction
with Media Trust
Shaping your marketing plan
Market research and competitor analysis
Start at the beginning: the foundation of all good marketing is to know your market. That means your customers. The well
marketed organisation is completely customer focused. They identify what the customer wants or needs, and then supply it
at a price the customer is prepared to pay.
Placing the customer foremost does not always mean having excellent customer service. It means knowing what the
customer’s priorities are, and making them your own. With that said, providing the values that the customer values most is
where the whole secret lies. The tricky part to this is that you really need to know who your customers are and what they
want even before you can make them your customers.
Research should be undertaken according to the seven Ps or four Ps of marketing, which we go into some detail on below.
Simultaneously whilst asking these questions of your own organisation and product, it’s essential at this stage to consider
and ask these same questions of your competitors. To maximise your time it’s a worthwhile idea to do this using the
parameters as presented here.
It’s unlikely you have a big budget to undertake this, so whether it’s interviewing a few sample members of your target
audience in an agreed location to undertaking a detailed online survey, do what market research you can. If that means
carrying your own clipboard in the local shopping centre or your local high street or means trying to find people in your
target market to interview, then so be it.
Shape your marketing plan (see How to write a Marketing and Communications Strategy for additional information) and
competitor analysis according to the generic guide on the next page.
The four Ps and seven Ps of your marketing plan
Bigger organisations carry out extensive market research to find the best balance of the four Ps of marketing before
they go any further. However as a start up, every scrap you glean will stand you in good stead later on.
Why use the four Ps? ‘The four Ps’ is a conventional marketing term which acts as a checklist of considerations that
your marketing plan should address. The traditional four Ps are ‘Product’, ‘Price’, ‘Place’ and ‘Promotion’. However, in
more recent times, this notion has developed into seven Ps, with ‘People’, ‘Positioning’ and ‘Planning’ being added to
the list.
1.1
Produced in conjunction
with Media Trust
Seven Ps
−− Product – What do the competitors offer, how will yours be different? List the unique selling points (USPs) and your
own. Your product needs to fit a need and be designed to achieve this purpose. Consider the need of your product in the
questions you ask.
−− Place – What channels should be used to engage your audience according to the habits of your audience? How does your
competitor reach its audience? Where does it engage and how has it done so? What are the points of purchase? Consider
what mix of partners are needed to help you successfully distribute and create your product, as well as their location.
−− Price – What price incentive do they offer, how will you compete? Think about selling incentives according to how you
intend to distribute and to whom. The price of your product needs to be appropriate and competitive according to your
target audience and their profile. It needs to be appropriately priced for the nature of the product and it’s placement in
the market. For instance, consideration also should be given that many services will be offered free through a charity so
the equivalent value will need to be considered. Also it’s a consideration whether you’re looking to sell your product as a
licence for instance, and sell en-masse to large organisations in large quantities or individually to individual users.
−− Promotion – How do they engage? What tactics will you use to connect to their target audiences and where? This is
where public relations (PR) will come to the forefront as a low-cost, high-value form of driving awareness. Promotion
also incorporates sponsorship, advertising, PR and many other marketing channels such as social media. List all the
promotional tools you expect to be able to reasonably utilise in keeping with your understanding of your audience,
their media consumption and possible points of engagement.
The above may be limited as a snapshot, so ideally if time and resources allow, you should also consider the following:
−− People – Are you trying to engage the same audience or is there going to be a crucial point of difference with your
product to engage a different demographic? List the top three categories of your target audience. Be specific.
−− Positioning – What are their brand values? What makes their brand attractive? What is communicated to resonate with
their audience in keeping with their own values and interests? What do you need to communicate to really stand out?
What will be your point of difference?
−− Planning – These are your objectives and the goals you wish to achieve. Perhaps it’s related to awareness and number
of units. List up to three business and communications objectives. Consider your resources and what is needed to
achieve your goals and objectives. Separately, how are you going to tell if your activity has had the desired effect? Finally,
consider how you will evaluate whether you have been successful. What process will you undertake to
measure this, and going back to your original objectives, what is it based on?
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www.nominettrust.org.uk
Produced in
conjunction with
Media Trust