Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC is READY! Buy it HERE (ONLY USD 19.90 WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT)
You Need Hands! February 11, 2010
I was captured by the following paragraph i read in Paco Underhill‘s “Why We Buy” book. Indeed a very good book especially if you want ideas but for a retail business, this is a must read. Let me recite the paragraph:
“A woman is carrying a handbag, and that she’s wearing a coat, which she’ll probably want to remove once she’s inside the store, meaning she’ll have to carry that, too. God gave here two good hands but she’s shopping with one. If she selects something, the free hand carries it. Now she’s down to no hands. Maybe, if it’s small and light, she can tuck the purchase under one arm. Perhaps she’ll sling the handbag over a shoulder or forearm. Then she’ll have….let’s call it a hand and a quarter. If she picks one more thing, though, she’ll run out of hands. Only an extremely motivated buyer will persevere. Human anatomy has just declared this shopping spree over.”
What do you get out of that? I said, “I need my hands!!”. And i want to relate that to strategy.
Strategy, in that story is our “business” hands. If we are too occupied or “full” with strategies we are going to get stucked. Just like that woman’s hands. There was one CEO i know that has his hands full of strategies until he can’t carry it anymore. In our hands, we can only carry certain things for a limited time only. then we have to unload.
With our strategies (hands!) also, business can pick and choose what they want and what they do not want. For example for a food retail business, they can choose to sell inside the mall or outside the mall. Both require different strategies. What if they want to sell both inside and outside the mall? Chaos! I have seen in Malaysia, whereby few retail brands try to have “captured both sides” of the mall but fail to do so because people are confuse. Customers are confuse on two things. Firstly, why do you need to have two outlets in the same mall? And which one should i go to? One thing about customers, when we are given options to choose most of the time we fail to choose. Customers go somewhere else to other outlet that has single message per outlet.
On the other hand, for business to business (B2B) businesses, having “hands” definitely very important and have to set it right from the start. i recently learned that large companies operation is very complex. A lot ogf stakeholders and usually steps taken are far too many and planning is on very long range too. Therefore, making sure the “hands” are picking up the right strategies are very crucial.
View Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC HERE
Alternatively, business hands also can be extended. Say you want to expand to new market in new country, you definitely cannot do it alone. We need a helping hand. This is where friendly parties, partners, sponsors and networks play very important role. We need to talk to them, identify and select them accordingly to become our extended hands for our business.
I recently met one CEO of a growing global university and he shared me a story. he said that in some African countries, people are still don’t want to spend on education. people save money under their pillow because they are so worried and have low access to information. they don’t trust bank so much and they live a traditional life. he also added, to set up a global university there definitely a big challenge, but the moment the country wakes up (just like China!), it is going to give a handsome return. So how he plans to do it? Find strong local partners and support them. This is because local partners, most of them have less money and do small trading business. The idea of effective and efficient are definitely alien to them but they are hard working.
I personally found this approach is very interesting and unique. Nevertheless, a good example of extended hands are needed if you want to go beyond your home base. But what if your hands are still full?
One, is to pray to God for a stronger back and not a lighter loads! Two, you need to prioritize. Prioritization is easy said than done. Even i sometimes overlook prioritizing, especially during busy period. I remember someone said, “when the going gets up, everyone is very happy!’. This refers to stock market bullishness, when it’s up everyone starts to forget basic things. But it certainly helpful to get our priority right.
I normally write down and prioritize based on time, processes and outcome. Lastly i also measure ROI. Sometimes, certain things you do is very painful but it’s going to give the highest ROI, so i choose to do that first. But as for you, you need to decide what’s best.
I will discuss more on Maven marketing in my next post, how to use it as your extended hands for your business. Cheers!
Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC is READY! Buy it HERE (ONLY USD 19.90 WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT)
EIGHT Tips on Pricing January 31, 2010
Pricing is super important for “making it sells” and “making your profits”. Agree? But often times for new business owners, they are sometimes overcharged and on the other undercharged. Thus only profiting is just a dream. Because they lose both ways; overcharged they get less sales, and underchared they make losses for every additional output.
What are things to look for when we do our pricing plan? How to determine the correct pricing strategies for our product? Here are EIGHT Tips on Pricing as a guide.
1. Have a pricing plan
- i always emphasized on having a plan including pricing plan. it’s like this, before you launch or introduce your product/service, i suggest you to take a piece of paper and write down what you plan to sell and how you plan to price it. write it down and see it for yourself. does those information make sense to you?
2. Know your segment- different price is for different segment? Yes, this is fact. i know someone who sells women dress that he gets from a supplier price $45 for segment A and charge $95 for segment B. Segment A receives the dress in a plastic bag and segment B in a striking colored brown bag. Got it?
3. Know your cost
- many costing methods covered in my book Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC such as cost plus, mark up and so on. But the gist is, “know how much you paid for the product”. The cost you should include are raw material, transport, miscellaneous and time. Then you break them down into per unit cost to see how much is the cost distribution. if you are running a restaurant, factor in your fixed cost like rent, overheads and utililities. If you are selling services, most probably your additional unit production lessen at least by 30% – 50%. So do the math!
4. Set your pricing point
- pricing point should include your minimum profit you want to make. Say you use mark up pricing at 20%, therefore your $10 cost price should be sold at minimum at $12 because you marked-up 20%. But as question whether 20% enough for you to sustain business? Therefore, when you set pricing point please include your risk factor as well. for example slow season, pilferage rate, spoilt and so on.
5. Multi pricing
- lately i realize multi pricing can give greater profits if done correctly. i have a friend who runs a toy shop and whenever certain toys on high demand, he will increase the price that is enough to make him keep up with the competition (when he priced lower, customer may think his product is inferior and when he priced too high, customer may think it’s too expensive!). what he does is to gauge the demand and look around pay attention to his customers and competition. he will reduce certain less-demanded toys and display it at the main storefront. when customers are “captured” with the cheaper toy, he goes in and then he will see the high-demand toys and the rest is better sales and greater profits. customers and sellers happy!
6. Keep your overheads intact
- this is important when you have sales team working on project selling (involve in large contracts and items) or you work with distributors. Sometimes, after working with them for a particular project, you may realize your cost run too faraway and eat up into your profit. i recommend to have constant check and monitor the performance vs incentives vs achieved sales
7. Scan your environment pricing
- it is common now to have competition in any business you go. there are always someone who has done it first, therefore i recommend to do a little benchmarking. but not getting overwhelmed with the data, but rather “be in the know”. For example consulting is becoming more expensive and sometimes too expensive. are you willing to make it cheaper and still offer the same or greater material and content? 
8. Trend
- when the trend comes, demand will surge like crazy. i still remember a friend of mine who imports Tamagochi (virtual pet) 10 years ago. it was “D” thing and it was super hot. One Tamagochi can sell up to $40 and that is consider average price. He bought tonnes of those pets and within 2 years those pets is a fad. no one plays Tamagotchi anymore because many already can afford Sony Playstation and so on. Watch the trend because when the trend goes off, you are sure to make losses!
Hope it helps! For further marketing strategies and how to have a solid marketing plan, please view my book Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC or DOWNLOAD SUMMARY HERE.
//
//
I highly recommend you to view and subsequently purchase it. it’s only USD 24.50 (ONLY USD 19.90, WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT!) and that will give you better control and ideas on how to manage your business. Buy Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC here
Why Do You Need A Marketing Plan? January 28, 2010
When i ask entrepreneurs and small business owners, it is not unusual for not having any marketing plan. I once read that Sir Richard Branson was never had any marketing plan when he started the 1st Virgin business many years ago. In fact in one study of entrepreneurship (i couldn’t recall the name of the study) was that as much as 50% of entrepreneurs and business owners don’t have a business plan and marketing plan when they first started the business. What was the outcome? As much as 90% businesses started by entrepreneurs and small business went busted or failed within a year. I experienced one of the many busts few years ago (with my cafe business) because i don’t really have a proper and “the few solid sheets” called a marketing plan.
Coming back to my questions to entrepreneurs and small business owners, many of their answers sounded like this, “I don’t really have one”, “It’s in my head coz i know the business so well” and worse, “I don’t know what is marketing plan”! If you happen to be in one of these categories, rest assured you are not the only one. And to perfectly honest, that’s the ultimate reason why i turned back to my writing board where i was actually in the middle of writing (rather perfecting!) a personal development programs. i dropped that program and quickly drafted and started Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC because many of you need it, seriously.
But, i don’t specifically mean my own Marketing Plan S6PEC Framework because there are so many versions and gurus out there that can give you the benefit of a marketing plan. Of course i am going to say mine is a lot better because it’s a practical and practitioner’s guide. Other than being a consultant, i also have performed marketing manager role, entrepreneur role, business manager role, investor and student of entrepreneurship (during my MBA!). But that’s not my main point. My main point is for you to have a marketing plan to guide your business. which one? Well it is up to you!
So, to put things in perspective; why do you really need a marketing plan?
Guide
- in a marketing you will think, record and document all your ideas, products and services offering, price, distribution channel, programs, sales direction, customer segment and so on. i have experienced whereby i suddenly realized that my business is not going on the right direction because i didnt follow my marketing plan. have you experienced that? or perhaps you suddenly realized that the thing you do know supposed to be done many months ago because you forgot about it? And you forgot because you don’t jot it down and plan for it? This is what i mean that marketing plan as a guide. I cover this in my Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC.
Ideas
- people said the more you talk about your ideas the more refine it becomes. I think this is true. Did you ever experience when you talk to more people you generated a lot more ideas? When people give you feedback it triggers another dimension of your ideas? If you are, so where do you keep all these ideas? It should be in a marketing plan.
Resource Plan
- in marketing, there is only one thing that’s scarce: RESOURCES. some people have a lot of money but lacked ideas and another group is the other extreme; more ideas and less money. many of us probably the later than the former! In the marketing plan we will tackle things like people to hire, pricing, distribution plan, sales programs budget and so on.
Strategy
- Similar to business strategy, marketing plan will capture strategies required to support your business strategy. For example if your business goal is to achieve 20% increase in sales, your marketing strategy would be to 1) introduce new product, 2) increase price for premium offerings, 3) recruit more distributors and offer commission scheme and so on. Strategy is king. When you can see your business in totality, i can assure you that you will find it easier to manouvre. Marketing plan is the place to address all these issues.
Risk
- in our marketing plan we shouldn’t only concern about making money or positive points, we also should address the risk we are taking. for example it is common for a marketing plan to capture things like, “require additional staff to handle sales call”, “additional investment from the management budget will increase chances of increasing 10% sales target” and many more. Imagine if you can factor your risk earlier and think through it, wouldn’t it be better for you?
Pricing
- I once said in my Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC that, “Price is the key determinants of your profits”. I stand firm to keep it that way. In your marketing plan, you will address pricing plan for your distributors, customers, multiple segments (some business charge differently – price discrimination) and cost price i.e. your raw materials and things like that. Not many address price correctly and bear in my mind that we need to standby few pricing plan to respond to the market. Take for example during festive season, if everyone is lowering price and slashed their price or even ignited a price war, what do you do about that? Follow suit or wait? If you want to follow, how far? If you want to wait, how long? You capture all this in pricing plan.
Customer Segment
- this is talked about most of the time, but let’s accept the fact that today’s customers are fragmented to smaller niches. Your product and service will not be consumed by only one segment and at critical mass. it is likely to be consumed by smaller segment and multi. no more critical mass, but rather a solid spread of niches. For example, who buy iPod’s today? if Apple only think about yuppies they are making a big mistake because apparently iPod is also used by women and people with active lifestyle. Another example, who buys from hypermarket? if hypermarket only focus on households they may not survive or be successful like today. hypermarket main segment is actually small business restaurant operators that buy in larger quantity compare to households and on daily basis. i’ve been there, i know! LOL
Corrective Plan
- a marketing plan is a living document. trust me, the moment you have it and experience planning your marketing, you will realize this. therefore it is a plan that allows you to assess past strategies and results and at the same time allow you to make necessary corrective measures to fit your business growth. for example, who expected the 2008 financial crisis to hit us so badly? no one other than the few so called “economists” but how did responded to it? Severely. many businesses closed including many giants. but the good thing is, many have a solid marketing and business plans, therefore they make quick corrective actions and moved forward.
Innovation
- i once sat in a meeting of project and business updates and suddenly one of the directors said, actually with all that we have now we can be in the medical device market. Violaaa!!! this medical device company used to service government hospitals and they have all the equipments. it’s just that they never thought of going direct to the hospitals and take the lion share of the business. in that meeting, after going through the company yearly updates, this “innovation” came instantneously and the next year they are pitching about it to the government hospitals directly.
Imagine if you can do all these and manage all these in a marketing plan? Systematic, organized, well thought, innovative and captured all your pertinent business information, don’t you find having a marketing plan is useful for your business?
One thing about my business, i don’t sell templates. I only sell actual content. I believe that template is only to give you the general overview of direction but not how-to do it. That’s why i highly not recommended you choose to download or purchase marketing templates because i have seen them i personally think it won’t help you much. let me share you a recent story about template.
I have childhood friend who wanted to open a small business. i offered him my service at $$$ which is so much below market rate because we have been friends for 20 years. he said no, because he think there is another cheaper way to do it or in other words “resourceful is my middle name” kinda thing. so i let him do that. I offered him five days later that, if he needs me to view the marketing plan i will do it for free over tea. he showed me a marketing template he bought for USD 25 and all he got was a template!!! i scolded him and cursed the site that provided such thing. it was just boxes everywhere and not even a paragraph on how to fill those boxes. well, this is what i mean and i defy to be in that business because that’s cheating. By the way i got to do my friend’s job after that.
What i offered is much simpler, richer and with all the things you need. firstly this blog is to help you enhance and as a source to guide you on the marketing plan you purchase. Well, let’s dont talk about purchase yet. would you want to view the actual content or maybe download the Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC Introduction first? Don’t be shy. I think i am one of the the few publishers that allow my customer to read the actual content before purchasing it. I suggest you to download it before you buy it. get some feel and send it around.
to drive home the point, i highly recommend you to have a marketing plan and the better way is to be able to write yourself. this is because to hire a marketing consultant that don’t know your business is very costly. you end up spend longer time to expand and grow your business. or maybe at least when you know, you can start write your own marketing plan then you get the marketing consultant to touch up and give you more ideas.
If you ever need a to know how to develop and use a marketing plan, i will recommend my own product because from my knowledge there is no such guide yet in the market whereby with all the benefits you get in a marketing plan plus the gaps of “the templates” been giving you, my Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC is only USD 24.50 (NOW ONLY USD 19.90 WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT!). Seriously, please consider of having a proper marketing plan for your business because it is not easy to take your business to where it is now and you don’t to see it wither, do you?
Inquiry: entreprenovators@gmail.com
Buy Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC HERE
Check the Purchasing Process Flow HERE
Cheers! Entreprenovator Rocks!!
You can add me on Facebook/Mike Entreprenovator
Please view my other content on SlideShare/Entreprenovator
What You Really Need in A Marketing Plan? Quick Run January 20, 2010
Just a few sheets of paper and rigorous implementation. That’s all. Sound easy? It is supposed to be easy, but many fails in both planning (or writing) the few sheets of paper and rigorous implementation. I may not be able to help you with the rigorous implementation because it requires resources such as many and people to hire to “rigour” it, but i can surely assist you in fighting the other half; the solid few sheets of paper. Which i refer as “marketing plan” for small business owners and entrepreneurs. i am fully confident that small business is going to thrive in the next century and going to become “d” business not far from now. So you still want to know about the “few solid sheets of paper”? You should be because it’s going to save your business, not to mention other than that.
Few months ago i gathered substantial amount of information (both in theory and practical application) from various sources. Sources are from books like philip kotler, malcolm mcdonald, sergio zyman, levitt, jack welch, fenwick (digital marketer) and many more. other sources like harvard business review, MIT Sloan Management Review magazine, mckinsey, boston consulting group, gartner reports, tns and so on. I also chat with few local and international marketing practitioners, and lastly my own experience as marketing and strategy consultant. What i gathered? You only need to have a few solid sheets of paper to plan and make your marketing work.
1. Your customer
This is key in any marketing plan and business. You don’t equate your customer with other business customers. For example if you are selling Japanese car, you can’t equate the need of your customer with the one that going for European car. They are just different. Always look at your customer and write down every single thing about them. Ask the 5W 1H questions to yourself, people around you and the customers.
2. About You
As business owner, i know sometimes we get too deep into our own idea and we were blinded by the beauty and joy it brings but guys, when something going too sweet, you got to be careful. It is like when you first dating a girl and you like her so much; that whatever your friend tell you was ignored. That is the same feeling when we are too engrossed with our own ideas. We need to open up and look for other angle and ready to accept criticism of that idea. I have been there and i have lost quite a bit just because i fondle the “business” and drown together! 
3. What is your business
You need to ask this question from the practical side in terms of its capability and capacity. Capability is skills set and capacity is ‘engine size” – how much can you do. For example as a new restaurant you have the capability to cook nice food but you don’t have the capacity to do food delivery yet. You follow? And when you ask this question, do not ask and answer intellectually because you end up confuse yourself. Plan for 6 months first before looking at how the business should be in 6 years.
4. Distribution
In distribution principle, the bigger your network and distribution channel the better your business is. this is fact and true. Check how else can you distribute. If non-perishable and dry product, you will find it easier but can you afford to buy bulk and warehouse it? If food or perishable item, you will find a bit challenging. if you are in service, can you duplicate your service using network or join venture with other similar service provider but in a different market? Think of this.
5. Promotion
If you don’t announce it, people don’t know. Put aside some budget to spend on marketing campaigns, and please try using online marketing as one of your strategy. Global business is not so global anymore, transportation is getting cheaper and if you are in knowledge business, you can do it online now. If physical product, make sure you tap sources like social media (Facebook, MySpace and Ning), blogs, websites, online banners and search engines. big billboards, tv ads and print ads are traditional media and exorbitantly expensive. The ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) also very low. I recently with a client and compare to Phase 1 and Phase 2 marketing spending, they shaved almost 50% spending in Phase 2 and getting better results!
6. Employee
If your business is labour intensive like restaurant, service counters or manufacturing then you need to look for competent people that can run machine, understand operation and willing to work with haphazard processes (unless you run a franchise business). Simply because as a new business and small, or new product, we dont know how the product or business perform in the market. It can be a bomb or doom. But what i learn is we need to give some time to let it grow.
7. Fliers
For a new business, fliers is a must. don’t start the business without it because you are risking a lot of eyeballs especially if you have a physical shop. You want to attract people to come to your fish shop, trading shop, saloon, data centre and so on. While eyeballs don’t give direct business, eyeballs can develop trust, reach and build confidence. my experience in restaurant and service business, the moment i put in fliers, i can safely sure i will get the next 2 months business. Yes, it is that powerful but there will be a lot of wastage too. Especially if your business is on green product, you gotta think again!
8. Pricing
Price determines your profit. I just got to know my client today (a new Head of a Food Division) just told me that the previous Head screwed up on the pricing for their newly operated food court. Now after 3 months operation, they are heavily debted and this is because the food court was well received and jammed-packed daily and it runs 24 hours. the problem is, with every customer they sell they are losing money. You follow me? So, the more they sell while they have the volume but because the pricing is at below cost price (for some internal reasons and overly subsidied), the food court makes losses in 3 months! be careful about pricing my friend. Have a pricing plan and pricing points. it is ok to give discount and promotions, but you need to plan it.
9. Risk
Starting a new business or new product always come with risk factors. I am not going to brag about risk management just like some investment banker, typical consultant (that never run real business) and academician (intellects that never be in the real market!) because they don’t really know what we are facing down (or is it up!) there. Risk comes and goes on daily basis but we need to identify what type of risk. is it bearable? are they harmful? how long you expect to last i.e. crisis? how do you plan to recover? what is the cut-off point? what is the business impact? who is involved and get affected? how you want to compensate or recover? what is your nett risk/loses? These questions, are brushed aside or “simplistically” not important by those 3 categories of people. When in risky situation i have only one advice: search for information and data aggresively. dig dig dig!
10. Strategy
What you really need is a few great strategies. in fact i currently practice, at maximum is three solid strategies. enough to make a difference, even a small step but it is still superior than not moving at all right? it is better to own and run a slum laundry but with solid strategy rather than an exclusive laundry without strategy. you lose money greatly without strategy. but from my observation, good strategy need some time to get effect, so give it time to flourish. nonetheless, it shouldnt take too long because if it is too long and persist, consult your doctor!!
I am sharing more of these findings, views, knowledge, experiences or “whatchaever” you call it in my Marketing Plan E-book which is in the 2nd final process of editing and polishing. it should be released in a couple week time. READY!! You can BUY it NOW ONLY USD 19.90 with LAUNCHING DISCOUNT!
I highly recommend you to purchase it, and i guarantee you it is going to be very cheap and worth money spend. it is so low that you will not believe it. i shall put the content to be viewed on SlideShare/Entreprenovator so you can know what are you buying. Like i said, in marketing you just need a few solid sheets of paper and you are ready to go guys. Forget about marketing software and all those bombastic name gadgets/technology for marketing, as small business owners and entrepreneurs we have our guts, instinct and balls to keep the business afloat and running. So, let’s just do that first and make your money and more profits.
Cheers! Should you require any further information please email to entreprenovators@gmail.com
How to Develop Strategy Statement December 6, 2009
1. Understand the industry landscape, what is it all about and who are the competitors.
2. Understand the customer’s needs, segment the customer and find ways to add value with what you want to serve. You can refer to Product Planning section on how to value add your products. Over analyse makes you paralyse, so don’t over do it.
3. Understand what you need (capability) in order to serve that product and value added services to your customer. In terms of money, people, system and other resources. You don’t want to over do it and kill yourself.
4. Be objective and be ambitious a little bit. Come out with 3 – 5 strategies. You can separate them into 2 phases, 1st phase for launching strategies (the 1st 6 months of your business) and 2nd phase is for post launching (6th months onwards).
5. Always check back your strategies with your business goals and offerings. Focus on the primary services first, the extension or extra value added services can come much later. Too much value added service can kill you and your business. Know what you can and cannot do.
6. Don’t worry if someone says you’ve got wrong strategies, you just need to ask them why. It is up to you whether you want to take heed or not. But never ignore them because sometimes we spend too long in the strategies, it can make us blind. They can be your customer too, so open up.
7. Final one, don’t forget that you need to write all your strategies in a piece of paper. If it only lingers in the head, you risk of losing them. Type it into your laptop is much better just in case the paper gets wet when it rains, you always have a back up. It helps bad handwriting too!!
Is it easy? It is supposed to be easy and doable. I believe in making things implementable, after all only results count in business. i will cover this in Marketing Plan e-Book. Watch out for it’s launch somewhere in January/February 2010.
Meanwhile, please also visit http://entreprenovator.wordpress.com
or check me out on Facebook: Mike Entreprenovator
The full version of Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC is READY! Buy it HERE (ONLY USD 19.90 WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT)
One Page – Marketing Plan December 4, 2009
A marketing plan supposed to be easy to consume for both management and implementation team. One sometimes wonder why marketing is usually complicated, because we cannot execute anything that is complicated and hardly understood.
This is where many marketing managers that develop marketing plans that are nice to hear but end up just a nice plan. Having been in the industry for quite awhile, i have observed many marketing managers that are unable to see the business in totality and thus cannot accomodate the need of the business in the marketing plans.
As a result, majority marketing plans overly focusing on the media instead of the message. I am not saying the media is not important, but the message need to be handled carefully first. besides, certain message cannot be delivered using certain media simply because that is how our customers have been conditioned with. Take for example SMS alerts, i personally hardly read it. Many of my friends too usually delete it about 90% of the time.
In marketing economics, in other words only one time in ten times our message get read by the prospective customers. Hey, thats not even sales yet, and i personally can count how many times i use the sms voucher and redeem it at the counters. I hardly do it. But how come there are many reports saying the sms business or mobile customers are growing exponentially? Yes, the customers are growing as such but only to the messages they want to read and act upon.
I will explain more about that in other posts, and probably give you some content about my Marketing Plan e-Book. Seriously, you should consider buying it because i make it very clear, that today’s marketing is very challenging but it is doable and with the technology available, we can make it work. If you come from big business, you should buy something greater like the software. it’s too expensive and rigid to many of us here.
Now, i attached the One Page – Marketing Plan which will give you the overall feel and direction of your marketing direction. This is important because an ideal marketing plan should factor in the business plan as well i.e. financial, resources and administration processes. This is where i meant, that marketing people today sometimes overly concentrating on advertising and public relation in their marketing. We need to do more than that, eyeballs dont translate into sales are useless. We need to make eyeballs become viral and engaging. We need to plan for it!
Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC is READY! Buy it HERE (ONLY USD 19.90 WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT)
check this One Page Marketing Plan. for more information please browse http://entreprenovator.wordpress.com or
Facebook – Mike Entreprenovator
Cause of Tragic Marketing:Reason 3 December 2, 2009
“Change is the new normal.” That was quoted by Philip Kotler in his new book “Chaotics”. While many see change as negative, there are a lot more businesses today see change as a good thing. Peter Drucker wrote in his book, “Entrepreneurship and Innovation”, that change in organization, industry and demographic are sources of innovation. And from Jack Welch in his book, “Winning”, he also said “change is inevitable, you got to embrace it!.”
Change means any change that happened in this world that leave impact to your business. We have witnessed how change in technology has changed the way communicate and commute these days. We also experienced change in demographic and how it has transformed many businesses in this world. We also have seen how change in population has revolutionized the food business and supply chains. We also recently shocked by the global financial crisis that only happen once in the lifetime for many of us. Change is inevitable but the ability to respond to change is what matters. As Darwin once said that “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”. And it has to be done fast enough.
Let’s take a look of what happen in the recent crisis. Don’t look far, look around us. How many us realized the subsequent few months after the crisis hits Malaysia (or at least the spiral effect), the advertisement dollars shaved and subsequently plummeted. You will see this especially in The Star, English dailies, on their Saturday’s copy because that’s like the bumper issue of the week. And usually inflated by the job advertising for various companies but when the crisis hits, it was very thin. I remember holding The Star on two Saturdays of a Sunday size (usually the Sunday size is the thinnest of all). Is it fair to say the recruitment was freeze that time? Potentially yes.
I also observed there were less commercial ads filling our TV3. Well, ASTRO advertised itself in its own channels, so we don’t see much differences. There was a lot of SALE going around at shopping malls to charge back the economy. Government pump priming few billions ringgit to cushion the economy a bit. Not to mentioned the stimulus packages and new projects worth billions of ringgit to give more hope to our business people in the country. All these changes have a chain effect in our business environment.
Take for example if early of the year we already plan to launch a new premium service and suddenly the crisis hits, we will think many times whether to launch or postpone. Chances are we will postpone it. When crisis hits, don’t take chances. Deal with the present first.
Another example is reflecting how Malaysia has evolved so much demographically. And we are still in the transition period of this change. We haven’t settled yet. Our demographic is evolving and it is evolving very fast. It is unlikely to slow down. In fact it will not slow down because it is like a moving average in the financial market statistical tool; the average gets
higher and higher by the day. Look how it has changed the job market, consumer market, commodity market, technology market, education market and a lot more other markets. Not to mention the emerging of women purchasing power.
I attended a seminar in Kuala Lumpur recently and bumped into a client. He is now
working with a top public university in Malaysia. We chatted and I asked him why his university still doesn’t offer distance learning to cater for growing “middles” i.e. middle class, middle manager and middle age group that account more than 30% of Malaysian total population of 28 million? Remember he is the Head of Marketing and his answer was, “We have yet to see a real demand.”
My eyes went rounded and I was shocked. I told her that Open University Malaysia (OUM), one of the leading pioneer of distance learning universities, has cumulatively more than 90, 000 students, Multimedia University has more than 20, 000 and not to mention other private universities and colleges that usually cater long distance students in their twinning programs with United Kingdom, Australia and United States. In total I estimated at least 250, 000 adults now on part time or distance learning and attending weekend classes. If you don’t call that a niche market and demand, I don’t know what is.
Therefore, changes in the marketing and business environment do affect strategic marketing, but what are we going to do about it matters the most. Remember, the direction should be on the customer and not you.
Check out our Marketing Plan e-Book Preview @ www.slideshare.com/Entreprenovator
Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC is READY! Buy it HERE (ONLY USD 19.90 WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT)
Cause of Tragic Marketing:Reason 2 December 2, 2009
It’s the Customer, Stupid!
If you have experience working in marketing or sales, you will know what I meant. Not many organizations know what they can and cannot do when it comes to looking for specialty to serve their customer. We all want to be everything to everybody but at the end we are nothing to everybody. So we are nobody. Business wise, we are just a product, not an experience or utility.
I remember a visit to an organization that wants to launch a new product. I was hired as the consultant to facilitate the brainstorming and discussion about their new product. They are in software development and the CEO feels that they can do more with what they have now. So I was hired. Remember, this was my first time meeting so I don’t have any idea what is it about but I rather not investigate. I attended the brainstorming session with an open mind.
The moment of truth came. That meeting I attended was the 4th meeting (work in progress meeting) which is conducted bi-weekly. The CEO will be there and the head of departments will present their progress. I observed through the presentation, trying to grasp what really happen, watching their face to engage, writing some notes on my book but I still don’t get it. What I scribbled in my book was, “I don’t understand.”
Then going-roundtable if any question, I asked. “Who is the target group for this product?”. I got a super laugh from all of them except from the CEO. I concurred something was not in place. I continued asking all the marketing questions and no one could answer. Aha! Then I can see the CEO face smiled and he quickly excused himself to another meeting. The CEO sms’ed’ me and I took over from there.
When we design a product (new, extension or refresh), we need to focus it to the customer. While all of us know about this because we are customers too to some other service providers, many didn’t know how to exactly use the marketing tools and direct it to the customers. We usually jumped into the product features based on our own experience and lenses. At that experience and lenses are from a provider perspective instead of customer’s. Peter F. Drucker once said, “The customer sees a product (or service) as their utility. As long as their needs are satisfied by the utility delivered by the product the customer will continue to purchase until that product is no longer provide them the satisfaction they wanted.”
Take home point here is, focus all your marketing energy to the customer.
Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC is READY! Buy it HERE (ONLY USD 19.90 WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT)
Also, for more ideas about business and management, visit http://entreprenovator.wordpress.com
Cause of Tragic Marketing:Reason 1 December 2, 2009
Lack of Expertise
Actually there are not many “real marketing person” around in the job market. Real marketing person means someone who can see, feel and understand the total marketing from business perspectives. Most of the time the marketing person employed based various
criteria. Based on my experience that candidate with event, branding and media background will have the highest value; at least in today’s world. Therefore you will notice that some companies overused the event, branding and media such as public relation as their marketing strategies.
We all know they are oblivious with what they do, but that’s the reality here. The second highest value now is, if you are from FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Good) company. Companies such as Nestle, Procter & Gamble and Coke. More so in today’s highly populated world (around 6.2 billion people) where food needs are in high supply, marketers with FMCG background know more about consumer than any other people in this world. Some might argue that FMCG is more of retail than business to business marketing which involves millions of dollars in transaction, but people in FMCG deals directly with the consumers.
They are usually upbeat and adaptable to change quite easily. They also are very close with the market and sensitive with the changes around it. Simply because that’s how it is when you are dealing with highly fragmented customers these days e.g. same product needs different packaging and size to cater to different needs. Tough right?
Can you guess what type of marketer an organization will employed when they are in crisis? People with financial expertise and background. They say, now it is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is the number two most powerful person in organization. Sometimes the CEO assumed position as CFO, in that case they are the number one. To me, typical financial person only concerns about profit and loss. But the good news when we hire financial background people for our marketing department; we no longer have any problem with the CFO. They talk the same lingo and they shared the same values and opinions. They probably the same person who handles finance and marketing departments! You will see (or rather experience) budgets slashed in marketing. Of course it will be reflected as higher net profits by the fiscal year in the balance sheet, but we all know that will not last. Marketing requires investment, and investment requires time to flourish. Quarter to quarter will not work.
Because of lack of expertise, our dream for strategic marketing is a tragic nightmare. We spend a lot of money but our return on marketing investment (ROMI) is very poor.
The second reason why our strategic marketing fails to deliver is customer focus. Check out my next post!
Marketing Plan Breakthrough S6PEC is READY! Buy it HERE (ONLY USD 19.90 WITH LAUNCHING DISCOUNT)
