To create a strategic marketing plan requires ten steps. I covered the first five steps in my last post. You can link to it below:

Ten Steps To Create A Strategic Marketing Plan For A New Product Part 1

Today’s post covers the last five steps.

Create A Strategic Marketing Plan
For A New Product Step 6
Establish A Schedule For Marketing Your Product

Your marketing plan needs to have deadlines for each tactic, objective, and goal. You also need to put in writing who is responsible for each step of the plan.

I find it easier to do this backward by starting with the date when I want to reach my final goal, and including every step necessary to reach that goal.

For more on timing and budgeting see the following post:
Definition of Strategy and Strategic Planning – Part 2

Create A Strategic Marketing Plan
For A New Product: Step 7
Build In Evaluation

Your marketing plan should include evaluation throughout your marketing campaign. Each tactic should be measured and evaluated. As should each objective and goal.

Because you make your objectives and goals measurable, they’re easier to evaluate. But still if you don’t decide in advance how you will evaluate each, you’ll fail to gather all the information needed to provide the data to make good marketing decisions.

You can read more about marketing research at the link below:

Why Is Marketing Research Important?

Marketing Research And Development 1

You can see examples of my market evaluation research at:

Site Search Tracking: Google Analytics Reveals A Wealth of Information

How To Research Web Site Traffic

Create A Strategic Marketing Plan
For A New Product: Step 8
Implement Your Plan

It doesn’t do you any good to spend time completing a marketing plan if you don’t let it guide your marketing. Your plans should be complete enough, and your will should be strong enough to implement your marketing as you’ve planned.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t make changes if your tests reveal they are needed. But it does mean that you don’t just skip planned tactics because you don’t want to do them.

Below is another post on planning:

A Guide For Information Planning

Create A Strategic Marketing Plan
For A New Product: Step 9
Continually Test Your Results

You’ve build in evaluation for your marketing plan. Now you need to implement those evaluations.

When I was a professor, I often told my students that “There is only one time that you need to do research – all the time.” The more you test and evaluate your marketing, the faster you’ll improve, the less money and time you’ll waste, and the greater your return on investment will be.

You can see a couple of examples of my evaluations of tactics at the posts linked below:

Interpreting Entrecard Statistics – July 2008

Interpreting Entrecard Statistics – August 2008

Create A Strategic Marketing Plan
For A New Product: Step 10
Adjust Your Plan According To Test Results

As you test and evaluate your planned marketing activities, you’ll need to make adjustments to your marketing.

You’ll notice from the second post linked in step 9, that after two months, I decided that participating in Entrecard wasn’t giving me a good return for the time invested so I stopped participating and started spending that time on tactics that provide a better return.

The more you test and evaluate your marketing, the faster you’ll improve, the less money and time you’ll waste, and the greater your return on investment will be.

Create A Strategic Marketing Plan
For A New Product: Conclusion

If you follow these ten steps, you can create a strategic marketing plan for a new product to assure that your product will be profitable and successful.

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Posted 9-26-08:
Ten Steps To
Create A Strategic Marketing Plan
Part 2

To create a strategic marketing plan for a new product, you need to follow ten steps.

These ten steps include:

1. Determine Your Target Market
2. Research Your Competition
3. Design Your Product
4. Establish Your Marketing Goals And Objectives
5. Determine Your Marketing Budget
6. Establish A Schedule For Marketing Your Product
7. Build In Evaluation
8. Implement Your Plan
9. Continually Test Your Results
10. Adjust Your Plan According To Test Results

I’ll cover the first five of them in this post and the last five in my next post.

Create A Strategic Marketing Plan
For A New Product
Step 1 – Determine Your Target Market

You determine your target market before you create your new product. Otherwise, your product may not have a market and won’t sell. So the first step is to determine your target market, what they want and need, and which features best meets their wants and needs. Adding such features will make your product better than your competitors’.

You can read more about target marketing at the posts below:

Get Your Free Target Market Analysis
Market Segmentation: Build Relationships With Your Target Market
Market Segmentation: Learn Your Target Market
Market Segmentation: Target Market Appeals
Market Segmentation: Target Market Profiles
Target Market: Eight Questions To Ask About Yours
Personas Compared To Target Market Research

Create A Strategic Marketing Plan
For A New Product
Step 2 – Research Your Competition

You need to know what products are already offered that meet your target market’s needs. You need to know who your competitors are and their product’s strengths and weaknesses. You need to know how much they spend on marketing, what their marketing mix includes, and how successful they are at marketing their products.

I’ve written several articles and posts on competition. Below are links to them:
The Effect Of Competition On Pricing Strategy
Competitor Intelligence Statistics

This last link provides examples and links to four other articles in a five-part series.

Create A Strategic Marketing Plan
For A New Product
Step 3 – Design Your Product

Once you know what your target market wants and what your competitors are providing, you need to design your product so that it offers at least one benefit not offered by your competitors.

Try to make weaknesses in your competitors’ products, strengths in yours. And don’t fail to look at weaknesses of your competitors businesses. For instance, customer service is a business function, not a part of your product.

But it has great bearing on whether your customers will be satisfied enough to buy from you again or to recommend your product or business to a friend. If you provide better customer service than your competitors, that’s a strength for your business.

For more information on product design see the following posts:

Marketing Product Life Cycle
Four Benefits of Market Segmentation: Benefit 1 -Improving Products
Business Market Segment: Product Characteristics
Mature Stage Of Marketing Product Life Cycle
4 P’s Of Marketing: Product 1
In Today’s Competitive Environment, Quality Products Demand Target Market Knowledge

Create A Strategic Marketing Plan
For A New Product
Step 4 – Establish Your Marketing
Goals And Objectives

Next you need to set your goals and objectives. These should be measurable and realistic, yet challenging.

The strengths or your product and the benefits that you added from your target market research should comprise the key message that you want to leave with your potential customers.

For more on goals and objectives, see the following post:
Elements of Intentional Marketing 1: Goals and Objectives

Read about key messages in the post below:
What Is A Key Message

Create A Strategic Marketing Plan
For A New Product
Step 5 – Determine Your Marketing Budget

It makes no sense to plan marketing activities that you don’t have money to implement. So it’s vital that you plan your marketing budget for money you have or can borrow.

Don’t plan for product income to finance your marketing. That’s too risky because you may not make anything until you’re well into your marketing plan.

You can read more on budgeting by clicking on the following links:

Marketing Budget Basics: Review and Overview 1

Budgeting For Small Business Marketing – Five Tips

This concludes my coverage of the first five steps to create a strategic marketing plan for a new product. To read about the last five steps, click the link below:

Ten Steps To Create A Strategic Marketing Plan For A New Product Plan Part 2

To discover more about marketing and business plans, see business plans.

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Posted 9-26-08:
Ten Steps To Create A
Strategic Marketing Plan
For A New Product