Strategic Planning
The 5 steps
1. Product – Other than the mindset we made it now you want it, when creating a product, you first want to start with, you want it well make it, therefore what is the product that the clientele actually wants. If you have no idea of what product to start with to make, think about changing a product without changing it. There are several relatively cheap and even free ways to look up products, see what customers love about them and see what they hate about them and make the necessary changes to offer a better product.
2. Offer – Setting the price and the way it is expressed can dramatically affect the type of customer that you bring in and how much they are willing to spend. For this example, I will use a gym membership price
- One year for $360 (Basic Price Statement)
- One month for $30 (Basic Price expressed by unit)
- Half Price (Price expressed in fractions)
- Six Months Free (Savings dramatized by units
- Save $360 (Savings expressed numerically)
- Save 50% (Savings expressed in percentages)
Note, all of these offers are equal the same exact price of $360 yearly membership price. The only thing that varies are the way the offer statement is made
3. Media – When creating a media strategy to, in this case a small business, you want to pick out a target market that you believe you have created your product for. For a small business I would highly recommend creating a social media PAID out reach campaign. While you can use traditional media to target certain towns and readerships, for instance a local newspaper or radio station. Social media allows you to target the same people within that area code, it even allows you to get very specific on who you want to see your ad. For instance, if I wanted people to see the new shoe that I have just created for long distance runners, which happens to be a very high-end shoe, I would want to target people that are interested in long distance and live in a higher per capita income area code.
4. Distribution – When thinking about your distribution strategy you want to consider what is going to be the best way to get your product to the customer. You might think that this has something more to do with the logistics side of business. However, it’s very much indeed a big part of your direct marketing strategy. I will use a made-up apparel company, let’s call it “Top Notch Athletics Gear”. Now Top Notch is a medium size company with a strong product line for their high-end products. They specialize in Shoes, Shirts, Shorts and athletic pants/leggings for middle aged athletes. They’re a very profitable company, however they want to grow their business and don’t know which direction to go. Right now, their distribution centers are high end athletic apparel stores. Top notch wants to expand their line to offer low cost and moderate cost apparel for their customer base. Top Notch are experts in design and production of the products. However, with their current distribution model they would have no where to sell the items. Therefore, they would first create the products that they would want to sell. Next go out and show them to those potential retailers to see if there would be an interest. They would target the lower costs stores and the moderately priced stores. Create relationship with them, get an agreement and then get that distribution center going. Yes, that was very easy to type, however, the amount of effort that goes into creating those distribution centers is great. Other means of distribution would be to offer the product on Amazon, Wal-Mart and other online retailers. This is a common strategy used by even the largest apparel companies.
5. Creativity – For me, this is really the fun part of marketing a product. The creativity side of it. How are you going to sell this product? We talked about target marketing early. You also want to get across what exactly this will do for the potential customer. How it will make them feel. Why it works, proof and offer a guarantee. You also always want a call to action, make that call to action matter too. If you’re going to offer a one-time deal that expires in 24 hours, mean it.
These 5 steps all have the same weight of importance to them. They must all be treated equally and with the same amount of effort.
Shout out to Edward Nash whom first came up with this list. I just wanted to simply a bit and add my experiences as a marketer and small business owner. If you interested in a product launch and have no idea where to start or how to start, please reach out to me. I can help.
Thanks,
Jason St Clair,
Atheoz.com
Jason@atheoz.com