Marketing Plan- 5 Step Process To Create One

Starting the process of creating a marketing plan

Let us assume you have an amazing new recipe which you can use to develop organic dark chocolates using ethically sourced beans. You believe these chocolates will taste great, be healthier to indulge in and people will love them.

How would you go about the process of reaching out to potential customers and creating a market for them? How will you market your product? How will you come with a marketing plan?

One way to do it could be to make the chocolates and hand them out to random people in hope that the would appreciate it and pay you for them. But as you can imagine this may not be the most efficient way. Here are some reasons why:

A lot of people may not have the need for it (they are diabetic, or health conscious, or just don’t like sweets), or they may be using another product and have no reason to switch to you right now, or don’t trust your product enough because they don’t know about you, or may be interested in your product but find the price too high.

What to include in a marketing plan?

Instead what you could do is approach this in more methodical way of marketing. Something like the following

1. First perform initial research on who might be most likely to purchase chocolates. This will give you insight into whether there are enough potential buyers to begin with.
2. Then you want to do further analysis on what those potential customers don’t like about the product they’re currently using. Talk to them. Really try and understand what their unmet needs/desires/tastes might be. You should take that into consideration when perfecting your recipe as well as when creating a message to them. So they know how you offer them something unique or better.
3. Further, you want to price the chocolates in such a way that it creates an monetary incentive for them to consider switching to you. Or perhaps you want to offer a promotion to entice them.
4. Assess how you will reach out to these potential customers, and create awareness about you and your product? Will you use social media, regular mail, events, flyers or a mix of them?
5. Lastly, you want to make sure the customers know exactly how and where they can purchase these chocolates going forward. Can they order online? Will they be available in local stores?

The exercise encompasses at a high level around what a marketing plan and strategy should help you achieve. As a business and product owner, you have to incorporate that into your overall business strategy.

Photo by Dessy Dimcheva on Unsplash