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The 'Marketing Strategy' is that the way we've come up with for achieving our marketing goals and it should include two mandatory elements:
- Which target consumers whom we will reach, hold a viable potential to shop for whatever we shall sell?
- what's the offer (the entire marketing mix) we'll be presenting to those consumers so as to appeal to them and thus realize the said potential, given their alternatives?
You must not consider these as two separate questions but rather as two parts of an equivalent idea. Let me clarify. What are "target consumers with a possible to buy"? These are consumers (a sizeable enough group with buying power) likely to desire what you're offering. Why would they need it? that's the potential that you simply are alleged to identify. There could also be several reasons. as an example , maybe they're not consumers of your quite product yet, however, they could be if something happens, or if they're exposed to a particular message. It might be that they need special needs or preferences, which up until today weren't catered to by any of your competitors' offers (and do not forget that psychological, social, aesthetic needs are real needs). Maybe they're tired of what they routinely buy. once you identify such a situation, you recognize that the potential is there.
Identifying potential is merely the initial stage of your mission, of course. Your strategy would even have to incorporate something that you simply are getting to offer these consumers which may improve their situation during a certain way, solve a drag , give them quite what they already get for an equivalent price, or open new opportunities for them. In short, something which will motivate them to shop for from you and thus materialize the potential.
The 'Marketing Scenario' may be a synopsis of the logic of your marketing strategy. within the same breath, it also enables you to form sure that that logic really works. The 'Marketing Scenario' translates the 'Marketing Strategy' to simple everyday language. How will it happen in reality? How will the materialization of selling goals occur? i do not know whether or not you've got already sunk during this fact, but marketing goals are achieved through customer acts. So, let's assume that we install a webcam with enhanced psychological insight capabilities inside the market which it captures the materialization of our marketing plan, one purchase after another.
What is the 'Marketing Scenario'?
The 'Marketing Scenario' is an amazingly simple tool to use: Only four questions. Are you jotting this down?
1. Who are the people that we believe have the potential of shopping for what we shall sell? Yes, these are an equivalent people we so often ask because the 'Target Consumers'. First, we must define our targets. What do these people have in common that creates them probable prospects (in the sense that they're likely to be particularly curious about our offer)? We could use demographic, socioeconomic, psychographic, also as lifestyle descriptions. Note that sometimes , we target not a selected group but a good almost indefinable group of individuals during a specific mood, a selected situation, or a selected need or state.
Make room for an additional possibility. you'll target not an outlined group of consumers but rather a state of need/desire or a consumption context shared by many diverse consumers at just one occasion or another.
2. What precisely should they be doing (that they're not doing already and can probably not do if we'll not intervene), that might direct them to eventually choose our brand specifically? it's , by the way, the primary and only objective of branding. What do they need to try to to in order that your marketing plan will materialize (even before the particular purchase)? Do they need to travel somewhere? To call? To comply with meet your salesperson? to prevent and detect your product from the shelf? Which activity, which doesn't occur today, would lead them within the correct path on the thanks to buying?
3. what's the sound reason that ought to motivate them to vary their behavioral inertia? How will they enjoy that change? Why would you, in their place, buy what you're offering? you'll consider it as your differentiating factor (what causes you to differentially better?), or as your competitive advantage (what causes you to comparatively better?), consistent with your preference. What could make their situation better compared to their current standing and to the opposite options available to them within the market?
4. How exactly will they extract the benefit (that which answers question 3) consistent with your marketing plan? that's not a repeat question. Notice that the third question addressed the 'why' of the target consumer's planned motivation, and now, we try to know the 'how' of your marketing plan. How are you getting to provide the benefit defined within the answer to question 3? If, for instance, you said before that you simply are making something more accessible, easy or comfortable for them, now explain how it'll become more accessible, easy or comfortable, thanks to you product.
Let us check out an example: The introduction of Palm Pilot to the market. O.K.? Just the most points:
1. "Residents" of the businessmen , gadgets fans, who manage a dynamic, constantly changing schedule, and haven't yet embraced the electronic organizers, or were disappointed by them due to their being laborious to update and usually unreliable.
2. ... will step into the closest office equipment store and ask about the Palm Pilot.
3. ... because eventually there's an organizer which isn't only sophisticated, small and wonderfully shaped, but is additionally easily maintained so far and preserves the stored data when damaged or when upgrading to a replacement model
4. ... because the Palm Pilot can 'converse' with the PC, making the updating process an easy task to perform, also as enabling creation of backups which might be easily transferred on to subsequent generations of organizers.
That is what the 'Marketing Scenario' is all about. All you've got to try to to is answer the questions. Be precise. Be thorough. Be honest. roll in the hay in writing. albeit you're absolutely sure that the answers are positively clear to you and there is nothing to be gained. only your 'Marketing Scenario' is completely translated to a transcription , do you have to continue and proceed with the brand development process. Otherwise, you'll get trapped along the way, and do not say I didn't warn you.