The Marketing Plan potx

The Marketing Plan

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William M. Luther

American Management Association

New York • Atlanta • Brussels • Chicago • Mexico City • San Francisco

Shanghai • Tokyo • Toronto • Washington, D.C.

Marketing

Plan

The

How to Prepare and Implement It

4TH EDITION

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative infor -

mation in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the under￾standing that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or

other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required,

the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Luther, William M.

The marketing plan : how to prepare and implement it /

William M. Luther.—4th ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8144-1693-8

ISBN-10: 0-8144-1693-4

1. Marketing. I. Title.

HF5415.L83 2011

658.8'02—dc22

2010039115

© 2011 William M. Luther.

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form or by

any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,

or otherwise, without the prior written permission of AMACOM,

a division of American Management Association,

1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

Printing number

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Bulk discounts available. For details visit:

www.amacombooks.org/go/specialsales

Or contact special sales:

Phone: 800-250-5308

E-mail: [email protected]

View all the AMACOM titles at: www.amacombooks.org

Openmirrors.com

Complete your written marketing plan by the end of the book!

The Marketing Plan

4th Edition

How to Prepare and Implement It

with “what if” software on the AMACOM website

(www.amacombooks.org/go/MarketingPlan4).

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To my wonderful wife,

Betty

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Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

Chapter 1: The Planning Process 9

Chapter 2: Marketing Management 21

Chapter 3: Market Analysis 27

Chapter 4: Customer Analysis 55

Chapter 5: Brand Development 67

Chapter 6: The Product/Service Plan 73

Chapter 7: Calculating Your Marketing Communications

Budget 101

Chapter 8: Competitive Analysis 109

Chapter 9: The Advertising Plan 117

Chapter 10: The Sales Promotion Plan 139

Chapter 11: The Public Relations Plan 153

Chapter 12: The Sales Plan: Pricing 163

Chapter 13: The Sales Plan: Future Sales 175

Chapter 14: The Customer Service Plan 197

Contents

ix

Chapter 15: Maximizing High-Potential Accounts 203

Chapter 16: The Internet Plan 237

Chapter 17: The Research Plan 249

Chapter 18: Pulling the Plan Together 257

Appendix A: Marketing Plan Basics 263

Appendix B: Everything You Need to Know About Working

with an Advertising Agency 275

Index 285

Marketing Plan “what if” software models

are available free of charge at:

www.amacombooks.org/go/MarketingPlan4

x Contents

Openmirrors.com

This book has been improved immeasurably by the develop￾mental guidance of my wonderful editor, Ellen Kadin, who

helped me take the manuscript from a rough twenty-page pro￾posal and some software to this completed tome. Along the way,

the manuscript had valuable input from William Helms III,

Ellen’s editorial assistant and right-hand man, and Debbie Pos￾ner, the copyeditor-slash-martinet who wrestled with all the

particulars. This is a better book because of all of their efforts.

Thank you.

Thanks also to the associate editor, Mike Sivilli, and all the

hard-working people who got this book to the printer on time.

Acknowledgments

xi

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1

Introduction

The fourth edition of The Marketing Plan differs in a number of

ways from its predecessor, published ten years ago. It includes

ten more years of the experiences and knowledge gained from

helping companies write their marketing plans—in boom

economies and in bust. The book walks you through every part

of the plan, with detailed analysis of case histories. After re￾viewing each case, you can insert on the accompanying soft￾ware the data for your own company and complete your

marketing objectives and strategies. By the time you finish the

book, you can have a complete, written marketing plan for your

own business.

If you go to the AMACOM website, you can download my

computer marketing plan “what if” software models, free of

charge. These allow you to insert your own data into the files and

see the results for your business. The web address is www

.amacombooks.org/go/MarketingPlan4. For best results and

ease of use, you should download the software to either a CD or

your hard drive. Then you can go try different data until you get

the results you are seeking, such as the most effective positioning

of your business, your best target audience, most favorable

pricing, sufficient advertising and sales promotion weight, viable

public relations plans, and enviable customer service plans.

This edition can also better help you develop a popular Internet

site and enable you to become a strong player in the new world

of social media.

The software comes in three parts: case history “what if”

files; “what if” files with formulas for inserting your own

company data; and marketing plan (and other) worksheets

where you insert your objectives and strategies. Although the

book discusses each case history, at your leisure you should

bring up these files and alter some of the inserted data and

then look at the resulting outcomes. Practicing on the case

history files will enable you to see how the formulas work be￾fore you start inserting your company data into your own sec￾tion of the software.

The software is easy to use. You use a spreadsheet like Mi￾crosoft Excel for the “what if” files and a word processing pro￾gram like Microsoft Word for the marketing plan objectives and

strategies and other worksheets. The files that have a “C” in

front of the name are the case histories. The file names that do

not begin with a “C” before the name are the modules into

which you insert your own company data.

When these files are completed, you should print them out

and put them into a document called a “fact book.” This is sup￾porting data for your objectives and strategies and by inserting

the files in this different document, you keep your actual mar￾keting plan short and concise—so everyone will read and act

on it. Your fact book will probably number over a hundred

pages and your marketing plan should only consist of your ob￾jectives and strategies and therefore can be less than twenty

pages. The third part of the software, in the folder labeled

“Worksheets,” contains Word files into which you can insert

your objectives and strategies for each component of your

2 Introduction