How to Write a Marketing Plan

1. How to Write a Marketing Plan A simple, effective strategy for libraries.

2. “What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain

3. What is marketing? Marketing is the management process by which goods and services move from concept to the customer. It includes the coordination of four elements called the 4 Ps of marketing: • identifying and developing a PRODUCT • determining its PRICE (the value of anything exchanged) • getting the product to the customer’s PLACE • developing and implementing a PROMOTION strategy (often called marketing communications)

4. Four Ps | Four Cs Product Concept Place Channel Price Cost Promotion Communication The Four Ps are variables controlled by the organization. Regardless of the forces at play in the market, these Four Ps are under your control. Together, they are referred to as the MARKETING MIX. You’ll apply the marketing mix to every goal you set.

5. Uncontrollable Variables • State of the economy • Legislative Actions (budgeting) • Changes in the competitive landscape • Unemployment • Technology Changes • Operational Costs • List is practically endless

6. What is Marketing? Inputs• materials acquisition • mineral extracting Outputs Products ready to be delivered to customers and stores Everything but manufacturing.

7. What are a library’s products? – Information sources that do not circulate – Products that circulate: books, CDs, DVDs, magazines, pamphlets – Services and programs you offer – Room rentals – Community events – Any others?

8. What role does price play? • Fees for service (copying, printing, etc.) • Fines for late returns Is the concept of price important to you? Do you talk about it in meetings? How often do you talk about income or revenue? Are you focused on making money? Likely to be a tiny percentage of your operating budget.

9. What about distribution or place? • One location or main with branches? • Do you do community outreach? • Bookmobile? • Speakers bureau? • Inter-library loan? • Kiosks?

10. Is promotion important? How you promote your products and services will be the guts of your marketing plan. Promotion is likely to be the most important variable of your marketing mix because it is the most easily controlled.

11. Promotion Elements Each of the following is a sub-set of promotion. • Advertising • Public Relations • Personal Selling • Sales Promotion • Print Collateral • Direct Marketing • Event Marketing • Online Advertising These elements constitute “traditional marketing.” Today, more and more organizations are adopting “inbound marketing” strategies.

12. Inbound Marketing • A strategy developed in response to changes in buyer behavior – how people shop and buy products and services • Leverages the power of Google search • Is focused on getting found online and maximizing the ROI of your website • Positions your website as your marketing hub(More on Inbound Marketing later.)

13. Terms are not interchangeable “Great idea! How will we market that?” “Great idea! How will we advertise that?” “Great idea! How will we promote that?”

14. Why now? Why do you need a marketing plan now? What has changed in the last 20 years or so? Why are all nonprofits suddenly buying into marketing as a necessary business function?

15. Answer: Economics • Marketing has its roots in economics • The first marketing classes had to do with distribution problems of dairy farmers • Economics is the mother science of marketing

16. What is economics? • Social science that analyzes and describes the consequences of choices made concerning scarce productive resources. Economics is the study of how individuals and societies choose to employ those resources: what goods and services will be produced, how they will be produced, and how they will be distributed among the members of society.

17. Economic UTILITY The VALUE producers and marketers add to raw materials when they make them into a product and offer them for sale to the public. There are five types of utility. Organizations are paid according the the extent of the economic utility their products or services provide.

18. FORM UTILITY Involves changing RAW MATERIALS or PUTTING PARTS TOGETHER to make them more useful. RAW MATERIALS: When you cut down a tree and use the lumber to create pencils, paper, furniture, etc., the tree now becomes more valuable to the customer.

19. TIME UTILITY Time utility is having a product available at a certain time of the year or at a convenient time of the day. Value is added when marketers make them available at the right time. What are some products that sell better during certain hours of the day? Days or months of the year?

20. PLACE UTILITY This involves placing a product where a customer can purchase it. Businesses study consumer shopping habits to determine the most convenient and efficient locations to sell products.

21. POSSESSION UTILITY The exchange of a product for some monetary value is possession utility. Purchasing the product has given it added value. What are some ways you can purchase a product?

22. INFORMATION UTILITY This involves communication with the customer. Sales people, displays, packaging and labeling, advertising, sales brochures… Anything used to encourage sales gives the product added value.

23. Do you provide economic utility? If you provide economic utility, you have something to market!

24. To find what you have to market, you must start with your business plan or strategic plan.

25. Elements of a Business Plan • Executive Summary • A Competitive Analysis • Mission, Vision, Values and Goals • A Finance Plan • A Marketing Plan • A Production Plan • A Facilities Plan • A Human Resources Plan

26. The Marketing Plan • Is that portion of the business plan that lays out the direction for the organization’s marketing strategy. • A written statement of marketing objectives and strategies to support broader goals. • Explains who is responsible for managing activities and provides a timeline for their completion.

27. Cascading Plans • Start with your business plan or a recent strategic plan. Your marketing plan must support the goals established with the strategic plan. • Develop a marketing plan in the context of the larger, more encompassing strategic plan or business plan. • Develop a strategy for each marketing mix variable that comes into play for each objective.

28. Marketing Plan Outline Eight Steps to Making a Meaningful Marketing Plan

29. I. The Executive Summary • Outlines the who, what, where, when, how and why of the marketing plan. • Appears first but is written last. • No need to be longer than a page. • Describe how the plan was created. Name committee members or contributors and describe that process for strategy development. • Involve others – the plan should not be the product of one person working along.

30. II. Library Description • The section should describe the library’s role in the community, its history, emerging trends, products and services offered and its strategic objectives. • Keep this simple. Can be done in a few paragraphs or one page unless you’re in crisis management mode. • Creates a context for the plan for those who may not be familiar with your library.

31. III. Mission and Goals • Mission, Vision and Values can be lifted from the strategic plan. • Using SMART goals, describe what the library’s objectives are for the coming year. • We will develop marketing mix strategies and tactics to achieve each goal.

32. IV. Core Competencies • What do we do exceptionally well? • What makes us better than our competition? • What kind of relationships do we foster with our service? • What word or phrase do we own?

33. V. Situation Analysis • It is helpful (but not required) to do a SWOT analysis of your library’s marketing capabilities to better understand your situation. • Some nonprofits pull together a marketing committee consisting of non-staff members with specific marketing expertise. • Determine market research needs if you have them.

34. VI. Strategy Development • Identify your target market: Who are we trying to reach? Be as specific as possible. • Message development: What do we want our target market to know? Get your best writer to craft an effective message. • Media selection: How do we get our message out? • Budget allocation: How much can I spend?(Your marketing budget reflects your library’s commitment to marketing. What does your budget say?)

35. How this Process Works • Write out a statement of your first goal. • Write down how each element of the marketing mix can be used to achieve the goal.– Do we need to make changes to our PRODUCT offerings to achieve this goal?– Do we need to develop a new PRICE strategy?– Is achieving this goal dependent upon changes in how or where we deliver our service? (PLACE)– What PROMOTION strategy can we devise to achieve this goal?

36. VII. Implementation • Identify tactics • Assign tasks • Establish a timeline • Execute the plan • Set progress points • Measure progress • Make needed changes • Quantify results

37. VIII. Evaluation Did you accomplish your objective?– If not, why not? Were there any unintended consequences? What did we do that worked? What would we do differently next time? What did we learn?

38. Example of Goal / Strategy / Tactics Goal: We will increase the number of library card holders by 6% by Oct. 1, 2014 Strategy: We will develop a “Get a Card Today” promotion campaign and fully implement it in Q2, 2014. Tactic #1: Create posters for display in library for display by February 1.

39. Goal / Strategy / Tactics Tactic #2: Launch campaign with press releases to local newspaper, chamber groups and other civic organizations by Feb. 15. Tactic #3: Create newspaper ads for placement as remnant space by March 1. Tactic #4: Write a PSA and meet with local radio station for airing by March 20.

40. Marketing Challenges The marketing industry is going through a rapid change from traditional methods to inbound marketing methods.

41. What is Traditional Marketing? • Radio • Television • Newspapers • Magazines • Direct Mail • Trade Shows • Telemarketing • Billboards, etc. The traditional marketing playbook is broken. It’s increasingly difficult to get a good ROI Using these methods. Why are they less effective than they used to be?

42. People are tired of being marketed to! • Consumers are using technology to thwart unwanted marketing messages that are an interruption to their day • “Interruption marketing” is unwelcome in today’s busy world. • Average person exposed to thousands of branding messages a day • Look at the ways consumers are blocking out our messages:

43. Do Not Call Lists In a country of 310 million people, we have 200 million phone numbers on the ‘do not call’ list. Caller ID Abandonment of land lines

44. We mute TV spots or use DVRs We no longer sit through commercials. Whoever has the remote is in charge! The incredible growth in the number of channels available has resulted in audience fragmentation and lends itself to channel surfing during commercials.

45. Radio Competition What else do we do in the car or at work instead of listen to the radio? • CDs • Sirius XM • iTunes • Public Broadcasting • Streaming Internet • Spotify • Phone calls • Texting

46. Trade Shows • No longer a good source of B2B leads • Mainly attended by vendors and sales people • Travel expenses have eroded their effectiveness

47. Email Marketing • Spam filters • Legal issues • Poor open and click through rates (CTRs) • Inbox clutter

48. The First 50 Years

49. The Next 50 Years

50. Inbound Marketing • Driven by changes in consumer behavior, not by marketers • Average knowledge worker does 20-25 Google searches each day • The blogosphere, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube are replacing traditional media