The e-marketing plan: brief description and work outline

Website design By BotEap.comI. Summary of a marketing plan

Website design By BotEap.comMarketing planning (specified in the marketing plan) is an essential organizational activity, considering the hostile and complex competitive business environment. Our ability and skills to make profitable sales are affected by hundreds of internal and external factors that interact in ways that are difficult to assess. A marketing manager must understand and build a picture about these variables and their interactions, and must make rational decisions.

Website design By BotEap.comLet’s see what we call a “marketing plan”? It is the result of the planning activity, a document that includes a review of the organization’s place in the market, an analysis of the STEP factors as well as a SWOT analysis. A complete plan would also make some assumptions about why we think the above marketing strategy was successful or not. The next phase will present the goals we set for ourselves, along with the strategies to achieve these goals. In a logical sequence, we will need to evaluate the results and formulate alternative action plans. A plan would consist of details of responsibilities, costs, sales forecast, and budgeting issues.

Website design By BotEap.comIn the end, we must not forget to specify how the plan (or plans) will be controlled, by what means we will measure its results.

Website design By BotEap.comWe will see how to build the marketing plan, what is its structure: After seeing how to build the traditional marketing plan, we will take a look at the electronic marketing plan and see how the unique characteristics of the Internet will require some changes in the approach of writing a marketing plan.

Website design By BotEap.comBut, before continuing, we must understand and accept that the steps of the marketing plan are universal. It is a logical approach to planning activity, no matter where we apply it. The differences found from one plan to another consist in the degree of formality agreed to in each phase, depending on the size and nature of the organization involved. For example, a small, undiversified company would adopt less formal procedures, because managers in these cases have more experience and functional knowledge than subordinates, and can achieve direct control over most factors. On the other hand, in a company with diversified activity, senior managers are less likely to have functional information to a greater degree than subordinate managers. Therefore, the planning process must be formulated to ensure strict discipline for everyone involved in the decision chain.

Website design By BotEap.comII. The general marketing plan

Website design By BotEap.comThe classic marketing plan would follow the following 8-stage scheme:

Website design By BotEap.com1. Mission statement: This is the planning stage when we establish organizational orientations and intentions, thus providing a sense of direction. In most cases, this is a general presentation of the intentions of the company and is almost philosophical in nature.

Website design By BotEap.com2. Establishment of current objectives: It is essential that the organization tries to accurately determine the objectives to be achieved. These goals, to be viable, must be SMART. SMART is an acronym that stands for “Specific”, “Measurable”, “Achievable”, “Realistic” and “Scheduled”. The objectives should also convey the overall organizational mission.

Website design By BotEap.com3. Collection of information: This stage is based on the concept of marketing audit. After conducting the macroenvironment audit by analyzing the STEP factors (social, technological, economic and political), we must focus on the immediate external environment (the microenvironment) and analyze the competitive environment, costs and markets. Finally, we will conclude with the SWOT analysis, in this way we will have an overview of the internal environment compared to the external one. SWOT analysis combines the two perspectives, from the inside and from the outside, because Strengths and Weaknesses are internal issues of an organization, while Opportunities and Threads come from the outside.

Website design By BotEap.com4. Reformulation of objectives: After careful examination of the data collected in the previous stage, it is sometimes necessary to rephrase the initial objectives, to address all the issues that may have arisen from the previous stage. The distance between the initial objective and the reformulated objective will be covered with suitable strategies. We must ensure that the reformulated objective is also SMART.

Website design By BotEap.com5. Establishment of strategies: Several strategies will be formulated in order to bridge the gap between what we want to achieve and what is possible to achieve, with the resources at our disposal. As we would normally have several options, we should analyze them and choose the one that has the best chance of achieving the marketing objectives.

Website design By BotEap.com6. Action plan: It consists of a very detailed description of the procedures and means to implement the actions that we want to carry out. For example, if the strategy involves an increase in advertising volume, the action plan should establish where the ads will be placed, the dates and frequency of the advertising campaigns, a set of procedures to evaluate their effectiveness. The actions we plan to take must be clearly formulated, measurable, and the results must be monitored and evaluated.

Website design By BotEap.com7. Implementation and control: It consists of the series of activities that must be carried out to execute the marketing plan in accordance with the objectives set by the marketer. At this stage, it is essential to obtain the support of all members if the organization, especially when the marketing plan must affect the organization from its bases.

Website design By BotEap.com8. Performance measurement: It is the last, but not least, stage of the marketing plan, since we can only achieve what we can measure. To measure the performance achieved through the marketing plan, we need to constantly monitor each previous stage of the plan.

Website design By BotEap.comThe marketing plan that has a feedback loop, from stage 8 to stage 4. This is because sometimes during the planning process we may need to go through stages 4-8 several times before the final plan can be written.

Website design By BotEap.comIII. The e-marketing plan

Website design By BotEap.comThe electronic marketing plan is based on exactly the same principles as the classic plan. There is no different approach, but there may be some formal differences due to the uniqueness of the Internet environment. Many of these differences stem from the need to ensure a high response rate from customers, as the electronic world moves faster and requires a faster reaction from their companies, compared to the traditional offline market.

Website design By BotEap.comAlthough it is perfectly acceptable and common practice to use the classic 8-stage model for the e-marketing plan as well, you may want to consider the simplified version proposed by Chaffey, who identifies four main steps in building the e-marketing plan. :

Website design By BotEap.com1. Strategic analysis: It consists of the continuous exploration of the macro and microenvironment. The emphasis should be on the needs of consumers who are changing very quickly in the online marketplace, as well as studying the actions of competitors and evaluating the opportunities offered by new technologies.

Website design By BotEap.com2. Definition of strategic objectives: the organization must have a clear vision and establish whether the media channels will complement or replace the traditional ones. We must define specific objectives (don’t forget to check if they are SMART!) And we must also specify the contribution of online activities to the organization’s billing.

Website design By BotEap.com3. Strategy formulation – We do this by addressing the following essential issues:

Website design By BotEap.com– develop strategies towards target markets;

Website design By BotEap.com– positioning and differentiation strategies;

Website design By BotEap.com– set priorities for online activities;

Website design By BotEap.com– focus attention and efforts on CRM and financial control;

Website design By BotEap.com– formulate strategies for product development;

Website design By BotEap.com– develop business models with well-established strategies for new products or services, as well as pricing policies;

Website design By BotEap.com– need for organizational restructuring;

Website design By BotEap.com– changes in the structure of communication channels.

Website design By BotEap.com4. Implementation of strategies: It includes the careful execution of all the steps necessary to achieve the stated objectives. It could refer to relaunching a website, promotional campaigns for a new or rewritten site, monitoring website efficiency, and many more.

Website design By BotEap.comNote: a common strategy to achieve the objectives of e-marketing is the communication strategy. The steps to build a coherent communication plan will be presented in an additional article.

Website design By BotEap.comIV. The e-marketing plan (sample titles)

Website design By BotEap.com1. Executive Summary

Website design By BotEap.comto. general vision of the current situation;

Website design By BotEap.comB. Key aspects of the e-marketing strategic plan.

Website design By BotEap.com2. Analysis of the situation

Website design By BotEap.comto. characteristics of the electronic market;

Website design By BotEap.comB. possible success factors;

Website design By BotEap.comvs. competitive analysis;

Website design By BotEap.comD. technological factors;

Website design By BotEap.comme. legal factors;

Website design By BotEap.comF. social factors;

Website design By BotEap.comgram. possible problems and opportunities.