Questions Your Sales and Marketing Plan Must Answer, and How to Price
By the time you reach the marketing plan, you have gathered a great deal of the required information. Start to write the plan according to the type of product, the competitors' behavior and the exact needs of the target market. Accurate answers to the following questions will help you.
How do you intend to present your product to the market? Do you want to distribute it by yourself, or do you want to work with distributors? Do you want to be a wholesaler or a retailer? Are you an importer or a producer? Are you going to sell your products to companies, or to individuals and final consumers? Do you need to have face-to-face marketing or make online or tele-sales? Do you want to apply certain tools such as affiliate marketing, or do you want direct sales? How do you intend to introduce your product to the target market? How do you intend to compete with the competitors in marketing and sales?
Define the marketing and sales strategies of your product, and determine which marketing method you need to apply to promote your sales. For example, you may define various methods for store sales, online sales and sales through marketers. After defining the general strategy, get into details. Write down everything that comes to your mind so you can say in full detail what you want to do.
Advertisement is a part of the marketing tools. Determine what advertising methods you need to apply to assist your various sales methods, and write these methods in detail.
Your product's pricing method is the other important part of the marketing plan. Determine and write your products' pricing strategy and its basis according to the competitors' status and the market analyses. You do not necessarily have to announce the prices. For example, you can write that your pricing strategy is the prime cost of the products plus a profit margin of 25%.
Remember that you may not need to discuss all the details, and a summary of this section may suffice depending on the audience. Banks do not care much for details. But if you intend to hire someone for your marketing sector, you need all these items in full detail.