By Jerry Rackley
The term “marketing plan” has several possible, valid definitions. Sometimes it refers to the corporation’s marketing strategy, built upon a firm’s core values and competencies. Often "marketing plan" really equates to a marketing communications plan. Or in many cases, a marketing plan is the actual plan for marketing a specific product. These are all different things, and while they support each other, they are not interchangeable.
By Jerry Rackley
Chief Analyst John Follett and myself recently convened the first Demand Metric Marketing Lab – an open forum for discussing marketing issues. We opened the session with a poll, and the issue identified by attendees as the most problematic was showing ROI for marketing efforts. This surely surprises no one who is a marketing professional.
Many business owners and marketing personnel today do not completely understand the importance of establishing a partnership marketing agreement contact. Partnership marketing is not a new concept, however it has evolved to a level of greater significance in the areas of marketing and sales. Where internet marketing is concerned, it has also evolved to a higher level of acceptance and use.
The practice of dividing target markets into consumer subsets is referred to as market segmentation. A challenge that arises with many businesses, particularly smaller businesses, is that these companies do not have the resources to pursue opportunities in each consumer subset.
By Jerry Rackley
The term “marketing plan” has several possible, valid definitions. Sometimes it refers to the corporation’s marketing strategy, built upon a firm’s core values and competencies. Often "marketing plan" really equates to a marketing communications plan. Or in many cases, a marketing plan is the actual plan for marketing a specific product. These are all different things, and while they support each other, they are not interchangeable.
Marketing messages and the media that delivers them is referred to as marketing communications. This is also known as Integrated Marketing Communications, or MarCom. One of the most critical components of this is a budget plan.
One of the primary challenges that smaller businesses face today involves their marketing campaigns. Typically these challenges revolve around the lack of proper marketing alignment, meaning that companies do not coordinate their marketing messages with their target audiences. The reason improper marketing alignment occurs is because either the right message is delivered to the wrong audience, or the wrong message is delivered to the right audience.
