Marketing plans
Discussion
I am about to licence a product I have developed to a company to market, manage and sell on a 2 year deal.
I have asked for, and they have agreed to provide, a draft marketing plan as I wanted to be sure that I had some committment from them in terms of sales and marketing effort as my cut is ourely a % of sales.
But what level of detail should I expect to see? Should I expect to see the key exhibitions named in the plan and if so should I expect to see detail such as whether my product will have its own banner/staffing etc because frankly they are at that exhibition anyway with the other prodicts they sell so simply saying they will market at X and U exhibitions isn't saying much.
What about advertising? Should I expect to see named publications, types of ad and how many times/when they will run?
Sales effort is the big one. Should I expect them to say they will email and mailshot their customer base, and if so should I expect the plan to include assurances that they will staff up for responses?
Recognising that this is a draft plan as the exact launch date is still to be agreed, what should I expect to see?
Thing to look for is marketing strategy. Are they pushing (selling through intermediaries) or pulling (promoting direct to the customer, creating demand) or both ?
They need to demonstrate their understanding of the market so I’d be looking for not just name of publications and exhibitions but a good rationale as to why they have been chosen. I think it also fair to expect some degree of market overview as part of the strategy as well – competitors, size, etc.
Look for phrases such as “positioning”, “brand strategy”, “call to action”.
Most importantly is budget. How much are they going to spend over what period of time? Is this sustainable and realistic.
Schedule; What's going to be done and by when?
Objectives: What are they? When will they be achieved?
Although this is only going to be a draft, you should expect a degree of focus on the core elements.
Happy to glance through and comment when you get it.
They need to demonstrate their understanding of the market so I’d be looking for not just name of publications and exhibitions but a good rationale as to why they have been chosen. I think it also fair to expect some degree of market overview as part of the strategy as well – competitors, size, etc.
Look for phrases such as “positioning”, “brand strategy”, “call to action”.
Most importantly is budget. How much are they going to spend over what period of time? Is this sustainable and realistic.
Schedule; What's going to be done and by when?
Objectives: What are they? When will they be achieved?
Although this is only going to be a draft, you should expect a degree of focus on the core elements.
Happy to glance through and comment when you get it.
I agree with Steve, there should be more meat on the bone !
For all communications, events, advertisings
What are they going to do
When
where
What method
etc
For the Sales push, I would personally expect another plan. (Sales Plan)
Most of the time I would expect a time-line / spreadsheet which lists out 52 weeks of the year on the top and activities down the side. Within that table you must see what is happening at what time....so you can see overlaps of effort, seasonal pushes, etc, etc.
hope this helps
IceBoy
For all communications, events, advertisings
What are they going to do
When
where
What method
etc
For the Sales push, I would personally expect another plan. (Sales Plan)
Most of the time I would expect a time-line / spreadsheet which lists out 52 weeks of the year on the top and activities down the side. Within that table you must see what is happening at what time....so you can see overlaps of effort, seasonal pushes, etc, etc.
hope this helps
IceBoy
StevieBee said:
Thing to look for is marketing strategy. Are they pushing (selling through intermediaries) or pulling (promoting direct to the customer, creating demand) or both ?
They need to demonstrate their understanding of the market so I’d be looking for not just name of publications and exhibitions but a good rationale as to why they have been chosen. I think it also fair to expect some degree of market overview as part of the strategy as well – competitors, size, etc.
Look for phrases such as “positioning”, “brand strategy”, “call to action”.
Most importantly is budget. How much are they going to spend over what period of time? Is this sustainable and realistic.
Schedule; What's going to be done and by when?
Objectives: What are they? When will they be achieved?
Although this is only going to be a draft, you should expect a degree of focus on the core elements.
Happy to glance through and comment when you get it.
That sounds good, I wil do that when it arrives if you don't mind?They need to demonstrate their understanding of the market so I’d be looking for not just name of publications and exhibitions but a good rationale as to why they have been chosen. I think it also fair to expect some degree of market overview as part of the strategy as well – competitors, size, etc.
Look for phrases such as “positioning”, “brand strategy”, “call to action”.
Most importantly is budget. How much are they going to spend over what period of time? Is this sustainable and realistic.
Schedule; What's going to be done and by when?
Objectives: What are they? When will they be achieved?
Although this is only going to be a draft, you should expect a degree of focus on the core elements.
Happy to glance through and comment when you get it.
They are a pretty big company in our niche market and have specific sales, and marketing people but I suspect they will try and depend upon existing mail newsletters and exhibitions, and pushing it out through their existing network of intermediary consultants. Having invested a lot of my personal money in the product I can't afford to licence it with anyone who will take a back seat in selling it. I would have hoped for example that they would manage a launch event to get some trade press coverage, get in some of their key intermediaries to see and use the product and email their alleged database of 10,000 HR managers with a free demo. I would also hope that they would have some specific exhibition displays for the big HR exhibitions running in the next 6 months and set up customer demos at those events.
Or am I expecting too much? I am not in sales or marketing but they are the kind of things I would do if I was pushing this out on my own.
Brown and Boris said:
They are a pretty big company in our niche market and have specific sales, and marketing people but I suspect they will try and depend upon existing mail newsletters and exhibitions, and pushing it out through their existing network of intermediary consultants. Having invested a lot of my personal money in the product I can't afford to licence it with anyone who will take a back seat in selling it. I would have hoped for example that they would manage a launch event to get some trade press coverage, get in some of their key intermediaries to see and use the product and email their alleged database of 10,000 HR managers with a free demo. I would also hope that they would have some specific exhibition displays for the big HR exhibitions running in the next 6 months and set up customer demos at those events.
Or am I expecting too much? I am not in sales or marketing but they are the kind of things I would do if I was pushing this out on my own.
That would be a push strategy then!Or am I expecting too much? I am not in sales or marketing but they are the kind of things I would do if I was pushing this out on my own.
The extent of the marketing they deploy will be dependant upon the margin they will achieve and the risks involved. The difficulty of licensing deals like this is that it's actually quite difficult for you to specify what it is they do - at least in the early stages. The only way that you will have any influence is to share the marketing cost for the first 6 or 12 months. That shows a commitment from both sides.
Have you included performance clauses?
StevieBee said:
Brown and Boris said:
They are a pretty big company in our niche market and have specific sales, and marketing people but I suspect they will try and depend upon existing mail newsletters and exhibitions, and pushing it out through their existing network of intermediary consultants. Having invested a lot of my personal money in the product I can't afford to licence it with anyone who will take a back seat in selling it. I would have hoped for example that they would manage a launch event to get some trade press coverage, get in some of their key intermediaries to see and use the product and email their alleged database of 10,000 HR managers with a free demo. I would also hope that they would have some specific exhibition displays for the big HR exhibitions running in the next 6 months and set up customer demos at those events.
Or am I expecting too much? I am not in sales or marketing but they are the kind of things I would do if I was pushing this out on my own.
That would be a push strategy then!Or am I expecting too much? I am not in sales or marketing but they are the kind of things I would do if I was pushing this out on my own.
The extent of the marketing they deploy will be dependant upon the margin they will achieve and the risks involved. The difficulty of licensing deals like this is that it's actually quite difficult for you to specify what it is they do - at least in the early stages. The only way that you will have any influence is to share the marketing cost for the first 6 or 12 months. That shows a commitment from both sides.
Have you included performance clauses?
Their margin is pretty healthy in so far as I have had all of the development costs and will continue to host and operate the web site (it is a web based product). Their tasks will be to market and sell and priovide the technical product support, which is basically having someone I train in the office in case a client calls (they have a duty technocal customer service type guy who services the range of products they sell, so no real extra cost for them).
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