The Marketing Plan and the Four P

The Marketing Plan section of the business plan demonstrates how a company to penetrate the market with its products and services. The marketing plan should include the "four Ps" - product, promotion, price, and Place.

Products and / or Services

The first "P" stands for Product, but includes all products and services the company offers. This section of the business plan should detail all the characteristics of products and services, how they work, their unique attributes / properties, etc. For products that are patented and / or technical drawings and backup materials should be presented in Appendix .

Most companies offer certain products and services growth now, but expect to sell more in the future. It 's important to remember both the current and future products and services here, but focus mainly on short to medium term horizon.

Promotions

Promotions include each of the activities that cause the customer to buy the company's products and services. Promotional activities could include advertising, public relations (PR), free samples, discounts, direct mail, telemarketing, partnerships, etc.

This section of the business plan, which discusses promotions will be used and how it is used. For example, if partnerships will be used to secure new customers, the plan must explain which companies are partners, as they will be able to provide customers with new, like the partnership works (in terms of operational / financial), etc.

This section should be as specific as possible, particularly with regard to discussing future promotions. To say that a company is going to generate PR in trade magazines is simply too vague. Rather, the plan must explain the type of article / feature that can be written on the company and why, which specific trade journals that will be targeted and / or the projected publication dates.

In the debate on how the company promote itself, it is important to discuss how the company ranks. This positioning statement details the attributes that customers assign to the company, its products and services. The choice of promotional activities must support this positioning. For example, discounts might not be consistent with the desire to be considered a luxury brand.

Price

This section of the plan should detail the price point (s) in which the company's products and services will be sold. If the products and services are sold as bundles, these should be described in this paragraph. Rationale for the price should be given where appropriate (for example, because the company has opted for a registration fee, plus monthly fees compared to a one-off life membership).

Place

The final "P" refers to "Place" or "Distribution" and explains how a company's products and / or services will be delivered to customers. This section is crucial because if customers can not access products and services, they can not purchase.

This section is particularly critical for high growth, capital-constrained companies. The achievement of profit effective distribution channels is often more irritating challenge for these companies. Examples of distribution methods include retail outlets, websites, distributors, wholesalers, catalogs, direct mail, etc.

Many companies have different methods of distribution to offer their products and services to customers and each should be detailed here.

Describing the '"four P" in the marketing plan is vital to demonstrate to investors that your company will be able to efficiently and effectively penetrate its market....