"Nine Steps" for an Integrated Marketing Plan

NEW YORK, July 27, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The followng is a brief talk shared from B2C leader SooBest.com which carries a wide range of products such as women's clothing, men's clothing, fashionable watches, fashion jewelry and more.

1. Market investigation
Only by understanding your competitors and the demands of your customers can you create a targeted competitive strategy in accordance with your enterprise resources and status. This is a prerequisite for success, and all marketing strategies must be derived from market investigation. Market investigation includes a survey of your market status, customer demands, competitors and their own rational resources, and the status quo. Simply, market investigation includes two parts: the enterprise's internal investigation and the external market environment.

2. SWOT analysis (company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats)
Through market research, the enterprise must be clear about their advantages, disadvantages, opportunities, and competitive threats. Market opportunities are equal for every enterprise and every enterprise has opportunities to become bigger and stronger.

The enterprise must first clearly know about their status and have a rational understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, but also see the threats from competitors, so as to formulate competitive marketing strategies and tactics.

3. Market positioning and business strategy
Business strategy refers not only to sales goals and profit targets, but also includes annual sales targets, profit targets, product planning strategy, competitive strategy, brand strategy, marketing strategy, and channel strategy. Business strategy can be long-term and short-term and must be determined with your enterprise status and market dynamics.

4. Create targeted marketing strategies
Lack of effective marketing strategy is the main cause of many companies' failure in marketing. Marketing strategy must be formulated in conjunction with the appeals of customers and competitors. You need to develop an enterprise product strategy, a pricing strategy, channel strategy, promotional strategies, and terminals strategies for your dealers and customers.

5. Brand planning and low cost integrated marketing strategy
Brand building is not simply shaped in a short term by conducting some advertising, but built by a long term accumulation of enterprise marketing campaign achievement. It's without a doubt that corporate brand building will enhance sales. But many companies fail in brand planning and marketing. Brand planning includes brand positioning, brand appeal, brand visual identity system design, and more. Brand communication must also be determined according to actual corporate resources. In the case of limited funds, the company must consider low cost brand communication activities such as terminals and soft ads, and then further consider TV ads or other high price marketing when the enterprise strengthens its capability.

6. Develop competitive regional marketing strategy
After doing market research to understand marketing strategies and market opportunities of the competitive brand, companies must develop their own marketing strategies, and decide whether to adopt the strategy of focusing on the target market, or conduct a steady marketing from one point to the full market. Companies must also decide whether to compete with their competitors or to avoid confrontation with them, and all those must be determined according to actual specific resources of the enterprise.

7. Investment plans and strategies, dealer management
Establishing a sound distribution channel means a favorable position in the commercial battle! Before you attract investment, you must conduct systematic planning, determine your own conditions, spell out your strengths, and consider what kind of dealers would be the most appropriate. You must consider what kind of information should be the most attractive before it's released to media.

8. The building and management of the marketing team (personnel, operations, and information management)
The setup of a marketing team must be combined with the enterprise business strategy and marketing strategy. Make sure to complete a marketing plan, have a clear idea of marketing agency departments, the functional responsibilities of each department, and then determine what kind of people configuration, each person's job description, so each marketing staff is clearly aware of their responsibilities and rights, such as the regional manager, provincial manager, city manager, sales manager, marketing planners, and finally to work out each person's job description.

Determine the job descriptions for each position and then figure out the salary system. Improving the salary system plays an important role in the stability of a trained group of marketing staff and mobilizing their initiative. And a series of marketing principles and processes regarding personnel, business, and information feedbacks must be set up for the marketing team management. Marketing principles will stimulate, supervise, and punish the actions of the marketing staff, and marketing processes will ensure the efficiency of marketing activities.

9. Marketing budgets and annual marketing implementation plan (including marketing control system)
Make marketing budgets and cost control according to the reality of corporate funds and resources, and create specific annual marketing plans, action steps, and measures.

With the above "nine steps," manufacturing enterprises will be able to develop their own enterprise integrated marketing planning according to their own situation.

SOURCE Soobest.com