You are assuming the role as an agency and will select a brand of your choice.

Strategic Promotion Plan

Format: 12-font, double-spaced

Length: 10-12 pages in length

MLA Format for References

You are assuming the role as an agency and will select a brand of your choice.

Step 1: Situation Analysis: (2-3 pgs)

The brand has probably have done a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) as part of their marketing plan already. That’s where they have looked at the overall place of their brand product and its distribution in the marketplace. In a strategic promotional plan you’ll want to do a specific SWOT analysis on how the brand’s current promotions are working, should work and how you want them to work. Look purely at the SWOT of your product’s promotions and its relationship to competitors promotions. Remember that promotion is a communication, what you perceive in the brand’s present communications, what isn’t, what opportunities there are and how these could be threatened.

The second part of the situation analysis is identifying, in the most specific way possible, who the brand is – what is its value proposition to the market.  As we know from Marketing, the unique, competitive benefit of the brand is at the core of its strategy and becomes the focus of a brand’s messaging. Who is the target audience (profile) – i.e. who finds the most value in such a messaging? The more information you have on your segment, the easier the other steps become and the more likely you are to reach your objectives.

This section MUST include at least two cited references supporting the messaging strategy for your brand.  Do you see different trends in the end-users using the product? (product) Or do you see data on unmet demands for the product that you could modify and then promote? (product) Or do you see data to indicate different channels of distribution for your product that might be more effective for your audience? (place)

The information above needs to be briefly stated (1/2 page or so) by Week 2 and turned in for review from instructor.  This is referred to as the “Initial Feedback on Course Project” (10 pts) to ensure the project is on the right course.

For our purposes, although it is the client who provides the agency with this information, we will identify such information through our own readings of the brand and observing its current activities.

Step Two: Identify Your Objectives (1-2pgs)

Once you’ve identified where you’re starting from, then you need to identify where you’d like to go. In the strategic promotion plan, you need to have a promotional objective in mind. You might have one or more objectives.

Because promotion is a communication activity, in developing your promotional objective don’t make the mistake of aligning it with anything other than a communication goal – not a marketing or sales goal.

Ensure your objective is SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-focused. Something like “Achieve 1,000 people to log onto the website and sign up for the alpha invite before 10 August, 2009″ is a good promotional objective. Ensure your promotional objectives are directly achieved with communication, and that they support the overall marketing goals. Never think you’ll be able to prove your promotions were directly responsible for an increase in sales – unless you can prove nothing else changed in the environment, business or marketplace. However, your promotional activity should be one aspect which contributes towards an increase in sales. That activity should have SMART attributes which allow you to prove they were successful promotions (even if other stuff goes haywire).

Remember that Achievable and Realistic are two different things. Sure, sending out 500 samples a week to people in the mail might be achievable if you never spend time with your family, but is it realistic? Begin with brainstorming some objectives that you’d like to achieve and then start adjusting and tying them down with the SMART criteria.

Step Three: Choose your Tactics: (5-6 pgs)

Think of tactics as tools in your kit that will allow you to implement your strategy, and get to your objectives. There are four general categories of tactics, these are: PR, Advertising, Sales Promotion, Personal Selling (which includes Word of Mouth and online communities), Social Media, Internet (Web site). Some of these have cross over points and grey areas, and when done well, you should use some in combination or at different points in order to achieve your objectives. Remember the key to a successful campaign lies in its ability to integrate both traditional and non-traditional forms of tactics. For example, very rarely do you use a single way of transport to get from one place to another (you might walk, then take a bus, then walk again for example), and the same is true of choosing promotional tactics. You need to select promotions that are directly aligned with your strategy. Think of what each of them will do for you, and then put them together so they become a plan.

Please remember both the market and media considerations that go into deciding what type of individual tactic makes sense for your brand. It is really very useful to use a timeline.

Step Four: Monitoring and Evaluation (2-3 pgs)

Let’s provide specific metrics/strategies to monitor the individual tactics used that will reflect their role in achieving the overall communication objectives of the campaign.