CAN-DO MARKETING PLAN WORKBOOK & REFERENCE GUIDE 2nd ed. --- ESCAPE key to exit --- With PROTEC's exclusive 8-POINT AUDIT & 5-POINT PLANNING Outlines and Checklists! Paul Oman P. O. Box 590011 Houston, TX 77259 713/486-1587 (voice & fax) Copyright 11/91 $30 plus $5 S&H/tax No reproduction of this material is permitted for any use without the written consent of Paul Oman ----------------------------------------- Preface Like many things in life, I've found that in business, and in marketing, things seem to happen in groups of three. For example, according to Dean Kring, director of the Entrepreneurial Development Center in Houston, successful businesses are: * 1/3 product or service * 1/3 administration * 1/3 marketing and sales What this means is that time, resources, personal etc. should be divided up at approximately these ratios. The sharp manager or CEO will overcome his nature favoritism and inclination toward one of the three and see that all get equal attention. Picture any business as a three sided pyramid. Each corner is one of those three business parts. Forming the top of pyramid is the CEO. Within the pyramid are an infinite number of points that include various proportions of each of the three parts, plus anything else that is part of the business structure. Businesses rarely operate from the corners, that's why any real life business tool must deal with all the parts, no matter what they are or how they are defined. I wish I could break marketing out of the larger context, but unfortunately it can't be done. That's one of the primary reasons my 8-POINT AUDIT and 5-POINT PLANNING approaches grew into so many points. I also would have liked to combine the market auditing and market planning into a single entity. Again, it wasn't possible. That's why all the marketing books I've collected and read turn out to be either auditing workbooks or planning workbooks. Therefore, while I couldn't combine them into a single entity, I included both in this book, albeit as separate sections. This seems to be something of a first in the field of marketing books. While my actions may have broken some hidden taboo, my goal was to give you the best and most comprehensive book available. So, what exactly is marketing? It's everything you say or do. It's the color of your product, the color of your office building, the color of your tie and how you comb your hair. It's what the outside world thinks of you and what you think of them. It's even what your workers think of your product or service and how you interact and motivate those workers. It's the essence of business and of life! You can choose to be indifferent to it, or your can become a skillful manipulator of it. Yet no matter how you perceive it or decide to exploit it, you can't escape from it.... ---------------------------------- How To Use This Book This book has four main sections: 1) 8-Point Marketing Audit; 2) 5-Point Market Planning; 3) Reference Guide; and 4) Meeting PROTEC. It was tough deciding if auditing or planning should come first. If you're starting from scratch, then planning comes first. However, from there forward the procedure is to conduct an audit first. This is followed by planning to correct any deficiencies discovered during the audit. Marketing audits need to be done on an ongoing basis. Corrections, or planning fixes, must be applied as needed. Section three, the reference section, exists because there is more to marketing than filling in blank lines and asking yourself a lot of questions. Section four might be called Marketing Examples, but the truth is that it's more of a marketing plug for the author's own services... Begin with whatever section makes logical sense to you and HAPPY MARKETING! SECTION I - 8-Point Marketing Audit Evaluate your entire marketing from 8 key perspectives SECTION II - 5-Point Market Planning How to get a complete marketing program up and running (a 5-POINT PLANNING PROGRAM) SECTION III - Reference Guide Short essays, articles, and tips & tricks that provides an eclectic cross section of insights and information as well as some fun reading SECTION IV - Meeting PROTEC See some actual marketing materials and become a part of the author's own hidden agenda ------------------------------------ SECTION I 8-Point Marketing Audit Table of Contents - Section I Introduction 1. Competition 2. Copy/Communications 3. Customer 4. Image I-8 not in shareware ver. 5. Market not in shareware ver. 6. Product not in shareware ver. 7. Sales not in shareware ver. 8. Staff ---------------------------------- Introduction Marketing interacts with every facet of your business. A marketing audit must therefore delve into the recesses of your business. On each of the next 8+ pages some facet of your business is addressed and issues and questions relating it to marketing are raised. There is no way all the questions appropriate to your company can be listed. Instead, the questions are intended to get you thinking in the right direction. You're the one who will have to ask the right questions as well as provide the answers. If you don't have an answer, then that's a weakness the audit has discovered. Perhaps a telephone survey (i.e. market research) will provide the missing information. Unlike most other market auditing books you may have seen, I'm not going to insult your intelligence with some sort of scoring system to the questions. Marketing isn't a true-false kind of thing. You have to be your own judge, jury, and (if necessary) executioner. All I can do is prompt you into thinking. I can't, and won't, do your thinking for you. I've not put the eight business/audit topics into any kind of significant order. I didn't want you to get the impression that any one is more important than any other. It's really the sum of the parts that count and not so much the individual pieces. For those of you who can't leave well enough alone, notice the 8 points are actually in alphabetical order. The format in this section is simple. On each page is one of the 8 audit topics and a set of related, thought provoking questions. Instead of just writing down actual answers, I suggest you work your way through the questions out loud. When you're done brainstorming write down a TO-DO list of things that could be initiated to improve your marketing. ---------------------------------- 1. Competition In love and in work the more you know about the enemy, the competition, the more likely you'll win. Business is no exception. Before smart strategic marketing decisions can be made one has to know what he or she is up against. Who are my competitors? Why do people buy the competitors' products or services instead of mine? What do my competitors think of me? Are they afraid of me? Do I worry them? What do they charge for their products/services? What is their profitability? Are their sales up or down? What does the marketplace think of them? Are they perceived as leaders or followers? Are their products/services considered high-end or low end? Who much do they know about our company? What products do they have, what new products are they working on? Are they hiring more people? Are their workers happy with their jobs? What do their brochures, etc. look like? (you should have copies) What is their business philosophy? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? Where, when, and how often do they advertise? How are their sales teams compensated? ---------------------------------- 2. Copy/Communications Documents are weapons in the business war. To win you need a large and diverse arsenal. Besides quantity and diversity, quality is also a vital consideration. Communications, from the brochures and contracts, to the tone of your voice, and the verbiage you use when answering the telephone, are all marketing tools. Each product/service (as well as the company itself) should have several sets of increasingly technical and complete pieces of literature. So too should groups of related products. Don't forget corporate documents that set the stage for all other written copy. Develop effective cover letters for all situations (brochures tell, cover letters sell). Do all our products/services have: Data sheets? Brochures? Press releases written about them? Trade magazine articles written about them? Misc. promotional photos, slides, etc. of them? Case studies and/or mini case studies (application briefs)? Demo versions? Does our organization have: A media/press kit? Internal and client newsletters? Product reply/response cards? Form sales letters? Formal contract/agreement documents? A company brochure? A spokesperson? A official set of guidelines/answers to respond to questions asked? An advertising plan, budget, and strategy? A computer database of all media contacts, associations, publications, movers and shakers, editorial calendars, freelance writers? Do all our communications have: A consistency of: color, shape, message, theme, layout, appearance, quality? Limited amounts of technical jargon? Liberal amounts of stimulating adjectives? DOES EVERYTHING STRESS USER NEEDS, WANTS, DESIRES, BENEFITS and not product/service features, or company boosting? Handling bad news and negative PR: Are we prepared to handle the response that will appear if our company has a major accident, crisis, disaster, emergency? Do we have an action plan (and materials) ready to publicly present after only brief modification? Do we have an action plan (and materials) in place to capitalize on a competitors' mistakes (i.e. how we ca capture their former customers, why it wouldn't happen to us, etc.)? Do we have materials ready to send to the press responding to some no-blame crisis that we know will happen sooner or later? Being the first to respond will get us media coverage and position us as national/international experts. -------------------------------- 3. Customer In order to pitch your customer or client effectively you must know them as well as you know yourself. You probably don't have just one typical customer, but several. You must be able to close your eyes and picture every detail, every need and desire of each of them. It may help if you give them each a name, that makes building their identity much easier. Conduct surveys to discover what you don't know. How do our customers perceive our product? How do they perceive our company? What do they like/dislike about our company and product? How old are they, where do they live, how well educated are they? What are their hobbies and interests? What do they read, watch, or do? What things are important to them? What would get them to repurchase your product or service? How important is price/image to them? What do they all have in common? What is different between them? How do they see themselves? What do they think of our competition and why? Do they understand our product, or do they need to be educated about it? Do we have a customer computer database that we can use to track activity? ---------------------------------- 4. Image Image is how your customers, non-customers, competitors, peers, the media, everyone, pictures you. It's something you create, but not something you can easily control after you've created it. Remember, what's important is not image from your perspective, but rather from your buyer's viewpoint. Strive to make certain you and your customers agree on what your image is. If that's not the image you want, then work to change it. Be certain your image is consistent across everything you do. For example, don't sell $80,000 cars while wearing a $100 suit. That sends out mixed signals and creates an uncertain, muddled image. Does our dress/personal appearance/approach match the class/niche of our product? Does our office's image (location/furniture/etc.) match our personal image and the image of our products? Is everything about us consistently high-end, low- end, practical, extravagant, etc.? This includes: business cards paper/print quality letterhead What is special about our image that sets us apart from the competition? ----------------------------------------- SECTION II 5-Point Market Planning Table of Contents - Section II REDUCED SHAREWARE VERSION Introduction 1. Getting Started not in shareware ver. 2. Market Research 3. Strategy Development 4. Scheduling not in shareware ver. 5. Implementation not in shareware ver. FINAL EXAM ------------------------------------- Introduction Section II is the planningþ part of this workbook. Here are the build/rebuild marketing activities you'll face until you retire. You can do it all yourself, or you can hire or retain someone to do it for you. If you decide to farmout the work, the folks who put this workbook together hope you'll call them first! Sharpen your pencil. You'll have to write short answers and generate lists as you read the pages ahead (After all, we did promise you a workbook!). You'll be prompted where to write when you see the Giant Pencil on the page. -------------------------------- 1. Getting Started Target Markets It seems like a foolishly simple question, but who do you see being the receivers of your products or services? You may have several classes or groups of likely buyers picked out. That's OK, just keep in mind that the same strategy, image, etc. may not work for all of them. You may also need separate marketing programs, perhaps even separate companies, to serve each target group. Here's where it's easy to go wrong. Children, for example, aren't a target market. Using children as a group isn't defining the target group well enough to effectively market to. There are rich children, poor children, city children, country children, black children, white children and lots of other children classifications. You can't reach each of them with the same strategy or message, so they're not a target group. Children under the age of 5 with parents who live in large cities and are office workers - that's a target market! Even if you have a target market in mind, they must be easily accessible or you are again in serious trouble. The best Target Market members all belong to some kind of organized group or association. For example, assume that all lawyers in Texas belong to the Texas Bar Association or some such group. If you can get your message into that group's newsletter or magazine, you've reached every potential customer with just the one message printed in just one publication! That's cheap, simple, and easy marketing! I once made the blunder of attempting to access non-oil industry people in Texas who get money from oil or gas production on their family lands. It failed because these people have no common link. Many of those people probably do subscribe to, and did read, my ad in Farm and Ranch Magazine. Yet that magazine link wasn't strong enough to work. O.K. - enough talk! List YOUR Target Market(s) below: Positioning For the most part, positioning usually focuses upon product pricing. You can be the low cost leader that everyone can afford, the blue collar service provider, or the play thing of the rich. There are several factors to consider - the size of the market at your positioned price, the competition at that price, and how you will handle the image issue necessary to convey that positioning (we'll get into Image next). Keep in mind that there is often more money in positioning your product at the high end instead of at the low end. I'm reminded of what my mother use to tell me, "Paul, it's just as easy to fall in love with a rich girl as it is a poor one,"... Image Image is a lot of things. It's how you wear your hair. It's the location of your office, it's furniture, the color and make of your vehicles, the clothes you have on, how you answer the phone, your business cards, and the look of your letterhead. Consistency is the key. Obviously, if you're selling high cost business services you'll need a classier look than if you're selling earthworms to fishermen. But it should still be consistent across the board. Your letterhead logo should match logo on your business cards. Your high priced stationary suggests you should be wearing high priced suits. The typeface on your brochures should match the typeface in your ads. All your marketing copy and materials should have a common tread or link between them. EVERYTHING should be tied together. Here's the hooker. It's all too easy to over-do or under-do the image thing. What you determine is enough doesn't mean much. It's your buyers and the marketplace that will evaluate your image. For the most part, they won't tell you how you rated, not directly at least. But it will, of course, affect your sales in the long run. It's probably better to over-do things a bit than to under-do it. People are quick to notice þbad.þ They're indifferent to AVERAGE or SLIGHTLY ABOVE. It takes SPECIAL to get noticed. Below, rate your (1) office; (2) the personal appearance of you and your staff; (3) your marketing materials; and (4) your business cards/stationary, etc. for a consistent image. There's no right answer here. The purpose is only to take a critical look at your current image. ------------------------------------ 3. Strategy Development Goals Goals are þbig pictureþ wants, while objectives are more specific and measurable. Example goals include: * SEPARATING YOURSELF FROM THE COMPETITION * DEFINING AND DEVELOPING A UNIFORM IMAGE * CREATING AN INDUSTRY SPOKESPERSON WITHIN YOUR COMPANY * MAKING SALES CALLS MORE EFFECTIVE Write down 3 - 5 goals you have. Don't just go for þmore profits,þ instead, list goals that lead the company toward better cash flow. 1. 2. 3. Objectives Here are some sample objectives: * CONTACT EVERYONE IN ALL YOUR DATABASES 5 TIMES EACH YEAR * MAIL 500 PIECES OF COMPANY MARKETING COPY EACH MONTH * HAVE ARTICLE REPRINTS OUT IN TIME FOR THE NEXT TRADE SHOW List 3 - 5 of your own objectives below: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Percentages It's important to allocate resources for your marketing effort. Resources could be dollars, hours, people, or all three. That decision is yours. Enter your units (hours, dollars, etc.) here ____________ % spent on/with existing or past customers/clients _____________ % spent on/with specific potential customers or leads ______________ % spent on industry PR (articles/press releases etc.) _____________ (TOTAL FROM ABOVE SHOULD EQUAL 100%) Next, let's split advertising from other marketing and PR functions. One of the first things companies tend to do is run ads. That's part of the marketing picture and it's important to know the percentage of dollars (or whatever) it will require relative to all other PR/marketing activities. While you can always count on getting in print with an ad, its cost can be high enough to cripple other marketing activities. % spent on ad programs ____________ % spent on everything else ____________ Expense Budget A great number of marketing programs fail because the person in charge doesn't have an expense budget to work within. When sending out a press release, newsletter, etc. the marketing person needs to know how much he can spend, and then have the authority (and funds) to do just that. For example, the total costs associated with the first class mailing of 5000 four-color, 6 page newsletters followed-up with a telephone call are large. Compare that to the simple bulk mailing of a two page, photocopied newsletter. Want more? Should press releases go on special 2 color letterhead, or will plain paper do? Decisions regarding quality and quantity must be made. What's the monthly expense budget for stamps, copies, printing, etc.? Will it be $300 or $3000? Excluding things like salaries, trade show expenses, travel, etc., what amount of money are you willing to use for marketing production and distribution each month? Enter your figure here _____________ Trade Shows Trade Shows are very important marketing functions. They're also often very expensive. Much can be done to make those dollars work harder for you. Just don't show up at a show and hand out brochures. There are things that should be done before, during, and after the show. We're not going to delve into all those things here. This section is simply here to help you realize that some major outpouring of resources will be necessary to handle a trade show correctly. All you need to do on this page is list the trade shows you plan on attending, and the dates of these shows. Crisis Planning You can count on a crisis happening. It could be your crisis, your competitor's crisis, or a crisis for everyone. For example, if you're in the environmental consulting business, you can almost count on a major oil spill happening somewhere in the near future. Your firm should be ready to immediately react to the new spill and be the first to tell the public media, (TV, newspapers, etc.) exactly what the problem is and what the possible solutions are. This could get you national headlines - if you're prepared for this þopportunity.þ If the bad news concerns your company, your marketing team needs to know what to say and what not to say. Then they need to start repairing the damage before you lose all your customers. The trick is to be prepared before it happens! List a few outside happenings that you could pre- package. 1. 2. 3. ---------------------------- 4. Scheduling Now comes the serious stuff! List the marketing tasks you've planned for each of the next 6 months. Month 3 might include: Send out our new computer article to 25 magazines (estimated cost: $150) Write an article about the new software interface Complete draft 2 of our fall newsletter for mailing next month Complete the new press kit Place a new ad in the leading trade magazine (estimated cost: $1000) Write a press release about our product, send out 500 copies (cost: $250) Add 50 new names into the marketing database MOST IMPORTANTLY!! -- meet with marketing team on the 15th of the month to insure all parties are still working on the same set of priorities. Now it's your turn. Remember that month 1 will often be filled with creating databases, setting priorities, interviewing and meeting staff members/executives and þhands onþ training on the company's product for the writers and marketing staff. Create your schedule for the next 3 - 6 months. Month #1 Month #2 Month #3 ------------------------------------------ SECTION III Reference Guide Table of Contents - Section III Almost Free! (Mktg Advice) Sales vs. Marketing Strategic vs. Tactical Mktg Test Your Entrepreneurial Poor Mktg Kills Great Idea THE FOLLOWING ARE NOT IN THE SHAREWARE VERSION: 14 Guerrilla Mktg Tricks Marketing Strategies Client Focused Ads Press Releases Newsletters Advantage Marketing Trade Show Tips & Tricks Getting The Most For Your Trade Show Dollar ------------------------------- Almost FREE! (Marketing Advice) That þFREEþ in the title, it got your attention, didn't it? Everyone loves to get something free and smart marketing people know that and use it to generate sales. It's just one little marketing trick you can use to turn your hobby or your entrepreneur dream into a successful business. If you're already in business, it might mean the difference between staffing up and moving to new offices. Perhaps it could provide the extra dollars to take a quick vacation to Europe this summer. Very few businesses understand marketing and the role it plays in their operation. Too often marketing simply means cold calling, running an occasional advertisement and joining the local Chamber of Commerce. It's too often an unstructured, on-the- side activity that gets mixed results. Successful businesses, even those seeking just 15 minutes of glory like the pet rock folks, know that marketing is the essence of all business. Marketing, which includes sales, should consume 1/3 of your resources. The other 2/3 should be split between product or service, and administration. If you spend 6 months and 1 million dollars developing your product, you should spend similar time and money marketing it. The golden rule: allow as much (dollars, energy, time etc.) for marketing as you did for product development/support. Also, develop a written strategy plan or flow chart for your marketing, just as your þmanufacturingþ division operates under. Consider your marketing dollars an investment, not an expense. Investments often take time to pay-off. Expenses, on the other hand, are short term operating costs. Marketing is not a short term thing, its purpose it to build up the business's equity. Need more convincing? Suppose you could purchase the exclusive rights to the Coca Cola name for 100 dollars. Think of the millions of dollars that name could generate for you. Now tell me, was that 100 dollars you used to purchase the Coca Cola name an investment or an expense? For decades the Coca Cola people have been plugging the Coca Cola name. Haven't we just decided owning that name is an investment, not an expense? For all those long years Coca Cola has been INVESTING in marketing their name. Today that investment is worth millions! Golden Rule #2 is to market continuously. The big wave will get notices briefly, but it's soon forgotten. It's the little waves that over time create and move beaches and mountains. Beach goers expect to find the beach always at the same spot. They don't like surprises when they get there. Buyers are the same. Mark Twain said, "familiarity breeds contempt and children." He was kidding about the contempt, but it does take a feeling of ease, comfort and trust between two people to begin breeding. It is just as true between buyers and sellers. Find an effective place to advertise and advertise there regularly. Consistency is more important than flash, use a small ad, but run it frequently. Let the ad readers get familiar and comfortable with you. That's when they'll begin buying! While they're warming up to you, don't expect them to save your telephone number and address. Only when they're ready to buy will they demand such details. If they know where to find your ad, i.e., in every issue of the GREENSHEET, they've as good as got your telephone number memorized! Give your potential buyers ads they can depend upon. When the trust and feel comfortable with your ads, they'll feel the same way toward you! ### -------------------------------- Sales vs. Marketing Do you have a handle on your marketing? Make sure you're not failing to differentiate between SALES and MARKETING. The following letter explains: Dear Sales/Marketing Manager, There's a sign above my desk that reads: LUCK IS WHERE PREPARATION MEETS OPPORTUNITY. It's a reminder that should be above every sales manager's desk --including yours. You're certainly well aware that any sale you, or your sales team, makes is the result of seeing an opportunity in the form of a customer's need and being prepared to satisfactory that need. Some might view the resulting transaction as a matter of luck, but you know better. It's preparation, and an outstanding sales team, that brings results. MARKETING is those things you do to facilitate SALES. It helps to bring additional opportunities in the form of customer inquiries to your doorstep. It simplifies the salesperson's task by pre-selling the customer. After the sale, it functions to keep past customers satisfied and coming back, thus freeing up the sales team to concentrate on new business. Unfortunately, too many people confuse sales with marketing. The two are very different. The personalities and skills of people working in each are very different. It's a serious mistake to let your marketing pros try to sell and your sales experts try to market. Is your marketing (i.e. sales support) as rock firm as your sales department? If it isn't, you're cheating your salespeople out of sales and lost commissions, and your company out of a healthier bottom line and a larger, more secure, market share. Ask yourself the following: Does your sales literature stress user benefits instead of product features? Do the editors of your industry's trade magazines have your company's name and products always on the tip of their tongue (and word processor)? Your brochures should tell - your cover letters should sell. Do they? Every pitch used by your sales team should also be in some sort of written brochure or flier and used in either the pre or post-sales follow-up. Is it? Marketing begins with new, hard hitting sales letters and brochures. It expands into developing and maintaining a PR/media data base and mailing list. In its full form it's a ongoing, never ending, behind the scenes factory of newsletters, press releases, trade magazine articles (and reprints), case studies, technical presentations, sales letters, follow-up letters, brochures, trade show strategies, product reviews, product rollouts, product photographs, executive interviews, and, of course, skillfully worded advertising. XYZ Corp. has been providing those kinds of marketing and copywriting services to companies like yours for the past seven years. Here's four reasons why you should be utilizing XYZ Corp. for your sales support functions: 1) unlike others in their field, XYZ Corp. staffers have technical, engineering, and computer backgrounds; 2) þoutsidersþ, like XYZ Corp., provide an injection of new ideas, enthusiasm, and fresh insights that in- house staffers lose over time; 3) XYZ Corp. rates are 30% to 60% less than what agencies charge; 4) We contacted you. This letter is part of an aggressive marketing program of my own -- and you only want to do business with marketing companies that practice what they preach! Sincerely, XYZ Corp. P.S. - I've enclosed a reply card (a must-have marketing tool) to simplify advancing to the next step. But time is money for both your company and for me, so why not just pick up the telephone and call me right now at 713/486-1587? ### ---------------------------------- Strategic vs. Tactical Marketing In much the same way that friendship is the least appreciated aspect of love, marketing is the least understood aspect of business. Marketing strategies that work for Company A may not work for Company B. Simple marketing tips, like trying to explain why lime green walls are inappropriate from a marketing and company positioning viewpoint doesn't always sink into the thick skulls of some neanderthal bosses. Attempting to explain to a computer programmer turned software developer why he needs a marketing and PR staff and fewer programmers is mighty tough. The fact that IBM seems to consist mostly of account representatives, and that the millionaires behind the pet rock craze made their money purely by marketing, rarely carries the significance it deserves. Most businesses owners consider marketing to be one or more of the following: hiring a salesman, running an advertisement, a Yellow Pages listing, joining the local chamber of commerce. These kinds of business leaders have no overall marketing plan, just a series of disjointed, nearly random actions that may or may not work. The fact these businesses got started and are still in business was probably more a matter of luck and circumstances rather than business skill. There's nothing wrong with luck and circumstance, we all could benefit greatly by receiving more of each, but after they help get you on your way your business deserves better from you. To achieve maximum successful requires a dedication to marketing in terms of time, resources, people and money. It also requires an organized approach. Marketing, simply because it is somewhat nebulous, needs to have structure and organization imposed upon it. When thus configured it can be addressed in a businesslike and analytical fashion. The first step to serious marketing is strategic in nature. Block out hours of time to develop a marketing strategy. Decide what it is you're selling, what makes it unique and what message or image you constantly want to communicate. Then develop a marketing budget for each month. Be reasonable, remember marketing should be 1/3 of your business. Now explore what you can do with those dollars each month. How can they best be spent? How can the dollars and projects of last month be tied into this month's marketing? How can we track the results of those efforts? Finally, write it all down in a formal marketing document you can refer to and follow for the next several months. Do exactly what your document says to do, don't get back into the habit of randomly trying different marketing tools. If a new marketing channel develops work it into your next marketing document. Don't impulse buy with your marketing dollars - stick with the program. The strategic side of marketing is all talk and planning. It's necessary, but it's just foundation work. Unless you put the plan into action, it's just words on paper. Strategic marketing is planning, tactical marketing is doing. Tactical marketing is writing those press releases, newsletters and new brochures your marketing plan has assigned. It's making those specified 10 cold calls per day, designing that image building logo and running those ads in the magazines. It's doing a mass mailout and secondary mailout follow-up, and then writing thank-you notes to the people that responded and purchased your product. Strategic marketing requires creative thinkers and planners. Tactical marketing needs doers. Meanwhile, someone else must be maintaining or building your product, while still another person is seeing to all the administrative chores (hiring, firing, buying, accounting, etc.) running a business requires. If you want to be an entrepreneur you must be prepared to wear all those hats when you first begin. Not everyone can or wants to do that. Yes, being your own boss can be rewarding and exciting, but sometimes just being an employee watching out over only one aspect of the big picture seems very, very appealing. ### -------------------------------- Test Your Entrepreneurial Skills Almost everyone comes up with one or two million dollar ideas at least once during their life. Unfortunately between the million dollar ideas are dozens of flops. Whether it's luck or skill the true entrepreneurs of the world seem to pick the winners. What about you? Can you tell the mega-hits from the mega-flops? Consider This: In Texas and surrounding oil states there are thousands and thousands of families who receive oil and/or natural gas production royalty income checks from producing wells drilled on family property. Often the income, like the property, was inherited and the recipients don't know much about the well, the property, or the oil business. From time to time there are stories in the newspapers about royalty interest holders getting cheated out of some of their rightful income by shady petroleum companies. Also, oil and gas wells give out over time so royalty income should naturally decline. Now, here we go. You believe there are a reasonable number (from a marketing perspective) of royalty holders who suspect they are being ripped off and would spend about 30 dollars to test their suspicions. It might be a real window of opportunity without any known competition to drive down your profits. As a geologist you know how to access state records showing actual petroleum production for leases your potential customers might have an royalty ownership interest in. Your idea is to send them copies of the lease's petroleum production figures for 5 dollars per month (with a six month minimum). That's 30 dollars. You begin your business venture by placing ads in the county-wide, local, weekly newspapers in the sparsely populated, oil rich counties of West Texas. You also run a much more expensive ad in the monthly Texas Farm and Range Magazine which has a circulation of about 140,000. The ads ask the reader if he/she suspects they're being cheated out of petroleum royalty income. It tells them that for as little as 30 dollars they can find out for certain. It asks them to send for a free brochure. Your overhead costs are tiny: a few ads, membership in a petroleum industry library, a few stamps, etc. Question: This is the kind of project that could fall into your lap. You decide, is this a good project and will it make you money? Answer: The wise entrepreneur would give this a thumbs down. The newspaper ads actually produced a few responses (well under a dozen). The magazine ad resulted in exactly two requests for brochures. None of the brochures mailed out resulted in any incoming checks. Why? Lessons Learned: (1) The target market, suspicious royalty holders, was too scattered to be easily targeted and approached via this type of marketing (2) Perhaps the target market wasn't as large or as worried as thought (3) No one else appeared to be doing anything like this. It's safer to copy and improve upon someone else's success than to try to start one on your own. Maybe there's a good reason why no one else is doing it! (4) Find a product or service with an obviously larger customer base - i.e. car owners, home owners, city dwellers, hungry people, etc. Well, did you pass the test? Is your money still safe in the bank or did you spend it on empty advertising? ### ------------------------------------- SECTION IV Meet PROTEC Paul Oman, this book's author and president of PROTEC, would very much like the opportunity to work with you and your company. If your needs include a marketing (plan) audit, marketing strategy development, implementation of your marketing plan, or business copywriting, contact PROTEC at: Box 590011 Houston, TX 77259 713/486-1587 (voice and fax) Other business/mktg books by Paul Oman: PURSUING THE $10,000,000 DREAM - Vol.1 The Lifestyle Vol.2 Tips & Tricks Vol.3 How To - How Come Each volume includes 25 essays for the self- employed entrepreneur. Several of these essays can be found in the essay portions of this book. COST: $10 per volume (includes S&H)