assignment on marketing of a new product

How to Create a Marketing Plan for a New Product (2022)

You have developed a new product, hurray! The only problem is that products don’t sell themselves – we need a way to introduce them to our potential audiences. In this article, we will explore different ways of how to create a marketing plan for a new product.

What is a product marketing plan?

A product marketing plan is a map for getting your product out in front of different audiences in the most efficient way possible.

A product marketing plan will help you to conduct market research, find your strengths, explore potential audiences, develop your core marketing messages and choose the right tools for the job. A plan will also keep you on track with different activities you have done and are doing in the future so that you will know what works and what doesn’t.

Now that you know the why’s, let’s start creating the product marketing plan!

1. Know your product

To know where your product stands in the market, we need to start with some research.

Start by answering these questions:

• Example: Our hand sanitizer removes dangerous bacteria from people’s hands and thus reduces the risk of getting sick.
• Example: Our hand sanitizer is easier to apply than most of what is available on the market.
• Example: It’s cheaper, more comfortable to use and smells better .

Depending on your control of the product, we added some advanced ideas that could be useful to you when you start building your product marketing strategy. These include a bit of competition research as well.

When answering these questions, keep your mind open – you could find a unique selling point you didn’t think about before.

• Where will you sell your product?

Will it be sold locally, through an online store or both?

Example: We found out that hand sanitizers are widely available both online and offline. We will try to differentiate from our competitors by only selling hand sanitizers in our online store.

• What is your potential selling price?

Example: We saw hand sanitizers in our size formats be sold between $5 and $15. Because we are trying to be an affordable premium type of product, we will try pricing our hand sanitizer somewhere in the middle.

• What are your costs for producing the product? Are there any other associated costs (shipping etc.)?

If possible, calculate your potential profit margin in different scenarios. This will be crucial when you begin budgeting your marketing efforts.

• How many SKU-s (stock keeping unit) will your product have?

Example: Our product will be sold in 3 different variants.

• Product size

How large is your product? Can you only sell locally or will international selling be a possibility in the future?

• Product durability

How durable is your product? This will affect shipping and handling.

• Consumable or disposable?

Is your product consumable or disposable? Perhaps you could consider a subscription-based marketing strategy?

• Is your product perishable?

Does your product have a long shelf life?

• Are there any specific regulations your product will have to follow?

2. Conduct market research

It’s time to find out how much interest there could be for your new product. There are many ways to conduct market research, but you don’t need to go super-specific on the first go.

You will need to start with some assumptions. For example, if you are selling hair gel for men you could identify how many men there are in the area where you sell, find sales statistics from bigger companies who sell similar products and try to play them out in your numbers.

If you are looking to introduce a new product, you might interview a set number of people to see how they react to your proposition.

To analyze existing needs on the market we could use some tools on the internet. Let’s see what tools we could use to find out more about the potential market size on the  internet .

When researching, keep these 3 things in mind: potential market size, market trend, and seasonality.

• Google Trends

Google Trends  is a great tool to look at different keywords from Google’s perspective. This tool is useful for identifying if your product is in a growing, falling or flat market. It also helps to identify the seasonality of your market.

Check out our guide on how to use Google Trends for market research!

• Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a part of  Google Ads . With this tool, you can see search volumes for different keywords, which could give you some indication and also show signs of seasonality.

https://buzzsumo.com/  is a great tool for seeing what kind of content gets shared around on social platforms. You have to insert a keyword related to your new product to get the information.

3. Define your audience

Now that you know the properties of your product inside-out, it’s time to find out if there’s a good market for it and if so, where.

Let’s start by determining the perfect audiences for your product. Without knowing your audiences, it will be difficult to assess the potential market size.

What is a target audience?

Let’s start by defining what a target audience is.

A target audience is a group of people who share similar behaviors, interests and/or specific demographics. Target audiences are crucial for making marketing strategies, allocating budget, attracting new customers and developing your product.

For example, if you know that your product is mostly used by females, you could try to develop it in a way that is more appealing to women. This is an over-simplification – in reality, you can go much deeper into this topic.

• Find your target audience

Your target audience(s) should be defined by some characteristics like:

This process will be much easier when you already have some data about your buyers. In that case, you could just start from going through the data and identifying who buys your products the most. If you don’t – no worry!

You can make audiences by making logical assumptions about your new product. Some questions that you could ask are:

• Who could be potentially interested in your new product? ( Don’t say “everyone”. Try to go into as much detail as possible. Example: middle-aged women )
• What similar interests do these people have? ( For example, these people could be grouped as “parents”, “students” etc.)
• What topics bind these people together? ( For example, parents might be interested in topics such as “childcare”, “baby food” etc. )

Although these questions only scratch the surface, they could give you some ideas to start developing your target audience(s).

You can find out more about finding target audiences in this wonderful  article  by Hubspot.

• Create a buyer persona (Optional)

The next more advanced step could be to create a buyer persona for your new product.

What is a buyer persona?

A buyer persona is the profile of your ideal target customer built on audience research. Buyer persona mainly describes who your perfect customer is, but it can go as deep as illustrating their interests, buying decisions, groups they belong to, etc.

Read more about creating buyer personas in this  article  by Hootsuite.

4. Analyze your competitors

Knowing your competition is crucial to stay in the game. More often than not, analyzing competitors will give you a good hint about market dynamics, promotion strategies, targeted audiences and common themes about what things work to bring more sales. Let’s dive into it!

1. Identify your competitors

To find your competitors you could start by searching the internet using platforms like  Google ,  Amazon  and even  Facebook . If your new product doesn’t classify under the standard categories, try to find the closest similar competing products.

2. Sort your competitors by relevancy

After you have found some companies, it’s time to sort them by importance – which ones are more important to follow and which ones you can occasionally check on.

Easy way to categorize your competitors is to sort them in three categories:

• Primary Competitors:  These are the companies that you are competing with head-on. They are selling similar products and to similar audiences like you. These are the companies that your customers might compare you to ( for example BMW and Volvo) .
• Secondary Competitors:  These are the companies who are selling similar products as you but to a different audience ( for example a brand store that sells clothes vs general store which is also selling clothes, but at a different quality and price level) .
• Tertiary Competitors:  These are the companies which do not sell similar products to you, but they market to a similar audience  (for example if the target audience is “college students”, a company that sells school supplies can be a tertiary competitor to a company which sells clothes for younger people) .

When categorizing your competitors, make sure you track the basic information like:

• Name of the company
• Core products
• Strengths and weaknesses

You can add more tracking points as you conduct your research.

Learn more about in-depth competitor analysis  here .

5. Set Goals

After you’ve analyzed your new product and did some market and competition research, it’s time to determine the goals you want to achieve through your new product marketing plan.

Your marketing goals will set the tone for marketing messages, strategy and budget. The most common method for setting marketing goals is using the SMART system, which means your goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound.

An error many people make in the beginning is setting too broad goals:

• We want to increase sales
• We want to rank number one in Google
• We want to have more website visitors.

Goals like these don’t have a beginning or an ending – they are not specific enough, are difficult to measure and aren’t time-bound. For example, although increasing sales is realistic and attainable, it’s something that should be happening through your marketing activities anyway.

Instead of setting broad goals, you could specify them a bit, for example:

• We want to increase monthly sales revenue by __%
• We want to rank in top 3 on Google for the keyword “best hand sanitizer”, which should bring us around 1500 new visitors each month
• We want to have increase website traffic by 100 monthly visitors

A good resource on setting marketing goals we recommend reading:  How to come up with 2020 marketing goals based on business goals .

6. Develop core marketing messages

Now that you have your goals set, let’s define your core marketing messages which you will use in your marketing strategies. The core marketing message is how you explain your unique value proposition (UVP) to your potential customers. It sets the frame for your strategies, which could be social media advertising, Google Ads, video marketing and so on. Every piece of content you produce should align with your core marketing message. The core marketing message helps you build a recognizable brand voice and gives people something to connect with.

How to develop your core marketing message

• Explain why your product is different and how it can help people.

Try to describe some specific pain points that your product solves for people. Use your competitor research to see how they position themselves and be creative. Find ways to be different and perhaps you can cover some points that your competitors missed in their core marketing message.

• Incorporate stories in your core marketing message

Can you find a way to make your product more personal? Perhaps there is a story as to why you started making your products. For example, some companies include family heritage, secret recipes that have been passed on or some other interesting stories in their core marketing message.

• Don’t make fake promises

Tell people the truth. If there is no basis for miracle benefits that you promise, people will find out eventually. Be as genuine as you possibly can and accurately describe your product.

7. Develop a marketing strategy (game plan)

We have finally arrived at the actionable part of your new product marketing plan! This is the stage where you take your research, market knowledge and start finding ways to reach your marketing goals.

There are countless ways you could reach your potential customers. To keep things from getting too confusing, start by thinking of some categories you could list your ideas under. Since you are selling products, this means you could have 2 different categories, for example,  local marketing strategy  and  international marketing strategy .

For the sake of this example, some ideas for the local marketing strategy could be:

• Participating in different local events;
• Making pop-up stores in malls or places where many people walk by;
• Making locally-focused social media advertisements;
• Writing press releases, content marketing.

Some ideas for your  international marketing strategy  could be:

• Getting your product to Amazon (or other resellers);
• Ranking your website for keywords that describe problems that your product solves;
• Running digital marketing campaigns to sell your product.

 After having these broader topics of what you want to do, you can build out each idea into a roadmap where you will include all the tools and approaches that you will need to implement the idea.

8. Set a budget

The reason we didn’t list the budget before marketing strategy is, that we don’t want to hamper the flow of ideas too early. You might not have a budget for some activities right now, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t put those ideas aside for the future.

We believe the most important things to know when setting a budget for new product marketing activities are  operational costs  and  ROI  (return on investment) needed for justifying the marketing activity cost.

We already know our operational costs from the research we made in the first chapter ( 1. Know your product ) and now it’s time to try to estimate potential ROI different marketing strategies can have.

Sadly, there are no guarantees there, but you can set a minimum ROI needed to keep or leave a marketing strategy. If you know that for example, Google Ads is bringing in a steady 3.0 ROI (for every $1 spent on ads you get $3 in sales), you can calculate what your net profit is and decide if you want to keep advertising there or not.

Keep in mind that on many strategies you could start seeing a return on investment over a longer period (for example branding activities or SEO), so don’t get too eager if you don’t see a return right away. Which brings us to the next point:

9. Tracking progress

Decide on how you will track the progress of different marketing activities. Digital marketing has made our life much easier because we can have all the statistics in numbers – website visitors, online buyers, advertising budget spent per purchase, etc.

We must remember though, that bigger part of marketing still goes on outside of the screens, where it’s not so easy to measure progress and numbers. When doing more traditional marketing, the best way to measure success is by comparing your activities to the sales revenue.

We like to think of marketing as making connections between different things: if you can find a profitable link between marketing activity and an increase in sales, you have already won half of the battle.

10. Set a timeline

Finally, it is crucial to have time boundaries for your activities.

Make a roadmap for when do you want to have your:

• Marketing goals met;
• Set strategies implemented;
• Marketing activities assessed.

Remember, marketing is all about testing and finding the right combinations for your new product.

Good luck with making your new product marketing plan!

Looking for a professional team to scale your online revenue through paid advertising? Contact us today!

eCommerce Copywriting – 6 Principles You Need To Master

In this article, we will help you increase your odds of converting more visitors into buying customers by using effective e-Commerce copywriting strategies and techniques

Optimizing Your eCommerce Website for Higher Conversion Rate In 2022

Conversion rate optimization(CRO) is a method to increase sales without increasing traffic or ad-spend, simply by making changes to the website. 1 single eCommerce optimization

5 Must Try Product Marketing Videos For Your Ecommerce Business

Many people compare different products online, get recommendations from friends, and read reviews. Most of the consumers, however, watch videos. In fact, users have a

Retention Marketing is More Important Than Customer Acquisition, and Here’s Why. [2022]

Every company has a limited budget for marketing and advertising. Marketing experts will often tell you to focus your efforts on acquiring new customers. While

21 eCommerce Funnel Metrics Every Facebook Marketer Needs To Know

It’s pretty common for an eCommerce marketing team to rely on Facebook Ads to drive traffic that results in product sales in their online store.

30 eCommerce Marketing Tips To Explode🚀 Sales | Adacted

Whether you’re an established eCommerce brand or just starting out, these marketing tips can help to improve your business. We have listed a wide variety

To Get The Hottest DTC/eCom Marketing Strategies In Your Inbox Weekly

Join 1121+ other ecommerce founders/marketers to learn about creative strategy, facebook ads, and more....

• Sign up free

Resources / blog / Marketing and sales / Article

How to create a marketing plan for your new product (Checklist)

Rachel Burns

November 05, 2021

Your marketing strategy can mean the difference between stellar sales and a disappointing launch. Create a marketing plan for your product launch with this checklist.

A wise person once said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

When it comes to launching a new digital product, we couldn’t agree more.

After hours of brainstorming, research, and hard work, you’re finally ready to launch and sell your digital product . The last thing you want is a disappointing launch day.

That’s where planning ahead comes into play. A solid product marketing plan can mean the difference between a $10,000 launch day and a failed product launch . And you don’t have to be a marketing pro to create that plan.

To help you get set up for success, we put together a six-point checklist for building your marketing plan. Follow these steps to create a marketing roadmap you can use for every new product launch.

Podia’s all-in-one platform makes it easy to sell and market your digital products, and you can use it completely free. Start planning your successful product launch today!

Product launch marketing plan checklist

Download a PDF of the checklist here .

Step 1: Set goals for your product launch

You can have the biggest marketing budget and the fanciest tools, but until you set goals, your marketing plan is like a ship without a rudder: directionless.

Marketers tend to have a bad habit of setting vague goals. We say things like “make more sales” and “drive engagement” without really digging into what meeting those goals looks like in action.

Why do we do that? For one thing, it’s hard to recommend specific universal marketing goals or ways to measure success. Every creator has different key performance indicators (KPIs) depending on their goals.

Setting goals that are specific to your business, brand, and product can help you select which metrics to track leading up to your launch.

For example, if your goal is to collect pre-launch signups for your new online course, you might track the number of website visitors who sign up for your pre-launch email updates.

On the other hand, if your goal is to convert new customers through social media ads, you would track how many people click on your Facebook ads, and how many of those visitors then purchase your product.

To set the right goals for your marketing plan, we recommend the SMART goal framework.

With the SMART goal framework, you design your goals to meet five criteria:

Specific: Set detailed goals that narrow in on a particular part of your business.

Measurable: Make sure that you can quantify your goal and track your progress.

Attainable: It’s fun to dream big, but pie-in-the-sky goals can quickly become discouraging. Keep your goal challenging but achievable.

Relevant: Check that your goal aligns with your values, brand, and overall business goals.

Time-bound: Give yourself a realistic deadline to achieve your goal. Deadlines hold us accountable and give us a timeline to work towards.

For example, say you’re a month out from launch day for your new online course. You want to validate your product idea and grow your email list by gathering pre-launch signups .

Your SMART goal might be: “By adding a pre-launch landing page to my website, I will collect 100 pre-launch email signups before launch day next month.”

With specific metrics in mind, a realistic goal, and an action plan to get there, you can set yourself up for a successful launch. What that action plan looks like depends on a variety of factors — including your audience.

Step 2: Define your target audience

One of the most important questions to ask before starting a new business is, “Who is my target market?”

That question is just as valuable when planning for the launch of a new product.

Here’s why: You can’t market your product if you don’t know who you’re marketing to.

Your target audience is the group of potential customers you plan to sell your products or services to. To make your marketing as effective as possible, you need to get to know your potential customers as people, not just demographics.

That’s where buyer personas come in.

Content marketing consultant Amy Wright explains : “Buyer personas describe who your ideal customers are, what their days are like, the challenges they face, and how they make decisions.”

A buyer persona might look like this example of one of Spotify’s target customers:

To build your buyer persona, it’s time to do some customer research and discover what your audience wants to learn, achieve, and buy.

Look at forums, online communities, and reviews for products in your niche. Ask yourself:

What are my target customers talking about online?

What challenges do they face?

What are their goals?

What do they value?

What language do they use?

When you learn how your audience talks and thinks, you can better communicate why your new product is a great fit for them.

If you have an online community of your own, don’t be afraid to ask them directly what they’re looking for. Reach out to your brand community , email list, and social media followers and ask them to share their feedback.

Your audience wants to share their feedback and ideas with you. 64% of consumers want brands to connect with them, and 90% of consumers have a more favorable view of businesses that ask them for feedback.

When you create discussions in your brand community, you can build connections and bond over shared values. You get to know your target audience more personally, which helps you create marketing messaging that resonates with them.

You can even ask your existing customers to test out and share feedback on a prototype of your new product .

One great example of learning from your customers comes from Tiffany Williams, founder of CEO InsideHER .

Tiffany learned what her audience valued by asking them directly. “I just ask my audience what they want, what they want to learn, and if it matches something that I have done, and I have been successful with, then I teach it to them,” Tiffany shared with us .

Getting to know her customers helped Tiffany build a membership community of nearly 40K entrepreneurs and sell digital products that help her audience grow their own businesses.

(Podia makes it easy for creators like Tiffany to build brand communities, connect with their audience, and sell digital products, all from one platform. Give Podia a try for free today .)

Overall, the better you get to know your target audience, the more you can tailor your marketing to fit their needs and show them how your product can help them succeed. You’ll need that info in this next step.

Step 3: Establish your unique selling proposition (USP)

Once you know all about your target audience’s pain points, needs, and goals, you can define your unique selling proposition (USP).

Start with the result you want to offer your customer, then work backward to determine how your product achieves that result. That’s your USP.

Your USP, also called your value proposition , answers two questions:

What problem does my product solve for my customers?

What makes my product different from my competitors?

When you define your USP, you’re reaffirming that your product helps your audience meet their goals or overcome a real obstacle. And that’s a key piece of a successful product launch. 35% of startups fail because there’s no market need for their products or services.

In other words, there’s no product-market fit. Your product-market fit is how well your product meets customer demand. Your USP pinpoints that product-market fit and explains what sets you apart from the competition and makes potential customers choose you.

If you aren’t sure what makes your product stand out, conduct market research to learn more about your competitors.

Are there any pain points your competitors don’t address? What does your product do differently? You might have a course with more visual lessons than others on the same topic, or maybe your experience gives you a different perspective from other creators in your niche.

Your USP also helps you figure out how to market your product.

Take Death Wish Coffee , for example. Most coffee brands highlight features like smoothness or flavor, but Death Wish takes a unique approach, claiming to be “the world’s strongest coffee”.

Death Wish knows that their ideal customer wants extra-strong, kick-in-the-pants coffee, so their marketing messaging highlights that differentiator. Their USP might not appeal to every coffee drinker, but it showcases what makes them unique and is tailored to their target market.

All in all, when you know what makes your product special, you can highlight that in your messaging. Use the same language that your target audience uses when talking about their pain points. Your messaging will resonate with the right customers.

You’re nearly ready to share that messaging with the world — but first, let’s make sure you can do it without breaking the bank.

Step 4: Determine your marketing budget

As a creator, you probably don’t have the budget to hire an outbound sales team and in-house marketing staff, and that’s okay. But you need to figure out how much you can afford to spend on marketing before you start running ads or commissioning designs.

How much money you set aside for marketing depends on your overall budget, product launch goals, and how many tasks you outsource vs. handle in-house.

The good news is that you don’t need a six-figure marketing budget to execute a successful strategy. In fact, more than one-third of small businesses spend less than $10,000 on advertising each year.

As you figure out your budget, you may want to allocate money to costs like:

Software and tools to create content, communicate with your audience, and manage campaigns.

Freelancers, like graphic designers, copywriters, video editors, and web designers.

Paid advertising, such as sponsored content, paid search ads, and social media ads. (We’ll talk more about paid social ads in the next section.)

If you can’t afford to hire freelancers or buy high-end software, don’t worry. You can still create a high-quality marketing campaign on a budget. Here are some resources that can help:

12 best free tools for creators selling digital products

How to create social media graphics (no Photoshop required)

6 video editing tips you can learn this weekend

11 free SEO tools for infopreneurs and creators

With your budget in hand, you’re ready to move on to step five and pick the right marketing platforms for your product launch.

Step 5: Choose your marketing channels

As you’ve hopefully realized by now, there’s no one-size-fits-all way to promote a new product .

Different tactics resonate with different audiences, and not every platform will work for every creator, budget, and product.

Plus, there are more digital marketing channels out there than any one creator could tackle on their own, so it’s essential to find the right ones for you and your customers.

Here are a few of the most popular channels to consider including in your marketing plan.

Email marketing

Email marketing is a must-have in any digital marketing strategy. Over 4 billion people will use email this year, collectively sending about 320 billion emails per day.

Marketers and customers alike love email. 73% of consumers rank email as their top channel for marketing messages, and 59% of marketers cited email as their top source of ROI in 2018.

Email is also an affordable option for small businesses with a tight marketing budget. At around $42 for every $1 spent , email has one of the highest returns on investment (ROI) of any marketing channel.

To use email marketing in your product launch campaign, you need two things: an email list and an email marketing platform .

One way to encourage potential customers to sign up for your email list is via lead magnets . A lead magnet is a high-quality resource, like a free digital download , that users receive in exchange for their email address.

Here are some resources to help you grow your email list, choose an email platform, and make the most of your email marketing:

5 proven ways to build your email list fast

Create your first lead magnet in 90 minutes or less (+5 ideas)

5 steps for writing sales emails that convert (+ Templates)

14 digital marketing email templates for every awareness level

6 email metrics to start tracking ASAP

Social media marketing

59% of Gen Z and 55% of millennials discover products on social media, so it’s no surprise that many creators and entrepreneurs use social media to sell digital products .

You can find the best social media platforms for your small business by figuring out where your customer base already spends their time online. Then, decide if you’ll use organic vs. paid social media advertising .

Social media marketing works best when you combine organic and paid initiatives. Organic social media marketing lets you engage with your community and potential customers, while paid social ads help you get more eyes on your products.

To build some buzz around your new product, Twitter is a solid choice. For example, designer and marketing expert John D Saunders used a video on Twitter to announce a new online course:

John’s video let his audience know what to expect from the course and saw high engagement with 30+ retweets and over 200 likes.

Engaging his audience on Twitter and beyond also helped John earn $10,000 on launch day and $100,000 overall from his first course on Podia.

On the paid social side, ultra-specific targeting tools help you reach more of the right people faster than organic can. Over 62% of marketers say that paid social media advertising has been at least somewhat effective for their business.

Facebook ads are an affordable choice for small businesses and solopreneurs to get their new products in front of a larger audience. For example, business coach Melyssa Griffin used this video ad to promote her Pinterest workshop for bloggers.

With the right audience targeting in place, Facebook ads like Melyssa’s translate to digital product sales for creators.

Here are some additional resources to help you master social media marketing:

Guide to Facebook ads for digital product entrepreneurs

How to use Twitter for your small business

The real 411 on using social media for small online businesses

The 9 best social media management tools for entrepreneurs

Content marketing

Content marketing costs 62% less and can generate more than three times as many leads as traditional marketing. It’s an affordable way to reach your audience, establish your expertise, and build relationships with prospective customers.

80% of people read, watched, or listened to a piece of content from a brand in the last year. That content can include videos, visual content like infographics, live and pre-recorded webinars , and, of course, blog articles.

Here’s how starting a blog can play a big role in a successful product launch:

Your ideal customers discover your blog content through search or other distribution channels.

They learn from your articles and begin to trust your expertise.

They sign up for your email list or follow you on social media.

You keep them updated about your product launch.

They’re excited to buy your new product, support you, and continue to learn from you.

The key here is to create blog posts that provide real value, not just longform product ad copy.

For example, if you’re selling an online course on dog training, you could write a blog post about high-value vs. low-value treats to reward your dog. Your followers will come to trust your dog training expertise, making them more likely to buy your course as soon as it launches.

Make sure to write your blog content with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind. SEO makes it easier for your target audience to find you when searching for relevant keywords and phrases. That’s why nearly 64% of marketers actively invest time in SEO.

Here are some resources to help you get started with SEO and content marketing:

A step-by-step guide to SEO for selling digital products

Simple SEO tips that require no technical skills

How to give away free content and make more sales in 3 steps

The best video marketing strategies for beginners

How to use webinars to launch online courses

Website and landing pages

Picture this: Your launch marketing is all going according to plan.

Potential customers are flocking to your website, ready to learn more about your product, sign up for pre-launch updates, and eventually make a purchase. Now, you need a landing page that makes all your hard work pay off.

Before your product goes live, you can create a pre-launch landing page. Pre-launching your product has two big benefits:

Validating your product ideas.

Building your email list leading up to your product launch.

On your pre-launch landing page, include a short description of your new product and tell visitors why they should sign up to learn more and get notified when you launch.

Come launch day, that pre-launch page becomes a product page that, with the right copy, turns visitors into buyers. You don’t have to be a professional copywriter to craft a sales page that converts . You just need to help your potential customers answer, “Is this for me?”

To answer that question as you write your sales copy , go back to the USP you established in step three. Focus on your product’s benefits rather than its features. A feature is a part of your product, while a benefit is the impact that feature has on your customer.

Take a look at Nicole Saidy’s product description for her online course, Become a UI/UX Designer.

Nicole understands that transitioning to user experience design can be overwhelming — but she’s here to help. She helps her audience determine if the product is right for them by speaking directly to their pain points.

Here are a few more resources on crafting landing and product pages that bring in sales:

5 persuasive copywriting techniques for better product pages

5 tips for writing product descriptions that convert

The digital creator’s guide to landing pages

5 strategies for better sales writing

With your marketing channels chosen, you may think you’ve reached the end of the checklist. But there’s one more vital step to make the most of your product launch marketing and set yourself up for success — now and for many product launches to come.

Step 6: Track your results and keep iterating

Our sixth and final step, tracking your results and iterating on your marketing, is more of an ongoing process than a checklist task.

During and after your product launch, revisit the goals you set in step one. If you’re not meeting your goals, you have an opportunity to learn and make changes for next time or even update your current marketing activities.

For example, let’s say your email marketing campaigns aren’t performing as well as you expected. Your open and click-through rates are lower than you’d like them to be, but you still have time to make changes before launch day. It may be time to run some A/B tests .

A/B testing (or split testing) involves changing different elements of your email one at a time, then seeing how those changes affect your performance.

If you were A/B testing different subject lines, for instance, your subscribers would receive identical emails except for the subject line. By comparing the two open rates, you can see which subject line performs better, then use that knowledge in future email campaigns.

Above all else, remember that trying new things and allowing yourself to make and learn from mistakes helps you grow as a creator.

Maybe you discover that a certain marketing channel isn’t the right fit for your business or audience. That’s valuable information to bring into your next product launch plan.

In fact, Python developer and successful course instructor Reuven Lerner recommends experimenting with different marketing channels to find what works best for you.

“Experiment! It’s hard to know how to market online, and every group of potential customers is a bit different. So you’ll have to experiment to find out what’s effective (and what isn’t). With everything you do, consider, measure, and then modify your techniques to improve them. There’s no one magic bullet here!”

It can feel discouraging to discover that your marketing efforts aren’t getting results, but embracing the experiments that don’t work out is a major part of succeeding in business . Ryan Kulp, founder of Micro Acquisitions , explains:

“To run a successful business, you have to first get comfortable running an unsuccessful business, because most of the time, success comes later.”

In the Startup Curve , coined by Y Combinator founder Paul Graham , failure is a standard phase that happens right before your business starts heading upward toward scaling and growth.

Business coach Minessa Konecky agrees . “I think that what we really need to do is look upon past failures and mistakes as wells of information that we can then use to feed whatever it is that we’re doing now.”

Bottom line:

Don’t be afraid to experiment with your marketing to find what works best for you, your brand, and your audience. With your goals in mind and a little patience, you’ll be well on your way to an effective launch strategy that you can use for many product launches to come.

Join our newsletter

Join thousands of creators receiving our weekly articles about launching, growing, and thriving as a creative entrepreneur.

Craft a go-to-market plan for launch day success

You’ve worked hard to create a product your audience will love. A successful marketing plan can help all that hard work pay off come launch day.

To recap, here are the six steps to create a marketing plan for your product launch:

Set SMART goals for your product launch. Figure out what a successful launch means to you and which metrics you’ll track.

Define your target audience and get to know them as people, not just demographics. Conduct customer research and talk to them to learn more about their challenges and goals.

Establish your unique selling proposition (USP). What makes your product the best choice for your ideal customer? How do you stand out from the competition?

Determine your marketing budget. You don’t need to spend an arm and a leg to create a marketing campaign that drives sales.

Pick your marketing channels. Email marketing is a must-have, but there are a variety of other platforms out there to choose from. Figure out which ones align with your audience and goals.

Track your results and keep iterating on your marketing strategy. The more you learn about your customers, the more successful your next product launch marketing plan will be.

Remember, you probably won’t get it 100% right the first time, and that’s okay. It may take some trial and error, but once you figure out what works for you and your customers, you’ll be a product marketing pro with the launch day sales to prove it.

More from the blog

Keep on reading

Marketing and sales

9 best email marketing platforms for creators and small businesses

Create engaging newsletters, build high-converting email campaigns, and understand subscriber behaviors with these 9 best email marketing platforms.

How to make an irresistible link in bio page with Podia

Don’t limit your business to just one link in your social media bio. Create a free, customizable link in bio page with Podia to promote your top content and products.

What's the deal with transaction fees?

Creator platforms often charge transaction fees. Learn when they can work in your favor and what red flags to avoid as your business grows.

About the author

Rachel is a content marketer for Podia , an all-in-one platform where online courses, digital downloads, and communities scale with their creators. When she’s not writing, you can find her rescuing dogs, baking something, or extolling the virtue of the Oxford comma.

• school Campus Bookshelves
• menu_book Bookshelves
• perm_media Learning Objects
• login Login
• how_to_reg Request Instructor Account
• hub Instructor Commons
• Download Page (PDF)
• Download Full Book (PDF)
• Periodic Table
• Physics Constants
• Scientific Calculator
• Reference & Cite
• Tools expand_more
• Readability

selected template will load here

This action is not available.

4.23: Assignment- Marketing Plan, Part I

• Last updated
• Save as PDF
• Page ID 47975
• Lumen Learning

Student Instructions: Complete the following information about the organization and products and/or services you will focus on as you develop a complete marketing plan throughout the course. You may need to do research to get answers to the questions below. Be sure the organization and offering you select will 1) remain interesting to you for the duration of the course, and 2) have sufficient information available for you to conduct research and make informed recommendations in your marketing plan.

Company Profile

• Company Name:
• Major products and/or services (names, types):
• Products and/or services your marketing plan will focus on:
• Target customers:
• Distribution channel(s):
• Headquarters (city, state, country):
• Year founded:
• Number of employees:
• Annual revenue (estimated)
• Key competitors:
• Link to Web site:
• Link to Yahoo! Finance information page (for public companies):

Market Segmentation and Targeting

• What problem does your product or service solve?
• Describe the total market for your solution: Who are potential customers?
• What are the key segments within this market?
• Identify and briefly describe 1–3 segments that this company serves.
• Which segment does this marketing plan focus on, and why? Why do you believe this segment will offer growth and profit opportunities?

Situation and Company Analysis

Economic environment.

Discuss factors that affect your consumers’ purchasing power and spending patterns. What is the economic environment that you are operating in? Is it a growth, recovery or recession? Will it be easy to find staff? What is the current interest rate i.e. is it increasing or decreasing? What is consumer confidence like?

Technical Environment

The technological environment changes rapidly. You need to make sure that you are aware of trends in your industry and other industries could affect your business. New technologies create new markets and can influence you consumers and competitors. Industry environment What are the trends in your industry? Are there new entrants in the market? Has a substitute product been introduced? Are there changes in industry practices or new benchmarks to use?

Competitive Environment

How many competitors do you have? Who are the key competitors? What are the key selling points or competitive advantages of each one. What is your advantage over competitors? Is the market large enough to support you and competitors?

Political Environment

Consider the political environment for the areas that your business will trade and operate in. Is there a stable political system? Are there any licenses and regulations that you should be aware of? Do you need to win support to be able to operate?

SWOT Analysis

Instruction: Complete the table below with descriptive responses and explanation as you answer the questions below.

• Does the organization have a strong brand presence?
• What resources are available for marketing activities?
• Does the the company have unique products or services that satisfy the needs of their target market?
• What makes the company’s products or services unique?
• What value is brought to customers?
• Does the organization have a weak brand presence?
• Are resources insufficient for marketing activities?
• Does the company lack distinctive products or services?
• Do current products or services fail to satisfy the needs of customers?
• Do current products or services fail to bring value to customers?

Opportunities

• What is the unique opportunity that the company is trying to take advantage of?
• Does the target market have any unfulfilled needs that the company can satisfy?
• Are there emerging target markets with needs that the company can satisfy?
• Are there ways the company and its competitors can benefit by working together?
• Are there opportunities for collaborating with customers to build brand presence?
• Describe and analyze if market demand is increasing?
• Are there changes in the government regulations that will affect the company?
• Describe any emerging global issues that will affect the company?
• What are the tactics that competitors use to pursue customers?
• What are the strengths of the company’s biggest and or emerging competitors?
• In what ways are the competitors’ products or services superior to the company’s offerings?
• How are competitors likely to respond to any changes in the way the company markets?
• Is the company behind in adopting new technologies for marketing?
• Describe any ways in which international competitors are taking away market share?
• What do customers dislike about the company?
• Describe and analyze if market demand is decreasing?

Mission, Objectives, and Goals

State the mission or business purpose: what the organization wants to achieve, in market-oriented terms. (Example: Disney’s mission could be, “We create happiness by providing the finest in entertainment for people of all ages.)

List 1–3 objectives that move the organization a step closer to achieving the mission. (Example: A Disney objective could be, “To be the most popular theme park for international visitors.”)

Convert objectives into specific marketing goals that are easy to measure and evaluate. (Example: Our goal is to increase market share of international theme park visitors by 10% in the next two years.”)

Sample Grading Rubric

Company profile grading rubric.

Total points possible for Company Profile Assignment: 10 pts.

Market Segmentation and Targeting Grading Rubric

Total points possible for Market Segmentation and Targeting Assignment: 10 pts.

Situation and Company Analysis Grading Rubric

Total points possible for Situation and Company Analysis Assignment: 50 pts.

Total points possible for Marketing Plan, Part 1 Assignment (Consists of Company Profile Assignment, Market Segmentation and Targeting Assignment, and Situation and Company Analysis Assignment combined): 100 pts.

Contributors and Attributions

• Assignment: Marketing Plan, Part I . Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• SWOT and Integrated Marketing Communications Templates. Authored by : Melissa Barker. License : CC BY: Attribution

• Top Courses
• Online Degrees
• Find your New Career
• Join for Free

The Marketing Plan

This course is part of Marketing Strategy Specialization

Taught in English

Some content may not be translated

Instructor: Ramon Diaz-Bernardo

Financial aid available

34,205 already enrolled

(428 reviews)

Skills you'll gain

• Marketing Plan
• Market Analysis

Marketing Strategy

Details to know.

Add to your LinkedIn profile

See how employees at top companies are mastering in-demand skills

Build your subject-matter expertise

• Learn new concepts from industry experts
• Gain a foundational understanding of a subject or tool
• Develop job-relevant skills with hands-on projects
• Earn a shareable career certificate

Earn a career certificate

Add this credential to your LinkedIn profile, resume, or CV

Share it on social media and in your performance review

There are 4 modules in this course

Create your own Marketing Plan for your own product or service idea. In this course you will learn how to produce arguably the most important marketing tool for any business. Rather than simply learning the stages of The Marketing Plan, you will be asked each week to complete a peer graded assignment which will help you complete a simplified version of the plan. You will be required either to map the four crucial stages for your own product or service idea or use the Nissan Leaf case study (attached in the additional readings) in order to produce a professional example.

Ramon Diaz Bernardo - a professor with over 20 years experience - will guide you through the four most important stages of The Marketing Plan: analysis, marketing strategy; the marketing mix and expected results. On this journey, he will conduct interviews with leading experts from international companies in marketing as well as invite students to join him for explanations and discussions. This excellent and unique course allows you not only to learn the essential parts of The Marketing Plan but also map out the future of your own business and take the first steps on the path to launching your own product.

Welcome to the analysis section of The Marketing Plan course. Here you will principally learn the basics of marketing and reinforce anything you have previously learned on this very broad discipline. Then, you will learn how to set objectives and what type of objectives you should include in your plan. You will also be introduced to the Nissan Leaf case - a case that we will refer to frequently throughout the course, and one you may use for your weekly assignments.

What's included

10 videos 2 readings 1 peer review 2 discussion prompts

10 videos • Total 52 minutes

• Introduction to The Marketing Plan. • 3 minutes • Preview module
• The marketing plan: interview with Veronica Santos. • 6 minutes
• The Marketing Plan definition. • 5 minutes
• Objectives and structure of The Marketing Plan. • 6 minutes
• The 4 main parts of a marketing plan. • 5 minutes
• Critical elements of the external analysis. • 5 minutes
• Critical elements of the internal analysis. • 4 minutes
• The SWOT Matrix. • 6 minutes
• The Nissan Leaf case. • 5 minutes
• How to complete assignment 1: analysis. • 3 minutes

2 readings • Total 150 minutes

• The Nissan Leaf Case • 60 minutes
• Optional - The manager's guide to competitive marketing strategies - Norton, Paley. • 90 minutes

1 peer review • Total 60 minutes

• Assignment 1.1: Analysis • 60 minutes

2 discussion prompts • Total 20 minutes

• Goals and outcomes for the course? • 10 minutes
• Nissan Leaf case vs personal idea. • 10 minutes

Welcome to the marketing strategy part of the course. Here, you will learn how to identify the best target segment for your brand, product or service and also how to position your company in order to best reach them. You will also begin to understand the benefits and drawbacks of trying to attract new customers or retain existing ones.

8 videos 1 reading 1 peer review 1 app item 1 discussion prompt

8 videos • Total 54 minutes

• Introduction to marketing strategy. • 2 minutes • Preview module
• What is marketing strategy? • 5 minutes
• Marketing strategy definition. • 10 minutes
• Financial and non-financial objectives. • 4 minutes
• The customer attraction vs customer retention dilemma. • 7 minutes
• Identifying the best target segment for your product or service. • 9 minutes
• How to identify the best positioning for your product or service? • 9 minutes
• How to complete assignment 2: marketing strategy. • 4 minutes

1 reading • Total 90 minutes

• Optional - Marketing decision making and the management of pricing successful business tools. • 90 minutes

1 peer review • Total 120 minutes

• Assignment 2.1. Marketing Strategy. • 120 minutes

1 app item • Total 60 minutes

• The Marketing Plan • 60 minutes

1 discussion prompt • Total 10 minutes

• Refelctions after the first assignment. • 10 minutes

Marketing Mix Implementation

Welcome to the third part of The Marketing Plan - the marketing mix implementation. This is the action phase. Here, you will use the lessons learned in modules one and two to decide where you are going to invest your time and money, in regards to marketing. You will become familiar with the 4 P's of marketing and also learn how to effectively price your product or service. Finally, you will begin to understand which channel or combination of channels are best suited to marketing your brand.

13 videos 1 peer review

13 videos • Total 75 minutes

• Introduction to Marketing Mix Implementation. • 1 minute • Preview module
• Marketing mix definition: short-term and tactics vs long-term tactics. • 7 minutes
• Deciding product strategy: the product lifecycle. • 4 minutes
• Deciding product strategy: product levels. • 5 minutes
• Deciding product strategy: branding strategy. • 5 minutes
• An interview with Martin Boehm. • 4 minutes
• Pricing strategy. • 8 minutes
• Distribution channels: interview with Maria Teresa Aranzabal. • 6 minutes
• Distribution channel strategy. • 7 minutes
• Integrated communication strategy: an interview with Eda Sayin. • 7 minutes
• How to build an integrated communication strategy: part 1. • 6 minutes
• How to build an integrated communication strategy: part 2. • 5 minutes
• How to complete assignment 3: marketing mix implementation? • 4 minutes
• Assignment 3.1 • 120 minutes

Expected results

Welcome to the final part of The Marketing Plan course - the expected results. Here, you will use metrics to make realistic estimates to how successful your marketing plan has been. This is document that will be used to test whether or not your marketing plan has been successful in the future. You will, most importantly, learn how to produce a profit and loss account, which will predict, and ultimately judge, the financial success of your marketing strategy and implementation.

10 videos 1 peer review 1 discussion prompt

10 videos • Total 57 minutes

• Introduction to expected results. • 2 minutes • Preview module
• Interview with Luis Rodriguez Baptista. • 9 minutes
• The expected results definition. • 3 minutes
• Metrics for financial objectives. • 7 minutes
• Metrics for non-financial objectives: brand awareness • 5 minutes
• Metrics for non-financial objectives: social media brand. • 4 minutes
• Metrics for strategic objectives. • 6 minutes
• Metrics for customer objectives. • 6 minutes
• The Marketing Plan budget. • 8 minutes
• How to complete assignment 4: expected results? • 3 minutes
• Assignment 4.1 • 120 minutes
• What next? • 10 minutes

Instructor ratings

We asked all learners to give feedback on our instructors based on the quality of their teaching style.

IE Business School is an internationally recognized business school where the leaders of tomorrow shape their ideas and learn to become global citizens. For over 40 years, IE Business School has promoted innovation and change in organizations, equipping managers with an entrepreneurial mindset that generates employment, wealth, and social well-being. Regularly featured among the top business schools in the world, IE Business School has an urban campus in Madrid and a faculty of more than 400 professors who teach students from approximately 90 countries in its undergraduate and master programs. IE uses innovative online, face-to-face, and blended learning formats, including the IE Communities Platform where knowledge and experiences are exchanged with over 50,000 IE graduates that currently hold management positions in more than 100 countries worldwide.

Recommended if you're interested in Marketing

IE Business School

Marketing Strategy Capstone Project

Positioning: What you need for a successful Marketing Strategy

Marketing Mix Fundamentals

Specialization

Why people choose Coursera for their career

Learner reviews

Showing 3 of 428

428 reviews

Reviewed on Jun 27, 2020

I learned a lot of things about the marketing plan. Everything is well explained.

Reviewed on Sep 16, 2018

The course is very interesting and informative. Thank you so much for instructing Ana Pelayo.

Reviewed on Apr 30, 2021

The way this course is designed and professors articulate subject, it is just awesome.

New to Marketing? Start here.

Open new doors with Coursera Plus

Unlimited access to 7,000+ world-class courses, hands-on projects, and job-ready certificate programs - all included in your subscription

Advance your career with an online degree

Earn a degree from world-class universities - 100% online

Join over 3,400 global companies that choose Coursera for Business

Upskill your employees to excel in the digital economy

Frequently asked questions

When will i have access to the lectures and assignments.

Access to lectures and assignments depends on your type of enrollment. If you take a course in audit mode, you will be able to see most course materials for free. To access graded assignments and to earn a Certificate, you will need to purchase the Certificate experience, during or after your audit. If you don't see the audit option:

The course may not offer an audit option. You can try a Free Trial instead, or apply for Financial Aid.

The course may offer 'Full Course, No Certificate' instead. This option lets you see all course materials, submit required assessments, and get a final grade. This also means that you will not be able to purchase a Certificate experience.

What will I get if I subscribe to this Specialization?

When you enroll in the course, you get access to all of the courses in the Specialization, and you earn a certificate when you complete the work. Your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile. If you only want to read and view the course content, you can audit the course for free.

What is the refund policy?

If you subscribed, you get a 7-day free trial during which you can cancel at no penalty. After that, we don’t give refunds, but you can cancel your subscription at any time. See our full refund policy Opens in a new tab .

Is financial aid available?

Yes. In select learning programs, you can apply for financial aid or a scholarship if you can’t afford the enrollment fee. If fin aid or scholarship is available for your learning program selection, you’ll find a link to apply on the description page.

More questions

How to Create a Seamless Product Launch Marketing Plan

13 min read

A product launch marketing plan is more than a simple press release announcing your product. It is the process that guides you to a successful product release.

With several product launches occurring every day, you need something special to ensure your announcement doesn’t get lost in the noise.

In this article, we detail what a product launch marketing plan is, why you need one, and how to create a successful product marketing from the start. Let’s begin!

• A product launch marketing plan is a three-phase strategic plan to create product awareness and ensure product launch success.
• A product launch plan provides structure to your launch, enabling you to prioritize resources, prepare for every possibility, and reach potential customers.

Your launch plan should contain the following:

• Detailed market research and competitive analysis that examines the current market state and identifies the needs of your target user .
• A value proposition that explains how the product solves user problems and how it differs from existing options.
• Go-to-market and pricing strategies that detail your marketing plan and preferred sales process.
• Online marketing strategies for social media, emails, press releases, etc.
• KPIs like customer acquisition cost , trial-to-paid conversion rate , customer engagement score , etc. for measuring success.
• For a successful launch campaign, you’ll need to A/B test your messaging and test your product ahead of launch day.
• It’s also important that you create excitement ahead of the launch and ensure synergy between your customer support and sales teams.
• Finally, you must analyze customers’ in-app activities after launch to drive retention.
• To learn how Userpilot can supercharge your in-app marketing plan, book a demo today!

What is a product launch marketing plan?

A product launch marketing plan is a coordinated effort to announce a new product and successfully bring it to market. It is a strategy designed to create awareness and get customers to adopt the product.

The product launch marketing plan is often a three-phase plan divided into:

• Post-launch

Pre-launch phase

The pre-launch phase is all about preparation for the product launch. This is your time to understand your product, the problem it is trying to solve, and how it compares to the competition.

To succeed at this stage, you need to coordinate your marketing efforts with your product team. Join them as they do user tests and chat extensively with them to understand their vision for the product.

This is also the stage where you conduct in-depth market research to understand your target market. Your goal here is to understand potential customers’ pains and how the competition has addressed them so far.

Finally, define your product launch marketing strategy. By the end of this stage, you should have the answer to these questions:

• What is your unique selling point (USP)?
• Who is your target customer?
• What are your preferred channels for advertising, organic visibility, and digital PR?
• Will you partner with any influencers or thought leaders?
• What marketing KPIs will you track after launch?

Launch phase

Pre-launch planning is key to your success on launch day. As your product launch date draws closer, compile the information from the pre-launch phase into a detailed go-to-market strategy .

Then, it’s time for execution. This is your time to create events, press releases, email marketing campaigns , ads, blog content, social media posts, etc., and release them on your pre-determined distribution channels.

This is also your time to leverage influencer marketing and referral programs to generate as much hype as possible.

Post-launch phase

With launch day now behind you, it’s time to retain your new, hard-won customers. Your post-launch plan should, therefore, consist of a detailed customer retention strategy .

This means onboarding your customers to ensure they get the most out of your product. You also need to collect customer feedback and implement any desired changes or upgrades.

Finally, this is the stage where you determine whether you enjoyed a successful product launch. Ask yourself:

• What KPIs are you tracking?
• How did you perform against your targets?
• What lessons can you learn for future product launches?

Why do you need a product launch marketing plan?

A product launch marketing plan provides structure and organization to your launch, helping you properly define your aims and launch timeline. A good launch plan, thus, empowers you for product launch success . How so?

For starters, it enables you to prioritize resources and prepare for most possibilities. A good launch plan also identifies your target audience, online and offline channels to find them, and how best to reach them.

All these increase your chances of reaching potential customers, generating valuable leads, and retaining them long-term. It also reduces any chance of product failure.

What should a product launch marketing plan include?

A product launch is a complex process, often involving multiple steps. To be successful, your product launch marketing plan needs the following:

Market research and target audience

The goal of product marketing is to make sales. For that to happen, the product marketing team must do three things:

• Understand the product and the problem that it solves.
• Determine what your competitors are doing.
• Identify the product’s end user and their unique needs.

All of these are what you’ll set out to achieve with your market research. First, you’ll need to understand what problems your product solves and how it works. Put simply, become a product expert.

Once you’re thoroughly familiar with your product, it’s time to examine the competition. Perform a thorough competitive analysis of their product – branding, marketing strategies, features/functionalities, pricing, etc.

Finally, you need to determine your target market. Who is your ideal customer? What’s their background – job, hobbies, age, etc.? What are their goals and pain points ? In other words, create a detailed user persona .

Product’s value proposition

A good value proposition is key to your product’s positioning or messaging. It refines the narrative around your product, focusing only on the most valuable aspects of the new product.

To create a powerful value proposition, you must answer the following questions:

• Who is your ideal customer? If you’ve already created your user persona, you have the answer to this question.
• What problems are they experiencing? Consider your customers’ pains, hopes, dreams, and needs that your product could address.
• How does your product solve that problem? Figure out how your product addresses the needs of your customer.
• How is your product different? Put differently, what’s your product’s unique selling point? Or, what advantages does your product have over the competition?

Go-to-market strategy

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a comprehensive roadmap for introducing your product to the target audience. Think of it as a marketing strategy that outlines all you need to do to enjoy a successful product launch.

It identifies your target customer, defines their need, and locates them. Then, it outlines the best marketing strategy (including how best to announce the product and when) to help you reach them.

Your GTM strategy combines all you’ve learned from your market research and crafting your value proposition into a robust market entry roadmap that generates demand for your product and mitigates product launch risks.

Pricing and sales strategy

SaaS pricing models differ from traditional pricing models and should be more carefully considered. Although the subscription model is the preferred SaaS option, you’ll still have some questions to answer.

For instance, would you be better off with a flat-rate, usage-based, feature-based, or tiered monthly price? Likewise, you’ll also need a way to convince prospective customers to commit to ongoing payments.

For this, you’ll have three pricing strategies to consider:

• Free trial: Free trials allow users to test out your product before deciding whether it’s worth the price. This strategy reduces your customer acquisition cost as you optimize for trial-to-paid conversion .
• Freemium: The freemium model is ideal for complex products with multiple features. It exposes customers to a limited feature set, encouraging them to pay to access the full feature list.
• Demo: If your product has a steep learning curve, demos may serve you better. The show-and-tell format of this strategy enables you to qualify prospects before they subscribe.

Digital marketing strategy for various marketing channels

Your GTM product marketing strategy should inform the channels where you’ll find your audience (before and during launch day). Still, you have some decisions to make.

First, you’ll need to decide which channel will be the main one and which would support it. You also need to consider what you’ll share in each channel and when to share it.

For this, you’ll have five primary options:

• Social media marketing: Start creating shareable content and social media posts on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, etc. to enable you to reach a wide audience quickly.
• Press releases: Leverage (or create) relationships with newspapers, magazines, and other online publications to broadcast your launch. Develop clear content for professional media use and send them in advance of your launch date to your selected
• Email marketing: Announcing your product launch to a warm email list with an informative copy and a clear call-to-action.
• Media Outreach: If you do not have existing relationships with journalists, you’ll need to pitch them and explain why your press release deserves attention.
• In-app marketing: This option is ideal for big feature releases as it targets users who have already adopted the product.

Key performance indicators to measure launch success

The final component of your product launch plan is your measure of success. You and your sales team need to determine the key performance indicators (KPIs) to watch after the launch.

Not only do these metrics help you measure the success of your product launch, they also help you optimize the customer journey, improve your product, and fine-tune your content.

Some metrics to track include:

• Customer acquisition cost : The average amount your business spends to acquire one customer.
• Sign-ups to PQL conversion rate : Measures the percentage of new sign-ups that find your product useful and upgrade their account.
• Customer activation rate : The percentage of customers that complete your onboarding process and reach the ‘Aha’ moment .
• Trial to paid conversion rate : Tracks the percentage of customers that go from free trial to paying users.
• Customer engagement score : Measures how much each user engages with key product features and assigns them a score based on their actions/inactions.
• Customer retention rate : The percentage of customers you retain over a period. In SaaS, this often refers to customers who immediately renew their subscription plan.
• Customer Satisfaction Score : Tracks how happy customers are with your new product.
• Net Promoter Score : Assesses how likely a customer is to promote your product, making it a great measure of customer loyalty.

Best practices for a successful product launch marketing plan

Now that you know the different components of your product launch marketing plan, let’s now consider some best practices to ensure your plan yields success.

A/B test the messaging in your marketing materials

Good messaging communicates what your product does and the value it brings. It is simple, persuasive, and unique. Unfortunately, telling which message will best resonate with your target audience is challenging.

Thanks to A/B testing , though, it’s not impossible.

First, you’ll need to create multiple messages. Each message may adopt a different messaging strategy – emotional, positioning, pre-emptive, or unique selling proposition.

Then, you have to expose the messages to small samples of your target audience and see which one drives the most conversion.

Have a group of beta testers evaluate your product pre-launch

Much like your messaging, your product also needs to be tested before launch. Also known as pre-release testing, beta testing helps you get users to explore your product before launch day and provide feedback.

Beta testers get early access to the product in exchange for their feedback. As they use it, capture their stories, review how well they engaged with the product, and validate your value proposition (and messaging) with them.

This is your one chance to get real-world insights from your target customers regarding your product/feature. It’s also a great opportunity to identify and fix all bugs before launch.

Collect customer feedback during the pre-launch stage

Getting user feedback is key to ensuring you’re ready for launch day. You can get feedback for your product through in-app surveys . This will help you iron out any issues users may experience before releasing to a larger audience.

But it doesn’t stop there! You can create focus groups from your customer base and get their insights on your creative materials – texts, images, videos, landing pages, etc.

Note, though, that all of this feedback is only useful if acted upon. As you prepare your product and marketing materials for the big day, be ready to adapt them based on the feedback you receive.

Create excitement over your product before launching

You don’t need Apple-level hype to enjoy a successful product launch. But you don’t have to adopt the “build the product, and the customers will come” approach, either.

The key to a successful product launch campaign is generating excitement in all the right places—leverage search engines, Product Hunt, and social media posts to generate awareness about the launch.

For instance, you may release teaser videos or conduct interviews to get the word out. You can also turn your launch into an event (perhaps a Reddit AMA or a live webinar) to give the launch a more personal feel.

Create sharable content between your sales team and customer support team

Successful product launches are the result of complete internal cooperation and teamwork. As launch day draws closer, for example, you need your customer support team to be well aware of the product and how it works.

This calls for cooperation between the sales, support, and product teams. The product team needs to create easy-to-understand materials that demonstrate the product’s functions and features to the support team.

Similarly, the sales team needs to share content with the support team to enable them to drive home the necessary talking points when approached by prospective customers.

Analyze your in-app marketing strategies to improve customer retention

As earlier noted, a good product launch plan goes beyond the activities of the launch day. As you begin acquiring customers, your focus must shift to retention.

One way to ensure customer loyalty is by regularly improving the product. Analyze how customers interact with your product and ask yourself:

• Which features do they interact with the most?
• Are they interacting with key features?
• Are there any barriers keeping them from finding/using key features?

A solid long-term in-app marketing strategy will unlock your product’s value, eliminate friction, and improve the customer experience.

Examples of successful product launch marketing plans

Thankfully, there are tons of examples of successful SaaS product/feature launches. Consider a few of them:

ChatGPT captured the world’s attention sometime in November 2022. But this was no accident. ChatGPT’s success wasn’t simply a result of its captivating features either (although that certainly helped!).

Instead, it resulted from a carefully orchestrated product launch marketing plan. First, the packaging of the model as a digital assistant made it easy for experts and noobs alike to use it.

Likewise, ChatGPT was very quickly promoted by influencers and thought leaders who encouraged users to ask the assistant any questions. People soon fell in love with its candor, versatility, and consistently factual answers.

The rest, as they say, was history.

Notion already existed long before it released its AI assistant to users, giving it an existing customer base to launch to. Still, they had to get the marketing just right.

First, Notion sent emails and used strategic in-app marketing to introduce users to Notion AI. Interested users were invited to a waitlist. They also used social media marketing to build anticipation within a larger audience.

By the time Notion AI was released, about two million persons had signed up for its alpha waitlist.

Userpilot’s AI writing assistant

Userpilot released its own integrated generative AI writing assistant in May 2023. But, like the two examples above, Userpilot users were already in anticipation of it.

The feature was first introduced in-app and released to a limited number of users. These users tested the feature and left their feedback and insights.

As launch day drew closer, the feature was teased on social media before it was launched on Product Hunt. This created a buzz on Product Hunt, where users saw a demo video of the product’s capabilities.

Finally, by the time the feature was fully released, Userpilot used in-app onboarding and marketing to drive feature adoption.

How Userpilot can help you with your product launch marketing plan

You, too, can replicate Userpilot’s successful in-app marketing strategy for your product launch. In fact, Userpilot provides you with a code-free selection of tools to help you:

Create in-app messaging with different UI elements

Userpilot provides a range of UI elements for announcing new features and running full-scale in-app onboarding or marketing campaigns.

This includes slideouts, modals, banners , tooltips , and more. The first three are ideal for in-app announcements and can contain anything from text content to embedded images, videos, GIFs, etc.

Conversely, tooltips are great for feature explanations. They can also be combined into a series for feature onboarding.

Segment customers acquired for a personalized experience

Create as many user segments as you desire and personalize their in-app experiences.

Userpilot enables you to build user segments based on a variety of factors – code-free. For instance, you could segment users based on their sign-up date, demographics, engagement data, and more.

You can also launch in-app surveys and match users to segments based on their responses to these surveys. Then, you will be able to create flows, messaging, etc. unique to the needs of each segment.

Analyze customer interactions to improve customer retention

Finally, Userpilot enables you to track how users use and interact with your product. In-app engagement analytics reveal which features, buttons, messaging, etc., that users engage with the most.

This will help you identify low-engagement or underperforming features, enabling you to locate and fix any friction points in your product.

A solid product launch campaign gets you off to a great start. It enables you to reach the right customers early and increases the chances of product success.

If you’d love to learn more about how Userpilot can supercharge your in-app marketing campaign, book a demo today!

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Get The Insights!

The fastest way to learn about Product Growth,Management & Trends.

The coolest way to learn about Product Growth, Management & Trends. Delivered fresh to your inbox, weekly.

The fastest way to learn about Product Growth, Management & Trends.

You might also be interested in ...

Targeted email marketing: benefits, methods, and examples, 12 best product analytics tools for product and marketing teams in 2024.

Saffa Faisal

How to Create an Effective Marketing Automation Strategy for Your SaaS

Adina Timar

7.1 Defining the “new” in a new product

Learning objectives.

The objectives of this section is to help students …

• Understand what constitutes a “new” product.
• Understand the strategies for acquiring new products.

The determination of what constitutes a “new” product remains one of the most difficult questions faced by the marketer. Does the most recent TV model introduced by Sony represent a new product even though 95 per cent of the product remains the same as last year’s model? Are packaged salads a new product, or is the package the only part that is really new?

Indeed, companies have often been guilty of using the word “new” in conjunction with some questionable products. For example, older products have simply been marketed in new packages or containers but have been identified as new products by the manufacturer. Flip-top cans, plastic bottles, and screw-on caps have all been used to create this image of newness. Industrial companies have been guilty of similar actions. Computer manufacturers, for instance, have slightly modified some of the basic hardware or developed some software for a particular customer (banks, churches), and have felt free to claim newness. Finally, manufacturers may add an existing product to their product line and call it new, even though it is not new to the consumer.

Student Example

I have a favorite face wash that I use and one day it showed up in new packaging saying that it was a new and improved product. I looked at my old one and found out that they were both the same besides the new packaging. I think that this example matches the textbook because it was the same formula and the company marketed it as a new product.

Claire Smith

Class of 2020

Does technology make a product new, or features, or even the price? It is important to understand the concept of “new” in a new product, since there is sufficient evidence that suggests that each separate category of “newness” may require a different marketing strategy.

Perhaps the best way to approach this problem is to view it from two perspectives; that of the consumer and that of the manufacturer.

The consumer’s viewpoint

There are a variety of ways that products can be classified as new from the perspective of the consumer. Degree of consumption modification and task experience serve as two bases for classification. Robertson provides an insightful model when he suggests that new products may be classified according to how much behavioral change or new learning is required by the consumer in order to use the product. (1)

The continuum proposed by Robertson and shown in Figure 7.1 depicts the three primary categories based on the disrupting influence the use of the product has on established consumption patterns. It is evident that most new products would be considered continuous innovations. Annual model changes in automobiles, appliances, and sewing machines are examples. Portable hair dryers, diet soda, and aerobic dance CDs reflect products in the middle category. True innovations are rare.

Although conceptualizing new products in terms of how they modify consumer consumption patterns is useful, there is another basis for classification. New task experience can also be a criteria. An individual may live in a house for several years without ever having to repair a broken window. One day a mishap occurs, and Mr. Smith is forced to go to the hardware store to buy the necessary supplies required to install a new window pane. As he has no experience at all with this task, all those products are new to Mr Smith. The glazing compound, the new glass and molding, and metal tacks, as well as the appropriate tools, are as new to Mr Smith as a home computer. Using the model proposed by Robertson, products can also be placed on a continuum according to degree of task experience. Clearly, a product that has existed for a great many years, such as a carpenter’s level, may be perceived as totally new by the person attempting to build a straight wall. In this case, newness is in the eye of the beholder.

The obvious difficulty with this classification is that it tends to be person-specific. Just because replacing a new washer in your bathroom faucet constitutes a new product for you does not mean it is a new product for me. However, it is conceivable that marketing research would show that for certain types of products, large groups of people have very limited experience. Consequently, the marketing strategy for such products might include very detailed instructions, extra educational materials, and sensitivity on the part of the sales clerk to the ignorance of the customer.

Another possible facet of a new task experience is to be familiar with a particular product but not familiar with all of its functions. For example, a homemaker may have a microwave oven which she uses primarily for reheating food items and making breakfast foods. Suppose that one afternoon her conventional oven breaks and she must deliver several cakes she has donated to a church bazaar. Unfortunately, she has not baked them yet and is forced to use her microwave, a brand-new task.

Figure 7.1: Continuum for classifying new products.

The firm’s viewpoint

Classifying products in terms of their newness from the perspective of the manufacturer is also important. There are several levels of possible newness that can be derived through changes either in production, marketing, or some combination of both

Based on a schema developed by Eberhard Scheuing, new products, from the perspective of the business, can take the following forms: (2)

• Changing the marketing mix: one can argue that whenever some element of the marketing mix (product planning, pricing, branding, channels of distribution, advertising, etc.) is modified, a new product emerges.
• Modification: certain features (normally product design) of an existing product are altered, and may include external changes, technological improvements, or new areas of applicability.
• Differentiation: within one product line, variations of the existing products are added.
• Diversification: the addition of new product lines for other applications.

A final consideration in defining “new” is the legal ruling provided by the Federal Trade Commission. Since the term is so prevalent in product promotion, the FTC felt obliged to limit the use of “new” to products that are entirely new or changed in a functionally significant or substantial respect. Moreover, the term can be used for a six-month period of time. Given the limited uniqueness of most new products, this ruling appears reasonable.

A good example of ‘Modification’ is seen in Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones. Every year they release a new smartphone that has a couple of modifications such as a better camera, improved screen, larger screen size, faster processor, better firmware, etc. In my opinion, between the Galaxy S10 and the previous model S9, Samsung altered an existing product line by making some external changes as well as some internal modifications and released it as a new phone.

Rudolf Truderung

Strategies for acquiring new products

Most large and medium-sized firms are diversified, operating in different business fields. It would be unrealistic to assume that the individual firm is either capable or willing to develop all new products internally. In fact, most companies simultaneously employ both internal and external sources for new products. Both are important to the success of a business. (3)

Internal sources

Most major corporations conduct research and development (R&D) to some extent. However, very few companies make exclusive use of their own internal R&D. On the contrary, many companies make excellent use of specialists to supplement their own capabilities. Still, to depend extensively upon outside agencies for success is to run a business on the blink of peril. Ideally, the closer the relationship between the new business and existing product lines, the better the utilization of R&D will be. The US National Science Foundation (NSF) (1957-77) divides R&D into three parts:

• Basic research: original investigations for the advancement of scientific knowledge that do not have specific commercial objectives, although they may be in fields of present or potential interest to the reporting company.
• Applied research: directed toward practical applications of knowledge, specific ends concerning products and processes.
• Development: the systematic use of scientific knowledge directed toward the production of useful materials, devices, systems, or methods, including design and development of prototypes and processes

External sources

External approaches to new product development range from the acquisition of entire businesses to the acquisition of a single component needed for the internal new product development effort of the firm. The following external sources for new products are available to most firms.

Figure 7.2 : The “Got Milk” campaign made an old product new.

• Mergers and acquisitions: Acquiring another company already successful in a field a company wishes to enter is an effective way of introducing products while still diversifying. Research suggests that mergers and acquisitions can take place between companies of various sizes and backgrounds and that first experiences with this process tend to be less than satisfactory. Even large marketers such as General Motors engage in acquisitions.
• Licenses and patents: A patent and the related license arise from legal efforts to protect property rights of investors or of those who own inventions. A patent is acquired from the US Patent Office and provides legal coverage for a period of seventeen years, which means all other manufacturers are excluded from making or marketing the product. However, there are no foolproof ways to prevent competition. There are two main types of patents: those for products and those for processes. The first covers only the product’s physical attributes while the latter covers only a phase of a production procedure, not the product. The patent holder has the right to its assignment or license. An assignment is any outright sale, with the transfer of all rights of ownership conveyed to the assignee. A license is a right to use the patent for certain considerations in accordance with specific terms, but legal title to the patent remains with the licencor.
• Joint ventures: When two or more companies create a third organization to conduct a new business, a joint venture exists. This organization structure emerges, primarily, when either the risk or capital requirements are too great for any single firm to bear. Lack of technical expertise, limited distribution networks, and unfamiliarity with certain markets are other possible reasons. Joint ventures are common in industries such as oil and gas, real estate, and chemicals, or between foreign and domestic partners. Joint ventures have obvious application to product development. For example, small firms with technological resources are afforded an opportunity to acquire capital or marketing expertise provided by a larger firm.

Student Examples

In 2006, AT&T announced that they were going to acquire BellSouth. This ultimately made it so that AT&T had a much bigger name in the mobile phone industry making their company expand even wider to the public. This made it so that AT&T was able to expand coverage into rural areas around the United States so that they would be able to rope in a wider customer base and grow their company.

Lexi McGonegle

In 2010, Saber acquired Dunder Mifflin because of its network within small and medium-sized firms. This marketing tactic was beneficial for both companies because Saber can utilize Dunder Mifflin’s network to sell their office equipment. This example exemplifies the concept discussed because it directly addresses the use of a company acquiring another for their market.

Drew Kauffman

I currently have a summer job at a Sonic Drive-In. The company was recently acquired by Inspire Food Brands that also recently purchased Buffalo Wild Wings, and are the owners of Arby’s. While all of these are food places, they are all different food places. They are all similar too in that they have their own specific themes. Arby’s is midwesternish, Buffalo Wild Wings is the fun, sporty place, and Sonic is that “classic American Drive-In”.

Daniel Dracobly

This happened to me while I was working at Safeway. Albertsons, a competing grocery store ended up buying the company Safeway. This, in turn, allowed them to start selling Albertsons store brand products alongside Safeway brand products in Safeway stores. As an added bonus, my employee discount worked at both stores which was nice!

• New product strategies begin by putting “new” on a continuum.
• There are both internal and external sources for acquiring new products.

1 Thomas Robertson, “The Process of Innovation and Diffusion of Innovation,” Journal of Marketing, January 1967, pp. 14-19.

2 Eberhard Scheming, New Product Management, Hinsdale, IL: The Dryden Press, 1974.

3 Pam Weise, “Getting Hot New ideas from Customers,” Fortune, May 19, 1992, pp. 86-87.

Share This Book

• Increase Font Size

10.2 Stages of the New Product Development Process

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• 1 Identify the stages of the new product development process.
• 2 Define and describe the important factors of each stage of development.

The New Product Development Process

The new product development process involves activities where a company thinks of a new product concept and introduces a new product offering. New product development usually follows a process divided into stages (see Figure 10.3 ).

Stage 1: Idea Generation . With idea generation, you are working to create as many ideas as you can. The purpose of this stage is to focus on the products that are more likely to turn a profit so you can reduce the product development expense later in the process and develop profitable products. 17

Instead of looking at the new product development process in abstract terms, let’s discuss a potential product idea and follow it through all the steps of the process. Imagine that you’re a marketer for a food processing company, and you believe there is a gap in the market for a high-protein freeze-dried yogurt powder that can be added to juice to make a nutritious, low-fat, fruit-flavored smoothie. This is what’s known as a product idea —a new product that a company could potentially offer to the market. This idea may have been generated by internal sources such as research and development (R&D), market research, or employees who are not part of R&D. On the other hand, the idea may have come from external sources such as customers, suppliers, distributors, or even competitors.

Stage 2: Idea Screening and Evaluation . This is the process of filtering through the ideas brought to the table by your team, picking the ones that are most likely to turn a profit, and dropping the less favorable ones. For example, with our high-protein freeze-dried yogurt powder, the team would create numerous product concepts that they then sift through to reach the best idea.

Stage 3: Concept Development and Testing . In this stage, a product idea can be turned into several product concepts —the perception of a new idea or innovation. The product team will consider who will use the product (e.g., children, athletes, or adults), what benefits the product will provide (e.g., meal replacement, a snack, nutrition, or energy), and when consumers would typically consume the product (e.g., for breakfast, as a midmorning or afternoon snack, or after a workout or exercise).

For example, your product team may come up with the following product concepts for our yogurt powder:

• The yogurt powder would be marketed as an instant, on-the-go breakfast drink.
• The yogurt powder would be marketed as a high-protein snack that is more nutritious than plain juice or milk.
• The yogurt powder would be marketed to adults or athletes who work out and want to replenish the body’s loss of protein during exercise.

It’s important to develop these product concepts because each concept defines the product’s competition. For example, Concept #1 would compete against other breakfast foods such as cereal, breakfast bars, toast, and bacon and eggs. Concept #2 would compete against juice, soft drinks, and plain milk. Concept #3 would compete against protein shakes.

Once you’ve developed your product concept, it’s time to test that concept with consumers in what you believe to be your target market. This is what’s known as concept testing . Concept testing is a market research method in which customers are presented with a description of a product or service.

Let’s assume that the product concept we’ve chosen is the instant, on-the-go breakfast drink. Customers in the target market would be presented with a description of the product that may read something like: “Our product is a high-protein powdered yogurt mixture that is added to juice to make an instant breakfast smoothie that provides nutrition, good taste, and convenience. The product will be offered in individual packages, six to a box, priced at $3.49 per box.”

Potential customers will then be asked a series of screening or qualifying questions, such as:

• To what extent do you like or dislike this product?
• How appealing are the attributes of the product?
• How likely would you be to purchase this product?

Quite often, these (and other) questions are scored using a five-point Likert Scale. For example, the last question might be scored on the basis of these five options: definitely would purchase; likely would purchase; may or may not purchase; unlikely to purchase; and definitely would not purchase. The answers to these questions suggest if the product will likely be successful in the market or not. If the answers are generally positive, the product concept will move to the next stage; if the answers are less than positive, the product concept will likely be rejected.

Stage 4: Market Strategy Development . Once concept testing has been completed and the decision has been made to proceed further, it’s time for the product team to develop a preliminary marketing strategy plan. This plan will address the target market for the product. It will outline product positioning, pricing, distribution, promotion, budget, and both short- and long-term goals for sales, market share, and profit.

Stage 5: Business Analysis . Armed with the preliminary marketing strategy plan, the company now needs to assess the new product’s business appeal. For example, the company will want to know if sales will be sufficient for the company to make the desired profit. The company will need to understand the costs involved in the new product development in terms of research and development, manufacturing, and marketing.

There are a couple of different analyses that can be done:

• Payback: This simply refers to the time frame within which the company can expect to recover the investment it made in the product development process.
• Break-even analysis: This analysis determines how many units must be sold before the company recoups its costs and starts making a profit.

These analyses are performed so that management can now determine if anticipated profits from the sale of the breakfast drink mix will satisfy company objectives. If the answer is yes, the product concept moves on to the next stage, product development. If the answer is no, the product concept is shelved.

Stage 6: Product Development . Remember that, until now, our product concept has existed only as words or perhaps a drawing. If our breakfast drink mix has passed the business analysis test, it will now move into the product development stage, and engineering will develop a physical version of the product, called a prototype . 18

It’s important to note that sometimes the company realizes in this stage that the product concept simply can’t be translated into a commercially feasible product. For example, through market research, Maxwell House determined that consumers wanted a coffee that was “bold, vigorous, and deep tasting.” However, after working with coffee blends for four months, the company determined that it was too expensive to commercially produce the formula, so Maxwell House changed the blend to meet its targeted manufacturing cost. Unfortunately, the taste of the new blend didn’t meet consumers’ expectations, and the new product flopped. 19

The prototype is then put through functional and customer tests to see how well it perform. For example, at carpet manufacturer Shaw Industries , temporary employees are paid to walk on carpet samples for eight hours a day to see how the carpet holds up. 20 At Gillette , volunteers come to work unshaven so they can use certain razors, shaving cream, or aftershave and complete questionnaires. (The “motto” of this group is “We bleed so you’ll get a good shave at home.”) 21

Stage 7: Test-Marketing . If the product team is satisfied with how the prototype performs functionally, the product concept is then test-marketed to determine its viability before it’s launched on a large scale. Typically, the product is introduced in a limited number of stores or in a few geographic regions in order to gauge customer acceptance. There are several methods of consumer-goods marketing testing, but we’ll just cover a few here:

• Sales-Wave Research : This is the least costly method of test-marketing. With this method, consumers are initially allowed to try the product at no cost. They are then reoffered the product (or a competitor’s product) at a reduced price a number of times (i.e., sales waves). The point of this research is to see how many consumers select the new product and record their reported levels of satisfaction with the product. 22
• Controlled Test-Marketing : In this type of test-marketing, the company arranges for a certain number of stores to carry the new product. The new product is delivered to the store, and marketers manage shelf position in the store, pricing, point-of-purchase displays, and more. The company then measures sales results through the scanners at checkout.
• Test-Marketing : Of course, the best (but also the most expensive) way to test a product concept is with a full-blown market test. The company will select a few representative cities (markets that closely resemble the target customers) and introduce the product with a full advertising and promotional campaign. In essence, the company is measuring the success of the new product on a smaller scale before launching it on a national or even global scale. Curious to know the top cities to test-market a national product? They are Nashville, Tennessee; Cincinnati, Ohio; Indianapolis, Indiana; Charleston, South Carolina; and Jacksonville, Florida. 23
• Simulated Test-Markets : With this method, consumers are exposed to simulated market situations in order to gauge their reactions. Marketers interview consumers in two stages: concept stage and after use. The concept stage interviews provide the marketer with information about the product’s appeal and trial rate, whereas the post-usage interviews determine consumers’ likelihood of purchasing the product again.
• Crowdsourcing : Crowdsourcing is the practice of using the input of a large group of people. This form of market testing would be particularly useful if your product includes mobile apps, web apps, or websites. The product team would choose a crowdsource testing platform, test the product, analyze the results, and tweak the product accordingly. 24

Stage 8: Commercialization . In this stage, the company launches the product, complete with full-scale production, distribution, advertising, and sales promotion. The cost of launching a new product varies depending on the product itself, the industry, and the competition.

Stage 9: Evaluation of Results . As we’ve pointed out with the marketing metrics features in this textbook, you can’t fix what you don’t measure, so it’s important after commercialization for the company to review the marketing performance of the new product. Is the new product accepted by consumers? Is there sufficiently high demand, sales, and profits? Are there competitors who are introducing a similar new product in the market? Depending on the answers to these questions, savvy marketers will closely monitor the performance of the new product and make changes as needed in both the marketing plan and the marketing mix strategy. 25

Careers In Marketing

Product development as a career.

Most companies have product manager (PM) as a job role. In this job, you manage the product creation or further development. Check out this summary of what a product developer position entails, including average salaries.

This article from Stanford online outlines what you need to know to have a career in product management. ZipRecruiter also outlines skills and training needed for this job role.

Many companies post job descriptions to help you prepare. Here are a few for the product manager job role:

• Facebook (Meta) PM

If you’re interested in learning more about the product manager job role and career, read here about the typical path you can expect .

Knowledge Check

It’s time to check your knowledge on the concepts presented in this section. Refer to the Answer Key at the end of the book for feedback.

• prototyping
• concept testing
• test-marketing
• crowdsourcing
• Test-marketing
• Product development
• Business analysis
• Commercialization
• controlled test-marketing
• sales-wave research
• simulated test-marketing
• Idea screening and evaluation
• Market strategy development
• Idea generation

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

This book may not be used in the training of large language models or otherwise be ingested into large language models or generative AI offerings without OpenStax's permission.

Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution License and you must attribute OpenStax.

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/1-unit-introduction

• Authors: Dr. Maria Gomez Albrecht, Dr. Mark Green, Linda Hoffman
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: Principles of Marketing
• Publication date: Jan 25, 2023
• Location: Houston, Texas
• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/1-unit-introduction
• Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/10-2-stages-of-the-new-product-development-process

© Jan 9, 2024 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.

What is a Marketing Plan & How to Write One [+Examples]

Published: December 27, 2023

For a while now, you've been spearheading your organization's content marketing efforts, and your team's performance has convinced management to adopt the content marketing strategies you’ve suggested.

Now, your boss wants you to write and present a content marketing plan, but you‘ve never done something like that before. You don't even know where to start.

Fortunately, we've curated the best content marketing plans to help you write a concrete plan that's rooted in data and produces results. But first, we'll discuss what a marketing plan is and how some of the best marketing plans include strategies that serve their respective businesses.

What is a marketing plan?

A marketing plan is a strategic roadmap that businesses use to organize, execute, and track their marketing strategy over a given period. Marketing plans can include different marketing strategies for various marketing teams across the company, all working toward the same business goals.

The purpose of a marketing plan is to write down strategies in an organized manner. This will help keep you on track and measure the success of your campaigns.

Writing a marketing plan will help you think of each campaign‘s mission, buyer personas, budget, tactics, and deliverables. With all this information in one place, you’ll have an easier time staying on track with a campaign. You'll also discover what works and what doesn't. Thus, measuring the success of your strategy.

Featured Resource: Free Marketing Plan Template

Looking to develop a marketing plan for your business? Click here to download HubSpot's free Marketing Plan Template to get started .

To learn more about how to create your marketing plan, keep reading or jump to the section you’re looking for:

How to Write a Marketing Plan

Types of marketing plans, marketing plan examples, marketing plan faqs, sample marketing plan.

If you're pressed for time or resources, you might not be thinking about a marketing plan. However, a marketing plan is an important part of your business plan.

Marketing Plan vs. Business Plan

A marketing plan is a strategic document that outlines marketing objectives, strategies, and tactics.

A business plan is also a strategic document. But this plan covers all aspects of a company's operations, including finance, operations, and more. It can also help your business decide how to distribute resources and make decisions as your business grows.

I like to think of a marketing plan as a subset of a business plan; it shows how marketing strategies and objectives can support overall business goals.

Keep in mind that there's a difference between a marketing plan and a marketing strategy.

Free Marketing Plan Template

Outline your company's marketing strategy in one simple, coherent plan.

• Pre-Sectioned Template
• Completely Customizable
• Example Prompts
• Professionally Designed

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Marketing Strategy vs. Marketing Plan

A marketing strategy describes how a business will accomplish a particular goal or mission. This includes which campaigns, content, channels, and marketing software they'll use to execute that mission and track its success.

For example, while a greater plan or department might handle social media marketing, you might consider your work on Facebook as an individual marketing strategy.

A marketing plan contains one or more marketing strategies. It's the framework from which all of your marketing strategies are created and helps you connect each strategy back to a larger marketing operation and business goal.

For example, suppose your company is launching a new software product, and it wants customers to sign up. The marketing department needs to develop a marketing plan that'll help introduce this product to the industry and drive the desired signups.

The department decides to launch a blog dedicated to this industry, a new YouTube video series to establish expertise, and an account on Twitter to join the conversation around this subject. All this serves to attract an audience and convert this audience into software users.

To summarize, the business's marketing plan is dedicated to introducing a new software product to the marketplace and driving signups for that product. The business will execute that plan with three marketing strategies : a new industry blog, a YouTube video series, and a Twitter account.

Of course, the business might consider these three things as one giant marketing strategy, each with its specific content strategies. How granular you want your marketing plan to get is up to you. Nonetheless, every marketing plan goes through a particular set of steps in its creation.

Learn what they are below.

• State your business's mission.
• Determine the KPIs for this mission.
• Identify your buyer personas.
• Describe your content initiatives and strategies.
• Clearly define your plan's omissions.
• Define your marketing budget.
• Identify your competition.
• Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

1. State your business's mission.

Your first step in writing a marketing plan is to state your mission. Although this mission is specific to your marketing department, it should serve your business‘s main mission statement.

From my experience, you want to be specific, but not too specific. You have plenty of space left in this marketing plan to elaborate on how you'll acquire new customers and accomplish this mission.

Need help building your mission statement? Download this guide for examples and templates and write the ideal mission statement.

2. Determine the KPIs for this mission.

Every good marketing plan describes how the department will track its mission‘s progress. To do so, you need to decide on your key performance indicators (KPIs) .

KPIs are individual metrics that measure the various elements of a marketing campaign. These units help you establish short-term goals within your mission and communicate your progress to business leaders.

Let's take our example of a marketing mission from the above step. If part of our mission is “to attract an audience of travelers,” we might track website visits using organic page views. In this case, “organic page views” is one KPI, and we can see our number of page views grow over time.

These KPIs will come into the conversation again in step 4.

3. Identify your buyer personas.

A buyer persona is a description of who you want to attract. This can include age, sex, location, family size, and job title. Each buyer persona should directly reflect your business's current and potential customers. So, all business leaders must agree on your buyer personas.

Create your buyer personas with this free guide and set of buyer persona templates.

4. Describe your content initiatives and strategies.

Here's where you'll include the main points of your marketing and content strategy. Because there's a laundry list of content types and channels available to you today, you must choose wisely and explain how you'll use your content and channels in this section of your marketing plan.

When I write this section , I like to stipulate:

• Which types of content I'll create. These might include blog posts, YouTube videos, infographics, and ebooks.
• How much of it I'll create. I typically describe content volume in daily, weekly, monthly, or even quarterly intervals. It all depends on my workflow and the short-term goals for my content.
• The goals (and KPIs) I'll use to track each type. KPIs can include organic traffic, social media traffic, email traffic, and referral traffic. Your goals should also include which pages you want to drive that traffic to, such as product pages, blog pages, or landing pages.
• The channels on which I'll distribute my content. Popular channels include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram.
• Any paid advertising that will take place on these channels.

Build out your marketing plan with this free template.

Fill out this form to access the template., 5. clearly define your plan's omissions..

A marketing plan explains the marketing team's focus. It also explains what the marketing team will not focus on.

If there are other aspects of your business that you aren't serving in this particular plan, include them in this section. These omissions help to justify your mission, buyer personas, KPIs, and content. You can’t please everyone in a single marketing campaign, and if your team isn't on the hook for something, you need to make it known.

In my experience, this section is particularly important for stakeholders to help them understand why certain decisions were made.

6. Define your marketing budget.

Whether it's freelance fees, sponsorships, or a new full-time marketing hire, use these costs to develop a marketing budget and outline each expense in this section of your marketing plan.

You can establish your marketing budget with this kit of 8 free marketing budget templates .

7. Identify your competition.

Part of marketing is knowing whom you're marketing against. Research the key players in your industry and consider profiling each one.

Keep in mind not every competitor will pose the same challenges to your business. For example, while one competitor might be ranking highly on search engines for keywords you want your website to rank for, another competitor might have a heavy footprint on a social network where you plan to launch an account.

Easily track and analyze your competitors with t his collection of ten free competitive analysis templates .

8. Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

With your marketing plan fully fleshed out, it's time to explain who’s doing what. I don't like to delve too deeply into my employees’ day-to-day projects, but I know which teams and team leaders are in charge of specific content types, channels, KPIs, and more.

Now that you know why you need to build an effective marketing plan, it’s time to get to work. Starting a plan from scratch can be overwhelming if you haven't done it before. That’s why there are many helpful resources that can support your first steps. We’ll share some of the best guides and templates that can help you build effective results-driven plans for your marketing strategies.

Ready to make your own marketing plan? Get started using this free template.

Depending on the company you work with, you might want to create various marketing plans. We compiled different samples to suit your needs:

1. Quarterly or Annual Marketing Plans

These plans highlight the strategies or campaigns you'll take on in a certain period.

Forbes published a marketing plan template that has amassed almost 4 million views. To help you sculpt a marketing roadmap with true vision, their template will teach you how to fill out the 15 key sections of a marketing plan, which are:

• Executive Summary
• Target Customers
• Unique Selling Proposition
• Pricing & Positioning Strategy
• Distribution Plan
• Your Offers
• Marketing Materials
• Promotions Strategy
• Online Marketing Strategy
• Conversion Strategy
• Joint Ventures & Partnerships
• Referral Strategy
• Strategy for Increasing Transaction Prices
• Retention Strategy
• Financial Projections

If you're truly lost on where to start with a marketing plan, I highly recommend using this guide to help you define your target audience, figure out how to reach them, and ensure that audience becomes loyal customers.

2. Social Media Marketing Plan

This type of plan highlights the channels, tactics, and campaigns you intend to accomplish specifically on social media. A specific subtype is a paid marketing plan, which highlights paid strategies, such as native advertising, PPC, or paid social media promotions.

Shane Snow's Marketing Plan for His Book Dream Team is a great example of a social media marketing plan:

When Shane Snow started promoting his new book, "Dream Team," he knew he had to leverage a data-driven content strategy framework. So, he chose his favorite one: the content strategy waterfall. The content strategy waterfall is defined by Economic Times as a model used to create a system with a linear and sequential approach.

Snow wrote a blog post about how the waterfall‘s content strategy helped him launch his new book successfully. After reading it, you can use his tactics to inform your own marketing plan. More specifically, you’ll learn how he:

• Applied his business objectives to decide which marketing metrics to track.
• Used his ultimate business goal of earning $200,000 in sales or 10,000 purchases to estimate the conversion rate of each stage of his funnel.
• Created buyer personas to figure out which channels his audience would prefer to consume his content.
• Used his average post view on each of his marketing channels to estimate how much content he had to create and how often he had to post on social media.
• Calculated how much earned and paid media could cut down the amount of content he had to create and post.
• Designed his process and workflow, built his team, and assigned members to tasks.
• Analyzed content performance metrics to refine his overall content strategy.

I use Snow's marketing plan to think more creatively about my content promotion and distribution plan. I like that it's linear and builds on the step before it, creating an air-tight strategy that doesn't leave any details out.

3. Content Marketing Plan

This plan could highlight different strategies, tactics, and campaigns in which you'll use content to promote your business or product.

HubSpot's Comprehensive Guide for Content Marketing Strategy is a strong example of a content marketing plan:

At HubSpot, we‘ve built our marketing team from two business school graduates working from a coffee table to a powerhouse of hundreds of employees. Along the way, we’ve learned countless lessons that shaped our current content marketing strategy. So, we decided to illustrate our insights in a blog post to teach marketers how to develop a successful content marketing strategy, regardless of their team's size.

In this comprehensive guide for modern marketers, you'll learn:

• What exactly content marketing is.
• Why your business needs a content marketing strategy.
• Who should lead your content marketing efforts?
• How to structure your content marketing team based on your company's size.
• How to hire the right people for each role on your team.
• What marketing tools and technology you'll need to succeed.
• What type of content your team should create, and which employees should be responsible for creating them.
• The importance of distributing your content through search engines, social media, email, and paid ads.
• And finally, the recommended metrics each of your teams should measure and report to optimize your content marketing program.

This is a fantastic resource for content teams of any size — whether you're a team of one or 100. It includes how to hire and structure a content marketing team, what marketing tools you'll need, what type of content you should create, and even recommends what metrics to track for analyzing campaigns. If you're aiming to establish or boost your online presence, leveraging tools like HubSpot's drag-and-drop website builder can be extremely beneficial. It helps you create a captivating digital footprint that sets the foundation for your content marketing endeavors.

4. New Product Launch Marketing Plan

This will be a roadmap for the strategies and tactics you‘ll implement to promote a new product. And if you’re searching for an example, look no further than Chief Outsiders' Go-To-Market Plan for a New Product :

After reading this plan, you'll learn how to:

• Validate a product
• Write strategic objectives
• Identify your market
• Compile a competitive landscape
• Create a value proposition for a new product
• Consider sales and service in your marketing plan

If you're looking for a marketing plan for a new product, the Chief Outsiders template is a great place to start. Marketing plans for a new product will be more specific because they target one product versus its entire marketing strategy.

5. Growth Marketing Plan

Growth marketing plans use experimentation and data to drive results, like we see in Venture Harbour’s Growth Marketing Plan Template :

Venture Harbour's growth marketing plan is a data-driven and experiment-led alternative to the more traditional marketing plan. Their template has five steps intended for refinement with every test-measure-learn cycle. The five steps are:

• Experiments

I recommend this plan if you want to experiment with different platforms and campaigns. Experimentation always feels risky and unfamiliar, but this plan creates a framework for accountability and strategy.

• Louisville Tourism
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• Visit Oxnard
• Safe Haven Family Shelter
• Wright County Economic Development
• The Cultural Council of Palm Beach County
• Cabarrus County Convention and Visitors Bureau
• Visit Billings

1. Louisville Tourism

It also divides its target market into growth and seed categories to allow for more focused strategies. For example, the plan recognizes Millennials in Chicago, Atlanta, and Nashville as the core of it's growth market, whereas people in Boston, Austin, and New York represent seed markets where potential growth opportunities exist. Then, the plan outlines objectives and tactics for reaching each market.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

• The plan starts with a letter from the President & CEO of the company, who sets the stage for the plan by providing a high-level preview of the incoming developments for Louisville's tourism industry
• The focus on Louisville as "Bourbon City" effectively leverages its unique cultural and culinary attributes to present a strong brand
• Incorporates a variety of data points from Google Analytics, Arrivalist, and visitor profiles to to define their target audience with a data-informed approach

2. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

For example, students who become prospects as freshman and sophomore will receive emails that focus on getting the most out of high school and college prep classes. Once these students become juniors and seniors — thus entering the consideration stage — the emails will focus more on the college application process and other exploratory content.

• The plan incorporates competitive analysis, evaluation surveys, and other research to determine the makeup of its target audience
• The plan lists each marketing program (e.g., direct mail, social media, email etc.) and supplements it with examples on the next page
• Each marketing program has its own objectives, tactics, and KPIs for measuring success

3. Visit Oxnard

This marketing plan by Visit Oxnard, a convention and visitors bureau, is packed with all the information one needs in a marketing plan: target markets, key performance indicators, selling points, personas, marketing tactics by channel, and much more.

It also articulates the organization’s strategic plans for the upcoming fiscal year, especially as it grapples with the aftereffects of the pandemic. Lastly, it has impeccable visual appeal, with color-coded sections and strong branding elements.

• States clear and actionable goals for the coming year
• Includes data and other research that shows how their team made their decisions
• Outlines how the team will measure the success of their plan

4. Safe Haven Family Shelter

This marketing plan by a nonprofit organization is an excellent example to follow if your plan will be presented to internal stakeholders at all levels of your organization. It includes SMART marketing goals , deadlines, action steps, long-term objectives, target audiences, core marketing messages , and metrics.

The plan is detailed, yet scannable. By the end of it, one can walk away with a strong understanding of the organization’s strategic direction for its upcoming marketing efforts.

• Confirms ongoing marketing strategies and objectives while introducing new initiatives
• Uses colors, fonts, and formatting to emphasize key parts of the plan
• Closes with long-term goals, key themes, and other overarching topics to set the stage for the future

5. Wright County Economic Development

Wright County Economic Development’s plan drew our attention because of its simplicity, making it good inspiration for those who’d like to outline their plan in broad strokes without frills or filler.

It includes key information such as marketing partners, goals, initiatives, and costs. The sections are easy to scan and contain plenty of information for those who’d like to dig into the details. Most important, it includes a detailed breakdown of projected costs per marketing initiative — which is critical information to include for upper-level managers and other stakeholders.

• Begins with a quick paragraph stating why the recommended changes are important
• Uses clear graphics and bullet points to emphasize key points
• Includes specific budget data to support decision-making

6. The Cultural Council of Palm Beach County

This marketing plan presentation by a cultural council is a great example of how to effectively use data in your plan, address audiences who are new to the industry, and offer extensive detail into specific marketing strategies.

For instance, an entire slide is dedicated to the county’s cultural tourism trends, and at the beginning of the presentation, the organization explains what an arts and culture agency is in the first place.

That’s a critical piece of information to include for those who might not know. If you’re addressing audiences outside your industry, consider defining terms at the beginning, like this organization did.

• Uses quality design and images to support the goals and priorities in the text
• Separate pages for each big idea or new strategy
• Includes sections for awards and accomplishments to show how the marketing plan supports wider business goals
• Defines strategies and tactics for each channel for easy skimming

7. Cabarrus County Convention & Visitors Bureau

Cabarrus County’s convention and visitors bureau takes a slightly different approach with its marketing plan, formatting it like a magazine for stakeholders to flip through. It offers information on the county’s target audience, channels, goals, KPIs, and public relations strategies and initiatives.

We especially love that the plan includes contact information for the bureau’s staff members, so that it’s easy for stakeholders to contact the appropriate person for a specific query.

• Uses infographics to expand on specific concepts, like how visitors benefit a community
• Highlights the team members responsible for each initiative with a photo to emphasize accountability and community
• Closes with an event calendar for transparency into key dates for events

8. Visit Billings

Visit Billing’s comprehensive marketing plan is like Cabarrus County’s in that it follows a magazine format. With sections for each planned strategy, it offers a wealth of information and depth for internal stakeholders and potential investors.

We especially love its content strategy section, where it details the organization’s prior efforts and current objectives for each content platform.

At the end, it includes strategic goals and budgets — a good move to imitate if your primary audience would not need this information highlighted at the forefront.

• Includes a section on the buyer journey, which offers clarity on the reasoning for marketing plan decisions
• Design includes call-outs for special topics that could impact the marketing audience, such as safety concerns or "staycations"
• Clear headings make it easy to scan this comprehensive report and make note of sections a reader may want to return to for more detail

What is a typical marketing plan?

In my experience, most marketing plans outline the following aspects of a business's marketing:

• Target audience

Each marketing plan should include one or more goals, the path your team will take to meet those goals, and how you plan to measure success.

For example, if I were a tech startup that's launching a new mobile app, my marketing plan would include:

• Target audience or buyer personas for the app
• Outline of how app features meet audience needs
• Competitive analysis
• Goals for conversion funnel and user acquisition
• Marketing strategies and tactics for user acquisition

Featured resource : Free Marketing Plan Template

What should a good marketing plan include?

A good marketing plan will create a clear roadmap for your unique marketing team. This means that the best marketing plan for your business will be distinct to your team and business needs.

That said, most marketing plans will include sections for one or more of the following:

• Clear analysis of the target market
• A detailed description of the product or service
• Strategic marketing mix details (such as product, price, place, promotion)
• Measurable goals with defined timelines

This can help you build the best marketing plan for your business.

A good marketing plan should also include a product or service's unique value proposition, a comprehensive marketing strategy including online and offline channels, and a defined budget.

Featured resource : Value Proposition Templates

What are the most important parts of a marketing plan?

When you‘re planning a road trip, you need a map to help define your route, step-by-step directions, and an estimate of the time it will take to get to your destination. It’s literally how you get there that matters.

Like a road map, a marketing plan is only useful if it helps you get to where you want to go. So, no one part is more than the other.

That said, you can use the list below to make sure that you've added or at least considered each of the following in your marketing plan:

• Marketing goals
• Executive summary
• Target market analysis
• Marketing strategies

What questions should I ask when making a marketing plan?

Questions are a useful tool for when you‘re stuck or want to make sure you’ve included important details.

Try using one or more of these questions as a starting point when you create your marketing plan:

• Who is my target audience?
• What are their needs, motivations, and pain points?
• How does our product or service solve their problems?
• How will I reach and engage them?
• Who are my competitors? Are they direct or indirect competitors?
• What are the unique selling points of my product or service?
• What marketing channels are best for the brand?
• What is our budget and timeline?
• How will I measure the success of marketing efforts?

How much does a marketing plan cost?

Creating a marketing plan is mostly free. But the cost of executing a marketing plan will depend on your specific plan.

Marketing plan costs vary by business, industry, and plan scope. Whether your team handles marketing in-house or hires external consultants can also make a difference. Total costs can range from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands. This is why most marketing plans will include a budget.

Featured resource : Free Marketing Budget Templates

What is a marketing plan template?

A marketing plan template is a pre-designed structure or framework that helps you outline your marketing plan.

It offers a starting point that you can customize for your specific business needs and goals. For example, our template includes easy-to-edit sections for:

• Business summary
• Business initiatives
• Target market
• Market strategy
• Marketing channels
• Marketing technology

Let’s create a sample plan together, step by step.

Follow along with HubSpot's free Marketing Plan Template .

1. Create an overview or primary objective.

Our business mission is to provide [service, product, solution] to help [audience] reach their [financial, educational, business related] goals without compromising their [your audience’s valuable asset: free time, mental health, budget, etc.]. We want to improve our social media presence while nurturing our relationships with collaborators and clients.

For example, if I wanted to focus on social media growth, my KPIs might look like this:

We want to achieve a minimum of [followers] with an engagement rate of [X] on [social media platform].

The goal is to achieve an increase of [Y] on recurring clients and new meaningful connections outside the platform by the end of the year.

Use the following categories to create a target audience for your campaign.

• Profession:
• Background:
• Pain points:
• Social media platforms that they use:
• Streaming platforms that they prefer:

For more useful strategies, consider creating a buyer persona in our Make My Persona tool .

Our content pillars will be: [X, Y, Z].

Content pillars should be based on topics your audience needs to know. If your ideal clients are female entrepreneurs, then your content pillars can be: marketing, being a woman in business, remote working, and productivity hacks for entrepreneurs.

Then, determine any omissions.

This marketing plan won’t be focusing on the following areas of improvement: [A, B, C].

5. Define your marketing budget.

Our marketing strategy will use a total of [Y] monthly. This will include anything from freelance collaborations to advertising.

6. Identify your competitors.

I like to work through the following questions to clearly indicate who my competitors are:

• Which platforms do they use the most?
• How does their branding differentiate?
• How do they talk to their audiences?
• What valuable assets do customers talk about? And if they are receiving any negative feedback, what is it about?

7. Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

Create responsible parties for each portion of the plan.

Marketing will manage the content plan, implementation, and community interaction to reach the KPIs.

• Social media manager: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]
• Content strategist: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]
• Community manager: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

Sales will follow the line of the marketing work while creating and implementing an outreach strategy.

• Sales strategists: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]
• Sales executives: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

Customer Service will nurture clients’ relationships to ensure that they have what they want. [Hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations].

Project Managers will track the progress and team communication during the project. [Hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations].

Get started on your marketing plan.

These marketing plans serve as initial resources to get your content marketing plan started. But, to truly deliver what your audience wants and needs, you'll likely need to test some different ideas out, measure their success, and then refine your goals as you go.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in April 2019, but was updated for comprehensiveness. This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure t o learn more about how we use AI.

Don't forget to share this post!

Related articles.

9 Pivotal Marketing Trends to Watch in 2024, According to Experts

The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Strategies & How to Improve Your Digital Presence

Diving Deep Into Marketing in Construction (My Takeaways)

11 Recommendations for Marketers in 2024 [New Data]

The Top 5 B2C Marketing Trends of 2024 [New HubSpot Blog Data + Expert Insights]

5 Marketing Trends That Might Not Survive in 2024 [HubSpot Research + Expert Insights]

Everything You Need to Know About Webinar Marketing

7 Marketing Questions Teams are Asking in 2024 (+Data & Insights)

50 Small Business Marketing Ideas for 2024

How Luxury Brands Market and What You Can Learn

Marketing software that helps you drive revenue, save time and resources, and measure and optimize your investments — all on one easy-to-use platform

Resources: Discussions and Assignments

Module 13 assignment: marketing mix examples.

Open Pedagogy Assignments are assignments in which students use their agency and creativity to create knowledge artifacts that can support their own learning, their classmates’ learning, and the learning of students around the world. (See this peer-reviewed article for more details.) The assignment on this page is aligned to the learning outcomes of Introduction to Business and we’ve identified the module where the reading appears. All of the assignments can be created with a cell phone camera or any video recording device, Google or Word documents, and your learning management system.

In the Marketing Function module, we cover the 4Ps: Products, Promotion, Place, and Price. Even if you haven’t had experience with marketing, you have a lot of experience as a customer. What is the marketing mix of one of your favorite brand? Think of the marketing mix as a recipe that can be adjusted—through small adjustments or dramatic changes—to support broader company goals.

Using your cell phone or any other recording device, create a short video about the 4Ps of one of your favorite products. You don’t have to edit or create a professional-grade film. You’ve most likely have done this type of recording already on social media, so feel free to use the same informal conversational tone.

Do an internet search for a product of your choice. Research for areas of their website where they mention details about their products, promotions, places, and price. Think of your audience as fellow students who are interested to learn about these ideas because they want to learn important marketing concepts. In your video, you can address the following:

• What are some interesting points on the website about the product?
• What are their promotions? What’s the price? Where can you find the product?
• If you have had experience with the company of your choice, and you feel comfortable sharing your experience, tell your audience what worked or didn’t work for you about their marketing. What can they improve?

A Note To Teachers: For this assignment, the first term students will be creating the videos, and then the next term’s students can respond to the videos. After you have two terms of examples, use the best three from the batch as examples and start the process over again. Using the videos as starting points for OL discussion boards may work as well. If you are using the Salty Paws Case Study, you could refer back to that assignment as guidance for your students who may be learning these concepts for the first time.

• Open Pedagogy Assignment: Marketing Mix Examples. Authored by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

Assignment on Marketing Plan for a New Product

New business and new plan

Related Papers

Zaza Dewi Fortuna

Journal of Cancer Therapy

Toshimi Chiba

Marcos Cintra

O objetivo deste traballio é continuar a discussão acerca do imposto único sobre transações monetárias. Desde janeiro do ano passado, quando o tema foi colocado para debate em artigo publicado na Folha de São Paulo (14.01.90), a polêmica tem sido bastante intensa. Pretende-se, aqui, avaliar algumas críticas, recolocar os principais argumentos e avançar em alguns pontos práticos da implementação da proposta.

World journal of hepatology

Muneeb Ahmed

The onset of hepatic decompensation in cirrhosis heralds an accelerated downhill course with poor outcome. The sole predictor of this decompensation in cirrhosis is increased hepatic vein to portal vein gradient hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG). Surrogate markers of liver function or hepatic reserve appear to be less relevant. The hepatic sinusoids become less elastic and more rigid as liver fibrosis and cirrhosis progress. We propose that the Hagen-Poiseuille's law, which applies to rigid, but not elastic vessels, determines the pressure-flow characteristics in the sinusoids. In the rigid cirrhotic liver, HVPG rises dramatically with any change in net surface area or radius, r(4) of the vasculature that follows surgical resection. This review relates liver stiffness to the risk of decompensation in patients with cirrhosis. The liver has a unique dual blood supply comprising a low pressure portal vein and high pressure hepatic artery. We compare the complexity of autoregu...

BHUMI: Jurnal Agraria dan Pertanahan

Tasmin Tangngareng

Stan Gregory

African Journal of Biotechnology

Grace Femi-Adepoju

Ultimacomm: Jurnal Ilmu Komunikasi

prita suci nurcandrani

Intervention of Integrated ANC Program of Puskesmas Purwokerto Utara II was commenced since stunting rate increased up to 13.58%. This incident plus pandemic situation have changed IEC pattern activities between the Puskesmas and pregnant women living in its working area. The problem is how midwives reach pregnant women through the ANC telemedicine program. Qualitative-descriptive method and data triangulation sources were used. CMC telemedicine in the ANC program studied from the perspectives of impersonal, interpersonal, and hypersonal communication uncover different findings. The results are not absolutely the key to the success of the program. Research from other perspectives are still needed.

African Health Sciences

Ernest Anyabolu

International Journal of Reconfigurable and Embedded Systems (IJRES)

Rubén Hernández

RELATED PAPERS

Indian Heart Journal

Sanjay Tyagi

Johana Reyes

El Sains : Jurnal Elektro

Achmad Ridhoi

FIDELITY : Jurnal Teknik Elektro

eneng nurhasanah

Journal of Food Technology Research

olasunmbo ajayi

Bulletin of Latin American Research

marcos mendoza

Jurnal Akuntansi

Novita Sari Novita

johnner sitompul

Mongolian Journal of Agricultural Sciences

Khongorzul Mungunkhuyag

The Pomegranate

International journal of health sciences

Mohammed Abrahim

Journal of Family Violence

Jaspreet Kaur Chahal

arXiv (Cornell University)

Taran Tatla

Anuario de Estudios Centroamericanos

Juan Manuel Costa Fonseca

Food Chemistry

Michiaki Yamashita

See More Documents Like This

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

Marketing plan in new Product

Executive Summary

We want to market Green Coconut Water. We have prepared this feasibility plan on that basis. We have assigned a name for the product as “Jaul” . Since the raw materials are very much available in our country, we have decided to give the product an indigenous image.

Jaul is a kind of soft drink that provides the consumers with processed green coconut water in bottles. For the marketing purpose of the product we have decided to launch three product lines. The Jaul would be launched in the market at 250 ml. 500 ml. and 1 Litre bottle .

We have set a reasonable price for the product so that all kinds of people can afford to buy this soft drink. We have followed the Target Costing pricing approach. We would gain a competitive advantage, as this is a first hit in the market.

We have targeted a huge market segment for the product. Bangladesh is a large populated country. Lots of people are looking for such a product. Green Coconuts are not available all the time. For example: a person walking on the street. Suddenly he feels thirsty. Now if he wishes to drink green coconut water he cannot find it easily. It is not always found in the right place at the right time. If we launch our product in the market, a person willing to drink green coconut water can have it from a nearby shop. At present this is not possible. Our target market includes health conscious people, sick people, sportsperson & many other consumers, which we have segmented from the Demographical , Geographical , Psycho graphical & Behavioral point of view.

We have prepared a financial documentation for this feasibility plan of a new product. As we are introducing the product in three categories at 250 ml, 500 ml and 1 Liter bottles, we have prepared the Break-Even-Analysis for each of the product line. We have prepared the feasibility plan for five-year basis.

For 250mls the break-even point is at 4158004 Units. That means if we sale 4158004 Units a year, we will make neither profit nor loss. So to make profit we have to create a market demand in such a way so that more than 4158004 Units are sold every year. Obviously the unit cost will eventually come down because of the law of Marginal Cost. Then the break-even point will also come down. But that is from the long run perspective. So initially we might suffer loss but ultimately we would earn enough profit. The consumers will first taste the product by consuming the 250ml bottles. So we might gain a short run profit from that.

For 500mls the break-even point is 4914004.914 units per year. So we have to sell more than 4914004.914 units to earn profit. We know that after the product is well promoted, people will eventually consume more of 500mls, as pet bottles are more in demand. The price is such that people will turn to the 500mls because we are providing them at lowest possible market price.

For 1 Litre bottles we have a different plan. We know many people are not going to consume the 1 Litre package. So we have assigned more profit on them per unit. Our target is to sell less quantity of products but achieving higher profit. For 1 Litre bottles we have estimated the break-even point at 1724137.931 bottles per year. As we can see, we have prepared the selling price in such a way so that, to be in a profit earning zone we have to sell least amount of units comparing the other 2 product lines.

We have given an elaborate discussion on financial summary at the later stage of the feasibility plan. We have followed the Target Costing Pricing Policy ; which means an ideal price is set first based on customer considerations, then target costs will ensure that the price is met. We decided the market price before. Then we calculated the estimated unit price & fixed price. Then we decided how much profit margin is possible on each of the product line. We have assigned three different profit margins for three product lines. This price setting is based on the current market research.

New Product

1. Product Description

1.1 Product Portrayal

‘Jaul’ is a product that serve different segment of customer. The product is green coconut water, which is unique in the current market. The green coconut water will be processed and sold in glass bottle of convenient sizes of 250 ml, 500 ml and 1 liter. The green coconut water will be very much refreshing and provide great support to the sick and

health conscious people. Our target market is very large with different segments. Our expected sales are very high. The development cost is tk.2.5 million approx.

1.2 Product Profile

Name of the Product :  Jaul

Type of Product : Green Coconut Water

Ingredients : Pure natural green coconut water,

Sugar, mineral salts, vitamins C.

Container : Stylish glass bottle

Container size : 250 ml, 500 ml, 1 Litre

Product Price : 250 ml for Tk. 12

500 ml for Tk. 18

1 litre for Tk. 38

Estimated Durability : 12 Months from date of manufactured

Machinery used : Advanced technology imported from

USA, UK and Netherlands.

Brand Slogan : Coola Coola… Always Refreshing.

2. Market Research and Analysis

Our company wants to develop and introduce a new Product. So, we have gathered information through in-depth interviews. We made a survey of the market to have a clear idea about our market, our customer demand, needs and wants. This information helps us to know about the current market and prospects of our new product.

2.1 Market Description

Bangladesh is a country of about 150 million people.. The total market size of the soft drink industry is about 20 million and day by day it is increasing. We have a spread nationwide market of different convenient product. People are nowadays very much concerned about the market and product conditions. So we have a growing prospect of customers of “Jaul”. Among the population we worked out few segments of customers who will prefer our product most.

2.2 Market Segmentation and Targeting

Market Segments

We have observed and analyzed the market and based on the nature of the market we segmented the market in the following sectors:

Geographic Segmentation:

• Khulna & Barishal

Demographics:

• Individuals
• Business buyer

Psycho graphics:

• Higher class
• Higher mid class
• Middle class

Behavioral:

• Sick people
• Health conscious
• Sophisticated who take the new product from the market

Target market and projections:

Analyzing all the segments, we decided our target market according to our product category. The target customers of “Jaul” are sick people, health conscious people, sportsmen and tourists. The company decided to charge Tk. 12 for 250 ml bottles, Tk. 18 for 500 ml bottles and Tk. 38 for 1 Litre bottles, if we consider price versus taste received then we can see that taste received is more in value. Therefore charging the mentioned prices are justified. The following graph gives a clear idea of our target market.

Target Market:

Health Conscious – 32%

Sick people –        43%

Tourist –                  3%

General people – 22%

We separate our target market into four different segment based on their geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioral characteristics.

Health conscious: Health conscious people basically the sports person are one of our largest target market. In this segment, we get a lot of potential customer. One third of our total population is young. This is a significant number that we have to concern about them and provide product, which is fit for them. About 5 million people of this total number are health conscious. They spend about Tk. 500 in a month in average.

Sick people: Sick people are one of our major considerations. More than 1 million children suffer from diarrhoea that need liquid food. Not only child but also the adult might suffer from those types of problems.

Tourists: Every year a huge number of tourists visit Bangladesh. We want to provide them with “Jaul”.

General Customers: Besides the above segments, the general customers will acquire a significant portion of our target market.

Market Needs:

“Jaul” wants to satisfy its customers need. That’s why it is important to identify the market needs. Our first consideration is to provide the best product to its customers. That’s why we offer three different sizes of bottle with different prices for its different segment of customers.

250 ml : The lowest price for the rural mid social class and individuals.

500 ml : Its target the sick people and tourist

1 litre : For a small family.

2.3 Competitive Analysis

The Soft drink industry is very much competitive. Many soft drink companies have acquired a significant portion of the market. But the unique features of “Jaul” will take it far beyond the reach of the competitor. Because, no one has yet thought about selling green coconut water in such a specialized way. To evaluate our prospect of “Jaul” in the current market, we have analyzed the market situation in various ways. Following are some demonstration of the analysis:

2.3.1 SWOT analysis:

The product existence in the future is depending on its strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats analysis:

1.Available input materials

2.Low production cost

3.Technological and marketing knowledge

4.Strong distribution channel

Easy manufacturing process

Reasonable price

Weaknesses:

It is easy to copy the idea by others

Taste differ from the natural green coconut water

Green coconut water cannot be preserved for longer period

Opportunities:

1.Monopoly market

2.Large market

3.High demand

4.Might have a chance to get subsidies by Govt. to export

1.High competition in future by copying the idea

2.Entrance of new product

3.Alternatives are avoidable in some segment

4.Uncertainty of launching a new product.

2.3.2 Competitor Analysis

The major soft drinks and juice companies of current market are:

• Pran Groups
• Foreign Products etc.

Distinct Competency:

These companies can try to entrance our market by launching new product lines to compete us. Yet, we have distinct competitive advantage. That is our product is still brand new. The other companies will take sometimes to enter into the market. Till then we can have a monopoly market condition. The other advantage that we have is lower price. We will sell products in reasonably lower price then other competitors do.

Strategies against competitors:

To compete with the major competitors we can adopt the following measures:

Providing the best service to create high customer satisfaction

Reasonable and acceptable pricing

Promising and providing top quality product

Launching highly effective mass promotional activities

Continuous innovation and modification of the products

Creating and maintaining long term customer relationship

Creating “Brand Loyalty” among the target consumers

3. Market Plan

Pricing Strategies

We have decided to set a reasonable price for our product when we will develop it. We considered many factors in setting the pricing policy. We will describe a six-step procedure:

3.1.1. Setting the pricing objectives:

Our company has decided where it wants to position its market offering. We have chosen our objective to maximize market share. We believe that a higher sales volume will lead to lower unit costs and higher long-run profit. We have set the lower price because we assume that the market is price sensitive. Our overall objective is to capture the maximum market share by setting lower price.

3.1.2. Determining Demand:

Each price will lead to different level of demand and therefore have a different impact on company’s marketing objectives.

3.1.3. Estimating costs:

We have estimated the cost and want to charge a price that covers the cost of production, distribution and selling the product, including a fair return for its effort and risk.

3.1.4. Types of cost and level of production:

There are two types of cost: a) fixed and b) variable. In our new product development project fixed cost is 2,00,00,000 taka. Fixed cost includes- machinery, monthly bills, and salaries of employees and so on, regardless of output.

There are some variable costs like-cost of bottle, packaging and so on. These costs tend to be constant per unit production. We have estimated that per unit variable cost is Tk. 6.3 for 250 ml, Tk. 12.6 for 500 ml and Tk. 24.4 for 1 litre.

3.1.5. Analyzing competitor’s costs, prices and offer:

We have analyzed our competitors’ price and found that Pran charges tk.10 for 250 ml bottle, Starship charges tk. 12 for 250 ml Pac.

3.1.6. Selecting a pricing method:

We have chosen the target costing method to set price for our product; pricing that starts with an ideal selling price based on customer considerations, then target cost will ensure that the price is met.

Promotional Strategies:

To acquire a strong position in the market, we need to give special emphasis on effective promotional activities. In order to get the maximum market share we will have to use all four tools of marketing promotion. Specially, advertising through mass media will support us a lot.

3.2.1 Advertising:

We initially will give more emphasis on paper ads and TV commercials. Because, advertising through these media is the most effective way to reach the customers and position our product in their mind. We are anticipating that this will have a massive impact on the teenagers and other enthusiasts. Few neon signs and bill boards of “Jaul” also can be set up in some core points of the city. We hope to reach 75% of our customers through effective advertising.

3.2.2 Personal Selling:

Though personal selling skill is not that much effective for convenient products like “Jaul”, we will inspire and train the sales persons of the retail stores to convince people to buy our product when they will come to buy any drinks item. The sales persons will inform the consumers about the cool refreshing taste of “Jaul” and about the nutritious aspects. We hope that will play a significant role to increase our sales.

3.2.3 Promotional Tools:

We have also planned to apply some promotional tools. Initially for sometimes we will distribute our product at 50% discount just make our new product familiar with the customers. This will be the market-testing period for our product. Later, we may apply the strategy of giving gifts, lucky coupons, tour tickets depending on the market and competitive situations.

Public Relations:

We have future plans to hold seminars, commit social development, supporting social activities, to arrange cultural functions and mobile game shows for publicity purpose.

Distribution Channel

In the initial stage, we will distribute the products with our sole distribution channel. When our market will spread out, we will distribute our products through dealers. We will set our own outlets in few core market positions. When we will go for mass marketing, we will supply our product nationwide through dealers. Our dealers will take the products to every district of the country. “Jaul” will be available in all retail stores of the country.

Services and warranties

As we are targeting to the top most customer satisfaction and building long-term customer relationships, there is no alternative for us rather than providing top quality service. Giving the customers timely and instant quality service is our primary concern. We even planned to open few customer service centers where will response to customers’ interactions. We will collect information, suggestions, ideas and opinions of the customers through these centers and will innovate and modify our product accordingly. We also will change any defected product.

4. Manufacturing and Operations

4.1 Locations

We will set our manufacturing and other working areas in convenient locations. We will prefer the locations to set up our manufacturing firms, warehouses and inventories in different core business points of the country where it will be easier to both collect the raw materials and transport the final goods to the market.

4.2 Human Resource

The board of directors will be responsible for the recruiting activities. Recruiting will be done through written tests followed by interviews.

4.3 Technological Aspects

To create and innovate new quality products we need to use advanced technology. We need high tech machineries imported from the foreign countries. Not to mention, skilled people to operate them. We have already studied all the technical aspects and prepared a list of instruments and their costs. The machinery will be collected when required.

6. Financial Analysis and Documentation

6.1 Sales Forecasting

The following Table and graph show our expected sales for the coming five years:

6.2 Profit and Loss Projection

For 250 ml.

For 500 ml.

For 1 Litre

Author: Asad Saimon

The Nature and Role of Motives

Network economy, competitive analysis in cosmetic, price negotiation process, request letter for locate former employee, deep borehole disposal, developing human-friendly self-driving cars, plasticizer – a substance added to a material to make it flexible, the contributions of the rural woman in nation-building, career in agriculture jobs, latest post, mid-ocean ridge (mor), harnessing hydrogen at the genesis of life, ngc 5728’s faint characteristics are exposed, astronomers discover the oldest black hole ever observed, atomic hydrogen welding, variable-frequency transformer (vft).

New 2024 report highlights AI's game-changing role in customer engagement

Time to read: 2 minutes

• Facebook logo
• Twitter Logo Follow us on Twitter
• LinkedIn logo

Twilio's 2024 State of Customer Engagement Report

Over the past year, advancements in predictive and generative artificial intelligence (AI) have paved the way for brands looking for a competitive edge in customer engagement. Now, thanks to customer engagement powered by AI, brands can ditch the age-old method of one-to-many personalization and deliver unique experiences for every single customer. We’re calling this the age of individualization.

Our  2024 State of Customer Engagement Report*  dives deep into five key trends, examining how AI and trusted communications tools are shaping customer engagement strategies across the globe.

• Trend 1: Using AI can greatly improve customer engagement. 
• Trend 2: Protecting consumer data is key to maintaining trust.
• Trend 3: Some brands aren't letting go of third-party cookies.
• Trend 4: Younger consumers want better digital experiences.
• Trend 5: Brands need to close the customer experience gap.

New actionable insights from customer engagement leaders

Through surveys of business leaders and consumers alike, we gained valuable insights into how brands are leveraging AI to enhance customer interactions and how customers expect businesses to engage with them in 2024 and beyond. 

To identify businesses that excel in customer engagement and learn from their achievements, we developed a Customer Engagement Maturity Score for each brand surveyed. Using this score, we categorized the brands into three groups: those with low maturity, medium maturity, and those we dubbed Engagement Leaders. These brands stand out for their: 

• Adeptness in omnichannel engagement
• Ability to personalize customer experiences effectively 
• Embracement of first-party data.

Among the 4,700 business leaders surveyed for Twilio's 2024 State of Customer Engagement Report, 17% were classified as Engagement Leaders.

We also provide actionable insights for businesses to build and improve upon their customer engagement strategies as they tackle each trend in 2024.

How AI is revolutionizing customer engagement in 2024 and beyond

One of our key findings explores the growing importance of AI in redefining customer engagement. Businesses are increasingly turning to AI-powered solutions to deliver personalized experiences across multiple touchpoints, from social media interactions to customer service inquiries. By harnessing the power of AI, companies can gain deeper insights into customer behavior, preferences, and needs, allowing them to tailor their offerings and communications accordingly.

However, while AI presents exciting opportunities for businesses, it also comes with its own set of challenges. Data privacy concerns continue to be a major issue, with consumers demanding greater transparency and control over their personal information. And as businesses collect and analyze vast amounts of customer data to power their AI systems, they must prioritize data privacy and security to build and maintain trust with their customers.

Embrace AI and transform into a customer engagement leader

Our advice to businesses? Embrace AI as a key enabler of customer engagement, with caution. Investing in the right data and communications platforms is crucial to harnessing the full potential of AI while mitigating risks associated with data privacy. By doing so, businesses can not only deliver better engagement for their customers but also achieve stronger results for their bottom line.

Read Twilio’s 2024 State of Customer Engagement Report and our actionable insights to become an engagement leader today.

*This report features survey responses collected between November 16 and December 22, 2023 from 4,700 business leaders and 6,300 consumers.

Related Posts

Related Resources

Twilio docs, from apis to sdks to sample apps.

API reference documentation, SDKs, helper libraries, quickstarts, and tutorials for your language and platform.

Resource Center

The latest ebooks, industry reports, and webinars.

Learn from customer engagement experts to improve your own communication.

Twilio's developer community hub

Best practices, code samples, and inspiration to build communications and digital engagement experiences.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) Gets Boost from New Vision Pro Marketing Plan

T he Apple ( NASDAQ:AAPL ) Vision Pro headset has been met with at least a little controversy, not to mention some product returns. But new reports claim that Apple has a new direction in mind when it comes to marketing the Vision Pro. Investors are pretty happy about the idea, giving the tech giant’s shares a fractional bump in Tuesday afternoon’s trading.

While there was plenty of interest in the device, there were also plenty of consumers who were less than willing to pick up a headset with a $3,500 price tag. But that price tag is much less an impediment to one particular class of users: enterprise users. And that is where Apple is said to be putting a lot of its marketing mojo into reaching out and making some sales.

This isn’t exactly a new strategy; several Apple products started out life as consumer goods but got translated into business-class goods with a little marketing. The iPhone, for example, became a business staple after it started out as a consumer tool. Thanks to the broad array of use cases for Apple goods, making such a case is a comparatively simple matter.

Deliberately Nerfed

But that’s not all; as it turns out, the Vision Pro isn’t even living up to its fullest potential. Reports note that Vision Pro apps are deliberately not using the camera system. It’s not because the app developers can’t figure out how but because Apple itself won’t allow it.

This has proven a problem for developers who want to make augmented reality apps that allow for real-world interaction, but concerns over privacy and other matters have led Apple to cut off that part of the system. This does mean some potentially very valuable use cases must be left untouched. However, it also means some of the biggest problems are off the table.

Is Apple a Buy, Hold, or Sell?

Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on AAPL stock based on 16 Buys, 11 Holds, and one Sell assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 4.92% rally in its share price over the past year, the average AAPL price target of $202.84 per share implies 20.02% upside potential.