Marketing Plan
Once you have researched the market for your organization's new SBCC product, service or intervention, the next step in the business plan is to establish goals for the marketing program. This demonstrates to the potential funder or investor that your organization is intent on promoting the new product, service or intervention to the target population. Marketing goals include action goals and image goals related to attracting target populations.
Action Goals
Action goals identify the specific, measurable results that you want. Stating these goals clearly will allow you to measure progress toward achieving them within a given time period.
Action goals for marketing new products and/or services usually concentrate on creating demand for:
- The new SBCC product, service or intervention by a current group of clients
- The new SBCC product, service or intervention by a new group of clients
- An existing SBCC product, service or intervention by a new group of clients
Sample action goals:
- Over the next year, our organization will increase the demand for voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) services in our five health centers by 15 percent.
- Over the next two years, our organization will provide insecticide-treated nets to 85 percent of parents of newborns in three communities.
Image Goals
Image goals identify how you want your organization to be seen as a result of the new SBCC product, service or intervention. You can measure progress in achieving these goals through focus groups or market surveys.
Image goals often concentrate on:
- Helping your organization become more widely known
- Improving your organization's reputation
- Gaining public recognition of a change in your products, services and/or interventions
Sample image goals:
- Over the next two years, our organization will become known as the organization that provides the best counseling and referral services for HIV-infected pregnant women.
- Over the next two years, we will achieve a transformation in the public perception of our organization from a family planning provider to a full-service primary health care provider.
Marketing Goals Worksheet
Instructions: Draft a list of your marketing goals, including your organization's action and image goals, as a result of offering the new SBCC product, service or intervention.
Marketing Mix
Once you have articulated your action and image goals, you need to develop strategies and a plan for promoting and publicizing this new SBCC product, service or intervention. Your market research should supply you with ample information about your marketing mix. That is, it should provide evidence that your organization's new product, service or intervention is accessible, affordable and responsive to the needs of your target population.
Another critical step in marketing is to identify the promotional techniques and messages that, within the constraints of your resources, will best motivate your target population to use your product, service or intervention. Carefully tailor your techniques and messages to your target population to ensure that they will help you meet your marketing goals. Depending on the needs of your populations, consider low-cost techniques that promote:
The basic information about your new SBCC product, service or intervention
The key features of your new product, service or intervention
Marketing Mix Worksheet
Instructions: Read and complete the following:
- Prepare a brief summary stating the promotional aspects of your marketing mix, such as the low cost of the product, service or intervention, the delivery points and ease of access to the new product, service or intervention, and the features of the new product, service or intervention to be promoted.
- For each aspect, indicate the message you will promote and the promotional technique you will use.
Marketing Plan
Once you have completed your market study, identified your potential market niche, clarified your goals and developed your promotional strategies, you are ready to put together a marketing plan and budget. Your plan should describe what you need to do to achieve your goals and include costs for such items as staff time, supplies and promotional materials.
A marketing plan format has been provided, which you and your marketing team can use to organize your marketing plan. The plan includes your marketing goals, the marketing mix you are planning, and the key promotional activities through which you will achieve this mix. Add as many rows as you need for the activities you want to include in your plan.
Marketing Plan Template
Instructions: Use the information contained in your Marketing Goals Worksheet, your Marketing Mix Worksheet and finding from your Market Research Report to complete the template.