Elements of a Marketing Plan – Marketplace Analysis

This post explores the Marketplace Analysis segment of the Marketing Plan and is a continuation of Elements of a Marketing Plan – An Overview .

Section 3 – Marketplace Analysis

• Define the customer base. How many potential customers? Where are they located? If you are offering business services, then define target sectors.
• Identify issues in the current marketplace (e.g. overall economic downturn, tourism, recent recovery from natural disaster).
• Identify opportunities in the current marketplace (e.g. specific market segment, uptick in construction).

3.1 – Political Analysis

• Identify regulatory or governing authority issues which may impact the market or the product.
• Define methods of managing regulatory risk.

3.2 – Technological Analysis
Discuss how existing technology impacts the market. Is new technology needed to deliver the product or service or will existing technology be leveraged? How are competitors using technology for product and service delivery? For marketing purposes?

3.3 Competitive Analysis

Identify competitors. Who are they? Where are they located? What products do they offer? What percentage of market share do they have? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? How can your company benefit from competitive weakness?

3.4 – Marketplace Analysis – Summary of Business Implications

• Segmentation of the Corporate base is required to ensure access and subsequent focus on high end opportunities
• The size of the Corporate Account Management team needs to be appropriate to market size
• Development of a channel or strategy for handling sales (and contract renewal) of entry level products may be a requirement to ensure F2F team are focused on high value opportunities
• Immediate promotional activity needs to focus on creation of simple messages to address confusion with competitors and a lack of knowledge regarding our product set in the residential market.
• Medium term promotional activity is required to support dialogue across the Corporate sector to establish our propositions
• Tools and processes are required to ensure capture (and tracking) of accurate competitor data.
• We must develop and communicate our ability to offer a ‘one stop shop’ of producst and services for Corporate users.
• We must get service right, first time, all the time