The Marketing Plan

The most important part of a business plan is the Marketing Plan. To keep
ones business on course this plan must be geared toward the businesss
missionits product and service lines, its markets, its financial situation
and marketing/sales tactics.

The business must be aware of its strengths and weaknesses through internal
and external analysis and look for market opportunities.

The business must analyze its products and services from the viewpoint of the
customeroutside-in thinking. What is the customer looking for and what does
the customer want (benefits)? The business must gain knowledge of the
marketplace from its customers.

The business must analyze its target markets. What other additional markets can
the business tap into and are there additional products or services the business
can add?

The business must know its competition, current and potential. By identifying the
competitors strengths and weaknesses the business can improve its position in
the marketplace.

The business must make decisions on how to apply its resources to the target
market(s).

The business must utilize the information it has gathered about itself, its
customers, its markets, and its competition by developing a written Marketing
Plan that provides measurable goals. The business must select marketing/sales
tactics that will allow it to achieve or surpass its goals.

The business must implement the plan (within an established budget) and then
measure its success in terms of whether or not the goals were met (or the extent
to which they were). The Marketing Plan is an ongoing tool designed to help the
business compete in the market for customers. It should be re-visited, re-worked,
and re-created often.
1
 MARKETING PLAN OUTLINE

There is no single "right" way to approach a marketing plan. Your marketing plan should
be part of an ongoing self-evaluation process and unique to your business.

A. Mission Statement

1. State the purpose of the marketing plan.

2. Review business goals and objectives as well as specific strategies to reach them.

Everything your company does should be guided by and consistent with your Mission
Statement. This is a short (one or two paragraph) statement of the fundamental nature of your
business, answering the questions: "What business are we in?" and "Who do we serve?"

The mission statement is the one place you can be general, rather than specific. This is your
vision of the business: it's philosophy, and what makes it different from any other business.

If you don't already have a mission statement, write one down. Refer to it often as you develop
your marketing plan. An opportunity that takes you away from your business mission is not a
good opportunity for you. A strategy or tactic that does not carry the business towards fulfilling
its mission is faulty and should be revised.

Zara moves at the pace of society, fashion ideas, and trends that society itself has natured. Hence its success
among people, cultures & generation that, inspite of their differences, share a special sensitivity for fashion.

To meet and satisfy the desires of customers, we always engage in enovating our business. we promise excellent

quality clothes with unique designs.

B. Diagnosis: Where are you right now?

In order to determine how to get where you want to be, you need an accurate, objective
picture of where you are now.

Write a brief statement assessing the current state of the business:

Forbes #53 World's Most Valuable BrandsThe. clothing retailer has more than 2,100 stores worldwide and is the

flagship brand of the Inditex Group. Zara is renowned for its ability to develop a new product and get it to stores

within two weeks, while other retailers take six months. Zara added 77 stores in 2015.
2
 C. Product/Service

1. Identify each product or service in terms of name, trademark, color, shape or other
characteristic, including packaging and labeling.

Zara has 5 brands:

1 - Zara Woman, that it is a brand a little more formal. For working women or for outgoing women.
2 - Zara Basic (woman), it is a brand that has all the basics.

3. Zara TRF, for younger women, it has the trendy clothes for young girls who love to be up to fashion.
4. Zara Men, with all the clothes for men. Both casual and formal.
5. Zara kids

2. What is your competitive advantage? How does your product or service differ from the
competition in terms of exclusive processes or superior ingredients, or other features.

The key to its success is clearly itsability to chase fashion trends around the world, move a catwalk design from the

design stage to shop floor in a span of two weeks and launch new lines in the quickest possible time with limited

scope for reorders. Zara offers trendy but inexpensive products that are sold in beautiful, high-end-looking stores.

3. What are your strengths versus your competition's?

Fast delivery of new products and trends in the market.

Lower quantities: Scarce Supply

More styles: More choice, and more chances of hitting it.

4. What are your weaknesses versus your competition's?

Centralized distribution system

Doesnt spend much money on advertising

Zara has one manufacturing and distribution center in world.

5. Determine the cost of each product or service.

3
 6. Determine the price you charge for each product.

7. What is your product's/service's personality?

Culture: European, International, good relationship with customers.
Physique: High reactiveness & flexibility, market-oriented.
Relationship: Trusted quality, fair exchange of value.
Reflection: Style, individualism, assurance.
Self-Image: Confident, trendy, unique.
Personality: Aggressive yet calm, mature, confident, beautiful, well-kempt, modest, unpretentious,
low profile.

D. Market

1. Identify your customers - include all demographic and lifestyle information

2. Who are your customers?

Male or female?
How old?
What education level?
What type of work? Profession?
What level of income?
How knowledgeable about your product or service?
What factors (e.g., price, availability, service, etc.) influence this
customer's purchase decisions?
What other people (if any) influence the purchase decision?
How would you describe your customers' personality?
Is there anything else unique about your customer?

Exercise: Think about the 20% of your customers who generate or will generate 80% of
your business. Write one-paragraph description of this typical customer.

The products target population in age group 18-40 that live in the cities. This is because; this group is the most
fashion conscious, more than any other group.

Specifically, the market segment comprises of women (65%), men (25%) and children (15%) all of them being

fashion conscious, educated and fall in the middle class category.

4
 Example: Lane Medical Systems

Sample Customer: A forty-five year old female office manager of a group medical practice.
High school graduate with some specialized office skills. She feels overworked. Has very little
knowledge of software and is slow to accept new systems. Decisions influenced by (1) ease of
product use, (2) reliability of after-sale service, and (3) price. Other people influencing
decisions: Doctors/dentists in practice (very price-conscious); other office staff (level of comfort
with computer systems).

3. Do you have a large, homogenous customer base, or several smaller market

segments?

If segments: Describe each segment's customers according to section D # 2 above.

4. Meeting customer needs:

[A] What are your customer's real needs?

Target consumers are young, fashionable city dwellers.

Their taste in clothing changes rapidly and is hard to forecast.
In vogue styles can emerge rapidly based upon, for example, what a rock star wears at a concert.

Traditional fashion companies have lead times of between 6 to 9 months from designing items to getting the item in store.
Spontaneous fashion needs of urban city dwellers are therefore not being 100% fulfilled by traditional fashion designers.

[B] What are your customers perceived needs?

The pricing strategy is to produce clothes that are typically inexpensive and affordable by those who cannot spend much
on fashionable clothing but want to have appealing and comfortable outfits.
5
 [C] Are you meeting either or both of these?

One of the major strength of the company is that it is able to respond very quickly to the changing needs of

the customers. In most cases, new styles are normally available on the sales stores within two weeks, four

weeks maximum. If a product is not selling in the stores, it is immediately pulled from the stores.

[D] If not, where do you fall short?

[E] What resistances do people have to buying your product or service?

Inadequacy, inconsistency in the requirement agreed upon at the planning phase of is design phase
and the actual requirements fulfilled by the system.

Identify location of customers (local, regional, national or international).

6. Identify market trends - include information about market studies and test marketing.
Large group of people called commercials are responsible for traveling the world and observing
trendsetters in order to identify hot fashion trends.
Commercials were allowed great discretion in deciding what items to produce, and an item could
be designed, manufactured, and in stores within 2 weeks.
6
 7. List factors that affect purchasing such as:

Seasonal
Obsolescence
Tax considerations
Price
Availability
Convenience
Service
Emotional considerations; e.g., prestige, status, fear, pleasure, etc.
Gift
Any other factors you can think of

Write a brief paragraph that synthesizes all the factors that affect the purchase of your
product:

Must ensure that shoppers are offered many options worth the price & shoppers will continue to frequent
stores that offer a fresh experience each time they visit. More choice, more educated, more savvy & demanding

courtesy of internet, womens fashion magazines, immediate info access

In a climate as intensive & competitive as the fashion industry, understanding how consumer patterns evolve is
paramount.

E. Distribution

1. Identify the most effective methods for getting products/services to customers in the target
market.

Do customers come to you?

Do you go to the customer?
Do you use dispensers, racks, etc?
Do you mail out samples, use trial offers, or premiums?
Do you use the internet?

2. Do you make it easy for customers or potential customers to get to your

product/service?

Zara puts an effort to make more distribution centers which would enable Zara to be faster, effective, and efficient

in distributing their products to retailers.

Store atmosphere: Zara has typical store layout, wide open spaces. It creates an enjoyment of shopping
in the store (positive emotions / comfortable feeling / impulse buying / spending more than planned).
Zara line has its own section in the store which is consistent with the current store space distribution.

7
3. Have you made it easy for customers or potential customers to get more information
about your product(s) or service(s)?
There is no need of warehousing as fashion trends are rapidly change. They just focus on new production
and scrap the old designs.

Identify the need for warehousing of products and distribution channels (for example internet)
if not sold direct to buyer.

F. Promotional Strategy

1. What is your current image in the marketplace?

How are you perceived by your customers?

Is this accurate?

Zara has a unique marketing policy of Zero investment in marketing. Instead, the company uses the money
it would have used to advertise in opening new stores. The striking thing about Zara is that it has found differences

that matter to the consumers and used that to differentiate itself from the rest of the competition.

In essence, the company relies heavily on the word of mouth advertising more than anything else does.

What would you like your image to be in the workplace?

Zara key marketing strategy is based on exclusivity, experience, differentiation and affordability.

3. Will everything in your organization consistently represent the image you want to
project?

8
 Employee behavior
Place of business atmosphere
Printed communication

4. What type of customers are you targeting with current marketing efforts?

1 - Zara Woman, that it is a brand a little more formal. For working women or for outgoing women.
2 - Zara Basic (woman), it is a brand that has all the basics.

3. Zara TRF, for younger women, it has the trendy clothes for young girls who love to be up to fashion. 4.
Zara Men, with all the clothes for men. Both casual and formal.
5. Zara kids

5. How are your leads followed up?

6. Where/how do you get new business?

Zara has an innovative solution to both style and marketing problems. With the help of a global network
of shopper-feedback it often tweaks its designs for the next line of clothes.Secondly, the stock changes
so quickly that shoppers are motivated with a "now-or-never" choice each time they try on a new top

that won't be in the store they next time they visit.

7. Where/how do you get repeat business?

Each individual store is linked directly to the designers in the company, so on any given day information is sent
about the design from customers [through purchases] essentially to those designers in real time and products
are altered pretty much in real time.
9
8. What is the source of your most productive referrals? Are you doing everything you can
to manage that source(s)?

Zara is able to collect information about sales and work out which products are popular, and with this
data easily to hand, designers are able to produce new items quickly based on the latest trends and in
styles and colours preferred by their shoppers.

9. Review the Message:

Is your message written in terms of what the customer needs and wants to hear, or in
terms of what you want to say about your business, product, service?

Your Promotional Strategy consists of blending and using each of the following
components to the same end that is, with the same message.

Advertising
Personal Sales
Sales Promotion

Publicity and Public Relations: Does your advertising message follow the AIDA model?
That is, does it:

Attract Attention?
Create Interest?
Arouse Desire?
Call for Action?

10. List the promotional activities you are currently using:

A. Advertising

The firm's clothes are advertised mainly through the store displays in their numerous stores through
their attentive customer service. They also advertise on the internet and very rarely in other forms of media.
10
 B. Personal Selling

C. Sales Promotion (coupons, freebies, name recognition, etc.)

The majority of their clothing sells at full price, rather than less than half like most of its
competitors. By shunning traditional marketing techniques such as advertising, discounts and
gimmicks, Zara have created a clothing brand which is respected and coveted and stays ahead of the
pack

D. Publicity and Public Relations

- Above-the-line: Print advertising

- Bellow-the-line: Brand communication, PR, Internet, Events, Media cooperation.

11. Are the benefits you offer being communicated effectively? (Indicate yes or no for each of
the activities listed above)

12. Review of Advertising: Does the audience for the media selected match your target market
profile?

- Above-the-line: Print advertising

11
 13. Review public relations activities -

What are your plans?

Can you generate any product publicity? How?
Special programs

G. Competition (Direct and Indirect)

A. Identify competitors by divisions, product lines and markets.

Mango, GAP, H&M, Mango, Benotton, Uniqlo

B. Compare your marketing techniques with those of your competitors.

Marketing strategy consists of high turnover in which the company usually has ten thousand single items per
year running through their stores (Zara: Cool Clothes Now, Not Later). With each company having a

H &M is more attentive in terms of entering new markets and tends to enter one country at a time as opposed to Zara

who multi tasks globally.

Manago is very different from Zara in organizations stategy, as Mango is based on a franchising system, and in
marketing strategy, relying heavily on advertising campaigns.

GAP is also based on a franchising system. GAP has introduced web based store and it is investing heavily on
online Sales.
H. Pricing

1. Review product/service costs for accuracy, including all variable and fixed expenses.

2. Be sure all products/services carry their share of overhead expenses plus provide for
profit.

3. Compare prices for your products/services with similar products/services in the industry.
12
[A] If your prices are higher, do they provide the necessary added value to justify the
higher price?

The concept of Zara is to provide its products at a reasonable price to its customers, it follows that customers find
its prices quite affordable. However, we have to know that we are referring to the cream customers who

would compare Zara with Hugo Boss or others. Some Zara stores might be very premium whereas others will

be very much affordable. But mostly Zara has a premium pricing strategy. The pricing is made possible by

optimizing development and training costs.

[B] If your prices are lower, do you know why they are, and is the lower price part of your
marketing strategy?
Zara pioneered concept of disposable fashion, manufacturing items that are sold at low price points
allowing consumers to keep up with the latest trend by purchasing Zara clothes intended to be
worn 10 times.

4. How price sensitive is your market -- in other words, how much change occurs in buying
behavior when prices rise or fall?

5. Do your prices position you as "top of the line" or "bargain basement?" Are you happy
with your position?

13
 6. Does your current marketing strategy support this price position?

I. Action Plan

1. Goals
Identify your goal(s) for each segment or market. Your goals and objectives should be
concrete, measurable and realistic.

To increase sales volume by X% or Y$ within existing customer base.

To increase sales volume by X% or Y$ generating new customers.
To increase sales volume by X% or Y$ getting customers to use the product/service more
often
To enhance image, name recognition, reputation.
To introduce a new product or service (same area, new area).

2. Strategy

A strategy is the general approach you will take to achieve a goal. The following list of
common marketing strategies may help your thinking:

Personal sales calls

New logo, letterhead package, company brochure
Direct mail
Newsletters
Print advertising (newspapers, consumer magazines, trade journals)
Media advertising (radio, television)
Trade show exhibits
Public relations (trade press, speechmaking, feature articles, community
relations/community activities)
Networking
Discounts for large volume customers

Don't try to implement all possible strategies at once. Choose one or two strategies to
achieve each of your goals. In your selection, consider what you know about your product,
competitors and customers, based on your information above. Also keep in mind your
resources of time, budget and staff. For example, although a major television campaign might
increase visibility for your business, can you afford the production and airtime costs? Is
television the most cost efficient way to target your customers?

14
 Develop a tactical plan for each goal:

Goal I: Short period of collection preparation:

Strategy A: Small Quantity Production:

Continuous production of New product without relying on HIT product.

Strategy B: Creating the value from product differentiation:

Based on the fast turnover ratio, customers are hard to find the same cloth in street.
Customers enjoy the scarcity such as high price product with relatively emotional price.
New arrivals by regional groups.

Budget & Timing:

Spending only 2 weeks from the market research to the sales (while competitors takes 6 months).

Goal II: Forecasting

Strategy A: Extensive market research

15
Strategy B: Quick input and output response, Customer Feedback.

Budget & Timing: Near term forecast, Customer Feedback.

Goal III:

Strategy A:

Strategy B:

Budget & Timing:

16