438 The Marketing Book
Table 17.4 Structure and
content of the promotional plan
1 INPUTS
What are we offering to whom?
1.1 Product or service profile
Specification: what can it do?
Benefits: what can it offer?
1.2 Organization profile
Specification: what do we do?
Identity: how do we present ourselves?
Image: how are we seen?
1.3 Audience profile
Demographics: who are they, and where?
Psychographics: what do they want?
1.4 Market profile
Structure: what does it look like?
Competition: who is there with us?
Dynamics: what is in the future?2 CONSTRAINTS
What is beyond our control?
2.1 Marketing mix
Product policy: what effect on promotion strategy?
Pricing policy: what effect on promotion strategy?
Place policy: what effect on promotion strategy?
2.2 Givens
Precedents: what is traditional?
Mandatories: what is compulsory?
Appropriation: what funds are available?
Budget: how will efficiency be monitored?3 OBJECTIVES
What do we need to achieve?
3.1 Goals: what is the overall, long-term aim?
3.2 Targets: what are the intermediate aims of this plan?
3.3 Criteria: how will effectiveness be measured?4 STRATEGY
How will we achieve campaign objectives?
4.1 Message: what will it say?
4.2 Creative: how will it say it?
4.3 Channel: how will it be delivered?5 TIMETABLE
How do tactics become a campaign?
5.1 Timescale: by when must objectives be met?
5.2 Schedule: what needs to happen when?6 IMPLEMENTATION
How will the campaign be managed?
6.1 Authority: who can say yes or no?
6.2 Responsibility: who will be answerable?
6.3 Delegation: what will be sub-contracted?
6.4 Procedures: how will progress be tracked?
6.5 Evaluation: how will results be measured?answered. Though those are intended to be
more or less self-explanatory, a few further
comments are indicated.
Within item 1.1, it will be vital to specify as
part of the product or service profile the benefits
that can be delivered to potential customers in
the target audience. In practice, promotional
plans are apt to concentrate on the technical
specification of the offering, in a production-
oriented manner that should be anathema to
anyone who has studied marketing. Similarly,
the audience profile needs to go beyond mun-
dane geodemographic data if the information is
to realize its potential as a key factor in the
development of message and delivery strate-
gies.Acorn Lifestylesis probably the best known
of many target-market classification systems
available in Britain, all capable of providing the
necessary psychographic and sociographic
descriptions: for example, ‘LW75: Homesharers
in very affluent areas’, which is elaborated in a
‘neighbourhood overview’ and thumbnail per-
sonal sketch in the user guide. This is a massive
improvement over the typical descriptions in
statements of advertising objectives in practice,
such as ‘ABC1 18- to 34-year-olds in major
conurbations’.
Item 2.1 of the plan recalls the issue of
interaction within the marketing mix, raised
in the preceding section of this chapter. The
first two headings in item 2.2 draw attention
to the important fact that the execution of
promotional strategies may in practice be
constrained by precedents set in previous
campaigns and by non-negotiable require-
ments set at a high level in the organizational
hierarchy. The power of precedent was illus-
trated when the St Ivel company, whose prod-
uct range was natural dairy products, decided
to market a wholly synthetic ‘yellow-fat
spread’. The creative strategy was to preserve
their wholesome ‘heritage’, even when talking
to a contemporary audience about a manu-
factured product. The outcome was a tele-
vision commercial that combined striking
special effects with utterly traditional sym-
bols: a five-barred gate, a milk churn and the