The Glencoe Marketing Essentials book is more than just a pretty face. With hundreds of pages of in-depth marketing information, you will be able to create an effective marketing strategy for your business. Whether you are just starting out or you are looking to improve your existing marketing practices, this book will help you find the information you need to succeed.

The Essentials Of A Marketing Plan

As the name would suggest, the Glencoe Marketing Essentials book is packed with essential information that every marketer needs to know. The 500+ page tome is divided into 17 chapters and a CD Rom with over 70 sample marketing plans. Before we dive into the details, let’s take a quick look at what each part of a marketing plan contains.

• Executive Summary
  • Overview of the Problem or Need
  • Overview of the Customer
  • Products Or Services
  • Proposed Marketing Action
• Objectives
• Goals
• Strategy
• Tactics
• Analysis

The Importance Of Research

Every business is different and the need to tailor marketing strategies to fit particular niches is becoming a thing of the past. With the advent of the digital age, everyone can be a marketer and reach a massive audience. That being said, the reality is that not all marketing strategies will work for every business. The key to effective marketing is research. Before you put any strategy into practice, you should always assess how effective it is based on solid research. With that in mind, let’s dive into the importance of research in effective marketing.

• Market Analysis: Compiling Data From Different Sources
• Survey Methodology
• Survey Samples
• Questionnaire Design
• Types of Data That Can Be Collected

The Importance Of Planning

If you’ve ever been in the business of marketing, you’ll know that planning is key. Without clear objectives and goals, it’s nearly impossible to determine whether your efforts were successful or not. That’s why it’s important to have a strategic plan in place before you begin your marketing campaign. In order to create a solid foundation for your plan, you should take the time to think things through. That being said, it’s not always easy to sit down and plan out everything – especially when you’re acting on the fly. That’s why you need to find the right person to lead the planning stage – someone who will balance creativity with a clear sense of purpose.

Creativity

The ability to think outside of the box and come up with innovative solutions is crucial in any field, but that doesn’t mean that creativity should be reserved only for creative projects. Every business, large or small, will face challenges that they aren’t equipped to handle. That’s where creativity comes in. By utilizing your team’s ingenuity, you can develop innovative solutions to problems that you weren’t even aware of. Creativity should never be a one-way street, with you having all the ideas and your team following blindly – collaboration is key to innovative problem solving.

Logical Thinking

When you’ve developed a good plan and set your objectives and goals, you can start to apply logic to your decision-making process. If you’ve ever worked in an office, you’ll know that there is often a lot of talk but very little actual thought going on. To create a marketing plan that is both sound and effective, you need to step back and think logically about the problems you’re facing. One of the best books on critical thinking is The 48 Principles of Logical Thinking by Peter Abay. Having this material in front of you while you’re developing your plan can help improve your thinking and ensure that your plan is based on sound logic rather than emotions.

Empathy

In order to be effective, marketing plans need to be based on extensive research and data. To ensure that your plan is both accurate and representative of your business, it’s important to build a strong understanding of your customers’ emotional needs and desires. While gathering information to populate your plan, you need to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and understand what moves them emotionally. To quote Tim Gallimore, head of marketing at Spark Marketing:

“Marketing is the act of creating a relationship with a customer, and we believe that every relationship has a different level of intensity. So, when developing a marketing plan, you want to ensure that you consider the customer’s needs and wants as well as the business goals. By doing this, you will be able to ensure that your marketing strategy is both effective and appropriate for the situation.

As a marketer, it’s your job to look at the big picture and identify the key trends that will affect your industry. It’s also your job to understand how these trends will affect your business specifically, as well as how you can use this information to grow your company.