An important element of your basic marketing plan consists of the specific objectives you will try and attain and the overall strategy you will use to achieve those objectives.

It is worth noting that the marketing plan objectives should always lead to actual sales revenue. If not, you need to re-examine your marketing objectives and restate them so that they relate to sales results.

Marketing Objectives

Your marketing objectives should be:

* Clear and specific
* Tangible and measurable
* Be time-based, with a target achievement date

Some examples of a marketing objective you might include in your basic marketing plan are:

* Launch new product line on January 1, 2009 to target market, achieving sales target of $250,000 by December 31, 2009
* Re-launch “new and improved” product line to existing customer base, conveying enhancements and revisions and delivering 1,000 qualified sales leads by June 30, 2010.
* Increase product awareness among the target audience by 30% this year.

In many cases, you will have multiple, concurrent marketing objectives, in which case you should make sure that they are consistent with each other and support your overall marketing vision.

Marketing Strategy

In the marketing strategy section of your basic marketing plan, you should outline the strategic plan by which you intend to reach the objectives stated above.

You’ll want to specifically address the “four Ps” of marketing (also known as the marketing mix) to address four specific areas of your strategy.

* Product – the specifics about the product or service you will be marketing
* Price – your pricing strategy as it relates to the market conditions and your competition, specifying the exact pricing and offers you will make
* Promotion – the high-level plan of how and where you will advertise your product or service in order to reach your target audience, including TV, radio, print advertisements, direct mail and online marketing efforts
* Place (Distribution) – how the product/service and your prospective customer interact and engage in the selling process, including retail, mail-order, direct sales, telephone sales, wholesale or distributors, etc.

Although it may seem tedious, spending the time to carefully identify your marketing objectives and the overall marketing strategy you will use to reach those objectives will help you create the tactical marketing promotional plan that will ultimately inform and guide your marketing team on what specific actions need to be completed, when they need to be completed by and finally by whom they will be completed.

A hotel marketing plan is your action plan to fill the rooms of your new hotel. A marketing plan focuses on the four Ps (Product, Promotion, Price and Place), but doesn’t neglect customer retention and key partnerships. All of these elements should be specific to your hotel’s intended customers and the geographic area.

1) Product – Your hotel’s services

For every hotel, the basic product offered is the same service – use of a bed for a night. Beyond this similarity, there are endless ways to differentiate your service. Services can include entertainment (i.e., in-room cable, on-premises nightclub), food (i.e., chocolates on a pillow to a five-star restaurant), communication (i.e., free local calls, wireless internet), and health (i.e., a pool, fitness center, spa). Consider whether unusual services will be a draw for your customers or if you are better off providing the tried and true. Whatever you choose, present the information clearly and in just enough detail so that readers understand the level and type of service provided.

2) Promotion – How to get the word out

Promotion is how you make your people aware of your hotel and its unique value proposition and convert them into guests. The promotional tools you use depends entirely on the customers you seek. Rather than thinking about how other hotels seek customers, think from the customer’s point of view. How do your desired customers seek hotels? Make sure yours can be found where they are looking, whether this is in travel books, magazines, websites, or elsewhere. Remember that the most powerful type of advertising is the kind that money cannot buy – press. Consider whether a public relations strategy can help make this happen.

3) Price – The right rates for your hotel

Your marketing plan must show where you want your pricing to fall within the market’s range. The choice of price ties directly to your hotel’s profitability, but also to the brand you are trying to build in the minds of customers. If you bill your hotel as extremely upscale, but price it in the middle of the pack, customers may not believe your assertions that you are the next Ritz-Carlton. Pricing is about finding the right price to both represent what your hotel is and to cover costs, leaving room for profit.

4) Place – Where customers and your services meet

Place is more than the choice of location for your hotel. “Place” in this context means distribution, and this is the choice of how customers will book hotel rooms and receive other services you provide. This can be through websites, travel agents, or a dedicated sales staff, each of which have their own cost and benefit tradeoffs. Distribution of services continues inside your hotel and involves both your staff and your means to communicate with your guests (i.e., phone systems, TV ordering, even doorknob signs).

5) Customer Retention

Most of the cost of providing service to a customer is in getting them to buy for the first time. To keep a customer returning should be significantly cheaper than getting a new one so explain your retention strategy. For example, loyalty programs provide incentives for repeat visits and customer relationship management (CRM) software can save data on the preferences and activity of individual guests to make returning more enjoyable for them.

6) Partnerships

Finally, consider how you will work with your hotel’s neighbors, local government, and other stakeholders to build business. There may be potential for you to either get guests from or send guests to many local businesses, improving the experience the overall experience for those customers. Consider mentioning a few key partnerships that will pay off because of their importance to both parties. Don’t stretch yourself too think by proposing to partner with every business on your street. Describe any successful legwork you have done to inquire about the possibility of making those partnerships a reality.

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Most freelance writers who make a living from their work will tell you they are usually doing one of two things. They are either working (on a writing assignment) or looking for work (more writing assignments). That’s the only way to keep both the work and the money constantly flowing in so they can pay their bills on time.

One way to make it easier to keep new work coming in is to develop a weekly marketing plan. A good day to develop your plan for the week is either Sunday evening (when you’re getting ready for your work week), or Monday morning (before you actually start working). It isn’t difficult to develop a marketing plan for the week. The key is to do it each and every week.

Your weekly marketing plan should consist of a list of the following:

1. Editors and other contacts – These are the people you plan to call or email during the week. This may include an editor you wish to query, or one you need to follow up with about an assignment or contract, or it could be an editor who requested a resume and writing samples and you need to get them out to that editor this week.

2. Job Boards or other job listings – These are sites you plan to view to see if there are any new job listings that interest you. If you know certain web sites post new jobs for writers on Tuesday, then put that down on your plan for Tuesday. If you don’t have a list of online job boards, then plan to spend an hour or so in the coming week searching for some. Also, sign up for ezines for writers (that include job ads) if you don’t already subscribe to at least a few.

3. Promotional activities – You must constantly promote yourself and your writing in order to be a working writer. If you have a web site or blog, updating it each week is part of this promotion. If you don’t have a web site or blog to promote your writing, then you need to create one, so “start on website” or “create blog” would go in this category of your marketing plan.

Writing press releases about your business or for a new book you have coming out, or getting contracts to schools or other organizations that want to book you as a speaker, are other activities that come under this category. Writing free articles for article directories might also be included here since these articles will help promote you and your writing services.

4. Networking activities – This category is a bit different from contacts or promotional activities. If you belong to any community organizations, or groups for writers, jot down how you plan on using these groups for networking this week. You might plan to join a listserv for writers and then introduce yourself to everyone on the list this week, or you might want to attend your local business association meeting to let other business owners in your area know about your writing services. Just make sure you have at least a few plans for networking with other writers and/or businesses each week.

You can make your weekly marketing plan as general or as detailed as you like. But once you have written down all your marketing plans for the week, you will know how much time you should have available to work on your current writing assignments. Generally, working writers weave their marketing activities in with their writing activities each day. But some writers prefer to do all their marketing on Mondays, so they have the rest of the week to work on assignments. This is a good plan, but if you’ve applied for various writing assignments, you might get a response from an editor during the week and you’ll need to follow-up with him immediately instead of waiting until the next Monday when you try to do most of your marketing activities. In a case like this, it helps to be flexible.

One of the big payoffs in consistently developing a weekly marketing plan is that you will begin to receive more and more job offers. In fact, sometimes you will receive offers for jobs you haven’t even applied for. Editors will simply find your web site or blog and will call or email to see if you are available for an assignment. When this happens, you will realize just how important a weekly marketing plan can be.

So, no matter what day of the week it might be right now, if you don’t have a marketing plan for this week, get busy and develop one. You’ll be glad you did.

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