Designing and implementing a marketing plan

A marketing plan or strategy is simply an action plan created to help you to sell a product or service.

In the case of DESMOND – although this is not selling in the traditional sense – the act of the patient walking through the door and staying for your course is seen as the act of them ‘buying’ the product.

When designing a marketing plan, this needs to be completed in phases, with a consideration of both where you want to be (strategy) and how you are going to get there (tactics).

Phase 1 – Outlining Your Objectives and Strategy

Consider what you want to achieve. These objectives may be financial/data-led, philosophical or qualitative, although some may be predetermined by the service specification set out by the Commissioners. Any marketing objectives that you set need to be S.M.A.R.T:

• Specific

• Measurable

• Assignable

• Realistic

• Time-related

Phase 2 – Audit the Current Situation

Using audit and analysis tools such as S.W.O.T analyses (see below), outline your current position. You may benefit from carrying out some market research at this phase to ensure you have a well-rounded perspective of your current situation. This will provide your team with a much clearer idea of what needs to be changed to meet the objectives. Create a set of questions relating to what you want to understand about the current situation, and address these in a strategic manner.

S.W.O.T Analysis is an activity that will help you to identify the current position of an organisation/service. Time is taken to identify key points that serve as Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The analysis uses the strengths and weaknesses as factors specific to the organisation/service, and opportunities and threats as coming from the external environment.

Phase 3 – Plan Your Tactics

From looking at your audit findings and the objectives, you will now begin planning how you are going to bridge the gap. It is worth remembering that it is impossible to achieve everything all at once. Use the rest of this portal to help you in defining what tactics you feel will be best for your organisation/locality.

Guidelines for tactic planning:

• Try to be inventive

• Consult with everyone required to implement the plan – no-one likes to be told what to do by someone who doesn’t understand

• Monitor your results throughout implementation and don’t expect instant results

• Ensure the messages you give are consistent

• Assign budgets and personnel resources for each tactic

• Outline the expected output and outcome from each tactic

Phase 4 – Tracking and Evaluating Success

Reflecting on what has been implemented is essential and no activity should be undertaken before having a tracking and evaluation system in place.

This can be split into two groups of analysis: 1) sales analysis or in this case, increase in attendance from the tactic activity and, 2) cost analysis, i.e. looking at the cost for this increase in attendance.

Phase 5 – Feeding Back

Once you have carried out your evaluation, you will need to produce a means of feeding this back to those who set the plan initially, as well as to the Commissioners of the service. Consider looking at the difference in expected output and outcomes to the actuals, and feeding back any discrepancies by defining the reasons for the discrepancies and discussing correction planning.