Marketing Plan (Project about product) - Essay Example

Financial Projections and Analysis Profit and Loss ment for first year of operation Average Price of Software $1200 Projected number of unitssold in year 1 175Total Revenue $210000Costs:-Salaries of Employees $110000Office Rent $15000Operational Expenses $5000Promotion Costs $15000After-sales support cost $20000 Depreciation Expense $5000Total Expenses $170000Net Income $40000Balance Sheet for first year of operationAssetsPatents and Copyrights 150000 Cash 22000Inventory 240000Accounts Receivable 42000Office Equipment 120000Total Assets 574000 LiabilitiesAccounts Payable 34000Total Liabilities 34000Total Net Assets 540000Financed by:Equity Investment 500000Net Profit 40000Total Shareholders’ Equity 540000After market research and assessing the competitors, we have determined that the optimal price to charge for our software will be $1200.

As shown in the above statements, we are aiming to sell 175 units of our software in the first year which gives us revenue of $210,000 in the first year. The major expenses for our business will be salaries for the software developers. We are aiming to hire 2 programmers, each with an average annual salary for $55,000. Besides the usual rent and operational costs, we shall incur the costs of promoting the software and reaching out to prospective clients. This would be done by live demos as well as online advertisement.

Besides, this, we are including a depreciation cost of $5000 which includes depreciation of equipment as well as that of patents and copyrights. We also need to provide after-sales support to our clients to help them use the software and troubleshoot any bugs that arise.To start the business, we are aiming to acquire funding of $500,000. As shown in the balance sheet, apart from the usual assets in the business, the major assets of the business shall be patents and copyrights on our software and the software in the inventory.

It is assumed that we shall keep a ready stock of 20 ready-to-deploy software copies in our stock. Also, we are assuming that 20% of the sales will be on credit as well as 20% of the expenses will be payable by us. Controls and Evaluation of EffectivenessMarketing Control involves evaluating the results of marketing strategies and plans and taking corrective actions to ensure that the objectives are attained. At the first stage, we need to define the marketing goals for our business. For our software product, we have defined specific goals that we plan to achieve from our marketing program.

Since we are just starting the business, as an overall marketing goal, we want to become the pioneers of producing and selling social CRM software for manufacturers of outdoor gears. Specifically, we would like to achieve the sales figure mentioned in the financial projection in terms of both sales amount and sales units. Further, since we are launching a unique product, we do not have any existing competition. However, we can set a target for ourselves to convince at least 10% of the existing outdoor gear manufacturers in using our software.

If we achieve this target, we shall be able to meet our sales projection goals. As a further step for product awareness and publicity, we would want that at least 60% of our target market is aware of our product.Once we have established these goals, we need to define measures to evaluate our performance and identify the gaps. As a further step, we need to find out the causes of these gaps. To evaluate our performance, we will constantly monitor our sales activity with the projected figures. If we are unable to meet the sales target, we will identify the reasons.

It could be that we are not able to reach our target market, we are not able to successfully convey our message, or we are not adopting the correct pricing strategy. In order to evaluate how popular our product is in the target market, we shall carry out a survey to assess how much people know about our software. After identifying the gaps and the reasons, we shall take corrective actions to close the gaps between the goals and performance. This may require changing the action program, or even changing the goals.

If we are not able to reach the desired sales figure, we shall look to practice more aggressive marketing. This would include more sales promotion activities and sales meetings or more pervasive online marketing. We could also consider revising our pricing and start offering more discounts. We could also seek to modify our product to further suit our target market. If we determine that our goals are not achievable, we might consider revising the goals to make them more realistic and achievable.

The above practices are examples of operational controls. As a further step, we would also want to adopt strategic controls to assess whether the company’s basic strategies are well matched to its opportunities. A major tool for strategic controls is marketing audit. We shall periodically examine our marketing environment, objective, strategy and activities in a comprehensive manner to determine problem areas and opportunities. BibliographyBusiness Owners Toolkit. (n.d.). Marketing Goals and Objectives.

Retrieved November 30, 2009, from http://www.toolkit.com/small_business_guide/sbg.aspx?nid=P03_8050Byrne, F. (n.d.). Financial Projections for your business - How to Guide. Retrieved November 30, 2009, from http://www.scribd.com/doc/13712559/Financial-Projections-for-Your-Business-PlanKotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (2008). Principles of Marketing. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.The Write Market. (2006). How to Measure Marketing Goals. Retrieved from http://www.thewritemarket.com/marketing/index.php?marketing=goals3&title=How%20to%20Measure%20Marketing%20Goals