Preface

A business can have a great financial plan, be well capitalized, and have the best products or services in its industry and a talented management team but it wont survive for long without profitable sales. One of the best publicized examples of this was the large number of dot.com failures. Many of those failed companies had outstanding web sites based on clever business concepts, but they just were not capable of generating sufficient profitable sales.

One of the best ways to ensure that the sales opportunities of a business are realized is through the development of a marketing plan. Ideally this is a written document that spells out, in detail, how the business intends to generate those new and continuing profitable sales. It should be a working document that is adjusted from time to time as the plan is implemented. This book focuses on the development of winning marketing plans. In the book, well review the marketing plans of a number of highly successful products, such as Leggs hosiery, Philips long-life lightbulbs, and EZ Change hearing aid batteries by Energizer. Well also identify the unique characteristics that differentiate successful from unsuccessful marketing plans. This is the only book that provides you with a series of real examples that can be used as models.

This book also shows a number of ways of significantly improving the odds of developing a successful marketing plan. Many of the successful marketing plans in this book share a number of characteristics. There are similarities in the attitudes of the people who have developed these marketing plans, in the reasons that the marketing plans were developed in the first place, and in the implementation processes employed as these successful business ventures were unfolded. By identifying the common traits in marketing plans that made it, this book provides readers with examples of how to proceed with their own marketing plans.

Who Should Read This Book

Powerhouse Marketing Plans is written for people who areor would like to beinvolved in the development of a marketing plan. The book has been written to be useful both to managers and executives in medium and largesized corporations and to individuals and small businesses.

Businesses

This book will meet many of the marketing needs of people in established businesses, small and large. For the smaller business, the book will give the CEO or marketing manager a road map that clearly illustrates how to proceed with the development of a marketing plan. For the large business, the book provides in-depth information about critical areas, such as clever ways of evaluating the perceptions of potential customers. The book will also serve as a checklist for these larger businesses, to help them ensure that all the important planning steps have been taken.

Individuals

Entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs are ideal candidates to read this book because it spells out how to create a marketing plan for a potential new venture, even if you are a novice in business or if your new business idea involves a category unfamiliar to you.

All readers will be presented with all the major factors that should be considered when writing a marketing planand these factors are surprisingly similar regardless of the size of the business. Readers may choose to go into as much, or as little, depth as they feel is appropriate for their situation and personal background. Because of this, the book will be as useful for someone who is running or would like to start a part-time business as it will be for a marketing team in a Fortune 500 company.