Strongbox
Marketing Plan
Author of [email protected]
Our ObjectiveThe Marketing Executive will illustrate a plan to cover a broad range of marketing strategies to
improve B2B sales, brand exposure and awareness. This plan will cover tactics to the end of 2019, whereby a new plan will be created to cover 2020.
Table of Contents
1. Business Summary
o Strongboxo Marketing Executiveo Headquarters, Office Locationso Mission Statemento SWOT Analysis
2. Business Initiatives
o Overarching initiatives Marketing tactics, goals and metrics
3. Target Market
o Media and Technologyo Buyer Persona(s)o Competitive Analysis
4. Market Strategy
o Producto Priceo Promotiono Peopleo Processo Physical Evidence
5. Budget
6. Marketing Channels
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Business Summary
Our Company
Strongbox is a company headquartered in the UK with offices at Pinewood Studios. The company’s mission is to provide premiere IT and bespoke solutions to media and film industry.
Our Marketing Leaders
Alastair Head is Strongbox’s Sales Manager. He will sign off on marketing plan and is a direct line of support.
Tomera Rodgers is Strongbox’s Marketing Manager. She will create and carry out activities outlined in this plan. She supports and reports to Alastair Head.
SWOT Analysis
Strongbox’s Marketing Manager will want to help the brand lean into what it does well, improve what it doesn’t, capitalize on what it can do, and defend against possible challenges. With that in mind, here is my SWOT analysis:
Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities ThreatsWhat we’re good at. What’s working. What our customers like about us.
What we want to fix. What we want to strengthen. What we want to become more efficient at.
What the industry might soon want.What we think we’ll be good at. What will be our difference-maker.
What we think could hinder our growth. What/who we think could take our customers.
Designing and building ultra fast computers for film and media softwareOngoing supply to existing customers who love SBEnthusiasm, reliability, service and support
Not having any pipeline of business, not having any contracts to supply or maintain, and not having enough new customers coming on boardSales and MarketingSelling new products into new vertical markets where there is a need
New products – Storage, disruption of service (security device) Taking a share of the portable storage marketUnique product
Tech overloaded and needs more helpNot too much competition but there will be when we grow largerKey people too involved and infrastructure has to build so not total reliance on 2 or 3 people
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Business InitiativesReferencing current statistics, Strongbox has the ambitious goal of doubling its site and social media visitors and engagement within 12 months. To help the business achieve this, the Marketing Manager will pursue the following initiatives in:
Initiative 1 - B2B Sales (Inbound marketing and email outreach)
Description: The manager will establish new customer leads/contacts
Goal of initiative: Improve sales and identify new/potential customers.
Metrics to measure success: The amount of email campaign responses which lead to sales
Initiative 2 – Strongbox Articles
Description: The manager will work on building a blog property that becomes a go-to resource for our customers’ burning questions -- and our number-one source of leads – tech will help with this if the will is there to keep it up – which it will be now
Goal of initiative: To increase our website’s rank on Google and create critical top-of-the-funnel marketing content that helps the sales team start more conversations with prospects.
Metrics to measure success: 400-1200 organic page views per month / 10 content downloads per month.
Initiative 3 – Awareness (see appendix on page 10 for detailed approach)
Description: The manager will activate more social media accounts and establish analytics.
Goal of initiative: Improve exposure through more closely managed accounts.
Metrics to measure success: An increase in visits and CTA (call-to-action) clicks.
Initiative 4 - Compliance
Description: The manager will review site and report on suggested edits and broken links as well as GDPR compliance to include web forms.
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Goal of initiative: To ensure the website is above standards and in full compliance with current guidelines.
Metrics to measure success: The website is correct and error free to include completion of checklist and signed off by Senior Manager.
Target Market
Industries
This year we’re targeting the following industries where we’ll sell our product and reach out to customers within:
Film production companies
3D Animation houses
Special Effects companies (VFX)
Post Production companies
Shopping centre operators (security product)
Architects
Buyer Personas
Within our target market, the buyer personas that represent our ideal customers have been identified as:
Matt
Matt is 20 years old. He works in children’s educational short videos for a living and spends his free time playing and watching sports with his friends. Ultimately, Matt wants to use a program he is fluent in but doesn’t want to over or underspend on a computer that can’t handle the requirements of the application. He simply wants to perform the tasks he needs to without complications.
Felicia
Felica is 40 years old and works for a major film studio creating trailer videos for movie promotions. She spends her free time with her husband and children. Ultimately, Felicia wants to start out with a
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computer that will function with her trusted applications, from the start. She also wants immediate support and does not want to have to modify an existing computer.
Competitive Analysis
Within our target market(s), we expect to compete with the following companies:
HP
Products we compete with: The range of HP workstations
Other ways we compete: This competitor has a blog that ranks highly on Google for many of the same keywords we would like to write content on.
Dell
Products we compete with: Dell workstations and storage
Other ways we compete:
Super Micro
Products we compete with: All products
Other ways we compete: This company has no overall flexibility and products are overpriced.
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Market Strategy
Product
Product description – will be worked on
Challenges our product solves is as described in our buyer persona description(s)
This product is different from or at least competitive against…
Price
Our products are competitive and realistic for our customers’ budget as is. Highlighting our current competitive price or offers we may have available such as:
Seasonal promotions Discounts associated with products Leasing options
Promotion
Social media and content marketing will drive value into our products.
People
Alastair Head is the POC for direct sales and Tomera Rodgers manages marketing tactics and reports to Alastair.
Process
How will the product be delivered to our customer?
Management of this side works well
Is it an ongoing service?
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Yes
How do we support their success with our product?
By giving special offers, customized machines (we already do this for 2 customers), and loyalty programs
Physical Evidence
Backlinks acquired and or testimonials
Loads of testimonials available - need to be published
BudgetOver the course of the final quarter, given the cash allotted to marketing budget, we expect to invest in the following items to ensure we meet the objectives outlined in this marketing plan:
Marketing Expense Estimated PriceMarketing Software or Applications – to be determined
£ XX.XX
Content Sponsorship [time period of campaign] This will not be relevant until we have raised awareness and backlinks
Pay-per-click (Google) This will be a last resort campaign since 80% of searchers only click on organic results
Total £ xx.xx
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Marketing ChannelsOver the course of the last quarter in 2019 we will launch/ramp up our use of the following channels for educating our customers, generating leads, and developing brand awareness:
Home Website/Publications:
Thought-leader articles, whitepapers and new products or services
Purpose of channel: Drive Strongbox as Industry Expert - Brand Awareness
Metrics to measure success: 1,000 unique page views per month (or current increase 10-20%)
These need writing by Brian Gannon and TR
Backlinks and other associates
Purpose of channel: To gain exposure as trusted business and website/storefront
Metrics to measure success: 1-5 quality backlinks per month
YouTube and Pinterest – activate accounts
Purpose of channel: To present Strongbox as thought-leader through video promos
Metrics to measure success: The amount of visits/views, shares, likes and or comments9
Need to record videos
Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter – see appendix 1 on page 10 and 11 for details
Purpose of channel: Brand awareness and engagement
Metrics to measure success: The amount of shares, likes and views.
Ditto
Initiative 3 - Social Media Planning Outline – Weekly
Monday – Funny meme
Tuesday – Share Associates Blog or Neutral Industry News Article
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Associated companies such as https://globaldistribution.com/blog/ do not offer general news, only product release updates. We can repost their blog articles as a last resort but engagement on their updates is necessary.
Sites such as: Sky Tech News, Wired and Gadgets Now will be the source of neutral zone industry reporting.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/marcus-du-sautoy-artificial-intelligence
https://news.sky.com/story/the-lib-dems-are-using-data-to-profile-every-voter-in-uk-and-give-you-a-score-11828202
https://www.gadgetsnow.com/tech-news
Wednesday – Inspirational Meme
Thursday – Strongbox Article Share
This will be a building block process and will need to be addressed immediately.
Strongbox News and updates should be evergreen and for proactive marketing and can be either a short or long read.
Friday – Strongbox product highlights
An image of a product or service we want to highlight along with brief text and CTA.
Social Media Channels: Posting TimesThe specs are available but not attached.
Facebook: Monday-Friday 1300-150011
Twitter: Monday-Friday 1200-1300Instagram: Monday-Friday 1700 or 0200LinkedIn: Tuesday-Thursday 1000-1100 Pinterest: Daily 1900-2200YouTube: Monday-Friday 1900-2000Snapchat: Daily 2200-0100
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