Well, here we are, we've come to the last snippet in the marketing, sales and branding course, let's get into it right away because I know you're in a hurry. The marketing plan, focus is all about what goes into the comprehensive documentation of all your hard work. What it's about is including all of what we've discussed and branding, buzzin pr plus selling and marketing. When we complete this snippet, I'll give you a complete marketing checklist to comprehensively look at so you can be sure your marketing plan will be in good shape. This is part of the path takes a while to get through it. I realized, yes, you're right.
It's a lot of hard work, but it's where the powerhouse of all startups lies, in some ways for startups, marketing is everything. Let's concentrate now on what goes into a great mark. Plan and let's get moving. First, let's look at the opportunity and need in our solution for filling that need. Start by describing your product and its target market. This first one and it's service related, the ideal customer profile in the first bowling pin.
Be sure to include a brief discussion on what's so compelling to that ideal customer at this moment in your marketing plan. When you get to the solution, the next portion of it, you go more elaborately into detail about the great idea. Expand on the need and the opportunity, the solution for the big problem or the real exciting part of this. Answer the question if it's so great, Why is no one else doing it? I mean, be clear about explaining how attractive it would be to the first market segment compared with the competition. The other question to ask is how do you plan on making money with this.
This is the modern monetization question which is basically, if you do this, the following is going to happen with cash flow, sales costs and profits. There's a quick course on just making money on the business model. You'll find that at start one now calm. You want to name the new market you're in this is called a category, cola beverage pacemaker microprocessor are all categories. You can see both the logo and the image and the name attached to each one of those. That's your job to do the same work and coming up with a new category and attach your brand to it.
When you do that, you'll own the word and become victorious. That's what we're after. online auction, eBay, social networking, Facebook, premium coffee, Starbucks. Search is Google. That's your goal, to own those Word in the new category. Let's move on to measuring the size of the market.
We'll get involved with some numbers here. It's all about the future potential. So we want to sketch in units, dollars per unit and total dollars. How many ideal customers are there? We'll break it down into three chunks, nicknamed tam salmansohn, we're going to multiply units times the price per unit to get the market size and we'll estimate it for each of five years. Not a forecast.
It's a rough sketch. That's all you need in a startup. How big could this possibly become? The total available market is the broadest measure. Let's call it shoes. The served available market that's Sam, our flip flops.
And finally the share of the market. Your sales are your flip flops. Okay, I'm Samsung. Pretty simple, isn't it? Well Divided into chunks by taking the total available market the serve debatable in the share market. You want a table for that?
Show the numbers units times average selling price. You'll get the market size for five years. Show the company's forecasted sales and percentage of Sam for five years. Bingo, you're done. Put it into a nice, neat table. You look very professional, great discussion piece for investors, potential employees and yes bloggers.
Let's now look at competition and strategy. getting exciting, isn't it? Well, first competition is how things are done today. The similar related to existing businesses like taxis, the first new era attempts and startups lifting others along the way, ride sharing and so forth. Those are competitors, their competitors to you the startup The objective is to explain how you're going to succeed against them. Who are they?
What are their strengths? were and how will you react to them if they show up after you start? After you start? How will they react to you? What's your basic business strategy? strategy is well outlined in the classic book marketing warfare by Reese, and trout highly recommended.
Flanking is the most successful startup strategy. You move your move must be made into an uncontested area. Nobody dominates it yet. Yeah, there can be other competitors, but no one dominates yet. The tactical surprise isn't very important element of the plan. So we often have companies highly secretive called stealth startups.
And finally, the pursuit is as critical as the attack itself. You don't diversify. You put everything into the attack. Try to dominate that uncontested area. You have to be sure no gorillas are there yet. Yes, there are gorillas already, then it's time to go home.
Don't go there go someplace else. No one in the marketplace means it's on contested. A few people messing around with it on contested a few people working on things that are similar uncontested until somebody dominates it's open for you. That's what flanking is all about. You'll get more power by looking at the quick core strategy and understand how to employ strategy to power your company way beyond your competitors highly recommend it. Alright, marketing communications.
Well, we just got finished with that didn't wait. You know by now that your mark calm needs a message. To the ideal customer, it should describe in the plan how you're going to deliver it. list and schedule your major events, channels and related expenses, put it on a timeline. Bingo, you're done. Make sure the words are simple and short in your communication portion.
And in the plan, you simply say we're going to spend so much per month for the next 18 months on the following and include them all. Put them on a calendar, show the dollars you're done. All right, customer support the ass that's part of marketing because you're asking the question, what level of support of the product before sales during sales and after sales? Will you provide how are you going to focus What will you emphasize in that support? quick responses, thorough, highest quality, in depth, least amount for the most cost. list your headcount, show the cost, put it in a table, you're done.
What are you going to do about customer support to boost your competitive advantage? then goes into the words. What will you do in this whole process, pre during and post the sale, whether you're an online e company, or you're an industrial trade organization. What will be your standard, you're going to go to premium, average or low cost. Whatever it is, be sure to show the spending and measure it as a percent of your sales revenue over succeeding years. And financials?
Well, financials go into the typical outline and what we're after is an income statement showing marketing sales and customer support as a department technically has three departments all three of those. And for each, there will be a number of people, and so much spending with mark on included. Be sure to describe how you're going to make money and words and pictures. That's what the business model is all about. monetization is extremely important, the more consumer and global you get. The unicorns understand that great challenge.
If you don't get to monetization fast enough, even if you go public, as Twitter's learned painfully, it's very difficult to retain the enthusiasm of investors. How are you planning to make money? Okay, that's got it. There's the outline. You're finished. Well, let's take a look at that marketing checklist because at the end of the trail, that's what you're after, isn't it?
Congratulations. You made it. The snippets pretty short. But there was a lot to do there, I realized it's a lot of work. So, in responding, you've been able to get these questions answered by now. You know a lot more than when you started before, and your unfair advantage has been significantly strengthened.
This is the checklist. pause here, take a picture of it, do whatever you wish with it to get hold of it. But when you answer each of these, you will be in a very, very strong position. take a pause, read them through and then return. Okay, let's proceed. By this time, we've covered all four of the snippets.
You've got your marketing checklist, you finish the trail, I congratulate you. It's a job worth doing. As I said earlier, For many, many people, veterans, serial entrepreneurs and their investors, and related employees, marketing is probably the most important thing you do well in a startup. Look for other quick courses at start one now calm. That's where I'm heading. Hope to see you there right now.