ROSE PUB--25 Ideas by D_Thorwart

ASPIREPRESS
25 Steps to a Successful
Product Launch
Marketing Strategy Planning for Aspire Press
The planning part of the marketing manager’s job is
emphasized for good reason. The “one-time” strategy
decisions—the decisions that decide what business the
company is in and the strategies it will follow—usually
determine success—or failure.
Deborah Thorwart
10/23/2012
Christian Solutions to Life’s Problems

25 Steps to a Successful Product Launch
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25 Marketing Ideas for Aspire Press, a division of Rose Publishing.
Created by Deborah Thorwart, Marketing Consultant.
25 Winning Marketing Strategies for Success
1. Importance of Planning
2. Sound Marketing Research
3. Build on Past Experience
4. Target Marketing
5. Strong Marketing Mix
6. Knowledge of Demographic
7. Profitable Product
8. Building Brand
9. Celebrity Not Format
10. Authors as Experts
11. Brand Awareness
12. Christian Living
13. Solutions to Life Problems
14. Developing Distribution Channels
15. Pricing
16. Promotion
17. Publicity
18. Implementation
19. Control
20. Competition
21. Timing
22. Trending
23. Improvement and Correction
24. Implications for the Future
25. Onward and Upward

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Contents
25 Winning Marketing Strategies for Success ..............................................................................................2
Part I..............................................................................................................................................................5
Importance of Planning.................................................................................................................................5
Sound Marketing Research...........................................................................................................................6
Defining the Problem—Step 1 ..................................................................................................................6
As Related to Rose Publishing...............................................................................................................7
Analyzing the Situation—Step 2 ...............................................................................................................7
Getting Problem-Specific Data—Step 3....................................................................................................7
As Related to Rose Publishing...............................................................................................................7
Interpreting the Data—Step 4 ..................................................................................................................8
Solving the Problem—Step 5 ....................................................................................................................8
Build on Past Experience...............................................................................................................................8
Target Marketing ..........................................................................................................................................9
Strong Marketing Mix .................................................................................................................................10
Knowledge of Demographic........................................................................................................................11
As Related to Rose Publishing.............................................................................................................11
Part II...........................................................................................................................................................12
Profitable Product.......................................................................................................................................12
Implications.............................................................................................................................................13
Building Brand.............................................................................................................................................13
Celebrity Not Format ..................................................................................................................................15
Authors as Experts ......................................................................................................................................17
Brand Awareness ........................................................................................................................................18
Christian Living............................................................................................................................................20
Issues of the Heart..................................................................................................................................20
Authors Listen to Audience.....................................................................................................................21
Inspiration to Impact...............................................................................................................................21
Solutions to Life’s Problems........................................................................................................................21
Part III..........................................................................................................................................................22

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Developing Distribution Channels ..............................................................................................................22
Pricing..........................................................................................................................................................23
Profit-Oriented Objectives......................................................................................................................23
Sales-Oriented Objectives.......................................................................................................................24
Status Quo-Oriented Objectives.............................................................................................................24
Promotion ...................................................................................................................................................25
Publicity.......................................................................................................................................................27
Part IV..........................................................................................................................................................29
Implementation ..........................................................................................................................................29
Control ........................................................................................................................................................29
Competition ................................................................................................................................................31
Timing..........................................................................................................................................................33
Trending......................................................................................................................................................34
Future Trends: Online Marketing and Technology Predictions.............................................................35
Implications.............................................................................................................................................36
Part V...........................................................................................................................................................37
Improvement and Correction .....................................................................................................................37
Implications for the Future .........................................................................................................................38
Onward and Upward...................................................................................................................................39

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Part I
Importance of Planning
Good plans are the building blocks of marketing management. You will see how marketing strategy
leads to a marketing plan and ultimately to implementation and control.
Marketing strategy planning means finding attractive opportunities and developing profitable
marketing strategies. But what is a marketing strategy? A marketing strategy specifies a target market
and a related marketing mix. It is the big picture of what a company will do in some market. It consists
of two interrelated parts: 1) a target market which is a fairly homogeneous group of customers to
whom a company wishes to appeal and 2) a marketing mix, the controllable variables the company puts
together to satisfy this target group. The marketing mix is usually reduced to four basic variables:
 Product
 Place
 Promotion
 Price
The customer is not part of the marketing mix, but the target of all
marketing efforts.
There are many marketing mix decisions to be made. Therefore a
plan is developed. A marketing plan is a written statement of a
marketing strategy and the time-related details for carrying out the
strategy. It spells out the following in detail: 1) what marketing mix
will be offered, to what target market, and for how long; 2) what
company resources (shown as costs) will be needed at what rate
A Marketing Strategy—
Showing the Four Ps of a
Marketing Mix
Marketing Planning
 Set objectives
 Evaluate opportunities
 Plan marketing strategies
 Develop marketing plans
 Develop marketing
program
5 Member
Strategic
Planning
Management
Team
Control Marketing Plan(s) and program
 Measure results
 Evaluate progress
Implement marketing plan(s) and
program
Adjust plans as
needed

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(month by month, perhaps); and 3) what results are expected (sales and profits, perhaps monthly or
quarterly). The plan should also include some control procedures—so that the management team
knows if things are going wrong.
Sound Marketing Research
The marketing research process is a five-step application of the scientific method that includes:
1. Defining the problem.
2. Analyzing the situation.
3. Getting problem-specific data.
4. Interpreting the data.
5. Solving the problem.
The scientific method is a decision-making approach that focuses on being objective and orderly in
testing ideas before accepting them. With the scientific method, managers don’t just assume that their
intuition is correct. Instead, they use their intuition and observations to develop hypotheses—educated
guesses about the relationships between things or about what will happen in the future. Then they test
their hypotheses before making final decisions. The scientific method forces an orderly research
process.
Defining the Problem—Step 1
Company objectives should shape the direction of the whole business. Company objectives guide
managers as they search for and evaluate opportunities—and later plan marketing strategies.
Marketing objectives should be set within the framework of larger, company objectives. Firms need a
hierarchy of objectives—moving from company objectives to marketing department objectives. For
each marketing strategy, firms also need objectives for each of the four Ps—as well as more detailed
objectives. Both company objectives and marketing objectives should be realistic. Ambitious objectives
are useless if the firm lacks the resources to achieve them.
Defining the
problem
Analyzing the
situation
Getting
Problem-specific
data
Interpreting
the data
Solving the
problem
Early
identification
of solution
Feedback to previous steps

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To define a problem, we have to understand what a problem is. A problem is the independent variables
that cause an organization’s performance measures to be below objectives. Our strategy planning
framework is useful for guiding the problem definition step—as well as the whole marketing research
process.
As Related to Rose Publishing
 Set measurable company objectives.
 Evaluate market opportunities.
 Define the problem(s).
 Develop marketing plan(s).
Analyzing the Situation—Step 2
When the marketing manager thinks the real problem is beginning to surface, a situation analysis is
useful. A situation analysis is an informal study of what information is already available in the problem
area. It can help define the problem and specify what additional information—if any—is needed. The
situation analysis is especially important if the marketing manager is dealing with unfamiliar areas. It is
important that management understand the problem area—including the nature of the target market,
the marketing mix, competition, and other external factors. A situation analysis is a fact-finding
mission.
Getting Problem-Specific Data—Step 3
The next step is to plan a formal research project to gather primary data. The most widely used form of
qualitative questioning in marketing research is the focus group interview, which involves interviewing
6 to 10 people in an informal group setting. The focus group uses open-ended questions to get group
interaction—to stimulate thinking and get immediate reactions. This form of qualitative research can be
used to prepare for quantitative research. Focus group interviews help marketing managers refine their
ideas about what target customers like and dislike about the product the firm is marketing or wishes to
launch into the marketplace. The ideas can then be tested in a representative sample. Qualitative
research can provide good ideas—hypotheses. But we need other approaches—perhaps based on more
representative samples and objective measures—to test the hypotheses.
When researchers use identical questions and response alternatives, they can summarize the
information quantitatively. Samples can be larger and more representative, and they can use various
statistics to draw conclusions. Most survey research is quantitative research. Survey questionnaires
usually provide fixed responses to questions to simplify analysis of the replies. This multiple-choice
approach also makes it easier and faster for respondents to reply. Fixed responses are also more
convenient for computer analysis, which is how most surveys are analyzed.
Rose Publishing needs to develop partnerships with local church women’s ministries in test
marketplaces. We need to hold focus groups of 6-10 women, and then survey a representative sample
of the whole women’s ministry group.

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Interpreting the Data—Step 4
After the data is collected, it has to be analyzed to decide what it all means. In quantitative research,
this step usually involves statistics. It is usually impossible for marketing manager to collect all the
information they want about everyone in a population—the total group they are interested in. Typically
only a sample, a part of the relevant population is studied. How well a sample represents the total
population affects the results. Results from a sample that isn’t representative may give a misleading
picture. An estimate from a sample—even a representative one—usually varies somewhat from the
true value for a total population. When interpreting sample estimates, managers should think of them
as suggesting the approximate value and not as absolutes.
Even if the sampling is carefully planned, it’s also important to evaluate the quality of the research data
itself. Managers should be sure that the research data really measures what it’s supposed to measure.
Many of the variables marketing managers are interested in are difficult to measure accurately. A
respondent may be perfectly willing to cooperate—and be part of the representative sample—but just
not able to remember the answer to the question the researcher is asking. Examples of this are in
asking: How much did you pay for the last book you purchased? What was the name of the book?
Where did you buy it? Who wrote it?
Validity problems are important in marketing research because most people want to help and will try to
answer—even when they don’t know what they are talking about. Validity concerns the extent to
which data measures what it is intended to measure. Further, a poorly worded question can mean
different things to different people—and invalidate the results.
Besides sampling and validity problems, a marketing manager must consider whether the analysis of the
data supports the conclusions drawn in the interpretation step. Sometimes the math is calculated
exactly, but the data is misinterpreted because the researcher doesn’t understand the management
problem. Interpretation problems can be subtle but crucial. Marketing managers must decide whether
all of the results support the interpretation and are relevant to their problem.
Solving the Problem—Step 5
In the problem solution step, managers use the research results to make marketing decisions. If
research doesn’t have action implications, it has little value—no matter how fascinating these tidbits of
information are that come from the research process. When the research process is finished, the
marketing manager should be able to apply the findings in marketing strategy planning—the choice of a
target market or the mix of the four Ps. If the research doesn’t provide information to help guide these
decisions, the company wasted research time and money. I emphasize this step because it is the reason
for and logical conclusion to the whole research process. This final step must be anticipated at each of
the earlier steps.
Build on Past Experience
At this point, you may not envision what is to come to pass because of launching Aspire Press into the
marketplace. You have simply looked into growing your business by developing a product line to meet
the needs of an underserved demographic of the Christian Living population of women. You have just

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combined this—in stride—with the steady growth and day-to-day business activities of Rose Publishing.
In assessing the decisions you have made that helped you grow, you will realize that nothing you have
done is all that unique or unconventional. The success you have had is confirmation that the things that
are supposed to work really do work and the things that aren’t supposed to don’t. A lot of building a
business is listening to your own common sense, and then taking the necessary steps to turn the
theories into practice. Common sense is the essence of common business principles that add hardcore
profit to the bottom line of any business. Some sound business practices are as follows:
 Commit (early on) to quality.
 Be smart enough to know when you’re lucky.
 Grow slowly.
 Diversify your expertise.
 Hire the best to teach you what you don’t know.
 Look to world markets.
 Look to timing as being critical to selling.
 Know short-term greed can compromise long-term profit.
In marketing, we position products into a marketplace. A company can also position itself for the future.
In a sense, positioning is a matter of determining what someone is really buying when they buy your
product or service and then conveying those impressions and motivations to the buyer. Before a
customer can buy your product in a store, you must persuade a distributor to carry your product or
service. Positioning demands intelligence, savvy, and forethought and, at its highest level, becomes an
art form with a tangible payoff: your product or service is practically presold. This often requires
converting human emotions into product characteristics: “Be a winner by going with a winner.”
And Rose Publishing is a winning expert in the field of publishing—with a large market share of religious
readership and many awards for excellence and achievement within its industry. When you approach
decision-makers in existing or future channels of distribution, what they are really buying from you
when they buy your product or service is your proven, publishing savvy—in other words, your expertise.
Therefore, you must convey the confidence imbedded in a premise of expertise. With this confidence
will come the expectation from the distributor that you are an innovative leader in the publishing
industry; and by joining the Rose Publishing team, they will “be a winner by going with a winner.”
Target Marketing
A market segment consists of a group of customers who share a similar set of wants. It is important to
realize that the marketer does not create the segments; the marketer’s task is to identify the segments
and decide which one(s) to target. Segment marketing offers several benefits over mass marketing.
The company can create a more fine-tuned product or service offering and price it appropriately for the
target segment. The company can more easily select the best distribution and communications
channels, and it will also have a clear picture of its competitors, which are the companies going after the
same segment.

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A homogenous segment is determined through surveying the market in relation to the customers’ wants
or needs and the ability of the seller to meet those needs. A market, by definition, consists of both a
buyer and a seller and their interchange and exchange of goods and/or services for something of value.
Marketing research helps the marketer know the psychographics and demographics of a population and
to target a segment.
A Marketing Manager’s task is to identify market opportunities and to prepare marketing strategies and
programs to capture sales in the identified target markets. I would implement direct marketing in
approaching your audience. Direct marketing is the use of consumer-direct channels to reach and
deliver goods and services to customers. Direct marketers seek a measurable response, typically a
customer order. Direct marketing can be used to build long-term relationship with the customer.
Traditional direct-marketing channels have been growing rapidly due to their cost-effectiveness and
return on investment (ROI) by reaching marketing niches, but electronic marketing is showing even
more explosive growth. The growth of the Internet, e-mail, mobile phones, and fax machines has made
product selection and ordering much simpler for shoppers.
Direct marketing benefits both buyers and sellers. Customers can do comparative shopping by browsing
through mail catalogs and online shopping services. Business customers also benefit by learning about
available products and services without tying up time in meetings with salespeople. Benefits to the
seller include the ability to buy mailing lists containing the names of almost any group. They can
customize and personalize their messages. Direct marketers can build continuous relationships with
each customer. Also, direct marketing can be timed to reach prospects at the right moment, and
directing marketing material receives higher readership because it is sent to more interested prospects.
Direct marketing is cost-effective, measurable, and permits testing of alternative media and messages in
search of the most cost-effective approach. Although direct and online marketing are booming, an
integrated approach to marketing communication with minor roles relegated to the promotional mix,
including advertising and sales-promotion, is still important.
Strong Marketing Mix
Product
Physical good
Service
Features
Quality level
Product lines
Packaging
Branding
Place
Objectives
Channel type
Market exposure
Kinds and
locations of stores
Managing
channels
Promotion
Objectives
Promotion
blend
Salespeople
Advertising
Sales promotion
Publicity
Price
Objectives
Flexibility
Level over
product life cycle
Geographic
terms
Discounts
Areas of Marketing Strategy Decision Organized by the Four Ps

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Identifying a company’s market is an important issue. Market-oriented managers develop marketing
mixes for specific target markets. Product decision making is concerned with developing the right
product for the target market. Place is concerned with all the decisions involved in getting the right
product to the target market. To do this a channel of distribution is developed. The third P—
Promotion—is concerned with telling the target market about the right product. In addition to
developing the right product, place, and promotion, the right price must also be decided. In setting
price competition in the target market must be considered, as well as the cost of the whole marketing
mix, and an estimation of the customer reaction to possible prices. All four Ps are needed in a
marketing mix—they all contribute to the whole. When a marketing mix is being developed, all final
decisions about the Ps should be made at the same time.
Knowledge of Demographic
The chosen marketing concept for Rose Publishing is to have it aim all its efforts at satisfying its
customers—at a profit. Basic to this concept is showing interest in customer’s needs, and even
addressing their wants. A marketing orientation moves away from a production orientation, which is
making easy to produce products and then trying to sell them. Instead of just trying to get customers to
buy what the firm has produced, a marketing-oriented firm tries to produce what customers need. At
the core of a marketing concept are 3 basic ideas: 1) customer satisfaction, 2) a total company effort,
and 3) profit—not just sales—as an objective. Ideally, all managers should work together because the
output from one department may be the input to another. The central focus of all company effort is its
customers.
The cultural and social environment affects how and why people live and behave as they do—which
affects customer buying behavior and eventually the economic, political, and legal environment. A
marketer needs to identify current attitudes and work within these constraints. Psychographics, the
analysis of a person’s day-to-day pattern of living as expressed in his activities, interests, and opinions—
sometimes referred to as AIOs or life-style analysis, helps the marketing determine these attitudes.
Demographic data and trends tell the marketer a lot about a society and its culture. Understanding the
demographic dimensions is also important for marketing strategy planning because markets consist of
people with money to spend.
But in marketing we must keep in mind that it may cost more to satisfy some customer needs than any
customer is willing to pay. So profit—the difference between a firm’s revenue and its total costs—is the
bottom-line measure of the company’s success and ability to survive. It is the balancing point that helps
the company determine what needs it will try to satisfy within the total cost of its effort.
Based on our current product line of Bible reference products, Rose Publishing’s demographic is college
and post graduate, higher income, evenly split male/female. The new demographic for the Christian
Living product line under the imprint, Aspire Press, is mainly women, age 35-55, married with two
children, household income below $50,000, high school graduate with an 8th
grade reading level, and
Christian. More needs to be learned about this new demographic, and it needs to be determined if this
is the only demographic to be targeted—or if there are fringe markets to be targeted. But the reader is

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not the only customer group that Rose Publishing will deal with in the launch of its new imprint. There
are two other groups to be considered: distribution channel decision-makers and industry influencers—
translating to women’s ministry leaders.
Part II
Profitable Product
When Rose Publishing sells a book, is it just selling pieces of paper between two sheets of cardboard
with ink imprints? The answer is no. You are really selling the satisfaction, use, or benefit the customer
wants. When distributors buy a product, they’re interested in the profit they can make from its
purchase. The idea of Product as potential customer satisfaction or benefits is very important.
Sometimes, business managers get wrapped up in the technical details, like the paper, cardboard and
ink. But most customers just want a product that satisfies their needs.
A marketing concept with a market-orientation and customer-centered focus is concerned about how
product quality is viewed by customers. From a marketing perspective, product means the need-
satisfying offering of a company, and quality means a product’s ability to satisfy a customer’s needs or
requirements. These definitions focus on the customer—and how the customer thinks a product will fit
some purpose. Quality and satisfaction depend on the total product offering; therefore we want to
think of a product in terms of the needs it satisfies. Customer satisfaction is incorporated into marketing
strategy planning. The proof that a strategy is working is measured in sales through profitable price
points—so the bottom-line is that the proof that a strategy is working is measured in profit and the
benefit that provides to all stakeholders in the company’s
Goods and/or services
are the product.
Because a good is a
physical thing, it can be
seen and touched. On
the other hand, a service
is a deed performed by
one party for another;
services are not
physical—they are
intangible. What we sell
are goods—how we sell
is a service. Not only is it
important to focus on excellence in quality and design of our physical product, it is importance to
demonstrate excellence in service to those customers to which we interact personally.
The Customer Concept
Starting
Point
Individual
customer
Focus
Customer
needs and
values
Means
One-to-one
marketing
integration
and value
chain
Ends
Profitable
growth
through
capturing
share, loyalty,
and lifetime
value

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Whereas, currently, we will practice the marketing concept by working at the level of customer
segments, the future of marketing is moving to a customer concept where we can shape separate offers,
services, and messages to individual customers. The goal of the customer-concept is to achieve
profitable growth through capturing a larger share of each customer’s expenditures by building high
customer loyalty and focusing on customer lifetime value. The ability of a company to deal with
customers one at a time has become practical as a result of advances in factory customization, the
Internet, and database marketing software.
Implications
 Customers are value-maximers. They form an expectation of value and act on it. Buyers will
buy from the company that they perceive to offer the highest customer-delivered value, defined
as the difference between total customer value and total customer cost.
 A buyer’s satisfaction is a function of the product’s perceived performance (designed usage) and
the buyer’s expectations. Recognizing that high satisfaction leads to high customer loyalty, total
customer satisfaction should be both a company goal and marketing tool.
 Quality is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears on its
ability to satisfy stated or implied customer needs. Total quality management programs need to
be implemented if the company is to be profitable in a more main-stream capital venture, such
as Aspire Press’s Christian Living line of product. Total quality is the key to value creation and
customer satisfaction.
 Losing profitable customers can dramatically affect a company’s profits. The cost of attracting a
new customer is estimated to be five times the cost of keeping a current customer happy. The
key to retaining customers is relationship marketing. To keep customers happy, marketers can
add financial or social benefits to products, or create structural ties between the company and
its customers.
 Marketing managers have two responsibilities in a quality-centered company.
o First, they must participate in formulating strategies and policies designed to help the
company win through total quality excellence.
o Second, they must deliver marketing quality alongside production quality. Each
marketing activity—marketing research, sales training, advertising, customer service,
and so on—must be performed to high standards.
Building Brand
There are so many brands—and we’re so used to seeing them—that we take them for granted. Yet
branding is an important decision area. Branding means the use of a name, term, symbol, or design—or
combination of these—to identify a product. It includes the use of brand names, trademarks, and
practically all other means of product identification. Well-recognized brands make shopping easier.
Brand promotion has advantages for branders as well as for customers. A good brand reduces the
marketer’s selling time and effort. And sometimes a firm’s brand name is the only element in the
marketing mix that a competitor can’t copy.
The following conditions are favorable to successful branding:

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1. The product is easy to identify by brand or trademark.
2. The product quality is the best value for the price. And the quality is easy to maintain.
3. Dependable and widespread availability is possible.
4. The demand for the general product class is large.
5. The market price can be high enough to make the branding effort profitable.
6. There are economies of scale. If branding is really successful, costs should drop and profits
should increase.
7. Favorable shelf locations or display space is available.
Achieving brand familiarity is not easy. Brand acceptance must be earned with a good product and
regular promotion. Brand familiarity means how well customers recognize and accept a company’s
brand. The degree of brand familiarity affects the planning for the rest of the marketing mix—especially
where the product should be offered and what promotion is needed. A good brand name can help build
brand familiarity. It can help tell something important about the company or its product. Building
brand familiarity is difficult and can be expensive.
We are going to brand ROSE PUBLISHING as a family brand. A family brand is the same brand name for
several products. Examples of family brands are Keebler snack food products and Sears’ Craftsman tools
and Kenmore appliances. The use of the same brand for many products makes sense if all are similar in
type and quality. The main benefit is that the goodwill attached to one or two products may help the
others. Money spent to promote the brand name benefits more than one product—which cuts
promotion costs for each product. Family brands can also speed acceptance of new products, such as
the Aspire Press imprint. This benefit is most likely to be seen in distribution channels. At the general
public end of the spectrum, it is best to promote brands individually.
Since it is important that Rose Publishing’s established imprint, its academic line of product, maintains
its own identity from that of Aspire Press, we will use individual brands—separate brand names for
each product—because it is important for each imprint to have a separate identity as they vary in quality
and type. With individual branding comes the opportunity to utilize different positioning efforts in each
target market. Marketing defines positioning as follows: Positioning is the act of designing the
company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market. The end
result of positioning is the successful creation of a customer-focused value proposition—a convincing
reason why the target market should buy the product.
 Short and simple
 Easy to spell and read
 Easy to recognize and remember
 Easy to pronounce
 Can be pronounced in only one way
 Can be pronounced in all languages
 Suggestive of product benefits
 Adaptable to packaging/labeling needs
 Not offensive, obscene, or negative
 Always timely (does not get out of date)
 Adaptable to any advertising medium
 Legally available for use
Characteristics of a Good Brand Name

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Packaging involves promoting and protecting the product. Packaging is strategic and important to both
sellers and customers. Good packaging makes products easier to identify and promotes the brand at the
point of purchase, and even in use. Branding and packaging can create new and more satisfying
products. Packaging offers special opportunities to promote the product and inform customers.
Variations in packaging can make a product attractive to different target markets. A specific package
may have to be developed for each strategy. Customers see brands as guarantees of quality, and this
leads to repeat purchasing. For marketers, such routine buying means lower promotion costs and
higher sales.
You must separate the academic imprint from the Aspire Press imprint of Christian Living. They must be
maintained as two distinct entities each with their own individuality and personality. You state that you
“are receiving flack” from your existing demographic of academic readers. A solution to this may be in
how you package and position each imprint in the marketplace. One idea is to keep your current
website intact with little format changes. In other words, do not change the look or functionality of this
website because these customers like it or else they would not be complaining. What we can do to
unite the family brand of ROSE PUBLISHING is to develop a portal that links interested customers to
another website designed exclusively for the Christian Living line of product under the imprint, Aspire
Press, and package and position it to our target demographic of women. Each website would then be
enhanced to incorporate the likes and dislikes of each target audience to make the websites as user
friendly as possible. And, a separate imprint could be developed under the publishing masthead of
ROSE PUBLISHING for the academic line already being produced, distributed, and sold. With the
introduction of the new imprint, Aspire Press, it is perfect timing to brand and introduce an academic
imprint.
Celebrity Not Format
A celebrity is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination
and influence in day-to-day media. The term implies great popular appeal, prominence in a particular
field, and is easily recognized by the general public. People gain celebrity status due to media attention.
A celebrity is then a public figure that is commonly recognizable in mass media. They become known as
media personalities.
Although, in America’s celebrity culture, celebrity is a term synonymous with wealth and commonly
denotes a person with fame and fortune, we are not looking to acquire this kind of celebrity. Celebrity
known for its fame and fortune is sometimes denigrated by the general public as being overpaid and
publicly overrated compared to normal people, or what society would label the “average Joe.” We want
to create celebrity longevity by achieving success with innate talent, passion, diligence, discipline, self-
motivation and tenacity; in other words, by building a reputation in our authors of being people of
integrity and excellence.
Sad but true, celebrity is a commodity—it sells and is sold to the public. To market an author into
celebrity status involves the use of personal branding, a term that came about in the 1980s concerning
the marketing of people as personal brands. We are going to combine the principles of personal

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branding with principles of product branding so that our authors project personality that can be
captured by mass media. We are going to personify these brands by delivering a picture of human
qualities to the public that evoke emotional reactions in this audience and create relational bonds
between them and our authors. Because after all, our authors are just people—really too the average
Joe—that have decided to share their stories of tragedy and triumph publicly with others.
Echoed by experts on personal branding is the sentiment, “People buy your personality and ideas long
before they buy your products and services.” What all this means—for Rose Publishing’s success and
our authors—is that the Personal Brand and how we market ourselves, and our clients, are far more
important than price, product and, yes, even smarts. A Personal Brand is not something you can choose
to have or not have. Everybody—and every company—has a Personal Brand. What you can choose is
whether the Personal Brand is positive, negative or neutral.
What is a personal brand? A Personal Brand is the personal identity that stimulates a meaningful
emotional response in another person or audience about the qualities or values for which that person or
business stands. It is what come to the minds of the public when they think about your brand—some of
the values or qualities that can come to mind are trust, honesty, credibility—you get the picture. Yet the
purpose of marketing is to make sure the public gets this same picture.
The single most important step in building an effective Personal Brand is accepting that what you think
of yourself or your client is nearly irrelevant: Branding is all about what others think. The branding
message is targeted to the public and controlled by the marketer. Building the Personal Brand, you
begin by identifying the emotion you want to evoke in your audience. Then you identify the word or
phrase that reflects that emotion, and which you want others to associate with you or your client. Lastly,
you must consistently engage in intentional behavior that promotes and reinforces the word or phrase
you have chosen.
Anyone whose success depends upon or requires the cooperation of another individual or group needs a
great Personal Brand. Now, more than ever, she who has the best Personal Brand wins. Manufacturing
no longer drives the American economy. Service providers do. Products we can touch and feel are no
longer the focus of the majority of commercial transactions; people and their Personal Brands are.
Today, the American economy is dominated by three disciplines: professional service providers,
technology specialists, and sales and marketing experts. There are three reasons why this shift away
from a product-driven economy to a service-driven one makes Personal Branding more important than
ever: (1) the customer’s buying strategy, (2) fierce competition and (3) information overload. A Personal
Brand provides three distinct advantages over the competition: (1) focus, (2) a powerful reserve of
goodwill and (3) the potential for superstar status.
A Personal Brand provides a defined focus and point of centralization for all business and career
development activities—which most of the competition lacks. The proper focus can be extraordinarily
powerful. A great Personal Brand should influence just about everything: dress, communicating what
you or your client does, entertaining, networking, etc. If you are passionate about the Personal Brand,
the intensity of focus and the intentionality of actions will propel you or your client to levels never

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imagined. A great brand also builds up a reserve of goodwill for those times when mistakes are made.
Everyone makes mistakes, no matter how good you are. A person’s ability to recover from major
mistakes depends upon how she responds to the crisis and the amount of goodwill she has to draw
upon. The true superstar emerges only when extraordinary talent meets powerful charisma. In terms
of superstar status, it’s not due to fame or money. A real superstar is someone who can inspire and
mobilize a massive number of people for the purpose of driving positive change.
The Women's Forum is a women's Ministry Leadership Training Event, and it presents a rare opportunity
for leaders of all ages to gather in one location to share ideas, strategies, information, and inspiration
related to women's ministry. Leaders will gain insight to develop an effective ministry plan that is
intentional and creative. As church ministry leaders are a target audience and part of the "distribution
channels," I feel this is a networking opportunity that should not be missed. My idea is to enroll the
marketing manager and Michelle Borquez as attendees to network among these women. It will give the
new marketing manager an opportunity to multi-task by first hand introducing one of Aspire Press's
authors and inspirational speakers personally to Women's Ministry Leaders from across the country, and
maybe the globe. When ready to roll-out a new marketing effort and launch a new capital venture, you
must be aggressively assertive and hit the pavement running when opportunity presents itself. This will
also be the roll-out of the personal brand which is to become Michelle Borquez under the imprint,
Aspire Press.
Authors as Experts
Books cannot be interviewed, nor are they experts. I would put the line of Christian Living authors in a
self-help genre. Each author and each book they write will need their own individual marketing
campaign, but an objective of the brand, Aspire Press, is to establish each author as an expert on their
subject matters. When it comes to book publicity and book marketing, media are typically very
responsive to self-help books and authors. Self-help authors are ideal for radio and TV interviews and as
expert sources for newspaper, magazine, broadcast, and Internet Media outlets. Self-help authors are
experts who provide useful, meaningful, and important information to media audiences—precisely what
producers and editors are looking for.
From personal experience, our authors know with conviction that God heals hurting hearts. Having
turned tragedies to triumphs has given them expertise on the issues of the heart on which they write.
Our books share that experience with others who do not know how to articulate their emotions so
expressively, but are still looking for solutions to life’s problems. Yet reality is we are not giving away
free advice. The end-product—the physical goods which incorporate the authors expertise—is being
sold and sold at a price.
Therefore, we will strategically craft a celebrity image and a skilled presentation and introduction of an
author to the media. We will cultivate this celebrity by targeting local and regional media, and groom
each author in a way in which larger media will respond. We will accentuate the personal brand of each
author, and build their credibility with the media to establish each author as a leading expert in their

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field. An end objective is to have media calling us to arrange interviews instead of us always soliciting
them.
We will also craft public perception. In marketing, people’s perceptions are more important than
reality. Perception is rather scientific—it is the process by which an individual selects, organizes, and
interprets information inputs to create a meaningful picture of the world. A key point of perception is
that perceptions can vary widely among individuals exposed to the same reality. People can emerge
with different perceptions to the same object because of three perceptual processes that will only be
named: selective attention, selective distortion, and selective retention.
We will strategically build images for each author. An image is synthetic. It is planned—created
especially to serve a purpose—to make a certain kind of impression. A person's image is a visible public
personality as distinguished from an inward private character. By our very use of the term we imply that
something can be done to it—the image can always be more or less successfully synthesized, doctored,
repaired, refurbished, and improved. Therefore, image is a public portrait especially painted to attract
our audiences to it. Yet at Aspire Press, we want our images to be honest reflections of our authors and
represent authenticity, but they will be very consciously and carefully projected.
Brand Awareness
Image-making is sometimes seen as a negative activity. The simple fact that someone's image and
public appearance can be consciously constructed, projected, and manipulated is very discomforting and
troubling for some people. They consider it improper and unethical behavior, and have used it as the
basis for many of the most damning and recurring criticisms of public relations. Among other things,
they assert that public relations is all window-dressing, that it lacks meaningful substance, that it deals
only with images and not with reality, that it relies on deception and misrepresentation, and that it is
inherently fraudulent and manipulative.
Such critics claim public relations' images create facades for people and organizations that are no more
real than the false-front sets movie makers use to re-create New York City or the Old West on
Hollywood sound stages. And, just as movie makers want, and expect, audiences to perceive their sets
as reality and to believe they're seeing Tombstone or Singapore or the command deck of a starship,
public relations practitioners want their audiences to believe the images presented to them are real.
But, the critics argue, images are never real. They're artificial, not natural, and because they're artificial,
they're false by definition. So, these critics conclude, images and the public relations practitioners who
use them are inherently deceptive and misleading rather than helpful and informative.
As much as we might want to defend public relations, we have to admit that the critics are right about
some images, some practitioners, and some public relations activities. There have, in fact, been and
probably will be more fraudulent, immoral, unethical, and even illegal uses of images by some public
relations practitioners. But, they're the aberrations. A few instances of misbehavior do not mean that
all images, all image-making, or all public relations activities are inappropriate.

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So let’s talk about how to create and craft perception. Four promotional tools are useful for creating
brand awareness:
 advertising,
 sales promotion,
 public relations, and
 direct marketing.
Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by
an identified sponsor that advertise to various publics. Developing an advertising program is a five-step
process:
1. set advertising objectives;
2. establish a budget that takes into account stages in product life cycle, market share and
consumer base, competition, clutter, advertising frequency, and product substitutability;
3. choose the advertising message, determine how the message will be generated, evaluate
alternative messages for desirability, exclusiveness, and believability; and execute the message
with the most appropriate style, tone, words and format in a socially responsible manner;
4. decide on the media by establishing the ad’s desired reach, frequency, and impact and then
choosing the media that will deliver the desired results in terms of circulation, audience,
effective audience, and effective ad-exposed audience; and
5. evaluate the communication and sales effects of advertising.
Sales promotion consists of a diverse collection of incentive tools, mostly short term, designed to
stimulate quicker or greater purchase of particular products or services by consumers or the trade.
Sales promotion includes tools for consumer promotion, trade promotion, and business and sales force
promotion. In sales promotion, a company must establish its objectives, select the tools, develop the
program, pretest the program, implement and control it, and evaluate the results.
ToolsTypes
Sales
Promotion
Consumer
Promotion
samples, coupons, cash refund
offers, prices off, premiums, prizes,
patronage rewards, free trials, tie-in
promotions, cross-promotions,
point-of-purchase displays, and
public appearances
Trade
Promotion
prices off, advertising and display
allowances, and free goods
Business and
Sales-force
Promtion
trade shows and conventions,
contests for sales reps, and
speciality advertising

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Public relations involves a variety of programs designed to promote or protect a company’s image or its
individual products. Many companies today use marketing public relations to support the marketing
department in corporate or product promotion and image-making. Marketing public relations can affect
public awareness at a fraction of the cost of advertising, and is often much more credible. The main
tools of public relations are publications, events, news, speeches, public-service activities, and identified
media. In considering when and how to use marketing public relations, management must establish the
marketing objectives, choose the public relations messages and vehicles, implement the plan carefully,
and evaluate the results.
Direct marketing is an interactive marketing system that uses one or more media to affect a
measureable response or transaction at any location. Direct marketing, especially electronic marketing,
is showing explosive growth. Direct marketers must plan campaigns by deciding on objectives, target
markets and prospects, offers and prices, followed by testing the campaign and establishing measures to
determine the campaign’s success.
Companies are recognizing the importance of integrating their marketing communications. The aim is to
establish the right overall communications budget and the right allocation of funds to each
communication tool.
Christian Living
Sometimes it’s only because Jesus lives that we can face our future. In the present, all our hope is gone.
But when we call on God—all things are possible.
Issues of the Heart
Issues of the Heart are both positive and negative. Some negative issues are depression, anxiety,
unwanted pregnancy, violence, divorce, cancer, kids, drugs, alcohol, obesity, illness, unforgiveness—to
only name a few. We’ve turned away from God—we’ve become a society who doesn’t know right from
wrong because we have blurred the lines between them. As a result, we face negative issues in our
lives, and often we don’t know what to do with them, how to handle them, or where to turn. We need
God—we need what He freely offers us through the salvation found in our Lord Jesus Christ. And the
beauty of His love for us is that He heals broken hearts. God wants to bring freedom to our lives.
Rose Publishing, through its new imprint, Aspire Press, wants to bring that message of hope and
salvation to others through the words of our authors. Often our attitudes and outlooks determine the
course of our lives. Christianity offers solutions to life’s problems that our authors will share with our
publics. But we have to really decide who our publics are.
Are they just Christian women with problems, or are they broken women coming from all dimensions of
society, all cultures and all races? Are the premises and promises of God, and what our authors have to
say, only for Christian women struggling to cope with the twists and turns of life—the crooked paths
God promises to straighten when we turn to Him? Or are there masses of women crying out for sound
advice—principle that will bring salvation to them from their trials and tribulations of this life?

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I tend to think that with careful planning and faithful prayer, we will see God deliver to us, not only our
current target market, but hurting women from all over the world and from all walks of life. Our hearts
are crying, crying, crying out for Jesus Christ. When Rose Publishing delivers that message, through
effective marketing, it will be received because the Word of God does not return void.
The joy of the Lord is our strength. Positive issues that women look for guidance on are character,
enthusiasm, friendship, happiness, hope and dreams, kindness, leadership, life, love and romance,
simplicity—and this list could go on and on. In Christ, there is a never-ending supply of hope to be given
to others through this new imprint, Aspire Press. With God’s blessing, we will flourish and endure,
therefore it is important for us to plan for our future growth and prosperity.
Authors Listen to Audience
Our success will come when we give an ear to our audience—when we allow our voice to be their voice.
Again, back to marketing, we are in business to determine and meet the needs of targeted markets of
people. As you are seeing, marketing uses hardcore business principles to guide us in its efforts, but
ultimately, the end-user—the customer, determines our success. One way to remain successful is to be
connected with our audience by listening to them and responding to them with Product that continues
to meet their ongoing needs in a life influx.
Inspiration to Impact
We want to inspire the hearts of women to want to know Jesus by offering them Christian Solutions to
Life’s Problems, but we also want to impact them and impact the world with the message and
personification of Christ—we want to further the gospel to the uttermost ends of the earth. Herein lies
the key to our real success. God is our inspiration and the cornerstone upon which Aspire Press is to be
built.
We want to position ourselves as a mainstream publishing company with Christian values. Though we
have hard work ahead of us, we can rest in God by tapping into His wisdom—allowing His light to shine
through us as a beacon to a dark world—and be examples of worldly prosperity founded in Christian
values and Christian living. We not only want to be inspiring, we want to have impact on the world in
which we responsibly live.
Solutions to Life’s Problems
The solutions to life’s problems that our author’s will communicate to our publics will come from their
hearts, through diligent study of the Word, and through life’s lessons. I heard Beth Moore say that
women are crying out for coping skills to the life’s problems. Therefore, we need to take into account
her knowledge of women and impart coping skills in our literature, DVDs, CDs, and whatever methods of
communication technology innovates. Fundamentals of our communication will be to:
 Teach how;
 Give tools;
 Educate.
We will give expert advice and provide Christian leadership to women seeking to improve their lives
with Biblical principles that are sound common sense.

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Part III
Developing Distribution Channels
Marketing channels are sets of interdependent organizations involved in the process of making a
product or service available for use or consumption. Marketing-channel decisions are among the most
critical decisions facing management. The channels chosen intimately affect all other marketing
decisions. Pricing and advertising decisions are impacted by the choice of distribution channels. In
addition, Rose Publishing’s channel decisions involve relatively long-term commitments with decision-
makers within these channels.
A marketing channel performs the work of moving goods from producers to consumers. It overcomes
the time, place, and possession gaps that separate goods and services from those who need or want
them. Members of the marketing channel perform a number of key functions:
 They gather information about potential and current customers, competitors, and other actors
and forces in the marketing environment.
 They develop and disseminate persuasive communication to stimulate purchasing.
 They reach agreements on price and other terms so that transfer of ownership or possession
can be effected.
 They place orders with manufacturers.
 They acquire funds to finance inventories at different levels in the marketing channel.
 They assume risks connected with carrying out channel work.
 They provide for the successive storage and movement of physical products.
 They provide for buyers’ payment of their bills through banks and other financial institutions.
 They oversee actual transfer of ownership from one organization or person to another.
In my experience in television syndication, even though distribution involves the physical move of
product through designated channels to reach consumers, the relationships formed with the decision-
makers within the distribution network determine the success or failure of the entire effort. We are
dealing with people—individuals who often make judgments about us even before we’ve met them
based on what they’ve heard or what they know about our company.
In the business world, it is easy enough to adopt a corporate persona, or several corporate personae,
depending on the situation. But the real self—one’s true nature—can’t change color to suit its
environment. In any ongoing business situation, sooner or later—either subliminally or out in the
open—you are going to find that you are dealing with another person’s real self. Business situations
always come down to people situations. And the more—and the sooner—we know about the people
we are dealing with, the more effective we are going to be.
The day-to-day flow of business rarely provides the monumental act or the grand gesture. How people
relate to you in business is based on the conscious and unconscious statements we make about
ourselves. The way we dress, our phone manner, our efficiency, the way we phrase a letter, the way we
greet people all affect the impression we make on others. When dealing with distribution decision-
makers, we enter into the art of the deal. We are in the business of sales and negotiation. We are

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creating impressions by making people perceive us in the way we want to be perceived. It is an artful
form of positive manipulation—by controlling people’s impressions of us, we can make them want to do
what we want them to do.
Selling involves awareness of the opportunities we have every day for impressing others positively.
Creating the right impression can be as simple as treating people the way they want to be treated. If we
can create an overall, ongoing impression of competence, effectiveness, maturity, and fair-minded
toughness—the kind of people other people want to do business with—then the favorable impression
we have created will probably be a lasting one. Deals with distributors, in existing and future channels,
will come together and goods will physically move along the chain of supply and demand.
Pricing
Price is one of the four major variables a marketing manager controls. Price level decisions are
especially important because they affect both the number of sales a firm makes and how much money it
earns. Guided by the company’s objectives, marketing managers must develop a set of pricing
objectives and policies. They must spell out what price situations the firm will face and how it will
handle them. These policies should explain 1) how flexible prices will be, 2) at what level they will be set
over the product life cycle, 3) to whom and when discounts and allowances will be given, and 4) how
transportation costs will be handled.
It’s not easy to define price in real-life situations because prices reflect many dimensions. People who
don’t realize this can make big mistakes. Price is what is charged for “something.” People may call it
different things, but any business transaction in our modern economy can be thought of as the exchange
of money—the money being the Price—for something. The nature and extent of this something
determines the amount of money exchanged. Pricing objectives should flow from—and fit in with—
company-level and marketing objectives. Pricing objectives should be explicitly stated because they
have direct effect on pricing policies as well as methods used to set prices.
Possible pricing objectives are:
 Profit-oriented
 Sales-oriented
 Status quo-oriented.
Profit-Oriented Objectives
A profit maximization objective seeks to get as much profit as possible. It might be stated as a desire to
earn a rapid return on investment or, more bluntly, to charge all that traffic will bear. Some people
believe that anyone seeking a profit maximization objective will charge high-prices—prices that are not
in the public interest. However, pricing to achieve profit maximization doesn’t always lead to high
prices. Low prices may expand the size of the market—and result in greater sales and profits. If a
company is earning a very large profit, it spurs competition as other companies enter the market.
Frequently, this leads to lower prices.

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A target return objective sets a specific level of profit as an objective. Often this amount is stated as a
percentage of sales or of capital investment. A target return objective has administrative advantages as
a company grows—they can create or eliminate divisions, or develop or drop products—to meet the
target rate of return. Companies that are leaders in their industries sometimes pursue only satisfactory
long-run targets. The public—and government agencies—expect them to set prices that serve the
public interest. As I’ve mentioned previously, “Short-term greed can compromise long-term profit.”
Ignoring this principle can have devastating, long-term effects on a company—moving it from a position
of stability to one of chaos. It can literally bankrupt a once prospering business. So therefore, it is best
to maximize profits while setting prices that serve public interests.
Sales-Oriented Objectives
A sales-oriented objective seeks some level of unit sales, dollar sales, or share of market—without
referring to profit. Some managers are more concerned about sales growth than profits. They think
sales growth always leads to more profits. This kind of thinking causes problems when a company’s cost
are growing faster than sales—or when manager’s don’t keep track of their costs. Many companies seek
to gain a specified share (percent) of a market. A larger market share may give a firm a cost advantage
over competitors—because of economies of scale. In addition, it’s usually easier to measure a firm’s
market share than determine if profits are being maximized. A company with a long-run view may aim
for increased market share when the market is growing; the hope is that future volume will justify
sacrificing some profit in the short run. Of course, market share objectives have the same limitations as
straight sales growth objectives. A larger market share—if gained at too low of a price—may lead to
profitless “success.”
Status Quo-Oriented Objectives
Managers satisfied with their current market share and profits sometimes adopt status quo objectives—
don’t-rock-the-pricing-boat objectives. Managers may want to stabilize prices, or meet competition, or
even avoid competition. This don’t-rock-the-boat thinking is most common when the total market is
not growing. A status quo pricing objective may be part of an aggressive overall marketing strategy
focusing on nonprice competition—aggressive action on one or more of the Ps other than Price. But
sometimes competitors will resort to price-cutting and thereby create price competition. You can still
maximize profits by maintaining stable price points, although inventive strategies for cost cuts in
production and distribution may be necessary—because product quality and integrity must be
maintained.
Competition spurs the economy, and sooner or later there is competition in most product-markets. And
in today’s competitive markets, more and more customers are demanding real value. Value pricing
means setting a fair price level for a marketing mix that really gives customers what they need. Value
pricing doesn’t mean bare-bones or low-grade; it doesn’t mean high prestige either if the prestige is not
accompanied by the right quality. The focus, therefore, is on the customer’s requirements. Rose
Publishing needs to develop Aspire Press as a value pricing leader. We need to deliver on our promises
and on customer expectations—because it builds customer loyalty. If you stop to think about it, value
pricing is simply the best pricing decision for the type of market-oriented strategy planning we’ve been

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discussing. To build profits and customer satisfaction, the whole marketing mix—including the price
level—must meet target customer’s needs.
Promotion
Promotion is communicating information between seller and potential buyer or others in the channel to
influence attitudes and behavior. The marketing manager’s main promotion job is tell target customers
that the right Product is available at the right Place at the right Price. What the marketing manager
communicates is determined by target customer’s needs and attitudes. How the messages are
delivered depends on what blend of the various promotion methods the marketing manager chooses. A
marketing manager can choose from several promotion methods—personal selling, mass selling, and
sales promotion.
Personal selling involves direct spoken communication between sellers and potential customers. Face-
to-face selling provides immediate feedback—which helps salespeople to adapt. Although salespeople
are included in most marketing mixes, personal selling can be very expensive because of the costs
associated with a sales staff. So it’s often desirable to combine personal selling with mass selling and
sales promotion.
Mass selling is communicating with large numbers of potential customers at the same time. It’s less
flexible than personal selling, but when the target market is large and scattered, mass selling can be less
expensive.
Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation of ideas, goods, or services by an
identified sponsor. It includes the use of such media as magazines, newspapers, radio and TV,
signs, and direct mail. While advertising must be paid for, another form of mass selling—
publicity—is free.
Examples of Sales Promotion Activities
Price Deals
Promotion allowances
Sales contests
Calendars
Gifts
Trade shows
Meetings
Catalogs
Merchandising aids
Website
Contests
Coupons
Aisle displays
Samples
Trade shows
Point-of-purchase materials
Banners and streamers
Public appearances
Book signings
Website
Social media
Contests
Bonuses
Meetings
Portfolios
Displays
Sales aids
Training materials
Aimed at final
consumers or users
Aimed at distributors Aimed at company’s
own sales force

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Publicity is any unpaid form of nonpersonal presentation of ideas, goods, or services. Publicists
try to attract to the firm and offerings without having to pay media costs. Book publishers try to
get authors on radio and TV talk show because this generates a lot of interest—and book sales—
without the publisher having to pay for media time. One method to introduce our authors to
producers and editors is to hold press parties or media mixers. Realistically, in publishing,
media personnel are a target market. The better our relationship with media personnel, the
more likely we are to get media attention.
Sales promotion refers to promotion activities—other than advertising, publicity, and personal selling—
that stimulate interest, trial, or purchase by final customers or others in the channel. Sales promotion
may be aimed at consumers, at distributors, or even at our own employees.
The different promotion methods are all different forms of communication. Good marketers want
promotion to communicate information that will encourage customers to choose their product. They
know that if they have a better offering, informed customers are more likely to buy. Therefore, good
marketers are interested in 1) reinforcing present attitudes that might lead to favorable behavior or 2)
actually changing the attitudes and behavior of the company’s target market.
For a company’s promotion to be effective, its promotion objectives must be clearly defined—because
the right promotion blend depends on what the company wants to accomplish. It’s helpful to think of
three basic promotion objectives: informing, persuading, and reminding target customers about the
company and its marketing mix. All try to affect buyer behavior by providing more information. Even
more useful is to develop a very specific set of promotion objectives that state exactly who we want to
inform, persuade or remind, and why.
Potential customers must know something about a product if they are to buy at all. The informing
objective is particularly important during the introduction stage of the product life cycle for a really new
product concept. Here, informative promotion must educate consumers and build demand for the
general product idea—and not just the company’s own brand. When a product really meets consumer
needs better than other products, promotion may not have to do anything but inform consumers. But
when competitors offer similar products, the company must not only inform customers that its product
is available but also persuade them to buy it. A persuading objective means the firm will try to develop
a favorable set of attitudes so customers will buy—and keep buying—its product. The focus here is
building demand for the company’s own brand. If target customers already have positive attitudes
about a company’s marketing mix, a reminding objective might be suitable. This objective becomes
extremely important in dealing with messages from our competitors. Even though customers were
attracted and sold once, they are still targets for competitor’s appeals. Reminding them of their past
satisfaction may keep them from buying a competing product.
Most business firms develop a promotion blend of some kind because the three promotion methods
complement each other. And some promotion jobs can be done more economically one way than
another. But there is no one right promotion blend for all situations. Each one must be developed as

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part of a marketing mix—and should be designed to achieve a company’s promotion objectives in each
marketing strategy.
Publicity
Public relations has often been treated as a minor element in the promotion mix, but the wise company
takes concrete steps to manage successful relations with its key publics. Marketing managers and public
relations specialists do not always talk the same language. Marketing managers are much more bottom-
line oriented, whereas public relations practitioners see their job as preparing and disseminating
communications; but these differences are disappearing. Many companies are turning to marketing
public relations (MPR) to directly support corporate or product promotion and image-making. MPR,
like financial PR and community PR, serves a special constituency, namely, the marketing department.
The old name for MPR was publicity, which was seen as the task of securing editorial space—as opposed
to paid space—in print and broadcast media to promote or “hype” a product, service, idea, place,
person, or organization. However, MPR goes beyond simple publicity and plays an important role in the
following tasks:
 Assisting in the launch of new product;,
 Assisting in repositioning a mature product;
 Building interest in a product category;
 Influencing specific target groups;
 Defending products that have encountered public problems; and
 Building the corporate image in a way that reflects favorably on its products.
As the power of mass-advertising weakens, marketing managers are turning more to MPR. They have
learned that MPR is particularly effective in building awareness and brand knowledge, for both new and
established products. MPR is also effective in blanketing local communities and reaching specific
groups. In some cases, the use of MPR has proved more cost-effective than advertising. Nevertheless, it
must be planned jointly with advertising. Clearly, creative public relations can affect public awareness at
a fraction of the cost of advertising, because the company does not pay for the space or time obtained
in the media. And some experts say that consumers are five times more likely to be influenced by
editorial copy than by advertising. In considering when and how to use MPR, management must
establish the marketing objectives, choose the PR messages and vehicles, implement the plan carefully,
and evaluate the results.
Whereas PR practitioners reach their target publics through mass media, MPR is increasingly borrowing
the techniques and technology of direct-response marketing to reach target audience members one on
one. How PR and direct-response marketing can work together to achieve specific marketing objectives
is as follows:
 Build marketplace excitement before media advertising breaks: The announcement of a new
product offers a unique opportunity for obtaining publicity and for dramatizing the product.
 Build a core consumer base: Marketers recognize the value of maintaining consumer loyalty,
because it cost far less to keep a customer than to get a new one.

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 Build a one-to-one relationship with consumers: Marketers can use telephone hot lines and 800
numbers, plus the Internet, to build and maintain relationships with individual customers.
 Turn satisfied customers into advocates: Customer databases and profiles can yield satisfied
customers who can become role models and spokespeople for the product.
 Influence the influentials: The marketers uses targeted messages to influence the people, in
Rose Publishing’s case—ministry leaders, media, and let’s not forget the retail clerk—who
influence the targeted consumer in her buying or reading choices.
Implementing public relations requires care. One of the chief assets of publicists is their personal
relationship with media producers and editors. PR practitioners look at media producers and editors as
a market to satisfy so these media personnel continue to give time and space to their messages, which
are usually communicated in story form. MPR’s contribution to the bottom line is difficult to measure,
because it is used along with other promotional tools. The three most commonly used measures of
MPR effectiveness are 1)number of exposures; 2) awareness, comprehension, or attitude change; and 3)
contribution to sales and profits. But the most satisfactory measure is the bottom line—its impact on
sales and profit.
The publicity component of your marketing plan is probably the least expensive and most effective use
of your resources. Components of a publicity plan include:
 Press releases announcing the book’s publication, author’s appearances, and news events that
relate to your book.
 Feature articles online and in print that mention your book and author.
 Excerpts, serial rights, from your book in online and print publications that are published before
the book is available for sale.
 Reviews in online or print publications—these can be based on advance reading copies, folded-
and-gathered signatures, or on final books.
 National/local radio appearances by the author or other spokesperson for the book.
 National/local TV appearances by the author.
 Author appearances in other venues, such as conventions or other speaking engagements.
Marketing public relations campaigns can contain the following elements:
 Marketing and Publicity Budget.
 Author Tour, including travel plans to support a national or regional tour to promote the launch
of Product.
 Publicity. Publicity is about media exposure for your Product. Publicity events can include
excerpts (a reprinted portion of the book), features (a published article about the book), or
reviews (a critique of the book). Examples:
o Regional radio appearances in Nashville, Dallas and Los Angeles (all in Summer ’13)
o Publicity on your website (measured in visitors) and e-mail blast to list of subscribers
(measured number) on 6-13.
 Advertising Plans, which include specifics.

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 Promotion, which includes specifics.
Part IV
Implementation
After a marketing plan is developed, a marketing manager is concerned with marketing
implementation—the process that turns marketing plans into action assignments and ensures that such
assignments are executed in a manner that accomplishes the plan’s stated objectives. A brilliant
strategic marketing plan counts for little if it is not implemented properly. Whereas strategy address the
what and why of marketing activities, implementation addresses the who, where, when, and how.
Strategy and implementation are closely related in that one layer of strategy implies certain tactical
implementation assignments at a lower level. Implementation of strategic decisions involve specific
actions and assignments. It also calls for skills in recognizing and diagnosing a problem, assessing the
company level where the problem exists, implementation skills, and skills in evaluating the results.
There are four identified skill sets for implementing marketing programs:
1. Diagnostic skills: When marketing programs do not fulfill expectations, was it the result of poor
strategy or poor implementation? The marketing manager needs to be able to assess and
determine outcomes of planning and implementation. If implementation, what went wrong?
2. Identification of company level: Implementation problems can occur in three levels:
a. The marketing function,
b. The marketing program, and
c. The marketing policy level.
3. Implementation skills: To implement programs successfully, marketers need other skills:
allocating skills for budgeting resources, organizing skills to develop an effective organization,
and interaction skills to motivate others to get things done.
4. Evaluation skills: Marketers also need monitoring skills to track and evaluate marketing actions.
Companies today are striving to make their marketing operations more efficient and their return on
marketing investments more measurable. Marketing costs can amount to 20 to 40 percent of a
company’s total operating budget. Companies recognize the high amount of waste in many practices:
too many meetings lasting too long, undue time spent in looking for documents, delays in receiving
approvals, and difficulties in coordinating vendor partners. Because of the increasingly complex nature
of business, the increased number of collaborators, and the global scope of operations, companies use
information technology to improve the management of their marketing practices. They need better
templates for marketing processes, better management of marketing assets, and better allocation of
marketing resources. This can be accomplished by using a variety of software that help companies and
enable marketers to greatly improve their spending and investment decisions, bring new products to
market more quickly, and reduce decision time and costs.
Control
In spite of the need to monitor and control marketing activities, many companies have inadequate
control procedures. One study turned up these findings:

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 Smaller companies do a poorer job of setting clear objectives and establishing systems to
measure performance.
 Less than half the companies studied knew their individual product’s profitability. About one-
third had no regular review procedures for spotting and deleting weak products.
 Almost half of the companies failed to compare their prices with those of the competition, to
analyze their warehousing and distribution costs, to analyze the causes of returned
merchandise, to conduct formal evaluations of advertising effectiveness, and to review their
sales force’s call reports.
 Many companies take four to eight weeks to develop control reports, which are occasionally
inaccurate.
Types of Control
Prime Responsibility Purpose of Control Approaches
Annual-plan control Top management
Middle management
To examine whether the
planned results are being
achieved
 Sales analysis
 Market-share analysis
 Sales-to-exposure
ratios
 Financial analysis
 Market-based
scorecard analysis
Profitability control Marketing controller To examine where the
company is making and
losing money
Profitability by:
 product
 territory
 customer
 segment
 trade channel
 order size
Efficiency control Line and staff
management
Marketing controller
To evaluate and improve
the spending efficiency
and impact of marketing
expenditures
Efficiency of:
 sales force
 advertising
 sales promotion
 distribution
Strategic control Top management
Marketing auditor
To examine whether the
company is pursuing its
best opportunities with
respect to markets,
products, and channels
 Marketing-
effectiveness rating
instrument
 Marketing audit
 Marketing excellence
review
 Company ethical and
social responsibility
review
Types of Marketing Control

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Four types of marketing control needed by companies are: 1) annual-plan control, 2) profitability
control, 3) efficiency control, and 4) strategic control. The purpose of annual-plan control is to ensure
that the company achieves the sales, profits, and other goals established in its annual plan. The main
tools of annual-plan control are sales analysis, market-share analysis, marketing expense-to-sales
analysis, financial analysis, and market-based scorecard analysis. Profitability control seeks to measure
and control the profitability of various products, territories, customer groups, trade channels, and order
sizes. An important part of controlling for profitability is assigning costs and generating profit-and-loss
statements. Efficiency control focuses on finding ways to increase the efficiency of the sales force,
advertising, sales promotion, and distribution. Strategic control entails a periodic reassessment of the
company and its strategic approach to the marketplace, using the tools of marketing effectiveness
review and the marketing audit. Companies should also undertake marketing excellence reviews and
ethical/social responsibility reviews.
The future holds a wealth of opportunities for companies. Companies that are able to innovate new
solutions and values to marketing problems and opportunities—in a socially responsible way—are most
likely to succeed.
Competition
To prepare an effective marketing strategy, a company must study its competitors as well as its actual
and potential customers. Companies need to identify competitors’ strategies, objectives, strengths,
weaknesses, and reaction patterns. They also need to know how to design an effective competitive
intelligence system. There are four main steps in designing a competitive intelligence system:
SETTING UP THE SYSTEM The first step calls for identifying vital types of competitive
information, indentifying the best sources of this information, and assigning a person who will
manage the system and its services. In smaller companies that cannot afford to set up a formal
competitive intelligence office, specific executives should be assigned to watch specific
competitors. Any manager who needs to know about a specific competitor would contact the
corresponding in-house expert.
COLLECTING THE DATA The data collected on a continuous basis from the field (sales
force, channels, suppliers, market research firms, trade associations), from people who do
business with competitors, from observing competitors, and from published data. The Internet
is creating a new arsenal for those skilled at gathering intelligence. Now companies place
volumes of information on the Websites to attract customers, partners, suppliers, or
franchisees, and that same information is available to competitors at the click of a mouse. Press
releases that never made it into the media are published on websites, so you can keep abreast
of new products and organizational changes. Help wanted ads posted on the Web quickly let
you know competitors’ expansion priorities. Trade association sites also hold valuable nuggets
of information.
EVALUATING AND ANALYZING THE DATA The data are checked for validity and reliability,
interpreted, and organized.

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DISSEMINATING INFORMATION AND RESPONDING Key information is sent to relevant
decision makers, and manager’s inquiries are answered. With a well-designed system, company
managers receive timely information about competitors via e-mail, phone calls, bulletins,
newsletters, and reports. Managers can also contact the market intelligence department or
colleagues on the company’s intranet when they need help interpreting a competitor’s sudden
move, when they need to know a competitor’s weaknesses and strengths, or when they want to
discuss a likely response to a contemplated company move.
A company’s closest competitors are those seeking to satisfy the same customers and needs and making
similar offers. A company should also pay attention to latent competitors, who may offer new or other
ways to satisfy the same needs. A company should identify competitors by using both industry and
market-based analyses. Competitive intelligence needs to be collected, interpreted, and disseminated
continuously. Managers should be able to receive timely information about competitors. Marketing
managers need to conduct a customer value analysis to reveal the company’s strengths and weaknesses
relative to competitors. The aim of this analysis is to determine the benefits customers want and how
they perceive the relative value of competitors’ offers.
A market leader has the largest market share in the relevant product market. To remain dominant, the
leader looks for ways to expand total market demand, attempts to protect its current market share, and
perhaps tries to increase its market share. A market challenger attacks the market leader and other
competitors in an aggressive bid for more market share. Challengers can choose from several types of
general attack; challengers must also choose specific strategies: discount prices, produce cheaper
goods, produce prestige goods, produce a wide variety of goods, innovate in products or distribution,
improve services, reduce manufacturing costs, or engage in intensive advertising.
There are two more kinds of marketers—a market follower and a market nicher. A market follower is a
runner-up firm that is willing to maintain its market share and not rock the boat. A market nicher serves
a small market segment not being served by larger companies. The key to nichemanship is
specialization.
As important as a competitive orientation is in today’s global markets, companies should not overdo the
emphasis on competitors. They should maintain a good balance of consumer and competitor
monitoring.
Just like Rose Publishing will be conducting intelligence on its competitors, there will be competitors
conducting the same intelligence on Rose Publishing. Knowing how intelligence data is collected gives
us an advantage as to the strategic decisions we make in releasing this internal data publicly. As
mentioned, image-making is crafted very consciously and carefully projected. Therefore, intelligence
decisions in communicating any information publicly involves strategy—and only releasing information
you want the other guys to know.

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Timing
Companies that fail to develop new products are putting themselves at great risk. At the same time,
new-product development is risky. New products continue to fail at a disturbing rate. There are
reasons why new products fail. Some of them are:
 A high-level executive pushes a favorite idea through in spite of negative market research
findings.
 The idea is good, but the market size is overestimated.
 The product is not designed well.
 The product is incorrectly positioned in the market, not advertised effectively, or overpriced.
 The product fails to gain sufficient distribution coverage or support.
 Development costs are higher than expected.
 Competitors fight harder than expected.
 The product simply did not live up to customers expectations
 The timing was not correct.
Up to now, Aspire Press has existed only as a word description, a drawing of sorts—a prototype. Now
you are ready to develop the idea to commercialization. This step involves a large jump in investment
that dwarfs the costs incurred in the earlier stages of development. At this stage, the company will
determine whether the product idea can be translated into a technically and feasible product. When
prototypes are ready, they should be put through rigorous functional tests and customer tests.
Consumer testing can take several forms, including focus group research as previously discussed.
When Rose Publishing moves ahead with commercialization, it will face its largest costs to date in the
development of Aspire Press. A major cost is marketing. Most new-product campaigns rely on a
sequenced mix of market communications tools. In commercializing a new product, market-entry
timing is critical. But timing is peculiar and particular.
Timing itself is not pragmatic. It is not a precept or a set of rules that can be followed, but a percept—
sensory signals that are picked up by the brain and then applied to the selling situation. When you
combine the perceptory nature of time with all the timing intangibles of selling—correct or appropriate
timing is almost always a judgment call. What this means is that those people, or companies whose
decisions are being made by people, who seem to be blessed with an innate sense of good timing are
really those people who are most sensitively attuned—to themselves, to their customers, and to the
selling environment itself. Any selling situation—whether it’s a simple transaction or a complex series of
maneuvers covering several years—gives off its own unique sensory signals, which are there for anyone
to pick up.
We can use our common sense when rolling out the Aspire Press Launch campaign. A calculated
strategy, as outlined in this report, reduces risk. Once we have segmented the market, chosen our
target customer groups and identified their needs, and determined its desired market positioning, we
are ready to develop and launch our new imprint, Aspire Press. The management team should

ROSE PUB--25 Ideas by D_Thorwart

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