Marketing Plan
I'm going to toss my 2 cents in here, just because I think I have a few good points to convey (nothing like boosting my self-esteem, eh?)
First off, I can certainly understand your desire to want to have a "blueprint" to work from for your marketing plan. Not that you would be copying it and passing it off as your own, but that you could use some of the basic framework to build your marketing plan around. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I'll try to persuade you to go the longer route and devise something truely your own.
An immediate question that I have is: have you looked through any books about writing a business plan? If not, I would highly recommend it. You wouldn't need to purchase them, as I would hope that your library would have a couple that you could use/check out. My point with you using these is they will provide some of that framework that you seek, but still be open-ended enough that you will still need to work at putting together your total marketing package/plan.
Another thing to do, and this you could do with others in your class, is to brainstorm ideas for marketing. Leave nothing on the table; offer up every conceivable idea that you can think of. From there, you will have a list of potential marketing ideas that you can then pick and choose from for your plan. Also keep in mind that some of these ideas would be expensive at first, but after the business has been operating for a few years would be financially doable. This would give you some long-range marketing goals/plans, which is good to have in your plan.
Another thought for you: why not go and talk with some of the different media reps? They could give you actual costs/figures that you can use in your plan. You want to know how much it costs to purchase radio ads, how much newspaper ads are, etc.. These are real-world figures that will vary from location to location, and its best to know your area. Also, you could speak with area banks/lenders to see what they look for in a marketing plan. Then you would have something to back up your ideas in your plan when questioned by your instructor.
Part of the process of doing these plans (I did them too in my college career) is that you stretch yourself, both creatively and in other areas. It is sometimes fearful to do something that, for you, is completely new; its safer in some ways to take what someone else has done and modify it for your use. However, I think that you will be surprised at what you will end up with if you take my advice and that of the others before me who have posted on this topic. In our shop, we do a bunch of different marketing: newspapers, local publications, Internet (website), brochures, radio spots (in the process right now), banners, and some other things. My business plan that I wrote actually didn't have all of these as marketing tools, but we still go financing anyway. What mattered is that we did our homework, understood our area/market, and could back it up with solid numbers. The marketing, while sparse in our plan, still was solid because it allowed us to reach as many people as we could for the limited dollars that we had.
I hope that I have not discouraged you in your efforts. I just know that when I was in the same boat as you are now, I had the same thoughts and feelings. But when I really looked at what I wanted to do, I basically had to make it up myself, because that's when I could truely convey what I wanted for my business, my vision. You'll have a much more solid plan this way, I'm positive about that. I'd be happy to help out more if you would like. You could send me an e-mail from our website,
www.thecomfyplacecoffeehouse.com.
