Developing a Promotional Campaign

OK - here is a real challenge to your business understanding and skills! Develop a promotional campaign for Xterics Resources. Your job is to plan out the promotional campaign that will ignite public interest in what is a new and unique service, and persuade them to leave their current veterinary practice to use the services of Xterics resources. To launch a successful promotion campaign a number of stages will normally be followed through. Outlined below is what each stage entails:

Stage 1: What are the objectives of the campaign?

A campaign brief will be issued outlining the objectives of the campaign. These should relate to what are called SMART targets - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time related. This ensures that there is a focus to the campaign and that all involved know exactly what they are supposed to be doing and where they are going.

Stage 2: Who is the campaign aimed at?

This will involve identifying who the target market is going to be and this, in turn, may be related to the market segment/s that the business is focusing on. A market segment is a group of people with similar characteristics that may influence spending on the business's products. A market segment might be related to gender, age grouping, occupation, leisure pursuit, lifestyle, house type and so on. This will help to ensure that the campaign gets to the people who are most likely to benefit from it and buy the product/service concerned.

Stage 3: What is the message?

A promotional campaign is designed to try to make customers more aware of a product, brand or service. Getting the right message across is therefore important and as such making sure the message is clear and unambiguous is vital. The message may determine the type of promotional media used - TV, radio, internet and so on.

Stage 4: What is the budget?

Most promotional campaigns will have to work within a pre-determined budget. This will give planners some idea of what they have available to spend and thus will determine the type of promotional media used. The budget might be linked to the expected returns on the project or the amount of investment being put in in the first place.

Stage 5: What mix will be used?

The marketing mix refers to the relative importance of price, product, promotion and place in the marketing function. For some products and services, price might be the crucial factor in determining the success of the product in other cases the product/service itself may be more important. The promotional campaign therefore must ensure that it focuses on what the important elements of the mix are.

Stage 6: What is the time frame?

When the campaign is scheduled to run, for how long and the long term plans need to be considered. In some cases, a campaign might initially run for four weeks and then be 'rested' to return after a few months - possibly in a different format. The launch of a new business such as business opportunity website www.instantbuy-ng.com might be a time of fevered activity and then subsequent campaigns might be needed as specific events take place.

Stage 7: How is the campaign evaluated?

Assessing how the campaign has gone in relation to its objectives will be essential in informing the future direction of subsequent campaigns and learning from the experiences gained. There may be a number of things that happened during the development of the campaign that will need to be addressed by the team and which will help them to not only plan new campaigns more effectively but will also help in the ongoing campaign - remember the time frame in stage 6!

I hope you learnt from new from this post.

To your success!

Felix Smith Aigbonohan 
www.instantbuy-ng.com

The One Attribute Present in All Successful New Ventures

What is needed to successfully start a new business? Most people think it's all about the initial idea or the founding team. And while those don’t hurt, few great companies grew simply because of those elements.

There is one attribute, however, that is present in all successful new ventures and the entrepreneurs who launch them: need for achievement.

Need for achievement is a preference for challenge coupled with an acceptance of personal responsibility for outcomes. A personal drive for accomplishment evidences one’s need for achievement. We may call it drive. We may call it hunger. We may call it being a self-starter, or being self-motivated. All of those would be accurate as we think about need for achievement in this context. 

How could it be that one trait has such an impact on success? Let’s think about it.

1. It breaks down doors.

Starting a business is a venture into uncertainty. Predicting obstacles the startup will face and what the winning idea or strategy will be from the start is impossible. An investor needs to know whether or not the founding team has the tenacity to stick to its vision through all the ups and downs, and if they will learn from them.

2. It fuels hard work.

Starting a business may seem impossible at first. But those who win are not just those with the most power or money, but rather those who are willing to work the hardest and care the most. When faced with likely failure, the only ones left are those who care too much to g. ive up. Success is the result of continued hard work in the face of what may seem to be incredible obstacles.

3. It demonstrates innovation.

Investors are not looking to invest primarily in a big idea or strategy as much as in the character of the entrepreneur. Starting a business is a venture into uncertainty. Predicting obstacles the startup will face and what the winning idea or strategy will be from the start is impossible. An investor needs to know whether or not the founding team has the tenacity to stick to its vision through all the ups and downs, and if they will learn from them. Need for achievement can lead to innovation and new, successful ideas. If entrepreneurs are too stubborn to give up, they will be forced to learn from their mistakes, adapt and advance in order to succeed.

​4. It harnesses natural abilities.

Grit, tenacity and resilience are increasingly becoming part of our criteria for talent, and are often valued more than traditional predictors of success like academic performance.

Talent and intelligence are not enough. Need for achievement is needed to focus and develop talents, and continually apply them to reach goals.

Dr. James V. Green leads the education activities of Mtech as the Director of Entrepreneurship Education at the University of Maryland. Dr. Green's research interests include entrepreneurship education and the psychology of entrepreneurship. Prior to academia, Dr. Green's startup experiences included WaveCrest Laboratories, an innovative start-up in next-generation electric and hybrid-electric propulsion and drive systems (acquired by Magna International, NYSE: MGA), and Cyveillance, a software start-up and world leader in cyber intelligence and intelligence-led physical and cybersecurity (acquired by QinetiQ, LSE: QQ.L).