Marketing Plan for Folio Books: SMART Objectives and Competitive Analysis

The main motive of this report is to learn the concept of marketing plan. In this paper, market plan is developed for Folio Book as it enters the online market to sell the books. In this report, the competitive analysis has been done. It has been found that the Amazon is the main competitor of the company that delivers the similar services to consumers.

Marketing Management

MARKETING 1
Executive Summary
The main motive of this report is to learn the concept of marketing plan. In this paper, market
plan is developed for Folio Book as it enters the online market to sell the books. In this report,
the competitive analysis has been done. It has been found that the Amazon is the main
competitor of the company that delivers the similar services to consumers. In this paper, the
marketing plan is prepared by using the 7 P’s such as price, place, promotion, people, physical
evidence, product, and process. The marketing plan is designed to attain the SMART Objectives.
The Gantt Chart represent the monthly activities to spread the online business of the company.
At the end of the report, the porter’s generic strategies, attractive designs are given as
recommendation to the company to attain the market share.

MARKETING 2

MARKETING 3
Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Phrase One- Goal Setting............................................................................................................................3
Corporate Mission Statement..................................................................................................................3
New Target Market Goals.......................................................................................................................3
Phase Two- Situation Review of Current Folio Books Market................................................................4
Description..............................................................................................................................................4
SWOT analysis........................................................................................................................................4
Current marketing strategies and target market.......................................................................................5
Competitive positioning analysis.............................................................................................................8
PHASE THREE – Strategy formulation and target market segmentation...................................................9
SMART objectives..................................................................................................................................9
New target market...................................................................................................................................9
Marketing Plan Mix...............................................................................................................................13
PHASE FOUR – Resource allocation and monitoring..............................................................................15
Marketing Plan Activity............................................................................................................................15
Financial Plan............................................................................................................................................16
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................17
Recommendations.....................................................................................................................................17
References.................................................................................................................................................19
Appendix...................................................................................................................................................22

MARKETING 4
Introduction
Marketing Plan is a business document outlining the marketing strategy. It covers the
variety of marketing related details such as goals, cost and action steps. In this paper, the
discussion is made on marketing plan (Kotler, Burton, Deans, Brown, & Armstrong, 2015). The
main purpose of this report is to understand the concept of marketing plan. In this paper, the
marketing plan is prepared for Folio Books. Folio Books is the books store that offers the wide
range of books. Now, the book store wants to expand their business online to provide the
services to large number of consumers. The marketing plan of Folio Book is prepared by
analyzing the market environment.
Phrase One- Goal Setting
Corporate Mission Statement
The mission of Folio Books is to provide the books of great writers in whole world.
Vision of the store is to spread the services in whole world to spread the knowledge and
productive information.
New Target Market Goals
Folio Book Store sets the new targets while establishing the online store. Before establishing
the business, the store has to sets the SMART Goal. The new targets are discussed below:
 The main goal is to spread the knowledge and information about the world.
 Another goal is to achieve the profits by the particular month
 Folio Book store is to earn approximately $20000 in sales by Year 3.

MARKETING 5
 Increasing the viewers of readers or buyers per month (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, and
Wright, 2017).
Phase Two- Situation Review of Current Folio Books Market
Description
Folio is owned by the London publisher, which was incorporated in 1971. This edition
features special binding and finally includes artist- commissioned and the researched artworks.
The main goal of folio is to produce editions of world`s literature in an worthy way (Folio
Books, 2019).
SWOT analysis
Strengths Weaknesses
Strengthened of local store network
Wide variety of fiction, general books
and non-fiction in several languages
such as Chinese, English, Malay
The store has a relaxing ambience for
new reading and finding experience for
the book lovers.
Attractive colouring walls and also have
different department to provide the
books
Different shelves for discounted books
The company has been expanding by
bringing several issues such as customer
power because of lack of market research
Effected by IT (information technology) and
internet where the market for traditional
books and papers will not be bright enough
to distribute the resources
Electronic business has been taking more
and more position in the modern era
(Phadermrod, Crowder, & Wills, 2019).

MARKETING 6
to attract the consumers.
Opportunities Threats
With development of internet and
information technology, traditional book
store faces big opportunities while
developing in new market
Traditional management system has the
chance to create, and become efficient and
effective
Opportunities for popular organisation will
enhance and affect Asian area by
conducting and participating in book
festivals
The store lacks consumer confidence in
order to buy the online system
Increased transportation cost by the courier
company
Monopoly in the online business as being
held by the players
Current marketing strategies and target market
Earlier, Folio Book store is physical store that offers the wide range of book services to
consumers. The current marketing segment of Folio Book Store is
Types of
segmentatio
n
Segmentatio
n Criteria
Folio Book target segment
Books Services Favourable
Operating
Area of
services

MARKETING 7
System
Geographic Density Urban/rural Urban/rural Urban/rural Urban/rural
Age All Age 18-30 20-35 20-45
Demographic Gender Males and
Females
Males and
Females
Males and
Females
Males and
Females
Life-cycle
Stage
Bachelor;
Married;
Couples;
Children;
Students:
Families:
Youth;
Old age
Bachelor;
Married;
Couples;
Children;
Students:
Families:
Youth;
Old age
Bachelor;
Married;
Couples;
Children;
Students:
Families:
Youth;
Old age
Bachelor;
Married;
Couples;
Children;
Students:
Families:
Youth;
Old age
Income High earners
Middle Class
High earners
Middle Class
High earners;
Middle Class
High earners;
Middle Class
Occupation Professionals,
students;
Professors,
Students
Managers,
Managers,
Executives,
Professionals,
students;
Professors,

MARKETING 8
executive and
managers
Professionals,
Professors,
students;
Professionals,
Professors,
students
executive and
managers
Behavioural Degree of
Loyalty
Strong
loyalty;
Strong
loyalty;
Strong
loyalty;
Strong
loyalty;
Benefits
sought
Knowledgeabl
e
Advance
intelligence
Knowledgeabl
e
Knowledgeabl
e
Knowledgeabl
e
Advance
intelligence
User status Potential, and
new readers
Potential, and
new readers
Potential, and
new readers
Potential, and
new readers
Psychographi
c
Social class Middle and
upper classes
Middle and
upper classes
Middle and
upper classes
Middle and
upper classes
Lifestyle Succeeded
Explorer;
Educated
Succeeded
Explorer;
Educated
(Aghdaie, &
Alimardani,
2015).
Succeeded
Explorer;
Educated
Succeeded
Explorer;
Educated

MARKETING 9
Competitive positioning analysis
Folio Books has to analyze the threat of competitors while enter the market. It is required
to analyze the competitive companies and their strategies so that it can provide the services to
consumers.
High Cost
Low
Quality
High Quality
Low Cost
AmazonPeachpit
Folio Books

MARKETING 10
There are various book stores that provide the similar services to consumers. The famous
online book stores are Peachpit, Valore Books, Alibris, and the others that provide the wide
range of books to the people for increasing the knowledge. The main competitor of Folio Book is
Amazon as it provides the wide range of books to the people. Amazon is the online book seller
that sells the books in the whole world. The threat of competition is high for Folio Books while
establishing the online book store in the market (Zhukova, 2017).
PHASE THREE – Strategy formulation and target market segmentation
SMART objectives
The SMART objective can be-
 Targeting 20000 viewers per month
 Achieve sustainable profits in a year
 Enter the new market every month by organizing campaigns to promote online store
 Invited authors to sell their books to increases the wide range of books in store to attract
new viewers in every six month
 Earning $20000 in million in sales by year 3
 Two potential new target segments with justification of one purpose plan
New target market
The store will target current college students so that it can fill the positions in the regional
campus marketing, advertisement, customer support, sales, and other critical operational
positions (Wheelen, et. al, 2017).The company can mainly target those consumers who are

MARKETING 11
already users of the company. The company has to target the same consumer with the new target
people. These are discussed below:
Segmentation Type
Segmentation Criteria
Target Customer
Segment
Geographic Region Folio Book is
available in all over
the world. The main
target are those
market where the
large number of
people lives together
or have the large
number of youngster
Such as India and
China.
India and China are
the countries that
have huge number of
teenagers
Density Urban/ rural areas

MARKETING 12
Age All age of people can
target by the
company.
Above 16, the
teenager uses this
online platform
Demographic Gender Male, Female and
others
Occupation Not compulsory but
more preference is
given to educated
people, business
professionals,
College students,
teachers, readers and
all other customer
segments (Shareef,
et. al, 2016).
Life Cycle Stage Lifetime
Loyalty High brand loyalty
Folio Book provides
the quality of services
to consumers

MARKETING 13
Satisfy the consumer
demands
(Schlegelmilch, &
Bodo 2016)."
Behavioural Behaviour It target those
consumers who are
interested to read the
books
Highly qualified
people that can read
the books.
Less price cautions
while purchasing the
books
Psychographic
Social class, lifestyle
Upper class and
middle Class who can
easily afford its
prices (Pyo, 2015)

MARKETING 14
Marketing Plan Mix
Product:
The main product of Folio Book is its Books. The company has to provide the books in
the wide range. It is a fact the readers always want the different variety of books to gain the high
knowledge. The company has to design the website in different segments or under segments such
as books. Under the heading of Books, the company has to put the under sub headings which is
classified as per the theme and concept with writers so; the 20000 readers can easily found their
books attracted towards it (Pavlou, & Stewart, 2015).
Price:
Folio Books has to set the low prices at the initial stage to attract the more or more
readers towards its services. After six months or one year, the company has to increases the
prices so that it achieves the sustainable profits. It helps to meet the objective of the company
that is $ 20000 million in sales in three years (Festa, Cuomo, Metallo, & Festa, 2016).
Promotion
Folio Books has to promote the online book store in the market. It has been seen that the
people attracts towards the books with the attractive or highly design cover page that is why; it is
recommending that the company has to deliver the books to consumers with the attractive
packaging with the tiny gifts such as page holder. It helps to attract the number of consumers that
enhance the sales volume (Světlík, 2017).
The company can also organize the campaigns before or while entering the new market.
In this campaigns or seminar, it can invite the famous authors to read the books and also sharing

MARKETING 15
their real life cases with the people. In these seminars, coupons have been given to special guests
and also offer free coupons to those consumers who buy the books from online store. These
market strategies help the organization to achieve the profit by increasing the sales every month.
The company can use the different channels to spread the awareness about the services such as
television, social media, radio, newspaper and the others.
Place
The company has to distribute the online services to consumers that is why; it has to
design the distribution channel in a manner so that it can supply the books to readers in few days.
The company has to appoint the suppliers or agents in every market to supply the books by
developing the connection with the book stores in the market. A quick service helps the
organization to attract the consumers or also make easy step to enter the international market
(Ansoff, Kipley, Lewis, Helm-Stevens, & Ansoff, 2018).
People
The company has to hire the suppliers who distribute the books to people in short period of time.
The company also has to hire the managers or supervisors in all areas so that the activities will
manage properly. It also has to hire the It department experts or the web designers to design or
update the website to attract the consumers.
Process
The company has to design the operating process in a smooth manner so that it operates
effectively without any delays or refuse the consumers. The company has to maintain the stocks,
update website on regular basis, supervisors to handle the suppliers of every area.

MARKETING 16
Physical Evidence
The company has to target the college student as they are more interested to read the
different types of books of different writer. The company can also target the author or readers
those are interested to read the books of different writers. Although, the all age of people can
target by the company to attract the consumers or increasing the sale.
PHASE FOUR – Resource allocation and monitoring
Marketing Plan Activity
Gantt chart
Month
1
Month
2
Month
3
Month
4
Month
5
Month
6
Licensing
Website Designing
Contracts with Authors and
Shopkeepers
Hiring supervisor
Hiring Suppliers
Promotion

MARKETING 17
Distribution Channel
Performance Measurement
Improvements
Financial Plan
Projected Cash flow
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
Cash received
Cash sales
$
21,562.50 $ 30,377.40
$
40,698.00
Cash received from receivables
$
31,702.50 $ 35,325.00
$
32,868.90
Cash flow from operating
activities
$
53,265.00 $ 65,702.40
$
73,566.90
Office utilities
$
1,025.00 $ 1,150.00
$
1,280.00
Printing papers
$
520.00
$
640.00
$
780.00
Rent
$
800.00 $ 1,000.00
$
1,200.00
packing materials
$
479.00
$
575.00
$
679.00
Cash from investing activities
$
1,279.00 $ 1,575.00
$
1,879.00
Borrowings
$
15,904.87 $ 39,055.00
$
42,500.00
Repayment of loan
Cash from financial activities
$
15,904.87 $ 39,055.00
$
42,500.00
Net cash flow from activities
$
70,448.87 $ 106,332.40
$
117,945.90
Cash at the beginning 0 $ 25,000.00 $

MARKETING 18
36,500.00
Cash at the ending
$
25,000.00 $ 36,500.00
$
58,600.00
Conclusion
From the above analysis, it is concluded that Folio Books is a publisher company that
provide the books services to consumers. It has been seen that there are various competitors that
provides the similar services to consumers. The company has to designs the plan to attract the
large number of consumers towards the services. As per the SWOT Analysis, it has been seen
that the department of book shop is design in an effective manner as the discount books are offer
in different department. In this marketing plan is prepared that helps to increase the sales to earn
the high profit.
Recommendations
There are some recommendations that the company has to follow to achieve its all SMART
Objectives and these are as follows:
 As per the strength of the company, it is observed that the company different shelves for
different books that help the consumers to identify their books easily. It is suggesting that
the company has to use its strength while designing the website with the different
departments.
 It is also recommending that the company has to enhance the services or provides the
more offers to consumers such as first free delivery charges and the others (Patti, Hartley,
van Dessel, &Baack, 2017).

MARKETING 19
 The company has to provide the option of reading the summary of books from the reader
can read the main concept of book. It also enhances the interest or curiosity of the
consumers to read the books.
 The company has to follows the porter’s generic strategies such as cost leadership,
diversification and focus strategy. These strategies help the organization beat the
competitors (Bell, Dyck, & Neubert, 2017).

MARKETING 20
References
Aghdaie, M. H., & Alimardani, M. (2015). Target market selection based on market segment
evaluation: a multiple attribute decision making approach. International Journal of
Operational Research, 24(3), 262-278.
Ansoff, H.I., Kipley, D., Lewis, A.O., Helm-Stevens, R. & Ansoff, R., (2018). Implanting
strategic management. Springer.
Bell, G. G., Dyck, B., & Neubert, M. J. (2017). Ethical Leadership, Virtue Theory, And
Generic Strategies. Radical Thoughts on Ethical Leadership, 113.
Festa, G., Cuomo, M. T., Metallo, G., & Festa, A. (2016). The (r) evolution of wine
marketing mix: From the 4Ps to the 4Es. Journal of Business Research, 69(5), 1550-
1555.
Folio Books. (2019). About Folio Books. Retrieved From: https://foliobooks.com.au/about-
us/
Kotler, P., Burton, S., Deans, K., Brown, L., & Armstrong, G. (2015). Marketing. Pearson
Higher Education AU.
Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B. and Wright, P.M. (2017). Human resource
management: Gaining a competitive advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill
Education.

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Patti, C.H., Hartley, S.W., van Dessel, M.M. & Baack, D.W. (2017). Improving integrated
marketing communications practices: A comparison of objectives and results. Journal of
marketing communications, 23(4), pp.351-370.
Pavlou, P. A., & Stewart, D. W. (2015). Interactive advertising: A new conceptual
framework towards integrating elements of the marketing mix. In New Meanings for
Marketing in a New Millennium (pp. 218-222). Springer, Cham.
Phadermrod, B., Crowder, R. M., & Wills, G. B. (2019). Importance-performance analysis
based SWOT analysis. International Journal of Information Management, 44, 194-203.
Pyo, S. (2015). Integrating tourist market segmentation, targeting, and positioning using
association rules. Information Technology & Tourism, 15(3), 253-281.
Schlegelmilch, & Bodo B. (2016)."Segmenting Targeting and Positioning in Global
Markets." In Global Marketing Strategy, pp. 63-82. Springer, Cham,
Shareef, Mahmud Akhter, Yogesh K. Dwivedi, & Vinod Kumar. (2016). "Target Marketing
and Development of the Communication Channel." In Mobile Marketing Channel, pp.
103-119. Springer, Cham.
Stead, M., & Hastings, G. (2018). Advertising in the social marketing mix: getting the
balance right. In Social Marketing (pp. 29-43). Psychology Press.
Světlík, J. (2017). Integrating online advertising into integrated marketing communications.
Marketing Identity, 5(1/1), pp. 206-215.

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Wheelen, Thomas L., J. David Hunger, Alan N. Hoffman, and Charles E. Bamford. (2017).
Strategic management and business policy. Pearson.
Zhukova, A. (2017) The 7 Best Alternatives to Amazon for Buying Books. Retrieved From:
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/amazon-alternatives-buying-books/

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Appendix
(Source : Stead, & Hastings, 2018)