The marketing plan that you'll develop in this module is only required for submission by Senior Division teams. However, we strongly recommend that Junior Division teamsย do the activities in this unit as well.
Learning Objectives:
In this module, you will learn...
What a marketing plan is used for
The parts of a marketing plan
How to develop a marketing plan
Parts of a Marketing Plan
A marketing plan is a document that describes a companyโs marketing, brand, and advertising efforts for the year. The marketing plan is closely tied to the business plan, since the main goal is to support the business plan to make revenue. In most cases, this means building the brand and increasing awareness of the product through different types of communications. Without a marketing plan, a business could easily fail because potential customers do not know about the product and what it does to make life better. You need to understand who you are selling to in order to develop how you are going to sell to them.
There are many types of marketing plans. Some are highly detailed or and some are very simple, but we are going to stick to three main parts of the marketing plan:
Goals - what you aim to achieve
Strategy - how you plan to achieve your goals
Assessment - how to determine whether or not you have achieved your goals
As you develop your marketing plan, youโre going to need some of the information you gathered in Market Research, so keep that handy.
โKnowing what must be done does away with fear.โ
โRosa Parks
Marketing Goals
Before diving into the specifics of your marketing plan, you need to identify the things you want to accomplish. Your goals should be fairly broad, but specific enough to help you identify ways to support your business. These goals are the building blocks of your marketing plan, which should match up with the goals of your business plan.
You should also refer back to what you learned in your market research. Knowing what your competitors are doing and what kind of market you will be entering can help decide what your goals will be. You might want to study their marketing goals and strategiesโwhat is working and not workingโor go in another direction.
If it seemsย information is missing from your market research report, try goingย to competitors'ย websites and social media profiles to study what they've done.ย Or, use some freeย marketing tools to learn more about what they're marketing strategy is. You want to have an idea of what sort of goals your competitors are setting, which will help you decide which goals are right for your app.
Marketing Goal Tips:
Do not go into a lot of detail on how goals will be accomplished, since your explanations will come later when you work on strategy.
Goals should be measurable so you can determine whether or not your plan is working.
Here are a few examples of goals for someone who is launching a new mobile app:
Increase number of downloads (or number of new customers)
Work as a team to brainstorm goals you want to achieve. Consider what you will use to evaluate your goals. The easiest way to determine whether or not a goal was achieved is growth rate. Growth rates are typically calculated by percent increase (or decrease) of the variable you're measuring over time. These type of evaluation can show the rate of growth more easily than just comparing two numbers. You will want also assign a value that you want to achieve and set a goal to achieve it within a certain amount of time. For example:
At least 100 app downloads per month
Getting at least 10 likes per post
Reaching $100 in sales per week
Once youโve brainstormed a few goals, work together to narrow it down to 2-3 goals in total. You should make sure your goals are realistic, so you are able to achieve them without making them so high that youโll be discouraged if you are unable to reach them. And if you get stuck or are unsure about your goals, here are a few questions you and your team might want to ask yourselves:
Can we develop a method to reach this goal?
Do the numbers, time frame, and costs seem practical?
Has my competition or have other companies done similar things?
Can these goals be tracked for assessment?
If you said no to more than 2 of the above questions, you might want to reevaluate your marketing goals. This can be changing the numbers, or breaking one large goal into more manageable pieces. You want to be able to grow your business and stretch your capabilities, and to do that you need your goals to be clear and actionable.
Remember, no one tries to eat a whole cake in one sitting! They eat one piece at a time. Once youโre comfortable with the goals you have set for yourself, youโre ready to move on to the next section, marketing strategy.
Marketing Strategy
When it comes to marketing, there are many different types of strategies that you can use, but we will be sticking to the 4Pโs: product, price, promotion, and place. We will tackle each, and you'll likely notice where marketing and business work together.
Productย
In this case, our product is very simple, itโs the app we are making! Otherwise, it can be a good or service that is designed to meet a customerโs needs.
Price
The amount the consumer is expected to pay for a product. This is not related to how you make money, but how you would price your apps to attract a customer.ย Consult your revenue model.
Promotion
Here is where you want to make your app well known! Depending on the kind of app you develop, you can use different kinds of promotions to get more customers. Different types of promotion cost different amounts, so be sure to reference your business plan and budget when considering promotion options.
Here are some promotion strategies:
Discounts:ย giving out coupons, freebies, or discounts to customers who use your product, usually used in the beginning to grow a customer base. A great option is buy-one-give-one, which can be charitable andย used to increase your user base!
Media advertising:ย radio, online, print, or television that is used to promote to a large amount of people
Social media:ย Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, or YouTube can be used to also promote to a large amount of people, and can be targeted to certain audiences.
Google Adwords:ย paying for your product to pop up when consumers search for certain keywords
Viral media:ย making catchy videos or photos that gain name and brand recognition through social media
Networking:ย Using your local connections to promote your app. You can also try using email too. Knowing an important figure or influencer to speak on the behalf of your app can be very helpful.
Place (distribution)
This is based on where your customers will access your product. Since itโs a mobile app, you are generally restricted to the Google Play or Apple Store. However, you can make your app look great in the virtual stores by writing a strong description, using keywords your customer will relate to, and helpful screenshots. Another way to add to your distribution is developing an online website to support your app.
You may want to refer back to the Market Research to find the keywords youโll want to use to attract the right customers, and reference your brand to write your description in the way you want your app to be portrayed.
Fore more information on Marketing strategies, see the additional resources below:
"Stay focused, go after your dreams and keep moving toward your goals."
โLL Cool J
Marketing Assessment
In order to check the progress of your marketing plan in action, youโll want to think of ways to track your goals, which is called metrics. The metrics that you want to measure will depend on the different types of goals you are trying to achieve. For example, if you wanted to keep track of app downloads, there are features built into Google Play and Apple Store that you can use if you choose to upload your app. Check out our Google Play Developer Console from the app we created for the first coding challenge! We can track how many users installed our app, how many uninstalled it and we can even see the breakdown of which country the app is being downloaded in.
Our app has only been in the Google Play Store for 3 months, so we can see that weโve had 11 downloads over that time. We can see we had a few downloads in September, 2 in October and we are already up to 6 for November! We can also see that 1 person has uninstalled our app. If we scroll down a little more, we can see information about how many people reviewed our app and what they gave us as a rating.
In total weโve had 6 ratings, and our app was rated once in September and then 5 more times in November. We can also get a breakdown of how many stars the ratings are for.
All of this data is really helpful for us to know if our app is succeeding! Social media apps can help a lot with marketing, and they have their own tracking tools that you can use instead of creating your own. One of the most popular and flexible applications to use is Google Analytics, which gives you a lot of options with what you want to track, how you want to track it, and the way the information is displayed. It can be a little difficult to get started, so weโve included a few guides that can help:
Congratulations, you are done with your marketing plan! Letโs review what you did:
Set your marketing goals
Created strategies to achieve your goals
Found a way to track and assess your progress
Make sure to finalize your marketing planโyou might even want to write it up in a short report. You can always go back and improve your marketing plan as you learn more and your business grows. Remember, you are making sure you understand how you will sell to your target customer through your market research and developing your marketing plan from that information. Sometimes you might even have to go back to your market research and revise or do more research. Your marketing plan can change as many other factors change, like your product (or its features), the way consumers view your brand, or even budgets. Itโs up to you to be flexible and modify your plans as best you can.
Senior Division
You will need a marketing plan as partย of your business plan that you will submit. Your team can do the work together, or feel free to delegate it to one team member. Make sure to have someone outside of your team take a look, like a mentor or teacher who can help give you feedback. Investors place a lot of importance on marketing, since even great products can fail due to poor marketing.
Youโve already come up with a business name and have a sense of what your businessโs โpersonalityโ is, so itโs time to make some visuals for your brand! Visuals are how your brand looks to everyone. It includes your logo, color scheme, and font. Itโs really important to keep your visuals consistent because itโs how people will identify your brand and recognize it when they see it. To start, let's begin with identifying some colors to help express your brand.
You may have a favorite color, but that doesnโt mean that it is the best color to use for your companyโs brand! Did you know that colors have emotions associated with them and make people feel a certain way? This can be different for everyone, but itโs important to consider these emotions when you choose a color scheme for your brand. This next section will talk about color preferences and associations in the United States. Since these association vary in different countries or cultures, you should look them to see what they mean in your country or culture. Here are some examples:
RED
Passionate, Aggressive, Important, Revolution
ORANGE
Playful, Energetic, Cheap, Vibrancy
YELLOW
Happy, Friendly, Warning, Wisdom
GREEN
Natural, Stable, Prosperous, Honesty
BLUE
Serene, Trustworthy, Inviting, Loyalty
PURPLE
Luxurious, Mysterious, Romantic, Inspiration
BROWN
Earthy, Sturdy, Rustic
BLACK
Powerful, Sophisticated, Edgy, Formality
WHITE
Clean, Virtuous, Healthy, Innocence
GRAY
Neutral, Formal, Gloomy, Modesty
Watch this video to learn a little more about color psychology:
Choosing colors that complement and build on your brand's "personality" is a huge part of creating visuals for your brand! With the endless possible color combinations that could be used, this choice can be very intimidating. But, you do already have an understanding of your brand's personality, and now you know what emotions and qualities people typically associate with colors.
Activity: Choose a Color
With your team, identify one of the colors in the chart above that best represents your brand's personality. For example, if you want people to identify your product as being exciting and new, you might choose orange as the color that best represents your brand!
Color Schemes
Now you have a color! Congratulations! Don't start making all your visual materials yet, though. Colors tend to work best when they have friends! But, as with people, choosing the right friends is very important! Lucky for you and your chosen color, we have some tips!
To start, let's get a better understanding of how colors work together. You've likely seen a color wheel before, like this:
This color wheel includes 3 rows of colors. They are:
Hues, which are colors that have names like red,blue,green,orange, etc. These are found in the "middle row" of the color wheel.
Tints (hue + white) are found in the outermost row of the color wheel.
Shades (hue + black) are found in the innermost row of the color wheel.
As you can see, even though you've chosen a brand color, you'll have to choose a variation of that colorโwhether it's a fully saturated hue (no tint or shade), is mixed with another color (such as orange-red), or is a tint or shade!
This choice can enhance how well your chosen color expresses your brand's qualities. For example, a highly saturated orange hue might indicate excitement and adventure. If the orange hue is actually yellow-orange, then it will give a lighthearted, happy feeling. However, if you choose a shade of this same yellow-orange, it could look murky or even give a feeling of illness! A tint of the same yellow-orange will look bright and airy.
While making this choice, it's best to keep in mind how your color will work with others that you've chosen. Colors are usually paired in a handful of different ways, but here are the basics:
Complementary color combinations pair a color with it's exact opposite on the color wheel, as shown below. These can be the most vibrant color combinations, especially if both colors are fully saturated. These can be overwhelming when used in large doses, but can bring attention to things that you want to stand out.
Split-Complementary color combinations are similar to complementary color schemes, except that one of the colors is replaced by the two adjacent to it on either side. This reduces the tension that can be present in complementary color schemes, while still having a lot of contrast.
Analogous color combinations are colors that sit next to each other on the color wheel. These combinations help give a sense of serenity and calm. However, when using these you'll need to be sure to create enough contrast so that your brand visuals are easy to read.
Triadic color combinations are made of 3 colors that are equally spaced on the color wheel. Even if you use tints or shades, these color combinations can be very bold and energetic.
Activity: Choose a Color Scheme
With your teammates, choose a color scheme. Use the color that you chose in the last activity as your primary color, from which all other colors will be chosen on the color wheel. Remember to consider different tints and shades, and keep in mind the meaning of the colors as well as which ones look nice together! Here are a few resources that can help make choosing colors easy:
Donโt worry about choosing a color that isnโt available in the presets in App Inventor. There will be instructions below on how to add new colors to App Inventor.
Tip: Stuck? Start with a photo! Find or take a photograph of something that helps identify your brand. It could be a location, an object, or anything else! This blog post has great examples!
Fonts
Fonts are also really important when establishing your visual identity.ย The examples we give apply most directly to fonts with Latin character sets (character sets for writing in English, Spanish, French, etc.), but someย of the basic principles may beย useful for non-latin languages (Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, etc.).
Just like colors, a font, or the way that text looks, can help express your brand's identity. Every font has a personality and historic meaning/context that people recognize and associate with it, even if they aren't aware of it! There are hundreds of fonts that you can choose from, so it helps to know a little bit about them in order to make the best choice. This section will go through some font basics to help you choose a fonts! Can you tell the difference between theย two sets of letters below?
ย These redย marks on these lettersย are called serifs, and fonts that have them are called serif fonts.ย It's fun to think of those extra marks as being little feet!
ย Fonts that don't have serifs are called sans-serifs.
Serif Fonts
The extra marks at the end of serif letters can look really different in different fonts. Some serif fonts have really small feet like Times New Roman, and some have really big feet, like this slab font! Take a look through the fonts you have on your computer. Can you spot any fonts that have serifs?
Serif fonts give a feeling of history, and often authority or formality. This is for a very good reasonโthe very first printed letters were a type of serif called blackletter! If you choose a serif font, you can expect it to carry some of this history with it, and a feeling of wisdom and age. However, there are some exceptions, including a family of fonts called slab-serifs, which are a much more recent development and so they carry some character similarities shared with sans-serifs.
Sans-Serif Fonts
Sans-serif fonts are a much more recent family. They represent youth andย a new way of thinking. They were first developed to meet the needs of modern advertising and readability at a variety of sizes and distances. These are most likely what you'll choose for your brand.ย There are aย variety of choices among sans-serif fonts. Look through your computer to find some that you like!
Here are some resources if you're curious to learn more:
Now, get ready to choose a font (or two)! ย Here are some steps to help you pick out the best fonts for your brand with your team.
Even if you don't have a thorough understanding of typography, you can likely identify fonts that express your brand's identity. A great way to do this is to test different fonts on a neutral phrase or word and see what voice it seems to have. For example, a thick, heavy font with tightly spaced letters such as Impact might speak in a loud voice, like a shout! Or, a thin and delicate font like Syncopate might seem to talk with a sophisticated whisper. List a few fonts that feel right for your brand. Try not to let your personal favorites influence your choice.
Now, let's test the fonts you chose for readability. Test fonts in the words you want to at different sizes to make sure they are readable. Are there any that are hard to read in large sizes from a distance? Rule these out. Find the one font that works best. This will be your display font, used for headers and/or the logotype.
Now, you'll search for a highly readable font for body text, or large sections of type. You'll want to be very careful in selecting a body text that complements your display text as fonts can clash just like colors can! Here are a few quick tips:
Serifs can often be paired with sans-serifs successfully. Think of these as the type version of complementary colorsโopposites attract!
Contrast is good! Avoid pairing fonts that look too similar.
Imagine the "voice" that the font speaks with, just like you did with the display font. Does it complement your brand and the display font?
Consider readability. A font chosen for body text has to be readable at small sizes in paragraph form. Test this just like you did for the display font.
Test the font next to your display font, just as you think it will be shown in your app.
Take a look at the font choices App Inventor includes! If you're able to use one of these, it will make coding your app much easier!
Google Fonts a great resource for hundreds of free fonts! We highly recommend using Google fonts as they are free to use anywhere. Other fonts may have restrictions.
Thinking with Typeย isย another great digital book on all things typography
Once you've decided on a font or two, you may need to install them. Watch this video for Windows 10 or this video for Mac OS X.
Logos
Now that you've chosen colors and fonts for your brand, it's time to start creating your logo! A logois a symbol that represents a company. A companyโs logo aims to capture its goals, purpose, and personality all into a simple mixture of symbols and words. It sounds hard but letโs break it down into smaller pieces. There are three common types of logos:
Type
Example
Technovation Team Example
Word Mark
Loc8 don8 by team California Coders 2016
Symbol or Icon
Degreebee app by team CRException 2016
Combination
cAppAble by team X-Women in 2015
ย Now, think about each of the logos above, and any examples that come to mind that aren't shown. Which are best for displaying as a social media profile image? Which are best for displaying on a poster? Which are most immediately recognizable? What do you think makes them successful (or not)?
Activity:ย Brainstormย a Logo
For this activity, each team member will need several small pieces of paper or index cards.
Brainstorm some images that you think represent the problem you are trying to solve. Think about the people involved, the environment that is affected, and the solution you are proposing. Look at pictures on the internet as well as in books, magazines and anything else you have around you!
Take 15 minutes for each team member to draw quick sketches in pen or pencil of what the logo might look like. The logo can be any of the types shown in the chart above (wordmark, icon, or combination). Try to make the sketches as quickly as possible, without pausing to think. Just draw and see what happens!
After 15 minutes you and your teammates should have a large pile of sketches. If not, repeat step 1.
Together, look over the sketches. Choose a handful that are promising, or have qualities that could even be combined to create a stronger logo. Talk over these and sketch out 5 more logo ideas, this time more carefully and keeping in mind the way you want your logo to be used:Keep your logo simple. This will make it easy to discern at large and small sizes.
Think about how your logo will look on your app and where it will go.
Logos express an identity, so think about the things that define your business
Ask yourself, โWhat do I want people to think of when they see this logo?โ
Try designing oneย or more of the logos on the computer. You can try using this free logo design tool!
Once you are done, send your logo, color scheme and font choice to your mentor!
Applying to your App
Now that you've choose a color scheme, fonts and created a logo, it's time to apply these to your app! Try different placements of your logo and colors to see what works best.
Tips for adding colors in App Inventor
Donโt worry if the colors you choose arenโt in App Inventorโs presets. Hereโs how to make a new color in App Inventor: Make Custom Colors in App Inventor. ย To make new colors in App Inventor, youโll need to know the RBG value of the color. You may already have this value from the color scheme tools above, but if you donโt, use this tool to find out the RGB values of your colors: RGB Color Finder.
It is helpful to save the colors you choose as variables so you can use them throughout your app! Hereโs an example of how to do that!
Another way to add colors in App inventor is by referring to this color list where a handful of colors are listed as number codes. We used the color code -8388652 to turn a button the color aquamarine:
Here is how our button looked on our display:
Tips for adding fonts in App Inventor
Fonts can be trickier to add in App Inventor. Right now, App Inventor gives you a choice of three fonts, a serif, a sans-serif, and monospaced. If you leave the font as โdefaultโ it will be the sans-serif. An easy way to use a custom font is to upload a picture of your text in the font you want. This works best for headlines and titles.
For large amounts ofย small text it will be easier to pick one of App Inventorโs presets. If you find yourself in this situation, test which App Inventor preset looks best with your headline and logo!
For example, we took a screenshot of "Headline" in our display font, Eagle Book, and then uploaded it in a horizontal arrangement next to our logo. We adjusted the height and width of the horizontal arrangement until it looked how we wanted! We then choose the default serif font to go along with our title.
Tip: To get some extra space above the logo and title, we added a blank label at the top of the screen and adjusted the size of the text in it until we got the amount of space we wanted.
โ This text is an image,
which we placed into the app โ
Reflection
Congratulations on making the visuals for your brand! The visuals will be a huge part of what people think of when they see your app! Complete the reflection activity below before moving on!
Show your brand visuals to someone who isnโt your mentor or on your team. Ask them what your logo, color scheme and font choices make them think of. Does their answer make sense with your brand? If it doesnโt, what changes could you make to have your visuals align more the goals of your company?
If someone told you that a color is โlight blue greenโ, you would have an idea of the color they are talking about. However, computers canโt understand this, so they rely on something called a RGB values to know what a color is.
An RGB value uses three numbers to describe a color to a computer. The first number tells the computer how intense the reds are, the second tells how intense the greens are, and the third how intense the blues are. The numbers can be anywhere between 0 and 225. Letโs look at some examples!
Hubspot: How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business-แฐแแแกแแแขแ: แ แแแแ แจแแแฅแแแแ แแแขแแแฃแ แ แแงแแแแแแ แแแ แแแแแแแแ แแฅแแแแ แแแแแแกแแกแแแแก
แแฅแขแแแแ: ย แแแ แ ย แแ แแ แแแ แ ย (WE ARE WE ARE NOT)
For [แกแแแแแแ แแแแฎแแแ แแแแแ], the [แแ แแแแ] is the [แแแคแแ แแแชแแแชแแแก แแ แกแ] among all [แฉแแ แฉแ] because [แ แแขแแ แฃแแแ แแแแแฏแแ แแ].
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In total weโve had 6 ratings, and our app was rated once in September and then 5 more times in November. We can also get a breakdown of how many stars the ratings are for.
