Product Manager Handbook

Detailed Analysis & Product Marketing Plan

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Table of Contents
Background Analysis......................................................................................................................................................1 Business Assessment..............................................................................................................................................1 Market Analysis.......................................................................................................................................................1 Performance History................................................................................................................................................3 Competitive Analysis................................................................................................................................................4 Market Attractiveness...............................................................................................................................................6 Product Portfolio Analysis.........................................................................................................................................9 Trend Dynamics....................................................................................................................................................10 Synthesis.....................................................................................................................................................................11 Problems and Opportunities...................................................................................................................................11 Sales forecasts/goals.............................................................................................................................................11 Product Marketing Objectives.................................................................................................................................11 Positioning Strategy...............................................................................................................................................12 Action Plan..................................................................................................................................................................12 Marketing Program/Action Plan..............................................................................................................................13 Appendices..................................................................................................................................................................16

Chapter

Product Marketing Plan

Background Analysis

Business Assessment
Monsters vision is bringing people together to advance their lives. The corporate strategy is _____________________ and will leverage Monsters core capabilities in ______________ and development of capabilities in _________________________________. Hierarchy of Strategies

Focus on developing and leveraging core competencies.

Vision Corporate Strategy Divisional Strategy Product/Marketing Strategy Marketing Tactics Customer Satisfaction
Focus on customer specific needs.

Market Analysis
Study of the current and potential customers for a product or product line and then putting them into categories or segments. The segments are groups of customers with common demographics, common needs, and/or common uses for the product. Deliver a manageable number of customer segments (3-7) ranked based on fit with company resources, fit with long-term strategy, cost to reach, and risk to serve. Goals:
1) Provide better understanding of aggregate market including how and why customers buy 2) Ensure better allocation of resources because benefits that specific groups are looking for

are better understood

3) Build competitive edges into products for specific segments 4) Exploit opportunities by uncovering hidden niches

Segmentation Factors Select segmentation factors appropriate for our industry- common factors are below: Demographic Industry Geographic Location Company Size Functional decision maker Profitability Risk Categories Application Importance of purchase Volume Frequency of purchase Performance requirements Support service Desired features Service requirements

Use of Product

Benefits

Product Segmentation by Key Buying Factors Define Key Buying Factors and importance to each segment; sampled filled in below: Segment A
Common purchase-decision criteria
Large customers Price-sensitive Customized products Ability to brand Create own database Large purchases $xxx million xx% $xxx,xxx $xxx,xxx

Segment B

Segment C

Segment D

Price Quality/features Service support Sales coverage ???? Market size Share Average order size Industry average

Key to importance of buying factors: 1 2

Least Important

5
Most Important

Performance History
Existing Customers How well a product performed in a given segment over time and relative to plan. Questions to answer include:
1) Is there a group of heavy users of the product? What percentage of purchasers do they

constitute?
2) Is the primary target market growing, stable, or declining? 3) Under what circumstances do customers purchase the product(s)? 4) How and why is geographical coverage limited? 5) What percentage of customers are national accounts? 6) Are most customers new or repeat buyers? 7) Are the customers end-users? If not, what information is available about the end-user? 8) Are your customers progressive? Traditional? Passive? 9) How sensitive have customers been to past price changes? 10) Does the customer base consist of a few large customers or many small buyers?

The Product
1) What does the name of the product imply? Can it be branded? 2) Which of the features are distinguishable by the customer? 3) For each feature, ask So What? to identify the benefits from the customers point of view. 4) If a numeric rating were given to the product quality (with 1 being low and 7 being high)

what would that rating be? Would the rating be the same from the customers?
5) What does each item in the product line contribute to sales and profits? To customer

satisfaction? Can some of the products be pruned?

6) How does the product line rate of return compare with the companys overall rate of

return?
7) Is the product design conducive to an efficient delivery process? 8) Are product guarantees competitive? 9) What would happen if the products were more standardized? More customized? 10) What is the approach to private labeling? 3

The Sales Force

1) Is the current sales force structure appropriate for achieving the product objectives? 2) Are the target customers being reached in the most effective manner? 3) How effective has the product/sales training been? 4) What sales tools do the salespeople actually use to sell the product? 5) Has the sales force been taught how to help customers visualize the benefits of the

product? Pricing
1) Have significant amounts of business been lost because of product prices? 2) Are errors frequently made in pricing? 3) What is the perceived cost of buying the product? 4) Are we a price leader or a price follower? 5) What is the pricing policy of the company? 6) What types of discounts are offered? How does that compare with the competition?

Promotional Campaigns
1) What is the current image customers have of the product?

Is it consistent with the

advertising?
2) Have prior advertising strategies worked? Why or why not? 3) What non-advertising promotion has been tried? How well did it work?

Competitive Analysis
Competitive review of product performance by segment. Questions to answer include:
1) To which competitors have you lost business and from which have you gained business? 2) Where (in what regions, applications, industries, etc) is competition the strongest? 3) What are the corporate competencies of the companies that own competing products?

What is the relationship between the competencies and the products?

4) What are the list prices of the competing products? The actual prices? 5) What is the market perception of the competing products? Awareness level? Customer

loyalty?

6) Are there any specific product features that are best-in-class against which your product

should be benchmarked?
7) In the competing product a small percentage of its companys business, or is it the main

product of the company? How important are the sales to the competitor, and how much is the company willing to invest to protect these sales? Competitive Analysis Worksheet General Information for FY2004 Product Line: Jobs Market: Segment A Monster CareerBuilder HotJobs Newspaper

Division: Monster
Sales volume (units) Sales revenue Profit Market Share Target market General product strategy Product differentiation Customer image General price strategy Average/list price General promotion strategy General sales strategy Sales force size Sales force strengths

Market Attractiveness
Determine which customers offer the best future return on investment. Customer Analysis Process Starting with the highest level of segmentation, the first step is to determine what needs are distinctly different among the segments. Group the markets into need segments and review 1) how attractive the segments are as a whole and 2) whether Monster has any competitive advantages in addressing segment needs. The analysis should include customers and non-customers to take into account growth potential. To compile this information, sales records should be correlated with demographic characteristics to determine which variables most closely relate to profitability. Does company size, geographic location, type of product, or any other variable help to predict sales? Once the variables are identified, these can be extrapolated to non-customers to estimate market and growth potential. The deliverable from this analysis is a summary of the drivers of loyalty and defining profitable customer segments.

Flow Chart of Customer Analysis Identify and profile best customers

Develop customer value profiles

Attract new customers who have a similar profile

Enhance the profitability of the existing customers

I ncrease the amount 6 of business they do

Extend the length of the relationship

Attractiveness Ratings for Customer Segments

Answer the following questions to gauge attractiveness of market segments. Summarize in table below.
1) What is the market size- total number of customers? 2) What is the growth rate? 3) What is the strength of the competition? 4) What is the price sensitivity of customers? 5) What is the revenue and profitability of existing customers? 6) What is the demand in each segment for the product? 7) What is the products penetration? 8) How many prospects are there in segments that purchase only competitive products? 9) Why do they purchase only competitive products? 10) Is Monster gaining or losing share? 11) Is Monster participating in the most profitable segments in the industry?

Market Segment Segment A Segment B Segment C Segment D Rating of 1 indicates attractive and 5 indicates unattractive Ability-to-Serve Ratings for Customer Segments

Percent of Monster Sales

Percent of Industry Sales

Characteristics of Market Attractiveness (size, growth rate, purchase volumes, etc.)

Rating (1-5)

Appraise whether Monster has any competitive advantages in addressing the segment specific needs. Identify changes that would need to be made to address needs. Rank Monster based on how well it can meet the needs of customers relative to competitors.

Market Segment Segment A Segment B Segment C Segment D

Needs

Requirements to satisfy needs (new products, enhancements skills set, locations, costs, etc.)

Rating (1-5)

Rating of 1 indicates strong competitors with strong ability to satisfy needs; 3 competition is equal to Monster capability; 5 Monster is significantly superior to competition Combine the data from the 2 charts above to form a Market Attractiveness Matrix. The best target market(s) would be in the upper right quadrant where Monster has determined it has a highly attractive customer segment and a high competitive advantage in serving the segment. There may be no segments that fall solidly in this quadrant and in that case, Monster would target the most attractive segment that exists and work on developing product and skills to move the segment to the right quadrant. Some segments that may be unattractive on an absolute basis might turn out to be attractive if they are underserved by the competition.

Market Attractiveness Matrix

high

Market Attractiveness

low

1 1 low Ability to Satisfy Needs (better than competition) 2 3 4 high 5

Balancing Customer Retention and Acquisition Identifying the means to grow customer equity through a combination of a) increasing the profitability of existing customers, b) attracting new customers with the potential for high-value business, or c) firing low potential customers. Identify the activities necessary to get existing customers to spend more with Monster, to get good customers to become more loyal, and to get secondary customers converted into primary customers. This section will be addressed in the Synthesis and Action Plan.

Product Portfolio Analysis

Product Performance Evaluation Have customers list and rank most important attributes in terms of priority and to assess how significant those attributes truly are in terms of affecting their purchase decisions. Evaluate most important attributes relative to the competitors. Example below uses market leadership and ease of use.
Competitive Matrix (Perceptual Map)

Perceived as a leader

Easy to use

Difficult to use

Not perceived as a leader

Review of features/benefits and relative importance to the market Evaluate the cost of the factors that are important to customers to better evaluate decisions around product strategy. Features/Attribute s Importance to Market Competitive Performance

Benefits

Relative Cost

Benchmarking After identifying features that deserve detailed examination, benchmark these features against the best-in-class. Benchmarking is not limited to the competition, and it does not have to be limited to the product features- it could pertain to processes used to deliver service for example. Add Value to Existing Products Provision of benefits that are highly important to the market should be from features that are at least equal to or better than the competition in terms of performance. If this is not the case, features must be improved. If features provide benefits that are not important to customers, the relative cost should be low. Otherwise, the feature should be eliminated or provided at as low a cost as possible. Questions to ask?
1) What would happen if certain features were magnified? 2) What if a new feature replaced an old one? 3) Can two existing products be combined to provide 1 with more value to the customer? e.g.

postings plus automated database results equals new product

4) Can certain elements be modified- product features or service? 5) Can the development process be reengineered to reduce overall cost of producing the product

or service?
6) Can the traditional approach be changed: e.g. can the Internet replace the traditional method

of selling the product? Increase Market Penetration Number of customers/users can be increased by winning competitors customers, entering new market segments, and/or converting nonusers to users. Collect data on 1) why competitors customers buy from the competition; 2) what, if anything, could convince nonusers to become users of the product; 3) what market segments are attractive and accessible.

Trend Dynamics
Identify external trends that have a direct bearing on market potential.
1)

What technological changes are likely? How might they impact product sales within the next several years?

2) What have been the industry trends in the following areas:

Product changes

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o o o o

Price levels/policies Distribution changes Mergers/acquisitions/divestitures Power shifts in channel

3) What leading indicators correspond with product sales? 4) What are the basic trends and changes in the economy? 5)

Are there regulatory or political forces that could impact product sales? What are their trends? What is the probability of occurrence? What impact do these have on products?

Synthesis
Based on information gathered in Situation Analysis- develop problems and opportunities that need to be addressed in the annual plan. Build forecast of sales volume, the marketing objectives that specify the market segments from which the volume will be generated, and the positioning of the product in the customers minds.

Problems and Opportunities

Draw conclusions based on the segmentation analysis that drive achievement of financial and customer satisfaction goals.

Sales forecasts/goals
Time Series Forecast: Based on historical projections estimate sales for coming year Compiled Forecast: Average market share over time multiplied by projected industry sales for 2004 Causal Forecast: Relationship between sales and other variables- ad expenditure, number of salespeople, price changes, Help Wanted index

Product Marketing Objectives

What do we need to do to achieve the sales forecast? Justify objectives by providing rationale from the customer analysis. Retention: Achieve sales of $xxx million by increasing retention rates of existing segment A customers over the next 12 months. Expansion: Achieve sales of $xx million from segment A by increasing average order size from $x,xxx to $x,xxx. Acquisition: Achieve sales of $xx million from segment A by acquiring xx,xxx new customers at an average order size of $x,xxx.

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Other Objective: Achieve sales of $xx million from segment A by acquiring xx,xxx new customers at an average order size of $x,xxx.

Positioning Strategy
How the product is to be perceived in the minds of the customer relative to the competition. Identify the attributes customers are looking for when they buy from the product category, and find out how important each attribute is. Use Walker or other survey data to determine how customers rate the product versus the competition along the important attributes. Segment A Positioning: To Segment A, Monster is the brand of Job Postings that offers _______________. To Segment A, Monster is the brand of Resume Search that offers ____________. Segment B Positioning: To Segment B, Monster is the brand of Job Postings that offers _______________. Segment C Positioning: To Segment C, Monster is the brand of Job Postings that offers _______________. Segment D Positioning: To Segment D, Monster is the brand of Job Postings that offers _______________.

Action Plan
Summarize the products historical performance, problems and opportunities, sales forecasts/goals and a summary table of the impact on P&L, marketing objectives, concise strategies for accomplishing the objectives, and financial exhibits that permit a quick assessment of the product program and its impact. Summary of Background Analysis and Synthesis
1) Product Performance 2) Background 3) Long-Term Objectives 4) Problems/Opportunities 5) Sales Forecasts/Goals 6) Marketing Objectives

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Marketing Program/Action Plan

Positioning Statement Positioning statement for how the product is perceived in the customers mind relative to the competition. Target Market Describe and justify primary and secondary target markets/segments. Product Strategy Brief product description indicating competitive differences along with a table of the products in the line Product objectives including enhancements, repositioning, bundling, extensions/modifications, new product introductions, etc. Discuss effect of other products on the product line and/or the effect of the line on the company product mix Product Strategy/Roadmap Rationale

Job Postings Objective & Strategy Summary

Segment Segment A Segment B Segment C Segment D Objective Strategy Rationale

Pricing Strategy General statement of pricing strategy used for the product. Incorporate planned changed in price, discounts, guarantees, terms and conditions, and expected impact on profit and performance. Description Objective Strategy Rationale Impact Table

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Advertising Strategy

Incorporate details as well as media calendar for plan to support annual plan. National Advertising
1) Competitive differentiation to be included in messaging 2) Media plan and calendar 3) Cost/Spend

Description Objective Strategy Rationale Implementation Supporting Tables

Other Advertising
1) Competitive differentiation to be included in messaging 2) Media plan and calendar 3) Cost/Spend

Description Objective Strategy Rationale Implementation Supporting Tables

Promotion Strategy Summary of sales promotions, support materials, trade show plans, and other non-advertising promotions that are part of the marketing plan. Indicate objectives and strategies for each. Sales Strategy Summarize and include any information that directly impacts the product or its marketing plan. For example, any training or incentive program programs that are required to support objectives. Distribution Strategy Recommendations regarding dealing with intermediaries- agencies, franchise groups, etc. Product Support Recommendations regarding guarantee for the product, customer service changes, or any other product support issues that affect the achievement of product objectives.
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Training Requirements Customer service; sales; customers Marketing Research Requirements Research requests including proposal attachments. Financial Summary Pro-forma P&L Timelines Action schedule indicating ownership and timing with room for signatures to sign and date agreement.

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Appendices
1) Business Assessment Worksheet 1) Attractiveness Ratings of Customer Segments 2) Ability-to-Serve Ratings for Customer Segments 3) Competitive Analysis 4) Performance History 5) Marketing Objectives and Strategies

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Schedule 1: Business Assessment Worksheet Describe the corporate vision, strategies, and core competencies that might affect product programs.

List the strengths and weaknesses of Monster that could directly affect the product or product line. Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Describe the role your product/line plays in accomplishing Monsters strategy.

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Schedule 2: Attractiveness Ratings for Customer Segments Percent of Monster Sales Percent of Industry Sales Characteristics of Market Attractiveness (size, growth rate, purchase volumes, etc.)

Market Segment Segment A Segment B Segment C Segment D

Rating (1-5)

Schedule 3: Ability-to-Serve Ratings for Customer Segments Market Segment Segment A Segment B Segment C Segment D Needs Requirements to satisfy needs (products, skills set, locations, costs, etc.) Rating (1-5)

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Schedule 4: Competitive Overview General Information for FY2004 Product Line: Jobs Market: Segment A Monster CareerBuilder HotJobs Newspaper

Division: Monster
Sales volume Sales revenue Profit Market Share Target market General product strategy Product differentiation Customer image General price strategy Average/list price General promotion strategy General sales strategy Sales force size Sales force strengths

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Schedule 5: Performance History Performance History Division: Monster Product Line: Jobs Market: Segment A 2001 2002 2003 Plan Actual Plan Actual Plan Actual
Industry job volume Monster job volume Monster share Industry job sales Monster job sales Monster share Monster total sales Jobs sales as %age of company sales Cost of goods sold Gross margin Gross margin ratio Controllable costs Promotion Sales costs Other mktg costs Misc. controllable Total controllable costs Net profit contribution Quality index New product sales Target acct sales Price index Sales per salesperson Product line strengths Product line weaknesses

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Schedule 6: Marketing Objectives and Strategies Division: Monster Group: Sourcing General marketing objective(s): Rationale for objective(s): Positioning Statement: To_________________, Monster is the brand of Job Postings that __________________________. Division: Monster Group: Sourcing General marketing objective(s): Rationale for objective(s): Positioning Statement: To_________________, Monster is the brand of Job Postings that __________________________. Division: Monster Group: Sourcing General marketing objective(s): Rationale for objective(s): Positioning Statement: To_________________, Monster is the brand of Job Postings that __________________________. Division: Monster Group: Sourcing General marketing objective(s): Rationale for objective(s): Positioning Statement: To_________________, Monster is the brand of Job Postings that __________________________. Line: Job Postings Market: Segment D Line: Job Postings Market: Segment C Line: Job Postings Market: Segment B Line: Job Postings Market: Segment A

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