D. Analyzing your competition (including its location, activities offered, price(s) and
seasons/hours).
E. Performing a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis:
Strengths: What useful connections do you have? What equipment or
facilities do you have? What do you do well?
Weaknesses: What resources do you lack? What don’t you do well? What
skills do you need to get?
Opportunities: What good opportunities do you see? What trends are
improving things for you? How is your situation improving?
Threats: What is the competition? What trends are working against you?
What challenges are you facing?
The second component of your marketing plan is an explanation of marketing and
financial goals and objectives. Some examples of goals include setting a number of visitor
days for a specific season, reaching a certain level of average sales per customer or,
reaching a certain percentage of repeat customers by a certain date.
Finally, the third and last component is the marketing mix, which describes the methods
you will use to attract customers to your operation.
Strategies should be tailored to the specific target audience and should also be developed
to meet your goals for the operation. Marketing strategies include:
Product and/or service positioning: Create a positioning statement that describes
the image you would like your product or service to have in the marketplace.
Price: Determine how you will price your products and services.
Distribution and sales location(s): Establish how can you take advantage of your
location
Promotions: Reach the largest number of people in your target market with your
available budget.
After deciding your market position and determining the
characteristics of the components in your marketing mix,
select the best way (promotion strategy) to reach your target
customers in order to maximize your economic returns.
5
Module 2. Subject 4: Marketing the Agro-Ecotourism Business