Marketing Aquaculture Products — 1

with distributors, letters from satisfi ed clients,
etc. Th e level of organization is up to you.
However, there should be several key sections
that include the following:
Mission Statement & Objectives Worksheet
Construct a dedicated worksheet with subdivisions
for each section starting with your mission
statement. Also include your long-term
and short-term objectives. Try to get this to fi t
on one sheet of paper.
Unique Product & Operation Worksheet
Construct a page or more of notes or bullet
points that cover the unique aspects about your
product(s) and operation. Th en develop (at
most) a couple of paragraphs that summarize
this. Finally, on a single worksheet state what is
unique about: 1) your product, 2) your operation;
then 3) in a single bullet-point list, list the
most important considerations. If you have not
yet realized it, this summary is essentially your
important elevator speech discussed earlier in
the tutorial. (Note: if you have several products,
you may want to subdivide the product
section by each individual product, don’t worry
if it runs on to more than one page.)
Product & Customer-Division Worksheet
Construct a dedicated worksheet or subdivide
the worksheet for each product you produce
and each customer type to which you intend
to market. (Examples: frozen trout fi llets for
farmer’s markets; frozen trout fi llets for local
food service; fresh trout fi llets for farmer’s
markets; and fresh trout fi llets for restaurant
delivery.)
Estimated Product Sales Worksheet
Construct a dedicated worksheet that is a partner
document for each of the product-customer
type worksheets. Use information that you
have gathered from your research to create best
and worst-case scenarios that are elementary
seasonal sales projections that consider when
you anticipate the most demand or perhaps
conversely, would have peak production of
your product. Th is should note the consumer
segment, potential number of customers,
estimated volume per customer and potential
sales volumes by season/event/peak demand,
or similar time-sensitive element. Finish this
page with an assumptions section where you
state upon what thoughts you have basing your
estimates.
Distribution & Delivery Worksheet
Construct a worksheet that focuses the packaging
and delivery for each product-customer
type segment. As you work with your end-user
customers or distributors, revisit these pages
and look for ways to improve effi ciencies, packaging
or overall product quality.
Competition Worksheet
Construct a worksheet(s) that focuses on: 1)
Competing products similar to yours; 2) dissimilar
competing products that may be new
market opportunities; and 3) noteworthy competitors.
(Examples: If you are a trout producer,
similar products would be out-of-state aquaculture
trout sold as fresh fi llets in the local food
retailer; a dissimilar product could be Canadian
walleye fi llets sold as specials at a local gourmet
restaurant, a noteworthy competitor could be
any entity providing substantial quantities of
product in your markets.)
Marketing Aquaculture Products — 55