Marketing plan

A marketing plan is a written document that details the necessary actions to achieve one or more marketing objectives. It can be for a product or service, a brand, or a product line.

A marketing plan may be part of an overall business plan.

Need for a Marketing Plan

The Marketing Plan is generally undertaken for one of the following reasons:

 

Components of a Business Plan

Business strategy and Objectives

It's a good idea to introduce the main body of the plan with a reminder of your overall business strategy, including:

External and internal analysis 

A PEST analysis helps you to identify the main opportunities and threats in your market:

You also need to understand your own internal strengths and weaknesses. For example, the main strengths of a new business might be an original product and enthusiastic employees. The main weaknesses might be the lack of an existing customer base and limited financial resources. A SWOT analysis combines the external and internal analysis to summarise your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Your marketing objectives

Your marketing objectives should be based on understanding your strengths and weaknesses, and the business environment you operate in. They should also be linked to your overall business strategy.

Objectives should always be SMART:

Marketing Strategy

 

If you understand the market well, you can probably break it down into different segments - groups of similar customers. For example, you can break the business market down into businesses operating in the same sector and/or of a similar size. For more information, see our guide on how to segment your customers.

For each segment, you need to look at what customers want, what you can offer and what the competition is like. You want to identify segments where you have a competitive advantage. At the same time, you should assess whether you can expect high enough returns to make the segment worthwhile.

 

Marketing Mix

 

Once you have decided what your marketing objectives are, and your strategy for meeting them, you need to plan how you will make the strategy a reality.

Many businesses find it helpful to think in terms of the four Ps:

 

Implementation 

 

The good marketing plan should include a schedule of key tasks. This sets out what will be done, and by when.

It should also assess what resources you need. For example, you might need to think about what brochures you need, and whether they need to be available for digital distribution (by email or from your website). You might also need to look at how much time it takes to sell to customers and whether you have enough salespeople.

The cost of everything in the plan needs to be included in a budget. If your finances are limited, your plan will need to take that into account. Don't spread your marketing activities too thinly - it is better to concentrate your resources to make the most of your budget. You may also want to link your marketing budget to your sales forecast.

 

Control

 

As well as setting out the schedule, the plan needs to say how it will be controlled. You need an individual who takes responsibility for pushing things along. A good schedule and budget should make it easy to monitor progress. When things fall behind schedule, or costs overrun, you need to be ready to do something about it and to adapt your plan accordingly.

 

Useful links

Sample Marketing Plans