Writing a Marketing Plan

A Marketing Plan is vital for the success of any company but is often overlooked by smaller businesses. In simple terms a marketing plan helps you set out which customers you are going to target, how you are going to achieve this and explains how you intend to execute your marketing strategy. Here we list the process of creating a marketing plan in a step by step basis to help your business.


1.    Marketing Strategy

You can break down your target market into different segments i.e. groups of prospective customers with similar characteristics. You need to work out what you offer, what your prospects want and what the competition are doing. Your marketing strategy should incorporate the strengths of your product/service and match them to the needs of the market you are targeting. Existing customers are extremely valuable in more ways than one and can provide feedback on your products/services and what they like or don’t like, this information is priceless. With new customers you need to ensure you have the resources available to target them.

After you have worked out what your target market is, you have to decide where you will position yourself within it. You should differentiate yourself from the competition so that your prospective customers will select you instead of others in the market. Your strategy needs to consider what stage of its lifecycle your product is. Ideally you should have several products at different stages so that when one product is declining another is growing and you shouldn’t suffer any significant drop in sales.


2.    Summary and introduction for your Marketing Plan

Although you start your Marketing Plan with an Executive Summary, this is actually written last once you have completed the rest of the plan. Writing the summary give you the chance to see if you have omitted anything and just as importantly, whether it makes sense. This is a synopsis of your plan and provides an overview of the key points. It should be concise and easy to understand.

Next, you’ll need to introduce the rest of the plan including a reminder of your business strategy. This should include the purpose of your business i.e. its mission statement; your key business objectives; and your strategy covering how you intend to accomplish those objectives. By doing this you are making sure your marketing plan, marketing strategy and business strategy work harmoniously together as they should do.


3.    Analysis and Objectives

It is important that you understand your business environment as it is a key part of the planning process and will enable you to recognise threats and opportunities in your market. There are several methods of doing this.

  • Firstly, a PEST analysis, this gauges external factors that could have a negative effect on your business, and stands for:
  • Political and legal changes such as government policies new regulations
  • Economic factors such as inflation, exchange rates and consumer confidence
  • Social factors such as changing attitudes and lifestyles, and the ageing population
  • Technological factors such as the growing use of the internet and automation


Another popular method is a SWOT analysis. This is a technique developed to help assess four key elements of businesses. The SWOT acronym stands for the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of a business.

Through using this technique you gain a better understanding of what you are doing well, where you need to improve, any opportunities that you can target and what threats you need to be aware of.

The strengths and weaknesses are internal and therefore come from within an organisation, elements you have direct control over; whereas the opportunities and threats are usually identified as being external to the business. In essence, a SWOT analysis looks at internal and external factors that can affect a business and is depicted by using a matrix.

Your marketing objectives should relate to your strengths and weaknesses as well as the market you operate in. These objectives should be SMART:

  • Specific – such as a set number of new customers
  • Measurable – you need to be able to measure this so you know when you have achieved the objective
  • Achievable - you need the resources to achieve the objective e.g. staff and finances
  • Realistic – you should be able to achieve the objective with the resources you have
  • Time-bound – you need to set a timescale for completing the objective. An example might be 20 new customers in 4 weeks


4.    Marketing tactics

OK, so now that you have detailed your marketing objectives and explained your strategy for achieving them, you need to plan how to turn the strategy in to reality.

One way to do this is the four Ps method:

  • Product - what does your product provide customers with in terms of value and what do you need to do to meet their needs
  • Pricing - for example, you might undercut the competition, match them and aim to beat them on service, or charge a premium price for a quality product and service
  • Place - how and where do you sell. This may include using several distribution channels
  • Promotion – how do you reach your customers and prospects, e.g. advertising, PR, social media, direct mail


For a more thorough approach, you can extend this to seven Ps:

  • People - for example, you need to ensure that your employees have the right training
  • Processes - the right processes in place will ensure you offer a consistent service that suits your customers
  • Physical evidence - the appearance of your employees and premises can influence your customers perception of your business.


5.    Implementation

There should be a schedule of key tasks included in your marketing plan. This highlights what has to be done and by what date. You should look at this on a regular basis so that you stay on top of your objectives , especially when it is easy to lose focus by concentrating on other important areas of the business.

Resources

You need to ascertain what resources you need and make sure they are available and allocated to the specific tasks on the dates and for the duration of time that has been scheduled to complete them. For example, you may need more staff working in sales when you launch a new product or service.

Cost

The cost of everything needs to be itemised and included in your budget. It is worth considering linking your marketing budget to your sales forecast.

Control

It is essential to have control over your marketing plan. There should be contingency solutions in place when things don’t go according to plan and you should have the flexibility and resources to be able to do this and adapt your plan whenever necessary.

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