Marketing plans are used by small and large businesses to inform the market about their products and services. These plans can include the goals and objectives of the business, as well as the resources, target audience, and methods of reaching them. They can also include how the company will present its products and services, and the media and channels that it will use to promote them.
What is a marketing plan?
A marketing plan is a strategy used to help an organization reach its goals and target audience. The plan outlines how the company will market itself, what it will market, and when it will market. The marketing plan is important because it shows the company’s strategy and direction.
Helps you understand your customer
Taking the time to put together a marketing plan allows you to think about the attributes of your ideal customer. Once you know and understand this, it makes it a lot easier to plan your marketing activity and how best to reach your target audience with your product or service.
Allows you to set measurable goals and objectives
Having a marketing plan in place will give you the chance to write down your goals and objectives, which in turn will keep you more aware of meeting them and how to achieve this. If your business is more than just you, it also allows everyone to be on the same page and be clear about what you are trying to achieve.
Prevents rushed decisions
Having a strategy and structure for marketing in place means there’s less chance of going off in the wrong direction, chasing the latest new trend that may not help to actually meet your business goals. It helps to keep everything on track and allows you to plan your activity to align with key events of the year, which may be relevant to your business. You will likely have limited time and budget to complete marketing, so you want to ensure you’re spending it on worthwhile actions.
Helps to keep track of your successes
Writing down your marketing actions ensures you keep a clear record of what has been done and means you can also monitor your successes and those things that didn’t work quite so well! This in turn means you can assess your activity against return on investment and plan effectively for future years, knowing what does and doesn’t work for your business.
Do you know what it takes to write a marketing plan?
You have to think about what the market is, what your product is, and what people want. You have to make sure that the market is not saturated and that your product is unique. This is hard to do. That’s why I wrote this article for you. I have some tips for writing your marketing plan, and I’ll walk you through how to write a marketing plan.
Budget the plan
When implementing a strategy, consider the marketing budget you will allot. Marketing requires money for various reasons, including paid promotions, marketing software, events, and outsourced costs. Consider your budget when creating the plan so that money is available to spend on marketing tactics to achieve your goals.
While drafting the plan and evaluating your course of action, note the estimated cost, assets, and time required to achieve the stated goals; this will help when it comes time to set the actual calculated budget. Any goals that you create should be realistically achievable within the budget you have selected.
State your brand position for your target customers
Ultimately, your brand – and what it symbolizes for customers – is your most vital advantage. You should be able to write a simple declarative sentence about how you will meet customer needs and beat the competition. The best positioning statements focus on solving a problem for the customer in a way that promotes the best value.