A solid marketing plan can take your business and new product to new heights. It can help turn your business Ideas into reality by providing your team with direction, deadlines, actionable strategies, and more. If you’ve never done this before, it’s completely understandable that you’re confused about where to start and which sections you should definitely include in your marketing plan. In this article, you’ll find a step-by-step guide to creating a marketing plan that will work for almost every type of business. We’ve also included marketing plan templates throughout the post to help you get started right away.
What is the marketing plan?
A marketing plan is a roadmap that helps you set goals, understand your target audience, and optimize the impact of your marketing campaigns. In simple words, it helps you get a clear view of the what, why and how of all your marketing activities. A good marketing plan also helps you communicate the “big” strategy and the various tactics your marketing team is involved in. Last but not least, it lets you track the success of your campaigns.
A marketing plan should ideally include:
- Your long term and short-term marketing goals
- Description of your target audience or buyer persona
- One or more high level marketing strategies and tactics
Why Your Business Needs a Marketing Strategy
I’ve already mentioned how a marketing plan can help you better understand and achieve your company’s marketing goals, but those aren’t its only benefits.
A well-researched marketing plan can help you:
Understanding your business: Doing thorough research on current market conditions and your company’s position can help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your business ideas as well as new opportunities.
Aligning marketing goals with business goals: Without a plan, you can easily become directionless. A marketing plan helps you ensure that your marketing goals are in line with your business’s vision, mission, and goals.
Making sure everyone is in the same place: Having a working document of your marketing makes it easier not only for your team, but for the entire company to work together toward a common goal.
Stay focused on what’s important: A marketing plan is a constant reminder of your goals and strategies, keeping you from getting lost.
Better decision making: Planning ahead of time for difficult times can prevent you from making hasty decisions.
How to create a marketing plan
There is no one way to create a marketing plan, but there are essential things that a good marketing plan should contain. Follow the steps below to create an effective marketing plan.
Start with an executive summary.
The executive summary is usually done at the beginning of your marketing plan. It is basically a brief summary or brief overview of your company and the important conclusions of the entire marketing plan. Here is an executive summary template that you can edit and use for your own business.
State your company’s mission, vision, and values.
Before you get into all the marketing content, it’s a good idea to revisit your company’s values, vision, and mission. This helps you keep all the information inside your marketing plan organized. It answers the question why you are doing what you are doing. Here’s a neat mission, vision and values template to edit and use. For anyone reading your marketing plan, this section is important to educate them about the ultimate objective of your business so they can better understand your marketing goals, activities, and future plans.
Identify the market and competition.
The next step is to back up your marketing plan with solid research. This is often achieved by analyzing your current market situation, studying your competition and most importantly looking at the strengths and weaknesses of your company. Here’s a market share template that can help you visualize that information and share it with your colleagues and stakeholders.
You can customize this template to your own brand colors, input your own information, and use it on its own or in a report or presentation as part of a marketing plan. Here’s another great design to help you present your market research. Use this SWOT analysis template to highlight your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Identify your target customers.
It is important to identify who your buyer or customer is so that you can create a more informed and tailored marketing strategy. Naturally, the target audience is different for every business. You may also have more than one type of customer. For example, a clothing store may make products for both teens and older women at the same time. You can edit this template and use it as part of your marketing plan or presentation. This is a great way to represent the different types of your audience in an easy-to-understand way. Pie charts help identify which segment makes up the bulk of your customer base so you can focus most of your efforts in that area.
