Creating a Marketing Plan

 

By utilizing the subjects taught so far in this lesson, you can now create a marketing plan that should be simple and clear with a focused strategy.  An example of a marketing plan would be structured something like this:

 

 

1. Executive Overview    (summarizes the marketing plan including a brief overview of steps 2 through 9).

 

2. Market Review
1. Trends overview   (How big is the potential market?  Is it growing? Competitors?)
2. Market segments (see Market Segments and Target Market section of this lesson)
3. Target market   (see Market Segments and Target Market section of this lesson)

 

3. Competitive Review    (those who offer a similar product with similar attributes)

 

4. Product or Service Review    (see Products and Prices section in this lesson)

 

5. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats    (SWOT – see the 5’Cs in this lesson)

 

6. Goals and Objectives    (describe where you want to be both short-term and long-term)
1. Sales objectives     (measurable in dollars, specific timetable, and expected profit)
2. Marketing objectives     (i.e. increase existing customers' buying rate by 25%)

 

7. Strategies    (see the associated “P’s” segments throughout this lesson along with strategic marketing decisions)
1. Product
2. Pricing
3. Place/Distribution
4. Promotion
5. People
6. Process
7. Physical Evidence/Packaging
8. Positioning

 

8. Action Plan and Implementation   (such as how are you going to achieve the goals? What is the timeframe or marketing calendar?  What are the projected costs? Who is doing what?)

 

9. Evaluation   (How will it all be tracked and measured?)

 

10. Conclusion   (Wrap it all up.  Try to make the overall marketing plan as short and to the point as possible)

 

Besides the marketing plan, it is also a good idea, for quick discussion, to have a separate creative plan that only focuses on the content of your marketing materials, which would be the purpose, how the purpose will be achieved, and the tone of the advertising, and a media plan that only focuses on the type of media that will be used along with the media calendar.