What is a marketing plan: instructions, structure and example

2024 Author: Trinity Chesterton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 08:12

Planning is a must for any business that wants to succeed. But choosing the right type of plan to define your strategy and structuring it can be difficult. Especially since there are so many different options in marketing and business, and they all have different scope.

Before you start the process, you need to know what a marketing plan is. The definition says that marketing is that plan of action that aims to introduce or promote a specific product or product line to a target audience. It contains strategic information that directly influences the company's approach to these markets. Such a plan, which is developed by the enterprise, is the basis of modern business, as it helps the owners to firmly gain a foothold and ensure the success of the company.

Basics of marketing planning

The goal of marketing is to direct the firm's efforts and resources towards achieving business goals such as growth,survival, risk minimization, enterprise stability, profit maximization, customer service, diversification, image building, and so on.

What is a marketing plan (MP)? Usually it is a tool for realizing the concept of the company, linking the firm and markets, the basis of corporate planning. Simply put, this is a document that is drawn up by developers, approved by the head and contains a detailed description of the goals of the enterprise. In addition, it clarifies how governments will apply controls on product design, promotion channels and pricing to achieve the goals. This is the main tool for directing and coordinating the efforts of the enterprise related to sales goals.

Such a marketing plan is used for almost all modern companies, contains a summary. It also includes information on the current situation, an analysis of areas of activity, a forecasted income statement and controls.

Marketing planning, an integral part of the firm's overall planning, defines the roles and responsibilities of team members as to when and to what extent to promote the goals of the marketing plan. Such a management function, which determines the future course of action based on the analysis of past events, forms a program that facilitates executive actions, which is mainly related to the distribution, development and future use of marketing resources.

Evaluation of company strategies

Marketing strategy is used by various companies to collaborate with their customers. It is also used to inform customers about the features, specifications and benefits of a company's products and is intended to encourage a target population to buy specific products and services. Effective strategies help the team get ahead of the competition.

There are different types of marketing strategies. The firm must select one according to the business requirement. Before choosing the right strategy, study the following areas:

1. Determining the target population is a basic and necessary step. This gives the proper demographics which helps in choosing the most suitable MP for the business.
2. Checking the custom audience. Create a hypothetical buying process to test your potential buyers. Once a firm begins to understand the behavior of its target audience, it will be able to choose a more appropriate strategy.
3. Strategy evaluation. Once strategies are considered and suitable ones are found, they are applied and evaluated. This process is for testing purposes and the most appropriate and productive strategy must be chosen.

Business management technologies

There are different types of strategies. Its choice depends on the results of the analysis of business needs, target audience and product specifications. Two basic marketing plans:

1. Business to business (B2B).
2. Business to Consumer (B2C).

The following are the different types of the most common strategies:

1. Paid advertising - includes traditional approaches such as commercials and print media advertising. Also one of the most famous moves is internet marketing, which includes various methods such as PPC (pay per click) and paid advertising.
2. Causal marketing links a company's products to social needs.
3. Relationship marketing - mainly focused on building relationships with customers, strengthening existing relationships with customers and their loy alty.
4. Subtle marketing - This type of strategy focuses on product marketing.
5. The type of "word of mouth" - depends entirely on what impression the company makes on people. This is traditionally the most needed type of marketing strategy. Being heard is important in the business world. When a company provides quality services to customers, it is likely that they will take it further themselves.
6. Internet or cloud marketing. All materials are distributed online and promoted on existing platforms through various marketing plan examples.
7. Transactional marketing. Selling is a particularly difficult job. Even for the biggest retailers, sales are always tough, especially when there are high volumes of merchandise. In transactional marketing, retailers encourage shoppers to shop with shopping coupons, discounts, and huge events. This increases the chances of sales and motivates the target audience.buy promoted products.
8. Diversity marketing serves different audiences by customizing and integrating the necessary marketing plan strategy. It covers various aspects such as culture, beliefs, attitudes and other specific needs.

In addition, there are the following types of marketing: direct, indirect, causal, reciprocal and niche.

Direct marketing is used by a company that wants to promote its products and services directly to the consumer. Delivery methods of this type include email, mobile messages, interactive websites, customer-facing promotional materials, flyers, and public service announcements.

Indirect marketing is a passive or aggressive strategy that focuses less on the product or service and more on the firm. She is involved in strategies by donating to and sponsoring charities.

Causal marketing is an indirect form that links a company to social issues or causes. A company that advertises its products as environmentally friendly uses this production marketing plan to attract those customers who have the same environmental concerns.

Relationship marketing is a strategy in which a company emphasizes customer satisfaction and product value. This type often includes giving discounts to current customers, sending them birthday wishes, and offering low-cost product upgrades,which they have already purchased.

Niche, the purpose of the marketing plan is to reach a forgotten consumer audience or offer products to a limited group of buyers.

Required planning steps

A marketing plan for a business, as a rule, consists of a description of competitors for the administration of the company, has a level of demand for the product, strengths and weaknesses of competitors, and provides for sections of the marketing plan:

1. Product description including special features.
2. Marketing budget including advertising plan.
3. Description of the location of the business, including advantages and disadvantages for marketing.
4. Pricing strategy.
5. Market segmentation.
6. Medium and large organizations.
7. Executive resume.
8. Situational analysis.
9. Opportunities and Challenge Analysis - SWOT Analysis.
10. Marketing strategy goals.
11. Action program.
12. Financial management forecast.

An enterprise marketing plan usually consists of the following sections:

1. Title page.
2. Executive resume.
3. Current situation - macro environment.
4. Economic condition.
5. Legal basis.
6. Technological condition.
7. Ecological status.
8. The state of the supply chain.
9. Current situation - market analysis.
10. Market definition.
11. Market size.
12. Market segmentation.
13. Industrial structure and strategic groupings.
14. Market trends.
15. Current situation - consumer analysis.
16. Conclusion.

Monitoring performance elements

Most organizations track the results of their sales or nonprofits, such as the number of customers. A more sophisticated way to track them in terms of sales variances, allowing the more hidden pattern of variances to become apparent.

Micro-analysis is a normal management process, studies problems in detail, examines individual elements that do not achieve goals. Few organizations track market share and study competitors' marketing plan examples, although this is a very important metric. Absolute sales may rise in an expanding market, the firm's market share may decrease, which portends poor sales in the future when the market begins to fall.

Where such market share is tracked, a number of things can be controlled:

1. Total market share or segment share. The key ratio to watch in this area is usually the ratio of marketing spending to sales, although this can be broken down into other elements.
2. A cost analysis can be determined based on a detailed account of all costs incurred by a business. Runs monthly, quarterly and yearly. It can be broken down into structural business subsets to determine how much money each division brings to the company.
3. The marketing cost-to-sales ratio plays an important role in spending analysis as it is used to bringmarketing spending in line with industry guidelines.
4. The ratio of marketing spending to sales helps a firm improve marketing effectiveness.

Financial performance analysis

The bottom line of a company's achievement is the marketing plan. In theory, it should have a net profit for all business ventures, and for non-profit organizations, a comparable emphasis could be placed on staying within budgeted costs. There are a number of individual performance metrics and key ratios to track and include in your marketing plan structure:

• gross;
• net profit;
• return on investment;
• net contribution;
• sales profit.

Comparing these figures with data obtained by other organizations, especially in the same industry, can be of great benefit. The performance analysis above focuses on quantitative indicators that are directly related to short-term prospects.

There are a number of indirect measures essentially tracking customer attitudes, which can also indicate an organization's performance in terms of its long-term marketing strengths and are therefore more important metrics.

Some helpful research:

1. Market research - including customer dashboards that are used to track changes over time.
2. Lost business - orders that were lost,for example, because the item was not available or the item did not meet the customer's exact requirements.
3. Customer complaints - how many customers are dissatisfied with a product, service or company.

Developing an annual strategy

Marketers have a saying: "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there." Without planning and a well-thought-out strategy, the team will not be able to understand where to go and what to do.

What is a marketing plan? This is a specific algorithm of actions drawn up for a period (for example, one year):

1. Define business goals. A well-thought-out marketing strategy, aligned with the highest level business goals and objectives, helps to increase awareness of the company, its products and services, drive traffic to the website and potential customers, and create new sales opportunities that match the profile of the company's target audience.
2. Implementation of the marketing SWOT, goal setting and budget. Ultimately, what is needed is marketing that delivers a steady stream of high-quality leads to drive new sales opportunities and drive company growth. SWOT of the current marketing program - strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in terms of competitive position, target markets, audience, current positioning and messaging, maturity of partner offerings. The rule of thumb for marketing spending is between 4 and 12 percent of gross revenue.
3. Identification of target customers. Companyknows the profile of her most valuable clients and the sales process she uses to transform experience into new opportunities. However, as the company grows, it will be difficult to know the unique situation of each potential customer, so you will need to customize your marketing approach by creating a buyer persona. These are fictitious representations of ideal clients based on demographics, online behavior, motivations, and challenges.
4. Creating an execution plan.
5. The most effective way to turn a marketing strategy into an execution plan is to use a company structure with activities focused around a common theme or goal.
6. Define the roles of the marketing team, the time frame for achieving results, and document the expected return on investment.

Example of compiling MP

Begin the document by preparing a resume. It contains a summary or general plan. This helps the team quickly identify key points. The table of contents should follow the summary so that participants can easily find more detailed information about each item.

Next, the "Current situation" section is filled in. It reveals the nature of the market, what the company is going to sell, and possible competitors in the market.

The next step is the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of the marketing plan based on the information collected during the preparatory phase. It identifies the main strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that an organization cancollide.

After doing a SWOT analysis, point out directions to focus the plan on, so fill out the Marketing Objectives and Challenges section, which should list the challenges that the MR will address and formulate goals and strategies to help the company achieve it.

You can now outline your marketing strategy and complete this section outlining the logic that will be used to achieve these goals. This strategy outlines the target markets and defines the mix: product, price, people, promotion, location, and positioning that the company will work with. Now every marketing strategy can be broken down into specific action plans the company plans to take in order to achieve the goals.

Each program of action should specify: what will be done, when it will be done, who is responsible, how much it will cost, what will be the predicted result.

Next, they specify the required resources, i.e. how much effective IR will require human resources, money and technology within the budget.

The last section of the Monitoring plan outlines the controls that will be used to monitor progress.

The final stage of the process

The end of marketing planning is the setting of goals or standards so that steps in the process can be tracked. Accordingly, it is important to set quantitative and time frames. Marketers must be prepared to update and adaptplans at any time. The MP should determine how progress towards the goals will be measured. Managers typically use budgets, schedules, and metrics to monitor and evaluate a marketing plan. They must compare planned spending with actual spending for the given period.

Charts allow management to see when tasks should have been completed and when they have actually been completed. Forecasts must be changed in a timely manner in cases of changes in the business environment. Along with this, related plans are also subject to change.

Continuous monitoring of performance against pre-set targets is the most important aspect. More important, however, is the obligatory discipline of regular official review of plans. Again, as with forecasts, the best most realistic planning cycle would revolve around the quarterly review. Of course, this consumes more planning resources, but it also ensures that the plans are up to date with the latest trends.

Marketing Benefits

It's important to take a step-by-step approach to your marketing plan carefully. Done right, this can provide a number of valuable benefits that accelerate success:

1. MR encourages company to rethink old habits and assumptions.
2. A good MR should take the company out of its comfort zone to some extent and question everything it has done before.
3. Reduces risk by adding new facts.
4. Makesredefine the market, competition, target audience and value proposition for potential customers.
5. MP provides accountability, forces teams to set specific goals and evaluate their progress.
6. Management is responsible for providing sufficient resources so that the marketing plan has a realistic chance of success.
7. MP gives early control of the company so teams can maximize their impact on the bottom line.
8. Can be a competitive advantage.

Tips

What is a marketing plan, professionals in this field clearly know. Most often, students who devote themselves to this kind of occupation study at economic faculties. At first, the planning process can be intimidating for them. After training, specialists who have received a decent education follow a certain order of actions:

1. Start with an overview of how the world has changed since the last planning process. This will make the necessary changes to the context and prepare the team to consider new ideas. For example, what kind of marketing strategy have competitors implemented, have sales and revenues changed. The new marketing plan will need to be adjusted for any changes in the marketing environment.
2. Focus on the problems the company solves and the value it can bring, not the services it provides.
3. Always do market research. They reduce risk so you should always investresearch.
4. Consumer style learning does not apply to professional B2B services.
5. Attract talented people to work for the company.
6. Perform expertise that makes complex topics understandable. The more experts a firm has, the more new they will bring to the company.
7. Use marketing methods that have been proven to work.
8. Track every step of the process.
9. The success of a business depends on the marketing plan. It defines the strategy, and depending on the needs of the business, this plan will change over time.

If a lot of marketing doesn't work, it's because it's not implemented correctly. Even the best-laid plans can fail if they are under-resourced, poorly funded and poorly implemented. If a company does not have the opportunity to implement its own brainchild in the form of a well-defined plan, it is necessary to cooperate with an external resource that can successfully implement these tasks.