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Overview of Marketing Plans

Now that you’ve done your Market Research and plotted your Marketing Objectives and Strategies, you’re ready to write out your formal Marketing Plan. Your Plan will:

1. Define your business
Your product or service
Your geographic marketing area: neighborhood, regional, national, or global
Your competition
How you differ from the competition–what makes you special
Your price
The competition’s promotion methods
Your promotion methods
Your distribution methods or business location

2. Define your customers
Your current customer base: age, gender, income, education, neighborhood
How your customers learn about your product or service
Habits or behavior patters your customers and potential customers share
Qualities and benefits that your customers value most
Qualities they like least
Prospective customers whom you aren’t currently reaching

3. Define your plan and budget
Previous marketing methods you’ve used
Methods that have been most effective
Costs compared to sales
Cost per customer
Possible future marketing methods to attract new customers
Percentage of gross income that you can allocate to marketing
Marketing methods you can implement within your budget
Methods for testing your marketing ideas and for measuring results
Marketing methods you can implement immediately

Marketing Plan Components

Similar to the way you drafted your Business Plan, your Marketing Plan will flow in a logical progression, using the following components.

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Your Executive Summary is the section in which you introduce your company and explain the major points of your plan “in a nutshell.” Some of the key points to cover are:

Introduce your company by briefly describing the nature of your business and the products or services you offer.

- If your business is already in operation, state how long you’ve been in business and how long you’ve been at your current location. Describe your business activities including sales and customers. Highlight your accomplishments and successes.

- If your business is not yet in operation, describe the experience and training you have that qualifies you to operate this type of business. Include similar information for business partners or key managers of the company.

Include your Mission Statement and company objectives. Mission statements are fairly broad statements about what your business does, such as “provide environmentally-friendly cleaning products to health conscious adults living in the tri-state area.” Company objectives are more specific, such as “to be the primary cleaning products provider in the tri-state area and to increase gross sales by 15 percent in the next12 months.”

Introduce your management team. This may be only you — wearing all the hats! If your company has other employees, list your key management personnel.

- Include copies of their resumes in the supporting documents section.

- Disclose management salaries and ownership, management assistance and training needs, and supporting professionals (such as a bookkeeper or lawyer).

- List the board of directors.

Describe the organizational structure of your business. Is it a sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation?

Summary. Close the Executive Summary with a brief statement of the main marketing objectives and strategies contained in the Plan.

II. CURRENT MARKET SITUATION

The Current Market Situation section of your Marketing Plan provides information about your location, target market, and competitive environment. In this section you’ll briefly describe the competitive environment and key issues your company faces, which you’ll describe in detail in the Competitor and Issue Analysis section. The Current Market Situation section is where you’ll describe:

Location: Your current or planned business location.

- If you do not yet have a business location, name areas or properties under consideration and the criteria you will use in selecting a location. Consider customer proximity, parking availability, accessibility by public transportation, employee availability, inventory storage and movement, compliance with federal, state, and local laws and codes (such as those for zoning, safety or health), security, and site expansion potential.

- List any negative aspects of your location that would affect sales, such as insufficient or inconvenient parking facilities, and try to list solutions for such problems. Remember that no location is perfect–try to turn every negative around and make it work for you.

- Describe any plans for the future expansion of your business. Do you intend to move? Will you offer additional goods or services as you grow? Will you hire employees?

- If you offer or plan to offer a service or product in a manner that does not require customers to visit a location, include a description of how you and your customers will meet or interact. How will services and products will be exchanged? This may be the case if you provide a consulting service from home or at a client location. Also, if your products are offered through catalog sales or on the Internet, you would describe how your services and/or products would be exchanged with customers.

Target Market Description:

Your business success depends on aiming all your marketing efforts at a specific target market. You must know your niche in order to “hit the mark” with your promotional plans. You’ll need to:

Describe the size of your target market. Remember, a market is people with something in common, not a place or a thing. Be specific and include statistics about the size of your target market. Include information on whether the size of your target marketing is growing, shrinking, or staying the same. If the size of your target market is changing, explain why.

Describe your target market in the following terms:

- Characteristics they share such as age, income level, gender, race, number of children, marital status, where they live, etc.

- Habits or hobbies they share, such as middle-aged motorcyclists who might be in the market for rainwear or sunscreen products or leather outerwear.

- Wants and needs they have and how your product fulfills them. For example, parents who work outside the home are more likely to need affordable, quality daycare for their children.

Describe your market’s buying habits–how do they spend their disposable income? When do they buy? How much? How often? If you have more than one target market, identify your primary market first–the customers who buy your products or services most often. Then list any secondary groups if you feel they will provide significant business. For each group, you must identify their characteristics, needs, etc. because your marketing strategy will probably change according to that particular market.

III. COMPETITOR AND ISSUES ANALYSIS

The Competitor and Issues Analysis section is where you’ll include the detailed information you gathered in your Market Research efforts regarding your competition and the market challenges you face.

Your competitor information will include:

Name of competitors
Summary of each competitor’s products or services
Competitors’ strengths and weaknesses
Competitors’ strategies and objectives
Strength of the market

Your issues analysis information will include:

The economic outlook of your market’s economy
Product innovations
Technological advancements
Environmental issues
Government regulations
Barriers to market entry
Weaknesses inside your company

IV. MARKETING OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGIES

The Marketing Objectives and Strategies that you mapped out on the previous page will be included here. The five main sections are:

Objectives
Strategies

- Product
- Price
- Promotion (overview)
- Place

Promotional Plan (detailed)
Action Plan
Marketing Budget

V. ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTATION

In this section, you’ll include the resumes of any key marketing personnel, as well as any detailed charts, tables, or lists of specific promotional campaigns, such as media plans (ads you’ll place, run dates, costs, etc.).