No matter how good your product, service, or technology is, customers can’t buy from a business they don’t know exists. Marketing is what puts your business in front of the people who might buy from you, and persuades them to do it.
You can market your business without a plan, but you’re less likely to reach your target customers efficiently, and more likely to waste money along the way. A marketing plan helps make sure every dollar you spend on marketing gets used well.
Creating an Outstanding Marketing Plan
Think of a marketing plan as a roadmap that provides direction to help you fulfill your marketing activities. This post will supply a definition and discuss why you need one and the steps to create this document.
What Is a Marketing Plan?
A marketing plan is a document that outlines and organizes the advertising activities an entity plans to implement. It details the what, how, and why of an entity’s marketing strategy and lays out the marketing activities for the forthcoming period.
A marketing plan can be created as part of an entity’s business plan, or it can be a standalone document. Most companies draft this document annually to cover a year’s marketing activities.
You can, however, create it quarterly or whenever you want to change your marketing strategy.
There are different ways to create a marketing plan. You can follow a time-based route by drafting the plan quarterly or annually. You can also have multiple marketing plans for different marketing avenues.
For example, you can have a plan for SEO content creation and a separate one for social media marketing. You can also have another for product sampling or a new product launch.
Drafting multiple marketing plans only makes sense if you run a big corporation with multiple products, departments, and locations. In a small business, you only need one general marketing plan for the year or quarter. The number of pages doesn’t matter as long as the plan is thorough, concise, and easy to understand.
Marketing Plan Versus Marketing Strategy
A marketing plan is not the same as a marketing strategy, even though both are necessary for the success of your business. The former outlines the steps needed to achieve your marketing goals. It focuses on the daily, weekly, and monthly activities your entity should perform.
By contrast, a marketing strategy is a comprehensive game plan for identifying and reaching your target market. This document doesn’t include specific marketing activities or the timeframe for fulfilling those activities.
It contains marketing goals, target audience, competitor analysis, and communication channels. On the other hand, marketing plans include the implementation method and tactical steps for achieving the marketing strategy.
Reasons You Need a Marketing Plan
As a business owner, every marketing activity you implement in your entity should be guided by a marketing plan. Without this document, you’ll basically be throwing darts in the dark, hoping one will catch your target customers. You may end up throwing a few too many darts.
A marketing plan essentially gives you direction to ensure you throw those darts directly to your target customers. In other words, it helps ensure you do the right marketing activity, at the optimal time, through the proper marketing channels, and towards your exact target audience. Here is a list of reasons a marketing plan is crucial:
1. Understand Your Target Market
Like the marketing strategy, a marketing plan helps you understand your target customers. However, this document does more than identify them. It also outlines where, how, and when to find them. Marketing plans guide you on how to find your target customers and persuade them to buy from you.
2. Set Timeframes and Objectives for Marketing Activities
A marketing plan works like a timetable. It tells you which activity to do, where, and when. Because everyone knows their task, the team runs more efficiently. Clear goals also make your business targets feel more achievable, which keeps the team motivated.
3. Gain Investors’ Confidence
One question investors may ask you during due diligence is how you plan to get customers to buy your products or services. This question should be your cue to present your marketing plan. This document will give them more confidence to invest in your business.
4. Set a Marketing Budget
A marketing plan enables you to allocate a realistic budget for your marketing activities. It helps you plan and manage your financial resources to ensure every marketing dollar counts. You get to keep your marketing expenses within your overall business budget.
5. Make Better Marketing Decisions
Planning helps you spot setbacks and challenges before they happen, so you can prepare for them ahead of time. Building a marketing plan also means gathering the information you need to make well-thought-out decisions. For example, it can help you decide whether to hire more marketers or launch a campaign on a new social media platform.
6. Make the Team More Cohesive
A marketing plan keeps your team on the same page about strategy and activities. Everyone knows what to work on, when, and where. Teams with a plan work more cohesively than teams without one.
Essential Sections Included in a Marketing Plan
Here are the elements and sections to have in your marketing plan. They don’t have to follow this exact order.
1. Entity Summary
This section summarizes your organization, starting with your entity’s name, location, and mission statement. It may also highlight your marketing team.
2. Entity Initiatives
This section outlines your marketing goals and initiatives. It may also highlight the metrics you’ll use to measure those goals.
3. Customer Analysis
This section describes your target customers using buyer personas or customer groups. It highlights traits such as age, location, hobbies, goals, and gender.
4. SWOT Analysis
SWOT analysis evaluates your business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It’s a standard part of market research, and it belongs in your marketing plan too. See the Steps section below for how to build one.
5. Competitor Analysis
A competitor analysis section names your main business rivals and looks at their position and market share. It helps you spot gaps and openings where you can gain an edge. See the Steps section below for what to include.
6. Marketing Strategy (4Ps of Marketing)
The marketing strategy is an essential component of the marketing plan. You will most likely create your marketing plan based on this document. Therefore, you need to have it ready as a section. The best way to write your marketing strategy is by describing the 4Ps of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion.
7. Marketing Budget
This section outlines what you plan to spend on your marketing activities. Break it down by specific item or activity rather than giving one lump sum. You can also use it to note other resources you’ll need, like marketing software.
8. Marketing Channels
The last thing your marketing plan should contain is your marketing channels. This refers to the avenues where you plan to perform your marketing activities, for example, Facebook, YouTube, newspapers, etc. Don’t forget to highlight the purpose of each channel and the metrics you’ll use to measure success.
Steps to Create a Marketing Plan
As mentioned above, how you create your marketing plan may vary depending on its purpose and scope. A plan that only covers SEO content marketing differs from an annual general marketing plan. However, all plans will likely include the same sections, perhaps with a slight variance. Remember that the number of pages does not matter so long as the plan is thorough and concise.
Let’s discuss how you create a marketing plan:
1. Start With a Marketing Plan Outline
Drafting an outline of the sections you want in your marketing plan will make creating this document easier. Here is an example of the sections to have in your marketing plan:
- Cover page
- Table of contents
- Executive summary
- Marketing goals and objectives
- Target customer or user personas
- SWOT analysis
- Competitor analysis
- Baseline metrics
- Workflow plan or roadmap
- Tracking and measuring guidelines
Once you create your outline, your next task will be to develop your plan section by section.
2. Design Your Cover Page
Your cover page is the first page of your marketing plan. It welcomes readers to your document and provides essential information about your business. The cover page contains the following elements:
- Entity name and tagline
- Entity logo and color scheme
- Title of document
- Year or quarter covered by the marketing plan
Having a cover page is not compulsory. It depends on whether your marketing plan is part of the business plan or is a standalone document.
3. Create a Table of Contents
Now that you planned your section outline, creating a table of contents should take minutes. Add it as a section in your marketing plan to help your readers navigate through the document quickly. Creating a table of contents only makes sense if your document is five pages and more.
4. Write Your Executive Summary
One way to get your readers excited about your marketing plan is with a well-crafted executive summary. Mention a few things about your entity and highlight any current triumphs and goals. Lastly, briefly highlight your targets for the business in the next quarter or year. Other details worth mentioning in your executive summary include:
- Milestones
- Some key facts about your business or brand
- Important metrics
Keep your executive summary brief; two to three paragraphs should do.
5. Highlight Marketing Goals and Objectives
If you haven’t thought about your marketing goals and objectives, this section is your cue to do so. Set specific and measurable goals for the upcoming plan period. List them in point form and avoid vague terminologies such as “increasing the number of followers” or “getting more in-store sales.” Your goals should be specific and measurable.
6. Highlight Baseline Metrics
You can’t measure progress in the future without knowing where you currently stand. Therefore, you should include a section highlighting your baseline metrics. These are the results you will use to compare with your future results. Your baseline metrics should also be specific, for example, “3,200 Instagram followers” or “50 sales per month.”
Ensure your baseline metrics are straightforward. Don’t list too many because some readers find data intimidating. You can also use infographics and charts to make your metrics more appealing.
7. Design Customer Personas
It’s time to highlight your customers’ personalities. You can outline them using user personas or customer segments.
A user persona is a fictional character who represents your ideal target customer. Give your user persona a name, face, background story, and personality. Also, list their hobbies, preferences, frustrations, occupations, and residential locations, among other things. The idea is to make your persona a representation of your target customer.
But if you prefer not to have this many details, you can highlight the traits of your target customer. Include details such as:
- Gender
- Age
- Preferences
- Income level
- Hobbies and interests
- Occupation
- Location
8. Develop a SWOT Analysis
Your next task will be to develop a SWOT analysis. If you have not developed this framework during your market research, take some time to create it. Evaluate your entity’s strengths and weaknesses and assess opportunities and threats in your external environment.
9. Develop a Competitor Analysis
Developing a competitor analysis should also not be as difficult since you might have done it in your market research. Include the following details:
- Competitor’s name
- A brief description of the competitor
- Size of company and number of employees
- Annual revenue
- Number of years in business
- Market share
- Price of competing product or service
You may also note down the edge you have over each competitor.
10. Sketch a Workflow Plan or Roadmap
Your workflow plan guides your team on what they need to do at a specific time when conducting their marketing activities. Try and make it thorough. You can sketch it month to month or week to week, depending on how detailed you want your plan to be. Here is an example of a workflow map:
- Post four Instagram posts per week.
- Week 1 (Monday morning): Post to welcome followers to the week
- Wednesday at noon: Post about business
- Friday morning: Post something informative
- Sunday evening: Weekly outlook post
Make your workflow map easy to follow. Your team should quickly identify the marketing activity to do at a certain period in the workflow.
11. Identify Tracking and Measuring Guidelines
Conclude your marketing plan with a list of the tracking metrics you’ll use to measure performance. Specify what you plan to measure, how you’ll measure it, and how often. Once you finish this section, your plan will be ready for use.
Key Points and Facts About Marketing Plans
- A marketing plan outlines the what, how, and why of your marketing activities, usually covering a year or a quarter.
- A marketing plan is different from a marketing strategy — the strategy is your long-term direction, the plan is the tactical execution.
- A marketing plan typically includes an entity summary, goals, customer and competitor analysis, a SWOT analysis, the marketing mix (4Ps), a budget, and your marketing channels.
- A marketing plan helps you understand your target market, set timeframes, gain investor confidence, set a realistic budget, make better decisions, and keep your team aligned.
- Plan to review your marketing plan at least once a year, and more often if your business changes quickly.
Checklist for Creating a Marketing Plan
- Outline your sections
- List the sections you want to include before you start writing.
- Design your cover page
- Add your entity name, tagline, logo, and the plan’s title and time period.
- Add a table of contents
- Worth including once your plan runs five pages or more.
- Write your executive summary
- Keep it to two or three paragraphs covering key facts, milestones, and metrics.
- List your marketing goals and objectives
- Make them specific and measurable, not vague.
- Record your baseline metrics
- Note where you stand now so you can measure progress later.
- Build your customer personas
- Describe your target customer’s traits, preferences, and location.
- Complete a SWOT analysis
- Cover your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
- Complete a competitor analysis
- Note each competitor’s size, revenue, market share, and pricing.
- Sketch your workflow plan
- Map out who does what marketing activity, and when.
- Set your tracking and measuring guidelines
- Decide what you’ll measure, how, and how often.
FAQ: Marketing Plans
How is a marketing plan different from a marketing strategy?
- A marketing strategy is the long-term “why” behind your marketing — your target market, goals, and positioning. A marketing plan is the shorter-term “how” — the specific activities, timeline, and budget you’ll use to carry out that strategy.
How long should a marketing plan be?
- There’s no set length. A marketing plan should be as long as it needs to be to cover your sections thoroughly and clearly — some run a few pages, others run much longer.
How often should I update my marketing plan?
- Plan to review it at least once a year. If your business or market changes quickly, review it quarterly instead.
Do I need a separate marketing plan for each marketing channel?
- Only if you run a large operation with multiple products, departments, or locations. Most small businesses only need one general marketing plan per year or quarter.
Is a cover page required for a marketing plan?
- No. It depends on whether your marketing plan is a standalone document or part of a larger business plan.
Closing Thoughts
Marketing doesn’t always require a big budget. It does, however, require a plan and a strategy. A solid marketing plan increases your chances of attracting customers and getting them to engage with your business.
Once your plan is finished, proofread it, and keep your fonts, colors, and icons consistent throughout. You can vary the layout page to page for visual interest.
A marketing plan isn’t a one-and-done document. Plan to revisit it at least once a year, and more often — quarterly, for example — if your business or market changes quickly.