• Almost every marketing plan needs a good Cover Page. The Cover Page should
include the following: plan name, company name, company address, company phone
and fax, an email address and possibly a revision number or copy number.
• It's always a good idea to include a Legal Page ( Confidentiality Agreement) with your marketing plan. This simple
statement can help you protect your intellectual property. We suggest you
contact a lawyer if you have real concerns about your legal position when
distributing your marketing plan.
• Although Executive
Summary topic appears first in the plan, you normally write it last. Wait
until you're almost done so you can include the main highlights. You should
cover the most important facts, such as target markets, sales growth, and
strategic focus, and those facts may change during the planning process.
The contents of the summary
should include the main highlights of the plan. Make sure to address target
markets, market needs, sales prospects, expenses, and strategy. Remember, as
always, to match your plan to your purpose. This is business, not writing
class.
• Situation Analysis
is addressing the key points that describe your current situation. It sets the
scene. As you develop your marketing plan, this early section is critical to
bring your plan up to speed on the key points to follow. This is where you
inventory what your firm offers and introduce your marketing situation and the
main components of the marketing plan. These components include your markets,
competition, products, distribution channels, the microenvironment, and
historical results. The most important single point is the market need. Every
marketing plan should take a market-oriented strategic planning approach that
focuses on the market need.
• In case of proposing Target
Market, keep in mind markets can be described in terms of geographic,
demographic, psychographic, and behavioral attributes. Analyzing your market
from this perspective can be a useful way to categorize what you know about the
people you want as clients and can lead to identifying and confirming
opportunities the market presents. You may find that your information is
limited, and just capture what you know. This can also be an area that helps
identify areas needing additional research.
Market Geographics - This
factor addresses where your customers are physically located. A landscape
architect may serve those people within a specific climate or region. If you
are marketing your services over the Internet, your client's physical location
may be irrelevant.
Market Demographics - Consumer
wants, preferences, and the frequency of their purchases are often associated
with demographic information. Demographics consider information about market
age, gender, nationality, education, household composition, occupation and
income. Think about the demographics of the people in your market. Are there
common demographic factors that describe the people you expect to be potential
clients?
Market Psychographics - The
market can also be described in terms of psychographic information. It is more
challenging than the previous categories because it is less quantifiable and
more subjective. Psychographics categorize people on the basis of their
lifestyle or personality attributes. For example, the lifestyles and
personality attributes of people in a large metropolitan city are going to be
quite different from those of a small agricultural-based community. Consider
the general lifestyles or personalities that best describe your market.
Market Behaviors - Buyers can
also be analyzed based on their knowledge, attitude, use, or response to a
product. These behavioral variables may include the occasions that stimulate a
purchase, the benefits they realize, the status of the user, their usage rate,
their loyalty, the buyer-readiness stage, and their attitude toward the service
you offer.
Document what you know about
each of these areas. If you have an existing client base or previous experience
with this market, think about your "best" clients. You may want to
know where they live, their age, gender, occupation, what is important to them,
and why they want your services. If you do not have historical information,
check to see if there are resources that you can use to help you understand and
describe the attributes of your market. Complete what you can and return to
this section as you learn more.
• Market Needs
may be the most important topic in your marketing plan. Always emphasize the
market need that you seek to fill. What value are you providing? Your marketing
efforts will always benefit from focusing on the benefits you are providing
your customers, rather that the benefits you are realizing. It isn't how you
sell the product; but rather, what customer needs you are satisfying.
Value is realized in tangible
and intangible forms. Are you saving your clients time, effort, or money? Are
you enhancing their net worth, their self-confidence, or their potential? Are
you enriching their skills, their sense of security, or their self-esteem? Are
you minimizing their real or perceived risks, fears, or liabilities?
• To describe Market Trends, think strategically. What
factors seem to be changing the market, or changing the business? What
developing trends can make a difference? Market trends could involve changes in
demographics, changes in customer needs, a new sense of style or fashion, or
other factors that may influence purchase behavior of your market. Much of this
depends on what business you are in
• Use this topic to explain and discuss Market Growth. Is the market growing, is
it static, or is it shrinking? Documented market growth enhances the implied
value and potential of your business. Ideally you will be able to cite experts,
a market research firm, trade association, or credible journalists describing
projected growth. This may be particularly important when your plan is used to
communicate with those outside the marketing department or the organization,
such as for investors, board members, or advisors.
Cite growth rates in terms
that fit the available information and your industry. Determine if growth is
best expressed in the number of potential customers, projected dollar sales,
projects completed, website projects, tax reporting hours, yards to landscape,
or whatever best fits your business and your audience.
• A valuable step in your Situational Analysis is to assess your firm's strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT).
A SWOT analysis is a helpful method to complete this assessment.
The SWOT analysis begins by
assisting you in conducting an inventory of your internal strengths and
weaknesses. You will then note the opportunities and threats that are external
to the organization, based on your market and the overall environment. Don't be
concerned about elaborating on these topics at this point. Bullet points may be
the best way to begin. Capture the factors you believe are relevant in each of
the four areas. You will want to review what you have noted here as you work
through your marketing plan.
• About Competition,
describe your major competitors in terms of the factors that most influence
revenues. This may include their size, the market share they command, their
comparative product quality, their growth, available capital and resources,
image, marketing strategy, target markets, and any attributes you consider important.
Industry associations, industry publications, media coverage, information from
the financial community, and their own marketing materials and websites may be
good resources to identify these factors and "rate" the performance
of each competitor.
Your access to this
information will vary. Competitors that are publicly traded may have a
significant amount of information available. Competitive information may be
limited in situations where your competitors are privately held. If possible,
you may want to take on the task of playing the role of a potential customer
and gain information from that perspective.
Use this topic for a general
comparison of your offering as one of several choices a potential buyer can
make.
• Under Product Offering
section, list and describe the product(s) of your company offers. For each
business offering, cover the main points including what the product is, how
much it costs, what sorts of customers make purchases, and why. What customer
need does each product fill?
It is always a good idea to
think in terms of customer needs and customer benefits, as you define your
product offerings, rather than thinking of your side of the equation -- the
products you sell -- first.
• The idea of Keys to Success is based on the need for
focus. You can't focus efforts on a few priorities unless you limit the number
of priorities. In practice, lists of more than three or four priorities are
usually less effective. The more the priorities (beyond three or four), there
will be less chance of implementation.
Virtually every marketing plan
has different keys to success. These are a few key factors that make the
difference between success and failure. This depends on who you are and what
services you offer.
• We will bring the four areas of the SWOT analysis
together to formulate Critical Issues
affecting the marketing plan. The objective is to leverage the strengths of the
business to take advantage of the available opportunities, offset or improve
the stated weaknesses, and minimize the risk of potential threats. Your
marketing plan should address the critical issues to place you in an optimal
position to succeed -- optimizing revenues with the allocated marketing
resources.
• Marketing Strategy
is a summary chapter, introducing the discussion of strategies to follow. The
strategy chapter normally includes objectives, mission, target market
strategies, product positioning, strategy pyramids, and detailed discussion of
the marketing mix.
As a summary paragraph, this
topic should introduce the others to follow. You should include the most
important highlights, for sure, because this first topic might be used to
summarize the whole chapter.
Remember, strategy is focus.
It isn't a complete list of what you want to do, but rather a prioritized list
of your main items of focus. You will go into detail in your positioning,
mission statement, and the other topics included in the chapter. Don't try to include
everything here, just the highlights.
• A brief Mission Statement
will keep your plan focused. Use your mission statement to establish your
fundamental goals for the quality of your business offering, customer
satisfaction, employee welfare, compensation to owners, and so forth. A good
mission statement can be a critical element in defining your business and
communicating to employees, vendors, customers, and owners, partners, or
shareholders.
• Use this topic to set specific Marketing Objectives. Think about sales, market share, market
positioning, image, awareness, and related objectives.
Remember to make your
objectives concrete and measurable. Develop your plan to be implemented, not
just read. Objectives that can't be measured can't be tracked and followed up,
so they are less likely to lead to implementation. The capability of plan-vs.-actual
analysis is essential.
• Financial Objectives
are very different from marketing objectives, and generally easier to measure.
A financial objective might be to increase 2003 profits by 10%, or sales by
10%, or contribution margin by 5%, or gross margin by 10%. Financial objectives
might also be holding spending to a specific level, as a percent of sales.
• In Target Markets,
you should introduce the strategy behind your market segmentation and your
choice of target markets. Explain why your business is focusing on these
specific target market groups. What makes these groups more interesting than
the other groups that you've ruled out? Why are the characteristics you specify
important?
• Under Marketing
Positioning statements, the positioning statements should include a
strategic focus on the most important target market, that market's most
important market need, how your product meets that need, what is the main
competition, and how your product is better than the competition.
Consider this simple example:
For [target market
description] who [target market need], [this product] [how it meets the need].
Unlike [key competition], it [most important distinguishing feature].
• In Marketing
Recharge discuss what market research you need. Think about what market
research you need on a regular basis. This might include customer surveys,
market surveys; market forecast reports, market share reports, trends, etc.
• Financials section
is a summary paragraph for the rest of the chapter. This chapter contains your
expense budgets, sales forecasts, and breakdowns by category. Normally it is
mainly tables and charts, with texts to explain the numbers in them.
As a summary, cite the main
points. Sales are expected to grow to what, from what level? Expenses are to be
held at some level, which is only XX% of sales? Many of your readers will just
browse these main paragraphs, some will browse the charts as well, and only a
few will go into the tables in detail.
• As your strategy is implemented, you will need to track
your results (Controls) and monitor
new development in the internal and external environments.
Is your plan on track with
your revenue generation objectives? It is important to monitor your progress
based on comparing your performance to the goals and budget expectations for
each month or quarter. This variance will provide feedback on the impact of
your programs. Are the programs accomplishing your goals? Programs that are not
working need to be changed. Programs that meet or exceed expectations should be
replicated. This is where the value of a dynamic marketing plan benefits you
most.
What is happening in the
market environment? You want to know as things change and how quickly those
changes take place. A static internal and external environment will not be as
demanding as those that are rapidly evolving. If these factors have changed
since you created your marketing plan, or have not evolved in the direction you
anticipated, you will want to review your plan to make certain it is still
viable.
The control section of your
plan also provides a way of checking to see that your programs are supporting
your tactics and strategies and are consistent with the key objectives of your
marketing plan. Reviewing your results throughout the year will enable you to have
the opportunity to evaluate and modify your marketing plan as necessary. It is critical
to compare your actual to your budget on a scheduled basis, and you may want to
add this to your marketing calendar as a reminder. Monitoring your progress
takes some discipline and it may prove to be the most valuable function of the
marketing plan.
• Implementation is
the heart of your marketing plan; make it as concrete and specific as you can,
in this text as well as the accompanying table and the Gantt chart.
Include as many specific
programs as possible. Give each program a name, a person responsible, a
milestone date, and a budget. Marketing Plan Pro will automatically set up
similar areas for evaluating the actual results and the difference between plan
and actual results, for each program (PREMIER Only) You have a place to track
spending and milestone dates, and you can also create a table based on
categories that are meaningful to you, such as by the person responsible,
milestone date, budget, and department. Good work on your implementation
milestones can also be a valuable tool to keep the person that is responsible
also accountable.
• When the time to think Contingency Planning, think the following questions:
What will you do if things
don't work out? Do you have a contingency plan? Explain what happens if things
go wrong. What factors are most likely to cause trouble? What trouble could
they cause? How are you going to react?
Try to predict the problems
that might come up. Think of internal problems first, like losing a key person,
funding falls through, some portion of the plan falls apart. Then think about
external problems, such as the entry of a new competitor, changes in
technology, price wars, or difficulty getting product. Contingency planning
encourages you to think about the challenges ahead and consider alternatives.
The objective is to avoid or minimize the negative impact on your marketing
plan, and keep you ahead of these changes.
Hope the above guidelines help you to think and write an accurate as well as specific marketing plan. Good Luck to your innovative marketing plan assignments or projects!
