How can we develop marketing plan?

step vise model business plan

Outline of a Marketing Plan

Your written marketing plan need not be lengthy and complicated. You can even make it as simple as possible. It is an internal document where you can be honest and direct when describing your company's weaknesses.

Gordon suggests the following outline:

1. Situation Analysis. Your first step is to take a comprehensive look at your company's challenges, its position in the market place, level and intensity of competition, and other factors that may affect your marketing strategies. This is the market research portion of your plan.

Challenges. When you open your business, you are faced with the huge task of letting your target market know that you exist, and willing to serve their needs. You are faced with the challenge of communicating with your target market to get them to become your customers.

Position in the marketplace. Your promotional strategy should highlight the "unique selling points" of your business.

Competition. This involves a complete analysis of the businesses already offering your type of goods and services within your geographical area (e.g. county, town, and city). You want to learn how many businesses are already in the marketplace, what they offer, and where they are located. By looking at this data, you can identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of your competitors in the area of price, quality, selection, promotion, services, customer service/personnel support, facilities/atmosphere, and location.

2. Target Audience. One of the most important segments of your market analysis involves identifying the people or businesses that may have a desire to purchase your type of product or service. The key is to know who buys what, how often, from whom, and what they may be looking for. If you are operating in a broad geographical market, you may have several target group - the primary, secondary, and so on. Your marketing plan should concentrate on reaching your primary audience, and allocating smaller budgets for the secondary market.

Profile of primary audience. You should identify the number of potential customers, who they are, how often they buy, who they are currently buying from, how much they spend, and if they are brand or store loyal. This group is the segment of the market that will consume your type of goods and services, and hopefully still in search of a business to patronize. If you are a wedding planner, your main market is the engaged couple planning to get married within a definite time frame.

Secondary audience. Utilizing a rifle approach, your secondary audience is those in the periphery of your main target group.

3. Objectives. Marketing objectives quantify the results you are looking to achieve. By clearly stating these results in advance, you provide performance criteria against which your future results can be compared. Whatever marketing objectives you decide on, they should meet certain criteria. They must be realistic, measurable, and be guided by short, medium and long-term deadlines.

Profit. Profit objectives state the bottom line progress you want your marketing efforts to achieve. You may set the goal of achieving 2 percent profit in your first year, and increasing it by 10 percent every year hereafter.

Market share. Market share objectives state your desired cut of the total industry sales pie, or at least the local industry. If the total revenue of all the wedding planners in your county is $2 million, how much of that is yours? If you only have 2% of that pie, you may want to increase your share to about 10% after launching your marketing campaign.

Sales volume target. Your sales volume affects your cost structure: the higher the sales that you generate, the lower your cost. Specific sales volume levels can give you more bargaining power with your suppliers. Sales volume objectives should clearly state the total goods or services you intend to deliver. Your goal can be to increase your sales in the next two months after a marketing campaign by $10,000.

4. Strategies. This is the core of your marketing plan. It contains a complete breakdown of marketing activities that you plan to undertake.

Marketing communications platform. Your promotional strategy must address the who, what, where and how much money to spend.

Marketing tools. Describe how each and every marketing tool will be used and the purpose. Tools can include advertising, public relations, special promotions and direct mail. Clarify how direct mail is to be utilized and who will receive it. Each component of your promotional mix plans a role in your effort to have potential customers learn about your business and buy your goods or services.

Media rationale. This section details how your messages will reach target audiences, including the list of publications where your ads will appear, ad sizes and costs.

Media Schedule. Media schedule is what is called in the industry as "insertion dates" or when your ads will appear. If you are running radio ads, for example, this will include the list of stations that will carry the ad, the duration, target audience, schedule reach and frequency, and costs.

5. Tactics. Once your planning is complete, prepare a calendar that will list the schedule of your strategies and specific activities. Your schedule must be balanced between executing your marketing strategies and time for crucial lead generation.

6. Budget. The final section of your marketing plan is to determine your budget, making sure that you have the funds to cover your production, printing, media and other miscellaneous expenses.

Production. This can include the creation of your logo design, stationery, mailing labels, company brochure, photography used, advertising and direct mail costs.

Printing. This will cover the printing costs of your letterhead and envelopes, company brochures, and direct mail.

Media. This is the cost of buying media for your print ads, radio ads and other tactics.

Miscellaneous. Other costs that may be incurred such as postage, holiday cards, thank you notes and others.

To see sample marketing plans, go to http://www.mplans.com/spm/index.cfm?a=mc

You got to get a book. There are a lot of books on developing marketing plans. You might try a text book used at your local business school.

well outsource to me, or you willing I will coach you, as it may require some form of interaction to get it out fast, I have been doing marketing plan for the past 14 years, is a piece of cake to me

my fees, depend on how complex the plan you want it to be....

dan_kschang@yahoo.com

NatWest bank will provide you free of charge with a CD rom covering content and layout of business and marketing plan. My own experience tells me to research the market place thoroughly to see what needs there are. Very few bright ideas work first time. Researching the market will allow you to tailor your ideas to what the market wants. It is then much easier to develop your actual sales and marketing strategy, as you will know who your target customers are.

The Small Business Administration gives some guidelines for writing marketing plans on their website:

http://www.sba.gov/starting_business/marketing/plan.html

Components of a Successful Marketing Plan

A marketing plan is a business tool that is used to communicate how, where, and to whom a business intends to market is product and/or services. In order for a company's marketing strategy to be effective, the master plan must contain several essential components that serve as benchmarking tools and goal-planning tools for the future. The following information will help you to construct these essential components and produce a final document that is accurate, detailed, and motivating.

Part I: What is your organization's purpose and mission?

The first section of the marketing plan should give readers information that allows them to understand why the plan was written. This section of the plan should also include background information about
the organization and a copy of its Mission Statement. This information will allow readers outside of the
organization to become familiar with the company's operations and mission. In this section, the writer should explain why the plan was written and suggest what should be done with the information contained in the plan. The Mission Statement should explain what type of business the company is involved in, the markets it servers, the benefits offered to clients, the type of products or services offered, and what the company would like to accomplish within its industry. Background information about the organization can include a history of the company and a listing of company resources.

Part II: Analyzing the Situation

The second section of the marketing plan is a situational analysis that analyzes where the company stands at the time of the plan's completion. This analysis is comprised of eight major components. The first is an analysis of current products or services offered by the organization. This involves listing product attributes, pricing, distribution methods, promotional methods, and support services offered to consumers. The second component is a description of the organization's target markets. This section can include descriptions of the demographic profile of each target market, characteristics of target consumers, an evaluation of how customers perceive the products and services, a description of the purchasing process, and size estimates of both the current and target markets. A description of the current distributor network in place is the third component of the situational analysis. This section includes a description of the supply chain, the product or service's role within the distributor network, the purchase process, and the demographics of the distribution network. The fourth component of an effective situational analysis is a competitive analysis of the organization. This involves examining the major competitors serving the same target market. Components of this section can include a discussion of competitive trends in the industry, a discussion of major competitors' strengths and weaknesses, and a description of competitors in terms of products, target markets, pricing, promotion, and distribution. A financial analysis for a product or line of products is the fifth component of the situational analysis. This section should include a current sales analysis, a profitability analysis, and an outline of marketing expenses incurred by the organization. The sixth component of a situational analysis should include a description of the problems and opportunities present in the internal and external environments of the organization. The plan writer must consider social and cultural influences, demographics, economic factors, technological considerations, political influences, and legal/ethical issues. A listing of marketing analysis tools should be the seventh component of the situational analysis. Finally, a summary of the current organizational situation should be presented. This involves conducting a SWOT analysis to determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of and to the organization.

Part III: Marketing & Strategy Objectives

This component of the successful marketing plan should provide a clear picture of the direction the product or product line will take. This section should include three major components. The first is an outline of the marketing strategy under which the marketing plan is being developed. This can include market growth, market stability, cost control, and market exit strategies. The second section should outline the organization's marketing objectives and can be organized by target market objectives, promotional objectives, channel objectives, research & development objectives, and other marketing objectives. Finally, this component should include an outline of financial objectives such as customer sales, channel sales, margins, profitability, and ratios.

Part IV: Tactical Marketing Programs

The fourth component of the marketing plan contains important information about the strategies that will be executed in order to achieve the goals and objectives established in section three. Information is presented in six areas: target marketing, product, promotion, pricing, distribution, and other areas. The section on target market issues should include information about the description of the target market, product positioning, and a sales forecast for each product. The product issues section should include a summary of current product decisions, identify any planned changes in marketing strategy, and contain a description of planned changes. The promotion issues component should include a summary of current promotional issues, identify planned changes, and describe any planned changes. The distribution issues component of this section should include a summary of current distribution network decisions, identify planned changes, and describe any planned changes. Pricing issues is the fifth component of the tactical marketing programs section. This should include a summary of current pricing decisions, identify any planned changes, describe planned changes, and outline pricing options. Finally, the sixth optional section can include a listing of customer support services or an outline of current market research effort. These components follow a similar format so that the reader can easily see what has been done and what is planned for the future.

Part V: Budgeting, Performance Analysis, and Implementation

This component of the marketing plan examines three important issues. The presentation of proposed marketing expenses will outline the financial impact that the plan will have on the organization. The presentation of the performance analysis will show the anticipated results of the actions outlined in the plan. Finally, a schedule for implementation will include timelines and a listing of personnel involved in accomplishing the goals and objectives contained in the plan. The budget should outline spending requirements for each decision and include breakdowns by month and year. Expenses can also be shown by individual product, geographic area, or distribution network. The performance analysis section will detail revenue versus expenses for all marketing decisions, a break-even analysis, and a ratio analysis. The implementation schedule will discuss how the components of the marketing plan will be carried out and by whom.

Part VI: Additional Considerations

This plan component will outline the potential issues that may affect the implementation or success of the marketing plan. This can include a discussion of internal factors, external factors, and limitations on research and development.

These six components of a successful marketing plan are time-consuming to compile and may be difficult to put together. However, spending the time and effort to prepare a detailed plan will give organizations an excellent tool for benchmarking and assessing marketing effectiveness.

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