All businesses need a marketing plan. But only a few of them know exactly what marketing plan actually is. You can use a detailed marketing plan as a step if you want to be successful in your business. If you are planning a marketing plan for your small business, you should do more than spend a only few hours for it. Small businesses need more than a few days to investigate factors such as market size and what makes the product unique. The following article will help you prepare your marketing plan.
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Steps to prepare a marketing plan
1 - Business summary:
A summary of the marketing plan as a whole is made in the business summary. The last part you should write should be an administrative summary, but it should be placed in the first part of the plan. Keep the administrative summary as short and pleasant as possible. Summarize everything with just a few words. Imagine as if you were making an elevator speech while writing the executive summary. Read aloud after you finish the administrative summary. If it takes more than ten seconds to read it all, review it to make it a little simpler.
2 - Tasks:
This part of the marketing plan should include brief descriptions of the product and the product line offered by your company. Each description should include the objectives of each product and your product line. (sales figures, strategic objectives and company objectives, etc.) Make sure it is short, measurable, and simple.
3 - Situation analysis:
This section should show your company's snapshot, customer base and market size. It should be divided into 6 sub-sections:
3.1 - Company analysis
- Long and short term goals of the company
- Company focus (mission and vision)
- Analyzing the company culture (is there a moving environment or a comfortable environment in your company?)
- Strengths of the company
- Weaknesses of the company
- Estimated market share of the company
3.2 - Customer analysis
- Estimate the size of your customer base. (for example, how many people buy one of your products, no one is not an answer)
- Demographic characteristics of your customer base (age, social, gender).
- Factors that create value (what values do products and / or services provide to the customer base?)
3.2 - Competitor analysis
- Market position (do competitors fully invest in the market or do they play a role in certain market segments? Are your competitors big or small?)
- Opponents Strengths
- Weaknesses of competitors
- Market shares
3.3 - Partners: people and companies that play an important role in maintaining your business.
Subsidiaries, business partnerships, suppliers, distributors and so on.
3.4 - Company climate: PEST analysis
- Political and legal environment (are there restrictions on the product?)
- Economic environment
- Social and cultural environment
- Technological environment (are your products integrated with modern technology? Are there updates foreseen?)
3.5 - SWOT analysis
- The company's strengths (what makes you the best? Is it a unique team and / or unique structure?).
- The company's weaknesses (what are your traits that keep you behind?).
- Opportunities (what are the improvements you can take advantage of?).
- Threats (what are the situations that have the potential to destroy your company if you are not careful?)
4 - Market segmentation:
- Each market has its own divisions. It is important that you understand the product or parts that are relevant to your products, because you can determine the marketing mix (4P) and adapt more easily to the different needs of each segment.
- Sections should be measurable, accessible, differentiated from other sections, durable, profitable and homogeneous.
5 - Alternative marketing strategies:
Before reaching the current strategy, identify alternatives with your team and write down them in detail. This may include sieving a particular product or product line or changing the price point of the product or product line.
6 - Selected marketing strategy:
Describe the strategy that you developed and agreed with your team. Why did you choose this strategy? Why is this strategy the best possible strategy for the near future?
Each product must have its own 4P. You can follow the format below:
Product
- Branding / brand name
- Intended quality level for the product
- Scope of product line
- Warranty
- Packing
- Price
Price
- Discounts
- Package sale
- Terms of payment
- Leasing options
Place
- Distribution channels (will you sell the products yourself or send them to retailers or warehouses)
- Channel motivations (how much margin do distributors expect?)
- Criteria for evaluating distributors
- Locations
- Logistics and supply chain
Promotion
- Advertising (what kind of advertising will you do? What kind of advertising channels will you use? - television, print, internet, etc.)
- Public relations
- Promotion programs
7 - Short and long-term forecasts:
This section should include revenue and expense estimates, break-even analysis, and any changes or adjustments that you think you should make in the future.
8 - Conclusion:
This section is a large version of the administrative summary. It should cover all figures (estimated costs, revenues, profits, etc.)
Tips
Keep in mind that your marketing plan should integrate the needs and ideas of each segment of the firm. Make sure that this plan is integrated and intertwined with your business plan and mission, vision and values.
Do not forget to add all the schemes, graphs, etc. that you use to prepare your marketing plan.
