What is a marketing plan?
What is a marketing plan?
Outline or Table of Contents
Executive Summary
Situation Analysis
Objectives
Strategies
Tactics
Budget
Outline or Table of Contents
This page provides the organization for the plan. Remember to include page numbers as it will help during meetings or conversations to reference the exact pages.
Executive Summary
This page offers you a place for grounding the reader. This is a one page summary of the circumstances and principle recommendations within the plan. This will help the reader to locate where they may find further information of a particular subject.
Situation Analysis
This sections describes your current situation. This includes an explanation of past sales, competitors, recent sales, and profit results. The strengths and weaknesses in relationship to competitors also appears here. Finally, there should be a projection of the future for the particular industry; this involves a discussion of opportunities and potential threats.
Objectives
This area addresses the purpose for the marketing plan: is it to launch a new service/product or line of services/products, to boost revenue from existing services/products, or to implement new ways of marketing your services/products?
Each objective is quantified and has a limited time frame. This helps to measure the goals and their success. This also aids in comparing one marketing plan with another previous plan.
Strategies
Strategies help you accomplish goals. These are methods that can be used to get from point A to point B. Strategies are best used when they can be broken down to apply to other areas; for example, increasing sales through increasing your market share.
Strategies will also come in handy if your market changes. This will prevent your business from losing out on opportunities.
Tactics
Tactics are ways for following through with strategies. These are specific actions that will accomplish the goals of your business. In other words, tactics are a tangible fulfillment of a marketing vision, objective or strategy. For example, a commercial is the tactic for increasing exposure.
Budget
The budget is where you total all the costs of your tactics.
If your projected costs are more than your working capital or company worth, then prioritize the objectives, goals, strategies and tactics, also known as a revenue projection. Here you subtract the cost of goods for tactic A from the projected additional revenue using tactic A. The total is your gross additional revenue. Subtract the cost of tactic A from the gross. The remainder is the net revenue. For example:
Projected additional revenue using tactic A: $ 10,000
Cost of additional goods sold: 6,000
Gross additional revenue: $ 4,000
Cost of tactic A (an ad): 3,000
Net revenue: $ 1,000
After making such projections for each tactic, you will have a better understanding as to which would be most profitable or too risky.
In it’s entirety, the plan is a projected profit-loss statement. The profit side consists of the number of new services/products sold and the average net profit. The loss side is the cost of production, marketing, and distribution.
As overwhelming as it may seem to develop and customize a marketing plan for your business, keep this one fact in mind: If you plan to spend no money or time on marketing, then you lose profit share and potentially face an unstable future.
What is a marketing plan - To learn more about this author, visit Chari Darneal's Website.
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A marketing plan is a plan for how you will market your service/product or introduce a new service/product into your market niche. The plan consists of:
Outline or Table of Contents
Executive Summary
Situation Analysis
Objectives
Strategies
Tactics
Budget
Outline or Table of Contents
This page provides the organization for the plan. Remember to include page numbers as it will help during meetings or conversations to reference the exact pages.
Executive Summary
This page offers you a place for grounding the reader. This is a one page summary of the circumstances and principle recommendations within the plan. This will help the reader to locate where they may find further information of a particular subject.
Situation Analysis
This sections describes your current situation. This includes an explanation of past sales, competitors, recent sales, and profit results. The strengths and weaknesses in relationship to competitors also appears here. Finally, there should be a projection of the future for the particular industry; this involves a discussion of opportunities and potential threats.
Objectives
This area addresses the purpose for the marketing plan: is it to launch a new service/product or line of services/products, to boost revenue from existing services/products, or to implement new ways of marketing your services/products?
Each objective is quantified and has a limited time frame. This helps to measure the goals and their success. This also aids in comparing one marketing plan with another previous plan.
Strategies
Strategies help you accomplish goals. These are methods that can be used to get from point A to point B. Strategies are best used when they can be broken down to apply to other areas; for example, increasing sales through increasing your market share.
Strategies will also come in handy if your market changes. This will prevent your business from losing out on opportunities.
Tactics
Tactics are ways for following through with strategies. These are specific actions that will accomplish the goals of your business. In other words, tactics are a tangible fulfillment of a marketing vision, objective or strategy. For example, a commercial is the tactic for increasing exposure.
Budget
The budget is where you total all the costs of your tactics.
If your projected costs are more than your working capital or company worth, then prioritize the objectives, goals, strategies and tactics, also known as a revenue projection. Here you subtract the cost of goods for tactic A from the projected additional revenue using tactic A. The total is your gross additional revenue. Subtract the cost of tactic A from the gross. The remainder is the net revenue. For example:
Projected additional revenue using tactic A: $ 10,000
Cost of additional goods sold: 6,000
Gross additional revenue: $ 4,000
Cost of tactic A (an ad): 3,000
Net revenue: $ 1,000
After making such projections for each tactic, you will have a better understanding as to which would be most profitable or too risky.
In it’s entirety, the plan is a projected profit-loss statement. The profit side consists of the number of new services/products sold and the average net profit. The loss side is the cost of production, marketing, and distribution.
As overwhelming as it may seem to develop and customize a marketing plan for your business, keep this one fact in mind: If you plan to spend no money or time on marketing, then you lose profit share and potentially face an unstable future.
What is a marketing plan - To learn more about this author, visit Chari Darneal's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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