Purpose of the Marketing Plan

Does your company have a marketing plan? What is a marketing plan you say!

Well many times it may be incorporated into the business plan. But there is a real problem with that. Mainly because too many business plans gather dust on a shelf.

A marketing plan should never gather dust. Rather it should be your roadmap to gathering clients, increasing sales, and growing your business. And just like a roadmap, you must refer to it along the journey at regular intervals.

A marketing plan starts with what you want to accomplish. What is your companies purpose and mission. Identifying where your growth is going to occur, what products and what markets.

Then next part of the marketing plan is researching those products and markets. Finding out all the necessary information you need. Demographics of the markets you are in, or going into. What are the prospects buying now, what are they looking for, what is the need you have to fulfill. Who are your competitors, what do they do better, and what do you do better. About your product, what is the advantage of your product or service over your competition.

The next step is critical. Now that you have the information, you need to set some key objectives. What are your short term, mid term and long term goals that you are wanting to accomplish. Without this, you have no idea whether you are succeeding or failing.

Strategies are the next phase in building your marketing plan. Here you look at the larger overlying strategies, as well as tactical strategies. Marketing strategies are wide and varied - the tools of the trade, and you have to match your business to the correct marketing strategy.

Implementation is key to success in any marketing plan and this is where many businesses fail, particularly new companies. You have to realistically know what you need to accomplish, and how you are going to accomplish it. This should be as detailed as needed so that everyone that is involved can understand what needs to be done.

Finally budgeting, reporting and analysis are the last areas to a marketing plan. Again this is a critical area, that can really make the difference between a successful marketing campaign and a lackluster one. That is because as you move forward you have the chance to change marketing strategies, or just tweak the marketing strategy that you have in place to improve it. But you don't know if are not keeping track of the results.

Hope that helps,
Jack