Marketing plans are essential components for any business offering products or services to customers. The goal of the plan is to promote brand recognition or interest in your company among potential customers, with the hopes of boosting profit. Your marketing plan need not be a complicated document. It can be as long, or as short, as you need it to be. The key is to create a plan that works for your company. According to Microsoft and Entrepreneur magazine, marketing plans can be created in a few relatively simple and pain-free steps.
Instructions
1. Set up a brainstorming session. Consider who you are selling to, what the customer needs, how you fit in with the competition and how much money you can afford to spend on a marketing campaign. Write down thoughts and ideas from this session; you will use them to write the marketing plan.
2. Organize the plan into three main sections: Overview and Goals, Marketing Strategies and Budget.
3. Write the first section, Overview and Goals. In this section, introduce your product or service and discuss what advantages it has over the competition. Describe who the product is geared toward (your target audience, according to Entrepreneur magazine) and use bullets to list the goals for your plan. Goals must be specific and measurable, such as increase profits by 10 percent in the first quarter. Keep the first section short; a few pages should be all that is necessary.
4. Discuss your marketing strategies. This is the bulk of your marketing plan. List various strategies as subheadings and describe how you intend to implement those strategies in detail underneath the subheadings. Marketing strategies include attending trade shows, adjusting pricing to reflect current market conditions, using coupons or special offers, and placing traditional advertising such as commercials or print advertisements.
5. Create your budget. In the final section, discuss the costs associated with your marketing plan. This involves researching the costs of the marketing strategies. If strategies prove to be too costly, you can revise your marketing strategy as needed.
Tips Warnings
Review past marketing campaigns and analyze them closely to determine how successful they proved to be. Not every business will have this data available. If it is, however, it should be considered as you discuss your marketing strategy. Stick with what works, but spend a little money and time on new avenues in case the proven strategies begin to run dry.
Tags: write, marketing, plan, your marketing, marketing plan, Entrepreneur magazine, first section, marketing strategies, marketing strategy, Overview Goals, your company, your marketing strategy
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