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A marketing plan is one of the most important tools in a marketer’s toolkit. The purpose of the marketing plan is to identify a roadmap for each of the 4 Ps. The plan includes an executive summary or snapshot of the document, the mission statement of the strategic business unit (SBU), the SWOT analysis of the SBU, and the objectives and issues associated with the products and services involved. The plan also provides details about market segmentation and the target market, buyer personas, and positioning. The plan addresses the current marketing situation, the marketing strategy, action programs, budgeting concerns, and controls to monitor progress.
An executive summary provides an overview or snapshot of the marketing plan. It provides an at-a-glance review of the company, key team members for the SBU, most critical marketing trends and opportunities, data about the products and services under review, key facts about the customers being targeted, critical marketing activities and timeline for completion, and the financial summary including the expected return on investment if the marketing plan is implemented as designed.
IN CONTEXT
An executive summary typically summarizes each of the sections of the marketing plan and gives stakeholders a brief overview of your marketing strategy. Write this section last, to make sure you have a high level view of your marketing strategy. An executive summary may include:
- How you intend to reach your target audience
- Description of your company and team
- Overview of market factors and trends
- Introduction to your products and services
- Summary of marketing objectives and strategies
- Summary of financial projections
A sample executive summary is shown in the image below. This sample is tailored to the stakeholders who will be reviewing the marketing plan, with an emphasis on partnerships and digital marketing.
The mission statement identifies the purpose of the company, and sets the stage for the corporate, business, and marketing strategy. It should define who the business is and why its products and services are critical to this purpose. The mission statement should tie back to the business and marketing plan.
The SWOT analysis identifies, in detail, the company’s internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats. The image below identifies the key questions to answer in the SWOT analysis, keeping in mind that investors and marketing partners will want to know how the company plans to capitalize on strengths and opportunities and mitigate weaknesses and threats.
The next section identifies the objectives and issues for the company. For the objectives, it is critical to ensure that they are defined in the SMART format, which means that they are specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time-bound. The image below shows the keys to developing SMART goals.
The template below provides some prompts to help develop objectives.
The marketing plan needs to identify the segment of the total market whose needs are met by a product and service and who are willing and able to purchase the offering, defined as market segmentation. The image below shows the segmentation process and highlights the importance of conducting market research.
Once marketers have identified the overall market segment, they conduct research to determine which group of customers is considered the target market or primary market for an offering based on demographics, psychographics, and other characteristics. The profiles of the market should be data-driven, because it’s only feasible to effectively reach the target market if marketers know how, when, where, and what message to use to reach them.
IN CONTEXT
There are four types of market segmentation. Each one needs to be linked directly to the product's features and benefits. The four types are demographics, psychographics, geographics, and behavioral.
Demographics include age, gender, income, marital status, and ethnic background.
Psychographics include activities, attitudes, and personality and values.
Geographics include local, national, regional, and international.
Behavior includes benefits, usage rates, and patterns.
Buyer personas are characterizations of a typical consumer in a target market. They can be real or fictional, depending on how much information a marketer has collected and analyzed about buyers.
Once marketers have created basic buyer personas, they move on to social media personas. The data used to compile these buyer personas provide significant support in optimizing social and digital media marketing for effectiveness.
A company’s positioning is the process it uses to identify itself and its offerings as unique in the marketplace. Marketers focus on understanding their target market by creating buyer personas to get into the mindset of the customer and then design a positioning statement and campaign that demonstrate how the product’s features and benefits make it the most suitable option for the buyer. Marketers will fine-tune messaging and promotions in order to ensure that the products and services are positioned in the “mind’s eye” of the consumer so that when a need arises, the buyer immediately thinks of the brand.
The company needs to describe the current marketing situation using data. Some models used to create the situation analysis aside from the SWOT analysis include the 5C analysis and the Porter’s Five Forces analysis. Companies use the 5C analysis to evaluate the company, its customers, competitors, collaborators, and the overall climate. The chart below shows the specific areas that need to be evaluated for the 5Cs. Porter’s Five Forces analysis, prompts companies to collect and analyze data on the rivalry among existing competitors, the threat of new entrants, the bargaining power of buyers, the threat of substitute products, and the bargaining power of suppliers.
In addition to the 5C analysis and Porter’s Five Forces, the current marketing situation should provide data on how customers feel about the company’s products and services relative to competitors. This research can be used to create a perceptual map, which visually diagrams brands based on specific criteria that customers report to be critical to their decision making about a product category. An example of a perceptual map for smartphone brands is shown below, with companies plotted on the map based on low to high price and basic to premium features. The research conducted to develop such a map provides specific comparisons that can be used to improve the positioning of a brand.
The marketing strategy section outlines what actions the company plans to take to convert potential customers to loyal buyers.
IN CONTEXT
Product strategy: This P should consider what the customers want, how the current offering compares to what they would ideally like to be able to purchase, how the product fits into their lifestyle, what features and benefits of competitive products are perceived to be superior to the company’s offering, and considerations including product durability, experience, and service warranty.
Price strategy: Price should consider what the perceived value is for the company’s offering, how competitor pricing compares, how sensitive customers are to changes in the price, the most important considerations in benefits and value to customers, what experiences the company could bundle with any given product to increase its perceived value, and considerations including the importance of loyalty programs.
Place strategy: Place or distribution should consider the current channels used to deliver the products and services to the end customer, channel relationships with retailers, the required support needed by each channel partner including promotional and sales programs, the value that each channel partner adds to the company’s offering, and considerations including how competitors manage their channel partnerships and collaborations to add superior value.
Promotion strategy: This P considers the kind of promotional experiences and value that the company offers, the various channels used to convey the brand message, the use of social media influencers to increase customer engagement, advertising messages that have been most effective, promotional programs to support new products, data about competitor advertising and promotions, examples of successful product category campaigns that inform upcoming plans, and customer data that support how they make decisions based on advertising and marketing.
The action programs of the marketing plan identify the tasks, start date and end date, progress and status information, percent completion, effort or priority level for the marketing team, and channels that will be impacted. The most important aspect of the action program is that the marketing team and all other internal stakeholders need to be able to see at a glance what tasks are in progress and their impact. There are a variety of software options on the market that provide free or subscription models for marketing project management.
Every company has a marketing budget, and there are three primary factors to consider with budgets: ensuring that all categories are identified, having accurate data, and accounting for variances that create budgeting concerns. In the example below, the company did not budget for its digital channel strategy but ended up spending $30,000 for that category (highlighted in red). This means that the company needed to find $30,000 from another category and will need to explain in detail why the category was not originally budgeted, why the money needed to be spent, if that spend is expected to be an ongoing expense, and what the return on investment (ROI) was for that additional area.
Controls are the methods used to determine if progress is being made on the areas of the plan that have been identified. The marketing plan needs to identify the actions required for each step of the plan for each of the 4 Ps, the person responsible for the actions, the timeline and interim deadlines as necessary, the channels that will be impacted, other departments that will be involved in the actions, external research necessary, the budget associated with each action, and how each action will be assessed.
Source: THIS TUTORIAL HAS BEEN ADAPTED FROM OPEN STAX’S PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING COURSE. ACCESS FOR FREE AT https://openstax.org/details/books/principles-marketing. LICENSE: CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION 4.0 INTERNATIONAL.
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