How to successfully develop your business? You need to business development not only plan advertising events, but also develop detailed instructions for their implementation – a marketing plan. In the world of marketing, this is something like a roadmap that reflects the company’s path with intermediate points. Experts from the digital agency 360 MEDIA tell us what a strong marketing plan should look like.
Marketing plan: the main thing about the document
A detailed description of a set of actions to achieve the company’s key goals is what a marketing plan is. It sets out all marketing activities for a specific period that should help: increase awareness, grow sales or recent mobile phone number data expand the audience. A marketing plan allows you not only to outline the prospects for business development, but also to forecast expenses, assess potential risks in order to create a “Plan B”.
A marketing plan is a continuation of a marketing strategy and is drawn up at the stage of developing a business plan. Aren’t a marketing plan and a marketing strategy the same thing? No. A strategy formulates the company’s global goals (its mission), and a plan defines the ways to achieve them. To put it simply, a marketing plan is a step-by-step implementation of a strategy.
Contents of a Marketing Plan
Business owners often neglect to draw up a marketing plan, and in vain: the document helps to structure information about advertising activities so that in case of force majeure, you can quickly find the problem area. What does a marketing plan include? Marketers do not set strict requirements for the structure, but they advise to provide for a number of important sections.
- Analysis. The current position of the company on the market is determined: its strengths and weaknesses, key development vectors are identified. Based on the analysis of the target audience, a client portrait is created. It is also necessary to analyze the actions of competitors.
- Goals. When developing a plan, it is important to clearly understand the marketing goals, since all elements of the marketing plan will be built around them. In this case, each task written in the document will bring results and help the business develop.
How to Develop a Marketing Plan Step by Step
A marketing plan is like Google Maps: there is a point where the company is now, and there is a point where business model: main tasks, types, structure it wants to get to. All that remains is to plot a route. It is important to see the intermediate points and turn the signs in the right direction to understand when to stop and when to turn off in time. Next, we will analyze the sequence of marketing planning.
Setting SMART goals
How to make a working marketing plan? First of all, you need to learn to see the current needs of the business. According to the SMART methodology, the goal my blog should be: specific, measurable, achievable, significant and time-bound. For example, you want to increase sales by 25% in six months, and you understand the means by which this can be achieved.
Analyzing the situation (SWOT analysis)
The study allows you to determine the company’s position in the competitive environment. To find growth points, you need to know the strengths and weaknesses of the business, as well as understand what external circumstances can harm it, and how to neutralize existing threats. We recommend conducting a separate SWOT analysis of competitors. This way, you can use the weaknesses of the competitor to assess risks, and the weaknesses to identify development opportunities.
How to hire a strong marketer for your team?
Guide to Recruiting and Interviewing Employees (12 pages, PDF)
Pick up atTelegram
Pick up atVkontakte
Studying the target audience
The marketing plan reflects everything that future promotion consists of. However, before moving on to choosing tools, you will need to draw up a portrait of a potential buyer: how old he is, what he does, what his income level is, and so on. It is also important to identify the client’s unmet needs in order to adapt the product to him as much as possible. Studying the target audience will help you find out where to look for buyers: on social networks or in the vastness of Yandex/Google.
Making an Action Plan
This is the name of the action plan aimed at achieving the company’s goals. At this stage, it is necessary to outline the activities with the designation of the deadlines, performers and budget, as in our example. But first, we recommend finding points of contact with users, that is, figuring out where and when a person can interact with your brand. For example, in Yandex search, on the official website, through social networks, in a mobile application.
Developing a competent promotion tactic requires a lot of time, and most importantly, the involvement of experienced specialists. Determining communication channels is only half the battle. During marketing planning, you will also need to establish key performance indicators (KPI) for tracking. Metrics for each channel are included in a separate document (media plan).
Planning a budget
The last element in the structure of the marketing plan, but one of the most important. In this case, it is necessary to explain the costs at each stage of promotion, so as not to invest money in ineffective tools. It should be clearly stated how much you can spend on “context” and how much on promotion in social networks. The distribution of funds depends on priorities.
If you are planning a budget for the year, be sure to take into account possible price increases and do not forget about unforeseen expenses. If there is a lack of funds, the marketing plan may fall apart.