- Once you're ready to sit down
and write your marketing plan, what should you include?
Here are the most common items.
A situation analysis.
This captures the history and current state of your brand.
For example, it could include how the economy is doing,
your brand sales,
or new technologies that affect your business.
A competitive analysis.
This summarizes your competitor's performance
like how their business is doing
or any new products or services they intend to launch,
or if they acquired a company.
This includes both direct and indirect competitors.
Basically, any competitor that can affect your business.
A brand analysis.
This includes any brand data you have
like awareness, trial, loyalty,
or perceptions such as likeability or relevance.
It includes your brand positioning,
what differentiates you from competition,
and whether you think that's still relevant
or needs to evolve.
Prioritization of products or services,
meaning if you have more than one product or service,
which will receive priority
or the majority of your marketing investment.
Let's say you provide accounting services to companies.
Maybe your business currently is strong
at developing customers' tax returns,
but you want to grow your service
of managing invoices and payments.
You may choose to invest more in that service
and decrease your investment
in promoting tax return services.
Pricing strategy.
Will you maintain, increase, or decrease your pricing?
And why?
How does this relate to your estimated income
and expenses for the year?
Consult all the analyses we just discussed for ideas
and work with your finance team.
Salespeople and distribution plan.
Where will you distribute your product or service?
Let's say you sell printer paper to companies.
Do you have a brick and mortar store
or will you sell through your website?
Do you have a sales force?
If you do, what are their objectives for the year?
Media plan.
This includes owned, paid, and earned.
What messaging will be emphasized in media you own
such as your website?
Which paid media such as TV or online banner ads
will you use to generate awareness?
Which earned media might you focus on
to drive engagement such as generating likes
or reviews in a social media platform?
There's also promotion, publicity, and trade shows.
Where and how will you promote your product or service
like promoting a discount through a website download
or working with an influencer
to include your service in their blog to gain publicity
or maybe you're featuring your product in a trade show.
These are common, best practice items
to include in your marketing plan,
which is a great starting place.
You can add, delete, or modify elements
to more closely align with your needs.