Marketing Plan Guide: what is it and how to do it?

Have you ever heard of the Marketing Plan? It is a fundamental document for any company; in fact, it contains both the strategy and the tactics to plan correct marketing actions both online and offline! Let’s find out together!

The Marketing Plan is an important document for any business; whether we are talking about SMEs or a multinational, in fact, it is a tool in which all marketing activities for a company are planned, both from a strategic and operational point of view.

Why is the Marketing Plan essential for any company?

By planning the actions strategically, a direction is given to the steps to be carried out operationally.

Therefore, the Marketing Plan represents a map, a compass that guides all marketing actions, both online and offline of a company, in the medium and long term.

It then outlines the direction that the business objectives set out in the Business Plan must take, highlighting how much a document is necessary to verify the progress of the business, evaluate the results achieved, and mitigate any risks or threats.

But how is it done?

A Marketing Plan consists of the following elements:

• Context Analysis
• SWOT analysis
• Market analysis
• Benchmarking
• Target analysis
• Strategy
• Tactics
• KPI measurement
• Budget and forecasts

Let’s see together how to make it step by step!

The Topic Of This Post

• 1 Context Analysis
• 2 SWOT analysis
• 3 Market Analysis
• 4 Benchmarking
• 5 Target Analysis
• 6 Strategy
• 7 Tactics
• 8 Measurement of KPIs
• 9 Budget and forecasts

Context Analysis

The Context Analysis is necessary to understand the context: the environment and the market that revolves around the company and that could influence its trend, especially in the medium and long term.

To assess the context, the following aspects need to be considered:

• Demographic trend
• Economic trends
• Technological development
• Society and values
• Globalization and the international context
• Institutions and politics
• Ecology and environment

SWOT analysis

The SWOT Analysis allows you to overview the “as is” situation both internal and external to the company.

In fact, through this analytical tool, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a business are taken into consideration.

The strengths and weaknesses belong to the company itself; therefore, they are part of an internal context, such as the Marketing Mix, while the opportunities and threats are external to the company and belong to an external context, which considers the sector, the market, and the competition.

Market analysis

Market Analysis is a snapshot of the sector and market in which a company moves: it is necessary to define in advance, already in the Business Plan, if the company will operate in a specific product sector.

For example, a company in the agri-food sector is very different from one in the textile or metalworking sector and the market to offer the products or services, whether local, national, or international.

A company that operates in a local context will have different needs than one that operates in the global market, doing exports.

Benchmarking

Benchmarking is the comparison between a company and its competitors, both direct and indirect: this activity is crucial because it allows you to identify the best practices, i.e., good practices that the competition is already doing for a business similar to ours and from which to draw from inspiration.

Target analysis

The goal of Marketing is to create a lasting relationship between brand and user. For this reason, at the base of any business, some people must be seen and evaluated as human beings and not as mere numbers.

This is why it is important to humanize the target audience and speak correctly, according to the right tone of voice of the brand, to their Buyer Personas, knowing their needs, desires, and frustrations.

Even if it is perfect on paper, any business must perfectly match what the customer wants; otherwise, it will be doomed to failure.

Strategy

The marketing strategy is a process that allows you to plan the proper communication and marketing objectives of a company to achieve the set results, taking into account the target, time, and budget.

The objectives must be established during the definition of the marketing plan and strategy, online or offline, and must be SMART, respectively:

• Specific or specific
• Measurable or measurable
• Achievable or reachable
• Relevant that is relevant
• Time-Based or timed

The objectives set a priori must then be verified and evaluated through the KPIs to check the strategy’s progress, positive or negative.

Tactics

The tactic allows you to move from strategic planning to the operational execution of the objectives established in the Marketing Plan through the implementation of short and medium-term actions.

KPI measurement

The Key Performance Indicators, abbreviated to KPIs, are indices that show the progress of company business processes; they can have a positive or negative value for the planned strategy.

In the Marketing Plan, the Key Performance Indicators to be taken into consideration are:

• Market Share is the percentage of the market segment served by the company.
• Customer Profitability, i.e., the profit that a company perceives in serving and satisfying a specific customer or target segment
• CSI or the Customer Satisfaction Index, which allows you to evaluate customer satisfaction regarding a product, service, and company
• NPS or the Net Promoter Score, which allows you to evaluate the loyalty of a customer towards a company

Budget and forecasts

The budget is necessary to define the expenses and cost estimates of a company, an institution, or an organization. It must be planned to establish the costs to achieve each business result and is divided between:

• The operating budget is the operating costs, which represent the costs incurred for the typical performance of the activity and are found in the economic counter.
• An investment budget is the set of costs that capitalize the company’s asset value and are found in the balance sheet under the balance sheet item.
• The financial budget is the source and the set of company finances.

Therefore, the Marketing Plan is a tool that allows you to move from a strategic plan to an operational plan to enable you to achieve the best performance for the business objectives set.

I hope this Marketing Plan Guide is helpful to you: have you ever written one? Will you also use it in your company’s Great Lakes Student Loans?