Learn what a marketing plan is, how it helps businesses, and the steps for building yours.
A marketing plan is a document that a business uses to execute a marketing strategy. It is tactical in nature, and, as later sections of this article explore, it typically includes campaign objectives, buyer personas, competitive analysis, key performance indicators, an action plan, and a method for analyzing campaign results.
In general, a marketing plan serves several purposes:聽
Streamline and organize marketing efforts聽
Guide businesses and their marketing teams through a sequence of marketing activities聽
Determine how to measure a campaign鈥檚 success聽聽
Effectively allocate the marketing campaign budget聽聽
A business might develop a marketing plan for a specific need, campaign, or goal within its larger mission. Here are some examples:聽
Launching a new product or service
Carrying out campaigns through different marketing channels, including social media, email marketing, print media, TV, or offline events
Implementing paid advertising
Measuring marketing efforts over specific periods of time, such as every quarter, six months, or year
When creating a marketing plan, consider five 鈥淧鈥 elements, sometimes called the 鈥渕arketing mix鈥:
1. People
2. Placement
3. Pricing
4. Product
5. Promotion
In researching what a marketing plan is, you may come across the related concepts of marketing strategy and business plan. Think of all three as written roadmaps for developing your business. You鈥檒l find similarities among them, including your business objectives and information on your target market, but there are some important differences to know as you build these roadmaps, as we鈥檝e laid out in the chart below.聽
Business plan | Marketing strategy | Marketing plan | |
---|---|---|---|
What is it? | Overview of a business in its entirety | Overview of a business鈥檚 long-term marketing vision | Describes the concrete actions and tactics that a business uses to execute a marketing strategy and meet objectives |
What does it contain? | Includes the business model, operational details, target customers, competitors, value proposition, brand identity, products, and sales | Includes objectives, marketing goals, target markets, competitive analysis, and value for customers | Includes marketing campaign goals, key performance indicators, buyer personas, competitive analysis, action plan, and method of results analysis |
How is it used? | Can serve as the foundation of business development efforts and means of generating investor funds or loan | Can guide marketing efforts at large and be the basis for each version of the marketing plan | Can center on an individual marketing campaign and be adapted for future campaigns |
Review these roadmaps periodically to measure the success of your marketing and business efforts.聽
The following sections describe the components of a solid marketing plan and the steps to building each one. Develop each section in the order listed, and use insights from each section to guide your process in the ones that follow. Once you complete all of the sections, review your entire plan for areas that need refining.聽
Here, you will write a short summary, usually no longer than a few paragraphs, to introduce the sections that follow. In a few paragraphs, orient readers to the following:
General information about the business, such as its mission, past accomplishments and setbacks, and brand identity
Information specific to the marketing campaign driving this plan and how it will advance or improve upon past marketing efforts聽
You might choose to compose this section last after you鈥檝e written and refined the marketing plan as a whole.聽
Borrowing from your marketing strategy and business plan, state the marketing campaign's goals with specificity and data-driven metrics. For example:
Specify 鈥済et more email subscribers鈥 as 鈥渋ncrease email subscribers by 50 percent by next quarter.鈥澛
鈥淕enerate more online purchases鈥 could be specified as 鈥淒rive traffic from paid Facebook ads to a sales page and increase the site鈥檚 conversion rate from 2 percent to 5 percent.鈥
KPIs are the specific metrics you鈥檒l monitor to measure the success of your marketing efforts. It鈥檚 important to determine KPIs so that you can continually optimize your tactics, reduce inefficiencies, and steer your marketing campaign toward success.聽聽
KPI examples include:
The number of website visitors
The number of new email subscribers
The number of event registrants聽
The rate of converting leads into customers
Sales revenue figures
Refer to your marketing strategy and business plan to crystalize target market insights into detailed buyer personas. You can think of a buyer persona as a fictional character that you create based on your existing customers and extensive market research. Building clear buyer personas helps to focus your marketing efforts and drive campaign results.聽
Answer these questions to get started:
What is this persona鈥檚 demographic profile, including age, income, location, occupation, etc?聽
Where do they go to find information?聽
What keywords do they use to search?
How do they prefer to purchase products and services?
At what times of the day are they most likely active on social media or other marketing channels, online or offline?
What words, phrases, and questions do they use to describe their challenges and goals?
Use answers to tailor every detail of your marketing campaign to your buyer persona and guide potential customers toward an action, such as subscribing to your email list or making a purchase.
Refer again to your marketing strategy and business plan to extract key information about how competing brands are reaching customers in your target market. Then, examine competitors鈥 marketing strategies in more detail.
Here are three ways to generate marketing-specific information about competitors:
Use SEO tools like SEMRush to discover how your competitors are leveraging popular keywords, content, and ad copy to attract an audience.
Study competitors鈥 social media accounts and note the content they post to engage followers.聽
Subscribe to competitors鈥 email lists to learn how they market and sell to potential leads right in their inboxes.聽
Your campaign鈥檚 action plan should include the specific tactics and methods you鈥檒l use to market your products and services to potential customers.聽
Include the following information in your action plan:聽聽
The campaign budget and target date of completion
Key milestones you need to pass on your way to achieving the goals聽
The marketing channels you will use, offline and online聽
The kinds of content you will create and your schedule for delivering it
Organic and paid marketing activities
Your marketing plan should describe how you will monitor KPIs and analyze your campaign results at each milestone. That way, you can find out what鈥檚 working and what鈥檚 not and adjust your plan accordingly.聽
Be sure to set up analytic tools for each of your marketing channels, including your social media accounts, email system, website and landing pages, and event registration pages. Set calendar alerts based on your action plan for reviewing KPIs.
Which channels see the most traffic?
Which channels are converting at the highest rates?聽
How are individual pieces of content performing?
How efficiently is your budget performing?
Which metrics are improving, staying the same, or declining over time?聽
Remember: Having a solid marketing plan can make it possible to allocate your marketing budget effectively and streamline your marketing activities. By following the seven steps above, you may be able to see improvements in your marketing efforts, from attracting more ideal customers to inspiring them to take action.聽
One way to become a skilled marketer is to take online courses and practice the latest strategies. Learn which web analytics tools are right for you, how to use them to analyze data and more in the Digital Marketing Specialization or with the Meta Social Media Marketing Professional Certificate available on 糖心vlog官网观看.
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