Marketing Plan Template

Understanding a Marketing Plan

Are you an entrepreneur or business owner and you just set up your business for profit, but end up struggling to reach your customers? If this is your situation, then you may be going about your marketing strategy wrong. Working with marketing plan templates can help you decipher and execute your marketing strategies far more efficiently.

The right marketing plan is easy to follow, will help you identify and target your audience and help you grow your business.

What Is A Marketing Plan?

A marketing plan is part of the overall business plan. It consists of a solid marketing strategy, which is the foundation of a good marketing plan. A marketing plan contains a list of actions to achieve marketing goals, but without a sound marketing strategy, it is of no use. Moreover, marketing plan templates can be used to layout the entire marketing strategy for the corporation in question, or it can map out the plan for a smaller marketing initiative. There are several types of marketing initiatives that require a well thought out marketing plan, including:

1. Paid social media marketing: this includes paid social media promotions and advertisement for your business.
2. New product launch: this type of marketing helps you evaluate strategies to advertise and promote your new product.
3. Content marketing plan: this allows you to decipher the type of valuable, relevant, and consistent content that will work to acquire a clearly defined audience—with the objective of driving profitable customer action. This type of plan also allows you to determine the way the content will be distributed.

What Is the Difference Between a Business Plan and a Marketing Plan?

It is important to differentiate the two. Thus, a business plan is an overview of the business. It includes the overall strategy, financial plans, sales, products and services and operations. A marketing plan on the other hand focuses on brand messaging, programs, and all-encompassing marketing strategy.

Purpose of A Marketing Plan Template:

The purpose of marketing plan templates is to:

• Emphasize your 8 P’s, which include the product, price, place, promotion, people, process, physical evidence, and productivity.
• It draws a clear outline of the organization, where it is present, where it is lacking, and what goals it wants to achieve in meeting the needs of customers.
• It keeps an eye on sales, production, resources, and overall marketing of the organization in question.
• A marketing plan template helps guide a business in planning the best strategies for its specific needs.
• It formalizes the specific marketing strategies, activities, and tactics for the organization to follow.
• A marketing plan template also helps monitor the strong points and weak points of the business and marketing strategy.

Regardless of the size of your business, using a marketing plan from our collection of marketing plan templates is essential.

It is important to note that before preparing your marketing strategy plan, you will have to look into the following:

• Your competitors
• Your target audience
• The needs of your target audience
• What your audience thinks about the competition

Understanding your competitors and your target audience will allow you to better prepare your plan.

Elements of a Marketing Plan:

Each business is different and possesses different goals according to their industry. Here are six elements that will help you plan your marketing strategies:

1. Market analysis, define your audience
2. Product description
3. Pricing details
4. Marketing goals, objectives, and the tactics you will use to achieve them
5. Advertising plan
6. Marketing budget

Market Analysis:

An essential part to focus on while mapping out the strategy is a thorough analysis of your market and industry. Analyzing your industry and the market you are in is the most crucial element in your plan. Without proper knowledge of this, a business is bound to fail.

• Know your audience: Knowing your audience plays a vital role in business growth. It will help you get in touch with your customer's views on your products, your pricing, packaging, and overall product review. Knowing who you are selling to also helps you define how you will sell.
• Customer goals: Knowing your customer’s goals and demands will better help you meet their needs through your product or service.
• Competitors: Every business has competitors. Before planning out strategies, you must review your competitor's growth factors and strategies. Ask yourself what makes you different from your competitors? Knowing your competitors, what can you do better, and what do you offer that they do not?
• Understanding your product's appeal: Understanding what your product is and why your audience is in need of it will better prepare you when it comes time to promote and sell your product or service.

Product Description:

Start describing your products or services for what they are. What are the product benefits? What about your product or service stands out from those of your competitors? List the products or services which you provide to your customers. Justify your product from the same range as your competitor’s products.

Attract your customers with your packaging and all useful elements used in production or manufacturing. Impress them with your customer service.

Pricing Details:

Pricing details are just as important as your product description in your marketing plan template. Therefore, both the product and pricing section of your marketing plan will define the products and services that you offer to your audience in addition to your pricing strategy. The pricing strategy of your product or service will send a strong message and it must be in line with your product positioning.

Marketing Goals and Objectives:

Marketing objectives are your brand’s defined goals and they outline the intentions of the marketing initiatives. Set your specific marketing goals, both short term and long term. What is it that your marketing should achieve for your brand? Your marketing goals are pivotal to your strategy and marketing plan.

Marketing Tactics:

Now that you have your marketing goals and objectives set, consider how you will accomplish them. Tactics are the specific actions you need to take to accomplish your marketing strategy. In other words, what kind of tactics will you use to put your plan into effect? What tools will you use to get closer to your goals?

An example of this is reaching out to your customers through social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook or targeting your customers through email marketing.

Advertising Plans:

Your advertising plan will allow you to put your goals into motion. Crafting your advertising plan consists of planning how you will reach your customers and what marketing messages you will use to do this. Some methods of advertising include, but are certainly not limited to:

• Social media campaigns
• Signage
• Email marketing/newsletters
• Direct mails, catalogues and pamphlets
• Television and radio

Marketing Budget:

In this part of your marketing plan template, you will need to consider how much money you will put aside for your marketing initiatives. Consider how much you will spend on advertising, digital marketing, and your overall marketing projects. If you are a B2B company, you should spend between 2% and 5% of your revenue on marketing. If you are a B2C company, you should spend between 5% to 10%.

A Few Things to Consider When Using a Marketing Plan Template:

Business-in-a-Box has over 2,000 business documents to help you formulate and put your marketing plan into action. Here are a few things to keep in mind when you are considering using a marketing plan template.

Do your research:

Marketing plan templates are only as effective as the information that is provided in the fill-in-the-blank sections of each document. Before filling out the template, spend some time doing thorough research on all the points mentioned above.

Get help:

If you encounter stumbling blocks in any given section while filling the template, get help from senior colleagues who can guide you better. Talk to your colleagues and make sure your supervisors are involved in the planning of your marketing plan. This is no small project.

Determine the purpose of the template:

Does the template possess more than one purpose? Like the point mentioned above, if the template you are filling involves third parties, do involve them when preparing the marketing plan.

Write a clear summary:

You need to make yourself and the purpose of your marketing plan very clear, especially if third parties will read the plan. Add a summary of your objectives at the start of the marketing plan template and a conclusion at the end summarising the plan.

Using Business-in-a-Box Templates:

Your organization will benefit from using concise documentation and easy to use templates for your marketing plan and business process. As shown above, our templates cover every aspect of any marketing plan. Our templates are designed and created by lawyers and business experts so that you won’t have to go to the expense of getting these professionals to design your documentation for you. You can manage your business with confidence and peace of mind by simply using the right templates. All you have to do is fill-in-the-blanks and you are ready to do business. So sign up to get your marketing plan templates right here at Business-in-a-Box and you can enjoy the benefit of more than 2,000 other business templates in your business.