THE WIKI COMMUNITY

Monday, 30 August 2010

Your Marketing Plan Write-Up - What To Put In There?

By Mitchell McClure

The rookie in the marketing field may find great stress when faced with the task of creating his or her first marketing plan. But it doesn't have to be so difficult. Your marketing plan can be detailed or not so much depending on how much funds or the number of staff on your team. An office with limited manpower may have to confine itself to what is called a "broad brush" approach in marketing jargon. But if you have other things on the table, like having to support a website to your higher-ups in the company, you'll need to go into deeper detail.

Where To Start Your Marketing Plan

Summarize your plan to start things out. Business reports also start with summaries, so apply the same to your marketing plan. Many novices start with a traditional executive summary. A small table or graph in a separate page would serve as a good companion. Going back to your original plan can be made easier through this table. The table would serve as a one-stop shop if you need to check your objective, challenges, areas for improvement and strategies, as well as financial figures, schedules and deadlines. Since change is inevitable, the table can make these changes to your plan easier.

Justify your plan. You need to justify why certain objectives or strategies were decided on and included in the plan. If someone cross-examines your plan, this would be helpful. It also helps in the general decision-making process.

Who are your ideal customers? You can streamline your advertising strategy this way.

What are your challenges? Analyze the competition and market trends to come up with supporting numbers.

Set budget targets and deadlines for all your action plans.

What to Include For Your Advanced Content

Your marketing plan can also benefit from additional information - mostly details to back up the reasons behind your plan.

Many advanced marketing plans include a SWOT analysis, or strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that your business faces.

Show an explanation of how your business stacks up online. What strategies do your competitors use online? Describe your customers' general Internet usage, and how they use your website. Are there any possible substitutes?

Include an explanation of industry trends for both online and offline business. How does your business stack up in the future?

Explain your finances in depth. BEP, or break even point analysis can be included both for your site and for other tactics. Explain the assumptions and hypotheses in your financial analysis. Be specific in discussing how your plan can make business even better.

Finally, include a calendar that would highlight certain milestones completed or projected.

You are free to create any marketing write-up you want, as long as it serves its purpose. Your marketing plan, at the end of the day, will always be evolving. A marketing plan will always be a dynamic report, to sum it all up.

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