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A marketing plan helps leaders clearly visualize marketing strategies across channels, so they can ensure every campaign drives pipeline and revenue. In this article you’ll learn eight steps to create a winning marketing plan that brings business-critical goals to life, with examples from word-class teams.
To be successful as a marketer, you have to deliver the pipeline and the revenue.”
In other words—they need a well-crafted marketing plan.
Learn how to create the right marketing plan to hit your revenue targets in 2024. Hear best practices from marketing experts, including how to confidently set and hit business goals, socialize marketing plans, and move faster with clearer resourcing.
How do you build the right marketing plan to hit your revenue goals? Follow these eight steps for success:
First you need to define each specific component of your plan to ensure stakeholders are aligned on goals, deliverables, resources, and more. Ironing out these details early on ensures your plan supports the right business objectives, and that you have sufficient resources and time to get the job done.
Get started by asking yourself the following questions:
What resources do I need?
What is the vision?
What is the value?
What is the goal?
Who is my audience?
What are my channels?
What is the timeline?
For example, imagine you’re creating an annual marketing plan to improve customer adoption and retention in the next fiscal year. Here’s how you could go through the questions above to ensure you’re ready to move forward with your plan:
I will need support from the content team, web team, and email team to create targeted content for existing customers. One person on each team will need to be dedicated full-time to this initiative. To achieve this, the marketing team will need an additional $100K in budget and one new headcount.
What is the vision?
To create a positive experience for existing customers, address new customer needs, and encourage them to upgrade. We’ll do this by serving them how-to content, new feature updates, information about deals and pricing, and troubleshooting guides.
According to the Sales Benchmark Index (SBI) , CEOs and go-to-market leaders report that more than 60% of their net-new revenue will come from existing customers in 2023. By retaining and building on the customers we have, we can maintain revenue growth over time.
To decrease the customer churn rate from 30% to 10%, and increase upgrades from 20% to 30% in the next fiscal year.
All existing customers.
The main channel will be email. Supporting marketing channels include the website, blog, YouTube, and social media.
The first half of the next fiscal year.
One of the most important things to do as you create your marketing strategy is to identify your target audience . As with all marketing, you need to know who you’re marketing to. If you’re having a hard time determining who exactly your target audience is, try the bullseye targeting framework . The bullseye makes it easy for you to determine who your target audience is by industry, geography, company size, psychographics, demographics, and more.
Now it’s time to define what key marketing metrics you’ll use to measure success. Your key metrics will help you measure and track the performance of your marketing activities. They’ll also help you understand how your efforts tie back to larger business goals.
Once you establish key metrics, use a goal-setting framework—like objectives and key results (OKRs) or SMART goals —to fully flush out your marketing objectives. This ensures your targets are as specific as possible, with no ambiguity about what should be accomplished by when.
Example: If a goal of your marketing plan is to increase email subscriptions and you follow the SMART goal framework (ensuring your objective is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound) your goal might look like this: Increase email subscription rate from 10% to 20% in H1 .
It’s easy to get caught up in your company’s world, but there’s a lot of value in understanding your competitors . Knowing how they market themselves will help you find opportunities to make your company stand out and capture more market share.
Make sure you’re not duplicating your competitors’ efforts. If you discover a competitor has already executed your idea, then it might be time to go back to the drawing board and brainstorm new ways to differentiate yourself. By looking at your competitors, you might be surprised at the type of inspiration and opportunities you’ll find.
To stay ahead of market trends, conduct a SWOT analysis for your marketing plan. A SWOT analysis helps you improve your plan by identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Example: If your competitor launches a social media campaign identical to what you had planned, go back to the drawing board and see how you can build off their campaign. Ask yourself: How can we differentiate our campaign while still getting our message across? What are the weaknesses of their campaign that we can capitalize on? What angles did they not approach?
Here’s where the fun comes in. Let’s dive into the different components that go into building a successful marketing plan. You’ll want to make sure your marketing plan includes multiple supporting activities that all add up into a powerful marketing machine. Some marketing plan components include:
Lead generation
Social media
Product marketing
Public relations
Analyst relations
Customer marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Conversational marketing
Knowing where your consumer base spends the most time is significant for nailing this step. You need to have a solid understanding of your target audience before integrating your marketing efforts.
Example: If your target audience is executives that spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, focus your social media strategy around placing branded content on LinkedIn.
Forty-nine percent of marketers say visual images are hugely important to their content strategy. In other words, a clear brand and creative strategy is an essential component to every marketing plan. As you craft your own creative strategy, here are some tips to keep in mind:
Speak to your audience: When defining your creative strategy, think about your audience—what you want them to feel, think, and do when they see your marketing. Will your audience find your creative work relevant? If your audience can’t relate to your creative work, they won’t feel connected to the story you’re trying to tell.
Think outside the box: Find innovative ways to engage your audience, whether through video, animations, or interactive graphics. Know what screens your creative work will live on, whether desktop, mobile, or tablet, and make sure they display beautifully and load quickly across every type of device.
Tie everything back to CTAs: It’s easy to get caught up in the creative process, so it’s important to never lose sight of your ultimate goal: Get your audience to take action. Always find the best way to display strong Calls to Action (CTAs) in your creative work. We live in a visual world—make sure your creative content counts.
Streamline creative production: Once you’ve established a strong creative strategy, the next step is to bring your strategy to life in the production stage. It’s vital to set up a strong framework for your creative production process to eliminate any unnecessary back and forth and potential bottlenecks. Consider establishing creative request forms , streamlining feedback and approval processes, and taking advantage of integrations that might make your designers’ lives easier.
Example: If your brand is fun and approachable, make sure that shows in your creative efforts. Create designs and CTAs that spark joy, offer entertainment, and alleviate the pressure in choosing a partner.
Turn your plan into action by making goals, deliverables, and timelines clear for every stakeholder—so teams stay accountable for getting work done. The best way to do this is by centralizing all the details of your marketing plan in one platform , so teams can access the information they need and connect campaign work back to company goals.
With the right work management tool , you can:
Set goals for every marketing activity, and connect campaign work to overarching marketing and business objectives so teams focus on revenue-driving projects.
Centralize deliverables for your entire marketing plan in one project or portfolio .
Mark major milestones and visualize your plan as a timeline, Gantt chart, calendar, list, or Kanban board—without doing any extra work.
Quickly loop in stakeholders with status updates so they’re always up to date on progress. This is extremely important if you have a global team to ensure efforts aren’t being duplicated.
Use automations to seamlessly hand off work between teams, streamlining processes like content creation and reviews.
Create dashboards to report on work and make sure projects are properly staffed , so campaigns stay on track.
With everything housed in one spot, you can easily visualize the status of your entire marketing plan and keep work on track. Building an effective marketing plan is one thing, but how you operationalize it can be your secret to standout marketing.
Example: If your strategy focuses on increasing page views, connect all campaign work to an overarching OKR—like “we will double page views as measured by the amount of organic traffic on our blog.” By making that goal visible to all stakeholders, you help teams prioritize the right work.
With Asana, marketing teams can connect work, standardize processes, and automate workflows—all in one place.
Nearly three in four CMOs use revenue growth to measure success, so it’s no surprise that measuring performance is necessary. You established your key metrics in step two, and now it’s time to track and report on them in step eight.
Periodically measure your marketing efforts to find areas of improvement so you can optimize in real-time. There are always lessons to be learned when looking at data. You can discover trends, detect which marketing initiatives performed well, and course-correct what isn’t performing well. And when your plan is complete, you can apply these learnings to your next initiative for improved results.
Example: Say you discover that long-form content is consistently bringing in 400% more page views than short-form content. As a result, you’ll want to focus on producing more long-form content in your next marketing plan.
The best brands in the world bring their marketing plans to life every day. If you’re looking for inspiration, check out these examples from successful marketing teams.
When the Autodesk team launched Redshift, it was initially a small business blog. The editorial team executed a successful marketing plan to expand it into a premier owned-media site, making it a destination for stories and videos about the future of making.
The team scaled content production to support seven additional languages. By standardizing their content production workflow and centralizing all content conversations in one place, the editorial team now publishes 2X more content monthly. Read the case study to learn more about how Autodesk runs a well-oiled content machine. Trinny London perfects new customer acquisition
In consumer industries, social media is crucial for building a community of people who feel an affinity with the brand—and Trinny London is no exception. As such, it was imperative that Trinny London’s ad spend was targeted to the correct audience. Using a work management tool, Trinny London was able to nail the process of creating, testing, and implementing ads on multiple social channels.
With the help of a centralized tool, Trinny London improved its ad spend and drove more likes and subscriptions on its YouTube page. Read the case study to learn more about how Trinny London capitalized on paid advertising and social media.
A great marketing plan promotes clarity and accountability across teams—so every stakeholder knows what they’re responsible for, by when. Reading this article is the first step to achieving better team alignment, so you can ensure every marketing campaign contributes to your company’s bottom line.
Once you’ve created your marketing strategy and are ready to operationalize your marketing plan, get started with one of our marketing templates .
Our marketing templates can help you manage and track every aspect of your marketing plan, from creative requests to approval workflows. Centralize your entire marketing plan in one place, customize the roadmap, assign tasks, and build a timeline or calendar.
Once you’ve operationalized your entire marketing plan with one of our templates, share it with your stakeholders so everyone can work together in the same tool. Your entire team will feel connected to the marketing plan, know what to prioritize, and see how their work contributes to your project objectives . Choose the best marketing template for your team:
Marketing project plan template
Marketing campaign plan template
Product marketing launch template
Editorial calendar template
Agency collaboration template
Creative requests template
Event planning template
GTM strategy template
What is a marketing plan.
A marketing plan is a detailed roadmap that outlines the different strategies your team will use to achieve organizational objectives. Rather than focusing solely on the end goal, a marketing plan maps every step you need to reach your destination—whether that’s driving pipeline for sales, nurturing your existing customer base, or something in-between.
As a marketing leader, you know there’s never a shortage of great campaign and project ideas. A marketing plan gives you a framework to effectively prioritize work that aligns to overarching business goals—and then get that work done. Some elements of marketing plans include:
Current business plan
Mission statement
Business goals
Target customers
Competitive analysis
Current marketing mix
Key performance indicators (KPIs)
Marketing budget
The purpose of a marketing plan is to grow your company’s consumer base and strengthen your brand, while aligning with your organization’s mission and vision . The plan should analyze the competitive landscape and industry trends, offer actionable insights to help you gain a competitive advantage, and document each step of your strategy—so you can see how your campaigns work together to drive overarching business goals.
A marketing plan contains many marketing strategies across different channels. In that way, marketing strategies contribute to your overall marketing plan, working together to reach your company’s overarching business goals.
For example, imagine you’re about to launch a new software product and the goal of your marketing plan is to drive downloads. Your marketing plan could include marketing strategies like creating top-of-funnel blog content and launching a social media campaign.
Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, what your timeline is, or which facet of marketing you’re driving, you’ll need to create a different type of marketing plan. Some different types of marketing plans include, but aren’t limited to:
General marketing plan: A general marketing plan is typically an annual or quarterly marketing plan that details the overarching marketing strategies for the period. This type of marketing plan outlines marketing goals, the company’s mission, buyer personas, unique selling propositions, and more. A general marketing plan lays the foundation for other, more specific marketing plans that an organization may employ.
Product launch marketing plan: A product launch marketing plan is a step-by-step plan for marketing a new product or expanding into a new market. It helps you build awareness and interest by targeting the right audience, with the right messaging, in the right timeframe—so potential customers are ready to buy your new offering right away. Nailing your product launch marketing plan can reinforce your overall brand and fast-track sales. For a step-by-step framework to organize all the moving pieces of a launch, check out our product marketing launch template .
Paid marketing plan: This plan includes all the paid strategies in your marketing plan, like pay-per-click, paid social media advertising, native advertising, and display advertising. It’s especially important to do audience research prior to launching your paid marketing plan to ensure you’re maximizing ROI. Consult with content strategists to ensure your ads align with your buyer personas so you know you’re showing ads to the right people.
Content marketing plan: A content marketing plan outlines the different content strategies and campaigns you’ll use to promote your product or service. When putting together a content marketing plan, start by identifying your audience. Then use market research tools to get the best insights into what topics your target audience is most interested in.
SEO marketing plan: Your SEO marketing plan should work directly alongside your content marketing plan as you chart content that’s designed to rank in search results. While your content marketing plan should include all types of content, your SEO marketing plan will cover the top-of-funnel content that drives new users to your site. Planning search engine-friendly content is only one step in your SEO marketing plan. You’ll also need to include link-building and technical aspects in order to ensure your site and content are as optimized as possible.
Social media marketing plan: This plan will highlight the marketing strategies you plan to accomplish on social media. Like in any general or digital marketing plan , your social media strategy should identify your ideal customer base and determine how they engage on different social media platforms. From there, you can cater your social media content to your target audience.
Updated: March 29, 2024
Published: October 26, 2023
Creating a marketing strategy is essential to effectively nurture your customers, improve your business’s bottom line, and increase the ROI of your efforts.
A marketing strategy is especially critical if you want to use the highest ROI trends for 2024 : short-form video and social media. To get powerful results, you must carefully weave both emerging trends and proven strategies into your plan.
Let’s dive into the critical components of a complete marketing strategy in 2024, followed by some examples for inspiration.
Table of Contents
Marketing strategy components, why is a marketing strategy important, marketing strategy process, recommended resources, examples of successful marketing strategies, what to expect after following your marketing process steps, marketing strategy.
A marketing strategy covers a company’s overall approach for promoting its brand to a target audience. The process involves research, goal-setting, and positioning.
A completed marketing strategy typically includes brand objectives, target audience personas, marketing channels, key performance indicators, and more.
A marketing strategy will:
The last one is especially important. Keeping up with marketing trends is important for your strategy, but it could be a full-time job.
Why? Because almost 80% of marketers say this industry changed more in the last three years than it has in the past five decades.
Add to that the fact that 50% of marketers believe their marketing strategy in 2023 was only *somewhat effective,* which means there’s plenty of room for improvement.
In short, what worked for your marketing strategy in the past might not fly today.
A marketing strategy outlines the long-term goals and overall approach, while a marketing plan covers the specific actions and tactics to achieve those goals.
Phrased another way, marketing strategy guides the overall marketing efforts of a business. It includes goal-setting, market and competitor research, as well as messaging and positioning for a brand.
For example, say you’re creating a marketing strategy for a new fashion brand. Your strategy might target young urban professionals and position the brand as trendy and affordable.
But a marketing plan is a detailed tactical roadmap. It outlines the specific actions and tactics that should achieve the marketing strategy’s goals.
For example, the marketing plan for the fashion brand mentioned above might include:
Both a marketing strategy and a marketing plan are essential for a business’s success.
To succeed in the fast-paced marketing world — and maintain a sense of relevance with your audience — it’s vital to stay ahead of the curve.
To help ease some of that uncertainty, we’re going to show you step-by-step how to create a comprehensive marketing strategy. But first, let’s go over the individual components that make up a strong marketing strategy.
Outline your company's marketing strategy in one simple, coherent plan.
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Before you can begin creating your marketing strategy, you need to gather useful data for making informed decisions. Market research is like playing detective, but instead of solving crimes, you’re uncovering juicy details about your customers.
Market research will help your businesses make data-driven decisions for your marketing strategy. It also makes it easier to understand your target market, find gaps, and make the most of your resources.
This process is essential for understanding your customers and adapting to changing trends. If you’re new to this process, this complete market research guide and template can help.
Once you have the data you need, you’ll be ready to set some marketing goals.
What do you want to achieve through your marketing efforts?
Whether it’s increasing brand awareness, driving sales, or diversifying your customer base, well-defined goals will guide your marketing strategy.
Your marketing strategy goals should reflect your business goals. They should also offer clear direction for marketing efforts.
For example, say one of your business goals is to increase market share by 20% within a year. Your goal as a marketer could include expanding into new target markets, updating your brand, or driving customer acquisition.
Other marketing goals might be to increase brand awareness or generate high-quality leads. You might also want to grow or maintain thought leadership in your industry or increase customer value.
Defining clear goals provides direction and clarity, guiding marketing efforts toward desired outcomes. It helps with resource allocation, decision-making, and measuring the success of marketing initiatives.
This SMART goal guide can help you with more effective goal-setting.
To create an effective marketing strategy, you need to understand who your ideal customers are. Take a look at your market research to understand your target audience and market landscape. Accurate customer data is especially important for this step.
But it’s not enough to know who your audience is. Once you’ve figured out who they are, you need to understand what they want. This isn’t just their needs and pain points. It’s how your product or service can solve their problems.
So, if you can’t define who your audience is in one sentence, now’s your chance to do it. Create a buyer persona that’s a snapshot of your ideal customer.
For example, a store like Macy’s could define a buyer persona as Budgeting Belinda, a stylish working-class woman in her 30s living in a suburb, looking to fill her closet with designer deals at low prices.
With this description, Macy’s Marketing department can picture Budgeting Belinda and work with a clear definition in mind.
Buyer personas have critical demographic and psychographic information, including age, job title, income, location, interests, and challenges. Notice how Belinda has all those attributes in her description.
For B2B SaaS companies, keep in mind that buyer personas don’t apply solely to the end user. When you’re selling a product to another business, you also have to address the decision-maker, the financial buyer, and the technical advisor, among other roles, says Head of Marketing at Entrapeer, Hillary Lyons .
“You need to be able to tailor your message to each of these unique personas even though most of them will never actually use the product,” says Lyons. “You have to sell each of them on the unparalleled benefit you provide without muddling your [overall] message.”
You don’t have to create your buyer persona with a pen and paper. In fact, HubSpot offers a free template you can use to make your own (and it’s really fun).
You can also use a platform like Versium , which helps you identify, understand, and reach your target audience through data and artificial intelligence.
Buyer personas should be at the core of your strategy.
Now that you have an understanding of your customers, it’s time to see who you’re competing with to get their attention.
To begin your competitive analysis, start with your top competitors. Reviewing their websites, content, ads, and pricing can help you understand how to differentiate your brand. It’s also a useful way to find opportunities for growth.
But how do you know which competitors are most important? This competitive analysis kit with templates will walk you through the process. It will help you choose and evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, and strategies of your competitors.
This process will help you find market gaps, spot trends, and figure out which marketing tactics will be most effective. Competitive analysis can also offer valuable insights into pricing, positioning, and marketing channels.
You’ve figured out who you’re talking to, what they’ve already heard, and what they want to hear. Now, it’s time to share your brand’s unique value proposition .
In this step, you’ll craft key messaging that shows the benefits of your product or service and resonates with your target audience. This process should show off the research and work you have done up to this point. It should also incorporate your creativity, inventiveness, and willingness to experiment.
Well-crafted key messaging:
The key messaging in your marketing strategy is critical to driving engagement, loyalty, and business growth. These value proposition templates can help if you’re not sure how to draft this important messaging.
You know what you have to say. Now, decide on the best marketing channels for your message. Your top goal for this stage of your strategy is to align your channel choices with your target persona’s media consumption habits.
Start with media channels you’re already using. Then, consider a mix of traditional and digital channels such as social media, TV, email marketing, podcast ads, SEO, content marketing, and influencer partnerships.
To streamline this process, think of your assets in three categories — paid, owned, and earned media.
To decide which marketing channels are best for your marketing strategy, look carefully at each channel. Think about which channels are best for reaching your audience, staying within budget, and meeting your goals.
For example, a business targeting a younger demographic might consider using TikTok or Reddit to reach its audience.
Don’t forget to take a look at emerging platforms and trends as you complete this review. You may also want to look at the content you’ve already created. Gather your materials in each media type in one location. Then, look at your content as a whole to get a clear vision of how you can integrate them into your strategy.
For example, say you already have a blog that’s rolling out weekly content in your niche (owned media). You might consider promoting your blog posts on Threads (owned media), which customers might then repost (earned media). Ultimately, that will help you create a better, more well-rounded marketing strategy.
If you have resources that don’t fit into your goals, nix them. This is also a great time to clean house and find gaps in your materials.
Once you have a clear outline of your marketing strategy, you’ll need to think about how you’ll measure whether it’s working.
At this stage, you’ll shift from marketing detective to numbers nerd. With a little planning and prep, your analytics can unveil the mysteries of marketing performance and unlock super insights.
Review your strategy and choose measurable KPIs to track the effectiveness of your efforts. Pick a marketing analytics software solution that works for your team to collect and measure your data.
Ideally, the analytics platform of your choice should allow you to track data across all of your marketing channels — from emails to social media and your website. This centralizes all of your data, which makes it easier to understand how each channel contributes to your overall strategy.
You can then, plan to check and analyze the performance of your strategy over time and identify the channels that bring the best results. This can help you refine your approach based on results and feedback.
Lexi Boese , an ecommerce growth strategist and co-founder of The Digital Opportunists, recommends making data a priority when building your marketing strategy this year.
“The more data you can use, the easier you can track your success,” she says. “This could be as simple as understanding which channels convert the highest amount of customers (to determine how your team should prioritize ad spend), or assessing whether you have a higher amount of first-time or returning customers to [determine] if you should focus on internal or external marketing.”
Analyzing KPIs helps businesses stay agile, refine their strategies, and adapt to evolving customer needs.
A finished marketing strategy will pull together the sections and components above. It may also include:
A concise overview that outlines the marketing goals, target audience, and key marketing tactics.
You may want to create a brand identity as part of your strategy. Brand positioning, voice, and visual identity may also be helpful additions to your marketing strategy.
Your marketing plan is the specific actions you’ll take to achieve the goals in your marketing strategy. Your plan may cover campaigns, channel-specific tactics, and more.
Not sure where to start? This free marketing plan template can help.
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Trying to market your business without a plan is a little like going on a road trip without GPS. You’ll end up somewhere, but it’s anyone’s guess where — and you might find yourself worse off than when you started.
Let’s not let that happen.
In this article, newly updated for 2023, we’ll give you all the information you need to write a marketing plan — plus a free template and planning worksheet you can use to help ensure that your business gets where it needs to go. We’ll be focusing on digital marketing, but the strategies and concepts can be expanded to encompass your entire marketing department.
For today’s marketers, creating an integrated marketing plan that includes paid digital marketing (PPC) , social media marketing, content marketing, email marketing, and SEO — all tenets of a strong inbound marketing strategy — is necessary in order to attract and convert new customers online.
Here are nine important benefits of creating a marketing plan:
The steps you take today to create a functional and straight-forward marketing plan will lay the foundation for your year ahead, helping you to achieve measurable, quantifiable results.
Let’s take a look at how your marketing plan should be structured.
Here are the 11 sections that should be in every digital marketing plan.
Now that you know what to include in your marketing plan, let’s dive into the step-by-step process of creating one.
In theory, this should be the easiest step in creating your marketing plan. That’s because everything this section contains pulls from information many companies already have documented, including creative marketing ideas . However, it’s not uncommon to discover some gaps when the time comes to sit down and start writing. Here is what you should include in your business summary:
Pretty straightforward — unless your company lacks a mission statement. If that’s you, now is the time to create one. Start with your business overview. That might look something like this example for a fictional company:
“Eco Eats manufactures 100% biodegradable, compostable disposable plates, cutlery, cups, and straws.”
Next, ask “why?” What is the purpose of your business? What problem are you trying to solve? What’s your vision for the future?
Once you have your “why,” move on to your “how.” What concrete actions is your company taking to achieve your purpose?
Put the two together, and you have a mission statement. Here’s an example mission statement for Eco Eats:
“At Eco Eats, our mission is to empower food service organizations to reduce their carbon footprint and contribute to the stewardship of our environment by providing a cost-effective alternative to single-use plastics.”
Your mission statement might be a little longer or a little shorter, but you should strive to make it as simple and easy-to-understand as possible.
In order to write an effective marketing plan, you need to understand the climate of the market you’re operating in. This includes the size of the market — dollars spent, quantity of products sold, and overall number of customers or consumers — as well as any trends and conditions that are affecting the market, for better or for worse. Even if you’ve done this sort of research before, you’ll need to refresh it yearly for your marketing plan.
Along with this general information, the Market Analysis section of your plan should include an analysis of your company’s current status in the market. To get there, you’ll include what’s known as a SWOT analysis, detailing your business’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
A SWOT analysis is a standard component of any business or marketing plan. The SWOT analysis will help you understand what differentiates you from your competition and how you should position yourself in the market. It will also help you develop your messaging and your unique selling proposition. Brutal honesty is imperative for a truly insightful SWOT. Use bullets and aim for 4-5 in each section. Limiting your lists will help you to focus on the most critical points and help retain focus.
In addition to completing a SWOT for your overall marketing plan, it’s helpful to do a SWOT analysis for the different segments within your marketing plan.
For example, as we will discuss further down in this piece, content marketing, social media, and SEO will all be important parts of your overall inbound marketing plan and would benefit from SWOTs of their own.
In order to determine the likelihood of success and define your marketing strategy, you need to understand the competition. In the world of digital marketing , there are a handful of strategies that can be useful when researching competitors. Using email and social media while surveying the content landscape will give you an immense amount of knowledge about your industry.
Here are some quick tips to help you understand who you’re up against:
Here’s an example of some competitive research for our fictional company Eco Eats, showing the top performing paid search ads for a (real) company that produces plant-based food and beverage packaging. You can use research like this to inform your own paid search strategy.
It’s important to note that many companies have two different kinds of competitors: those you compete against for actual customers and digital marketing competitors. Digital marketing competitors are companies that target the same keywords and/or audience segments online. While you might not directly lose customers to these competitors, they can make it harder for you to meet your goals for website traffic, conversions, and online leads. Both types of competitors should be accounted for in the Competitive Analysis section of your marketing plan.
For more on digital marketing competitors, read up on Competitive Research in SEO from Moz .
When it comes to writing your digital marketing plan, creating buyer personas will help you understand:
This information will help you personalize your marketing materials so they are targeted and highly relevant to your audience segments.
Remember: You aren’t trying to catch every fish in the sea. You’re only trying to catch the ones you want, the ones you are targeting because they have the strongest potential to turn into leads. Your net doesn’t need to be wide — it needs to be precise.
For more guidance on this step of creating your marketing plan, check out our guide to creating buyer personas .
Now that you know all about the market, your competitors, and your buyers, it’s time to turn inward and create a USP. This section of your marketing plan defines what makes you different and better than your competition, and why your target audience should choose to buy from you. Knowing and communicating your USP is critical if you want to beat your competition and solidify your company’s value in the marketplace.
Like the rest of your marketing plan up to this point, your USP should be revisited at least once a year. What made you stand out when your business was founded may not hold the same value in today’s market.
For tips on formulating your USP, check out The Ultimate Guide to Finding Your Unique Selling Proposition .
If you’ve been following along since our marketing plan outline, you may have noticed that we skipped a few of the items on the list: the executive summary and the goals. That’s because, while the executive summary is the second section of your marketing plan, you can’t actually write it until you’ve created the rest of the plan. And it’s important to do the research steps we’ve already covered before you move on to setting goals.
Your goals should start with the high-level outcomes your business needs to achieve in order to support sustainable growth. In digital marketing terms, that usually means increasing online leads and/or sales by a certain percentage. You can then break those high-level goals down into sub-goals that will help ensure your overall success. For example, if you want to increase your leads, sub-goals might be:
Be sure not to confuse goals with tactics. If your goals are what you want to achieve (e.g. to increase traffic by 50%), your tactics are the steps you’ll take to reach your goals. Creating a content marketing calendar to rank organically for more high-value keywords is an example of a tactic that will help increase site traffic. Your tactical plan is the next step in writing your marketing plan.
We just gave one example of a tactical project you might include in your marketing plan — creating a content marketing calendar. To complete this step in writing your plan, you’ll examine each of your strategic goals and create your roadmap for how to get there. Other examples of digital marketing initiatives and projects that might be included in a marketing plan include:
In your marketing plan, you should name each initiative or project along with a description of the steps you’ll take to complete it. Make sure to define what success looks like so your team has a clear destination in mind.
For each of your tactical projects or initiatives, provide information about where and how you’ll launch them. Some projects might have only one marketing channel associated with them — for example, email marketing. Others might have multiple channels. Examples of digital marketing channels include:
Each of your marketing initiatives should be associated with measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) that you’ll track and report on in order to determine what’s working and what’s not. This is a critical component of your marketing plan. Here are some examples of KPIs you might want to report on:
When at all possible, set up full-funnel attribution for your initiatives so that you can track which interactions actually lead to increases in sales and revenue. In fact, even before you have implemented your strategy, you should be measuring to establish your baseline. What have you done in the past and what were the results? How can those strategies shift to improve ROI?
It’s important to note that you should plan on reporting on your KPIs at least monthly — and as often as weekly for rapidly changing metrics like PPC and email results. (It typically takes much longer for organic rankings to show results.) And don’t be afraid to change course based on what your reports tell you.
Beginning with your overall marketing budget, the next step in writing your marketing plan is to determine how much money to allocate to each marketing initiative and platform. Be sure you have enough available to achieve the results you want in each area. If you’re not sure what your marketing budget should be, you can benchmark against other businesses in your industry, or start from the very rough “rule of thumb” of spending 10% of your expected revenue on marketing — and then adjust for the realities of your business.
In general, your budget will depend on factors such as:
Like your marketing plan as a whole, your budget should have some flexibility built into it in order to respond to what’s working throughout the year. For example, if your paid advertising campaigns are demonstrating strong, measurable increases in revenue, you’ll want to double down and increase your PPC budget accordingly. Or, on the other hand, you may realize that your budget for content marketing isn’t sufficient to get the results you want. You’ll either need to increase the budget or revise your content marketing strategy.
For more guidance, read our post on planning a marketing budget (with a handy template) .
Now that you’ve done all the hard work of researching and planning your marketing goals, initiatives, platforms, and budget, it’s time to sum it all up for easy reference. The executive summary is the second section of your marketing plan, and it is arguably one of the most important components.
That’s because the plan itself is a pretty lengthy document, and it’s going to be read by different people in different roles, from your CEO to your marketing agency partners to your investors, and so on. It’s important to give everyone an easy-to-understand overview to increase the chances that they’ll actually read the whole thing, and that they’ll understand the big picture when they do.
Your executive summary should be one or two pages long. Here’s what to include:
There is a lot that goes into creating a marketing plan. But when it’s done right, it will be the most valuable asset your marketing department has.
As we like to say at Vital, “Plan the work; work the plan.” To help get you started, we have included a marketing plan template so you can plan and track throughout the year.
At Vital we believe in digital marketing because we’ve seen the results first hand. It is how we market our business and how we market our clients’ businesses. If you would like help in developing your digital marketing plan, give us a shout .
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Marketing is an often misunderstood profession. Peers often stereotype marketing with massive budgets, loosey-goosey timelines, haphazard tactics, high-profile influencers, and Snapchat filters. In reality, modern marketing plans are more complex and orchestrated than a Premier League-winning football team.
Businesses have big goals to hit and fine margins to walk—and they need realistic, yet imaginative, marketing plans to make it happen. Sure, bigger companies can spend all willy-nilly hiring Taylor Swift for a commercial op and dropping a quarter million on Facebook advertising, but small businesses and startups have to get downright strategic with every dollar they spend.
If your business is trying to stretch every penny, you’ve come to the right place. This article will show you how to create a marketing plan in 2024 that actually works with a down-to-earth budget. We’ve included step-by-step actions, outlines, examples, and more to give you everything you need to take an idea to the market with laser precision.
Table of Contents
What is a marketing plan?
How to create a marketing plan
Marketing plan template
Marketing plan example
A marketing plan is a documented roadmap for how you plan to drive awareness, sales, signups, attendance, or other marketing initiatives. It outlines your KPIs, budget, and timeline, dictating everything from the critical milestones to the nitty-gritty to-do items.
Marketing plans come in all shapes and sizes. You could build an overarching marketing plan to document and guide your entire department’s annual goals and strategies for the upcoming year. Or you might create a marketing plan detailing the launch strategy for the brand-new product release coming out next quarter. Big plans can even include small plans, just like an adorable collection of Russian nesting dolls.
Plans can be short, long, fat, or thin—just remember what your plan is trying to accomplish. If you’re trying to pitch an idea to a team of venture capitalists or a local bank, you might need a chunky document with accompanying spreadsheets and financial figures. However, if you’re trying to communicate the plan to your marketing team leads, you’ll want to skip straight to the point with tactics, deadlines, and deliverables.
Regardless of your use case, the next section will give you the building blocks you need to create a marketing plan that works.
This section will show you the 7-step process to creating a marketing plan. Plans are fluid and versatile, so we don’t recommend filling out one of these with pen and paper—get your eraser ready because a marketing plan is never perfect from the get-go.
Here’s an overview of the 7-step process:
Don’t worry too much about making it all nice and pretty right now. Later, you can use our provided marketing outline to copy, paste, and format a more articulated version for widespread distribution. For now, just focus on hashing out each section and answering the thought-provoking questions.
Define exactly what you’re trying to achieve. Do you want to drive more sales? How much? What about recurring customers? How many? Do you need to increase brand awareness? To whom and by how much?
Work out the details of what you want to accomplish, why, and how you’re going to measure it. Establish your KPIs early on to measure the success of your marketing campaign. You’ll refer to these numbers throughout the rest of your marketing plan, so get specific.
For example, how many website visitors you’re trying to drive will affect your marketing budget, deadlines, and tactics. And if you’re targeting a specific demographic, you may need to engage different marketing teams to use the appropriate channels and messaging.
Fine-tune your marketing goal so that you can communicate it simply in a single sentence. For example: “The goal is to drive 25,000 key decision-makers to the new product page by the end of October with a limited marketing budget of $75,000.”
Explain who this campaign is targeting. If you’ve already built out your buyer personas, you’ll just plug in the persona appropriate to this campaign. However, if this is your first time thinking long and hard about your target audience, really get to know the person you’re marketing to.
Depending on your product, industry, and market, you’ll want to know demographics like:
These details help you identify a broad audience, but you’ll want to narrow it down with psychographics.
Psychographics dig deeper . They cover your audience’s:
Demographics explain the “who,” while psychographics explain the “why.”
Think about if you were trying to sell a baseball glove. How you market that glove is going to be very different depending on the buyer. Are your messaging and channels targeting a college athlete, recreational youngster, mom, dad, or low-income family? It’s hard to know what to say and how to say it unless you know who you’re talking to.
Don’t just gloss over this section. Without a target audience, you’ll be blindly throwing darts at a board—sure, some plans might work out, but it’ll come down less to strategy and more to sheer luck. A target audience and replicable formula make your success a science and not a game of Russian roulette.
Once you’ve identified your audience, you need to figure out who’s also targeted the same people. Competition research is a way to understand who you are up against for eyeballs, SEO rankings, and influence, but it also can serve as an opportunity to fill gaps in our needs that your competitors are missing.
One easy way to do this is to look at comment sections or reviews of similar companies in your industry. Look for:
By identifying your competitor’s weaknesses or gaps their missing with their customers, you’ll have a treasure trove of marketing copy to use in order to differentiate your business from the pack.
Marketing plans need budget constraints. Without a cap, plans could hypothetically include:
For most startups, that’s just not a possibility.
And it’s not where the magic happens. Powerful marketing plans turn tiny marketing budgets into impressive ROI. They prioritize the right channels, messaging, and tactics to stretch every dollar to the max.
Decide beforehand how much budget you’ll need to allocate to meet the goals you set in Step 1. When push comes to shove, you may need to throw additional money at the campaign later to get it across the finish line, but stay strong and do your best to create a marketing plan that works with the budget constraints.
Tight on budget but full on creativity? Check out our Small Business Marketing Guide: From Scratch to Success .
Deadlines create the boundaries to your marketing campaign—you can’t have a plan without them. No deadlines mean there’s a never-ending period to achieve your objective, and it’s probably not a good idea to have a 20-year free pass to accomplish that sales goal you set.
Set your deadline. Be realistic, but also be ambitious. The faster you achieve this goal, the faster you can move on to the next one—and each progressive goal should be moving your business forward.
Establish the final deadline for achieving your primary KPI. Then, set the necessary milestones along the journey. For example, you might set milestones for launching different aspects of your campaign, such as hosting 4 webinars, publishing 10 supporting blog posts, or earning a callout in 2 prime news outlets.
Finally, set the start date for when you’ll need to get the ball rolling to meet your deadlines. Don’t assume it’s ASAP—you might have a few weeks to get your ducks in a row instead of immediately heading off into a chaotic marketing battle.
This is arguably the funnest part of creating a marketing plan. This is the step where you get to choose the channels, tactics, and deliverables. The right channels and tactics will vary depending on your audience and product or service, but here are the most popular ones to consider:
And do you know what all these channels have in common? They each give you the ability to monitor your results and track your progress to prove if a channel is worth your time and money. Unlike traditional outbound advertising and its estimated impressions and influence, you know exactly what you’re getting with these digital marketing strategies.
Here’s where you get into the nitty-gritty of your marketing plan. Step 6 is where you’ll outline everything that needs to get done:
And that’s just the start. Outline everything that needs to happen to make your plan a reality. Once you know what needs to happen, it’s time to start making assignments. Someone needs to be responsible for every deliverable.
Here’s where you may run into roadblocks. You may discover that your creative team is overwhelmed and won’t be able to handle the creative requests until later, or you may find that other email campaigns or social media advertisements are the top priority.
If that’s the case, go back to Step 4 to revisit your timeline. Make adjustments to ensure there’s bandwidth available to make your marketing plan a reality.
No marketing plan will go off without a hitch. That’s why you need your ear to the ground to understand what’s working. Through analytic tools, you can understand if your marketing plan’s target audience, messaging, or creative needs adjusting. Thankfully, most digital tactics allow you to do this on the fly.
Make sure you familiarize yourself with these basic marketing analytics tools:
For more on analytics, read our marketing metrics guide .
Marketing Plan Template: [Name of Project]
Here’s a fake content marketing plan example for a fictitious shoe company.
Marketing Plan Template: [Project Zeus Running Collection]
Marketing Goal Drive $200,000 in sales for the new Zeus running collection within the first 4 months of launch day.
Target Audience The primary audience is 35 to 50-year-old male recreational runners who tend to run 30-40 miles a week at an average page of 8:00-10:00 minutes per mile. They’re not overly competitive, but they like to race 5K and 10K races occasionally throughout the year and are always trying to beat their personal best. Many have experienced mild injuries over the last few years that the Zeus Running Collection can help alleviate.
Marketing Budget We have a budget of $40,000 for the initial launch period. If we can prove out the Zeus Running Collection, we’ll allocate additional budget after the first 4 months.
Marketing Tactics
Responsibilities and Assignments
As stated earlier, marketing plans can come in all shapes and sizes. But that doesn't mean you need one for every single Facebook ad or whitepaper your team creates. The best marketing plans serve as a source of truth for your team to reach a goal. Within the marketing plan, you should have enough wiggle room to adjust your strategy and tactics. Marketing is an art and science, so there are bound to be surprises once you start executing your plan.
One of the most common mistakes marketers make is creating a seemingly perfect marketing plan and then going off script as soon as there's a sign of trouble or distraction. Using the SMART goal method (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound) is a simple way to ensure your marketing plan is applicable. Every marketing plan should be a success, whether you hit your goal or not, because you'll learn something new about your customer, tactics, and business throughout the process.
If you're reading this article, ideally you. A marketing manager or marketing team member typically writes marketing plans, but marketing strategy should start at an enterprise level. The more people understand the marketing plan for your business, the more you can work together (not in silos) to achieve a common goal. You'll see this happen in larger organizations where the marketing team works plan that the product or sales team have no idea about.
Every great campaign starts with an even better plan. Don’t leave your startup’s success up to chance—give it all the thought and attention you can.
With the right plan in place, you won’t be crossing your fingers on launch day or during the quarterly review. You’ll be sitting confidently, knowing that everything is running according to plan.
Need a high-level plan for your startup? We got you covered with our foundr+. Get access for $1. .
Jesse Sumrak is a writing zealot focused on creating killer content. He’s spent almost a decade writing about startup, marketing, and entrepreneurship topics, having built and sold his own post-apocalyptic fitness bootstrapped business. A writer by day and a peak bagger by night (and early early morning), you can usually find Jesse preparing for the apocalypse on a precipitous peak somewhere in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
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Follow these templates and guidelines to get started on your business's marketing plan.
To have a successful business, you need a well-thought-out marketing plan to promote your products or services. Although making a few social media posts or blasting a few promotional emails may seem simple enough, disjointed marketing efforts not only confuse your target audience, but can ultimately harm your business.
A marketing plan is a strategic road map for how you communicate (online and offline) with your target audience to successfully promote your products or services. Depending on your goal, marketing plans can be extremely basic or highly detailed.
According to Molly Maple Bryant, vice president of marketing at Vibrent Health, a marketing plan is not simply a list of things you want to accomplish. Instead, it should list the outcomes you seek — measurable and contextual, like the pipeline you’re developing, or leads you’re generating — and it should explain the high-level strategies you will use to achieve those outcomes. Developing strategies can be complicated, but they make a major difference in keeping you on track and avoiding diversions, also called scope creep .
“Once you have an agreed-upon plan, you are able to compare any incoming requests against your strategies to determine ‘Yes, this adheres to my strategy so we can add it,’ or ‘No, this sounds good in theory, but it doesn’t adhere to our agreed-upon strategy, so we won’t adjust resources,'” Bryant told us.
There are several different types of marketing plans you can use based on certain strategies that make sense for your organization. Your business will likely need a combination of the following marketing plans to create an effective, comprehensive marketing strategy:
A marketing plan is a crucial resource for any small business because it helps you identify the market needs your product or service meets, how your product is different from competitors, and who your product or service is for. Marketing plans also serve as a road map for your sales strategy, branding direction and building your overall business. This is important for successfully conveying your brand messaging to your target audience .
Another significant benefit of a marketing plan for your company is that rather than simply guessing metrics, it forces you to sit down and do the math about your business goals and how to realistically fulfill them. When you look at your growth outcomes, you can delve further to determine what it will take to get to those numbers.
Bryant offered the following example: “Need $100,000 in revenue? How many sales is that? If 10, what’s your close rate? Let’s say 10 percent from lead to closed deal. Now you have a metric to start with — to get to 10 sales, we need 100 leads. Where will they come from, and what strategies will you use? The plan helps you put it all on paper so you can map out resources and tactics later with a lot of preparation and realism,” said Bryant.
When analyzing outcomes and resources, you can save time and avoid scope creep by focusing only on strategies that are relevant to your marketing plan. A marketing plan helps you think realistically about your strategies, gets your stakeholders on the same page, and holds your marketing team accountable for their decisions.
“When everyone’s tasks and goals are laid out for the stakeholders and company partners to see, it is much easier for the entire team to feel at ease about reaching sales goals and allowing the marketing team the space and freedom needed to execute work without constant supervision,” said Cassady Dill, digital marketing consultant and owner of Ethos Agency.
Additionally, Dill said a marketing plan should be easily understood by your entire team, executives and outside departments. Your plan should also serve as an easy guide for future marketing managers and team members to understand and implement.
A marketing plan should be customized to fit your business; however, Dill said, all marketing plans contain five essential functions:
We broke down those five functions into 10 actionable categories to help you create a marketing plan that is unique and effective for your business.
The executive summary is a great place to give the reader of your plan an overview of your business’s mission or goals, as well as the marketing strategy you’re looking to employ. An executive summary is often written after you’ve completed the rest of the marketing plan, to ensure it covers all the important elements of your plan. If the executive summary is the only part of your marketing plan that someone reads (which is highly possible), you want to be sure they understand the most crucial details.
The mission statement , not to be confused with a vision statement, is a statement that encompasses your company’s values and how they relate to your overall goals as an organization. Here are some good questions to get you thinking:
Identifying your target market is one of the most important parts of your marketing plan. Without a defined target audience, your marketing expenses will be wasted. Think of it like this: Some people need your service or product but don’t know it exists yet. Who are those people?
Here are some other questions to help you brainstorm your target market :
In this section, don’t just list what your product or service is. Think critically about what you have to offer your customers and what that value proposition means to them.
At this point in your report, you should transition your thinking into actual marketing theory and practices. Distribution channels are the avenues you’ll use to reach a prospective customer or business . Think of all current and potential sales channels on which your specific target audience is active. One distribution channel that works great for one organization may be useless to another. For example, one company may host their website for free on a site like HubSpot and solely rely on that as their sales channel, while another company may have a whole team of people using Pinterest to drive sales. [Learn how CRM systems can help track your marketing leads based on various distribution channels.]
Examples of sales channels include the following:
One of the major aspects of your marketing plan is developing your unique selling proposition (USP). A USP is a feature or stance that separates your product or service from competitors. Finding your USP is all about differentiation and distinguishing your company as a sole proprietor of one type of good or service. Conduct a competitive analysis to identify your competitive profile and how you stack up against the competition. It is important to remain unbiased when conducting this analysis.
Here are some ideas to consider:
Consider pricing when drafting your marketing plan. Developing the right pricing strategy helps you better market your product. Think about your current and projected finances when developing a long-term marketing strategy that is realistic and beneficial for your business. Here are some key questions to ask yourself about your pricing:
Consider your objectives when developing a marketing plan. This aspect of your plan should involve specific goals related to market penetration and revenue targets. Be sure to keep your marketing objectives on-brand with your business. Here are some things to consider:
With all of the above items outlined, determine what steps need to be taken to enact your marketing plan. This includes determining the proper steps, setting goals, breaking down responsibilities, and establishing an overall timeline.
It’s also important to brainstorm potential roadblocks your business could face and some solutions to overcome them. Your research is useless if you don’t have an actionable plan that can be realistically implemented to carry out your ideas.
This last step allows you to establish a realistic marketing budget and better understand your marketing plan from a cost perspective. In addition to setting a budget, consider the overall return on investment as well. Here are some other financial projections to consider:
The internet is full of useful tools, including paid and free marketing plan templates, to help you build a successful marketing plan .
Whether you are looking for a free template generator to build a new marketing plan or a benchmarking tool to evaluate your current strategies, several great resources are available. Keep in mind that the best marketing plan for your business will be a customized one.
“Ultimately, you should design a marketing plan that best serves the needs of your team as you see fit,” said Dill. “Don’t force yourself into a plan that doesn’t fit your team. Use templates to shorten the workload time, but then adjust it for a more custom plan.”
Here are some tools and templates to get you started:
When creating an effective marketing plan, you need to avoid falling for common missteps and mistakes. For starters, failing to identify any of the 10 actionable categories above is an obvious mistake.
Here are some other key mistakes to avoid:
Avoiding these mistakes and missteps can help you create a more effective and successful marketing plan that drives results for your business.
Before you dive into marketing plan templates, it’s important to understand how to think about a marketing plan.
A good marketing plan targets who your buyers are, establishes the service or product you are offering, and determines your unique selling proposition. From here, you will tackle the marketing planning process and develop the best way to get your product in front of buyers who want your product or service.
Dill created a simple four-step process for how small businesses can take action with creating a marketing plan.
In addition to drafting your own plan, you can work with a digital marketing agency or use internet marketing and pay-per-click management services to leverage your online presence.
Once you’ve established a general road map, update it annually. Developing an evolving marketing plan sets your business up for continued success because it allows you to prepare for the unexpected and establish a connection between your brand and your audience.
Matt D’Angelo contributed to this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.
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A lot of preparation goes into starting a business before you can open your doors to the public or launch your online store. One of your first steps should be to write a business plan . A business plan will serve as your roadmap when building your business.
Within your business plan, there’s an important section you should pay careful attention to: your market analysis. Your market analysis helps you understand your target market and how you can thrive within it.
Simply put, your market analysis shows that you’ve done your research. It also contributes to your marketing strategy by defining your target customer and researching their buying habits. Overall, a market analysis will yield invaluable data if you have limited knowledge about your market, the market has fierce competition, and if you require a business loan. In this guide, we'll explore how to conduct your own market analysis.
In your market analysis, you can expect to cover the following:
Industry outlook
Target market
Market value
Competition
Barriers to entry
Let’s dive into an in-depth look into each section:
Before you begin your market analysis, it’s important to define your objective for writing a market analysis. Are you writing it for internal purposes or for external purposes?
If you were doing a market analysis for internal purposes, you might be brainstorming new products to launch or adjusting your marketing tactics. An example of an external purpose might be that you need a market analysis to get approved for a business loan .
The comprehensiveness of your market analysis will depend on your objective. If you’re preparing for a new product launch, you might focus more heavily on researching the competition. A market analysis for a loan approval would require heavy data and research into market size and growth, share potential, and pricing.
An industry outlook is a general direction of where your industry is heading. Lenders want to know whether you’re targeting a growing industry or declining industry. For example, if you’re looking to sell VCRs in 2020, it’s unlikely that your business will succeed.
Starting your market analysis with an industry outlook offers a preliminary view of the market and what to expect in your market analysis. When writing this section, you'll want to include:
Are you chasing big markets or are you targeting very niche markets? If you’re targeting a niche market, are there enough customers to support your business and buy your product?
If you develop a product, what will its life cycle look like? Lenders want an overview of how your product will come into fruition after it’s developed and launched. In this section, you can discuss your product’s:
Research and development
How do you see your company performing over time? Calculating your year-over-year growth will help you and lenders see how your business has grown thus far. Calculating your projected growth shows how your business will fare in future projected market conditions.
This section of your market analysis is dedicated to your potential customer. Who is your ideal target customer? How can you cater your product to serve them specifically?
Don’t make the mistake of wanting to sell your product to everybody. Your target customer should be specific. For example, if you’re selling mittens, you wouldn’t want to market to warmer climates like Hawaii. You should target customers who live in colder regions. The more nuanced your target market is, the more information you’ll have to inform your business and marketing strategy.
With that in mind, your target market section should include the following points:
This is where you leave nothing to mystery about your ideal customer. You want to know every aspect of your customer so you can best serve them. Dedicate time to researching the following demographics:
Income level
Creating a customer persona can help you better understand your customer. It can be easier to market to a person than data on paper. You can give this persona a name, background, and job. Mold this persona into your target customer.
What are your customer’s pain points? How do these pain points influence how they buy products? What matters most to them? Why do they choose one brand over another?
Information without data are just claims. To add credibility to your market analysis, you need to include data. Some methods for collecting data include:
Target group surveys
Focus groups
Reading reviews
Feedback surveys
You can also consult resources online. For example, the U.S. Census Bureau can help you find demographics in calculating your market share. The U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Small Business Administration also offer general data that can help you research your target industry.
You can use either top-down analysis or bottom-up analysis to calculate an estimate of your market value.
A top-down analysis tends to be the easier option of the two. It requires for you to calculate the entire market and then estimate how much of a share you expect your business to get. For example, let’s assume your target market consists of 100,000 people. If you’re optimistic and manage to get 1% of that market, you can expect to make 1,000 sales.
A bottom-up analysis is more data-driven and requires more research. You calculate the individual factors of your business and then estimate how high you can scale them to arrive at a projected market share. Some factors to consider when doing a bottom-up analysis include:
Where products are sold
Who your competition is
The price per unit
How many consumers you expect to reach
The average amount a customer would buy over time
While a bottom-up analysis requires more data than a top-down analysis, you can usually arrive at a more accurate calculation.
Before you start a business, you need to research the level of competition within your market. Are there certain companies getting the lion’s share of the market? How can you position yourself to stand out from the competition?
There are two types of competitors that you should be aware of: direct competitors and indirect competitors.
Direct competitors are other businesses who sell the same product as you. If you and the company across town both sell apples, you are direct competitors.
An indirect competitor sells a different but similar product to yours. If that company across town sells oranges instead, they are an indirect competitor. Apples and oranges are different but they still target a similar market: people who eat fruits.
Also, here are some questions you want to answer when writing this section of your market analysis:
What are your competitor’s strengths?
What are your competitor’s weaknesses?
How can you cover your competitor’s weaknesses in your own business?
How can you solve the same problems better or differently than your competitors?
How can you leverage technology to better serve your customers?
How big of a threat are your competitors if you open your business?
Writing a market analysis can help you identify some glaring barriers to starting your business. Researching these barriers will help you avoid any costly legal or business mistakes down the line. Some entry barriers to address in your marketing analysis include:
Technology: How rapid is technology advancing and can it render your product obsolete within the next five years?
Branding: You need to establish your brand identity to stand out in a saturated market.
Cost of entry: Startup costs, like renting a space and hiring employees, are expensive. Also, specialty equipment often comes with hefty price tags. (Consider researching equipment financing to help finance these purchases.)
Location: You need to secure a prime location if you’re opening a physical store.
Competition: A market with fierce competition can be a steep uphill battle (like attempting to go toe-to-toe with Apple or Amazon).
When starting a business, it’s your responsibility to research governmental and state business regulations within your market. Some regulations to keep in mind include (but aren’t limited to):
Employment and labor laws
Advertising
Environmental regulations
If you’re a newer entrepreneur and this is your first business, this part can be daunting so you might want to consult with a business attorney. A legal professional will help you identify the legal requirements specific to your business. You can also check online legal help sites like LegalZoom or Rocket Lawyer.
We wouldn’t be surprised if you feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information needed in a market analysis. Keep in mind, though, this research is key to launching a successful business. You don’t want to cut corners, but here are a few tips to help you out when writing your market analysis:
Nobody likes 30 pages of nothing but text. Using visual aids can break up those text blocks, making your market analysis more visually appealing. When discussing statistics and metrics, charts and graphs will help you better communicate your data.
If you’ve ever read an article from an academic journal, you’ll notice that writers include an abstract that offers the reader a preview.
Use this same tactic when writing your market analysis. It will prime the reader of your market highlights before they dive into the hard data.
It’s better to keep your market analysis concise than to stuff it with fluff and repetition. You’ll want to present your data, analyze it, and then tie it back into how your business can thrive within your target market.
Markets are always changing and it's important that your business changes with your target market. Revisiting your market analysis ensures that your business operations align with changing market conditions. The best businesses are the ones that can adapt.
Your market analysis helps you look at factors within your market to determine if it’s a good fit for your business model. A market analysis will help you:
Markets are always shifting and it’s a good idea to identify current and projected market conditions. These trends will help you understand the size of your market and whether there are paying customers waiting for you. Doing a market analysis helps you confirm that your target market is a lucrative market.
The best way to serve your customer is to understand them. A market analysis will examine your customer’s buying habits, pain points, and desires. This information will aid you in developing a business that addresses those points.
Starting a business, especially if it’s your first one, requires startup funding. A good first step is to apply for a business loan with your bank or other financial institution.
A thorough market analysis shows that you’re professional, prepared, and worth the investment from lenders. This preparation inspires confidence within the lender that you can build a business and repay the loan.
Your research will offer valuable insight and certain advantages that the competition might not have. For example, thoroughly understanding your customer’s pain points and desires will help you develop a superior product or service than your competitors. If your business is already up and running, an updated market analysis can upgrade your marketing strategy or help you launch a new product.
There is a saying that the first step to cutting down a tree is to sharpen an axe. In other words, preparation is the key to success. In business, preparation increases the chances that your business will succeed, even in a competitive market.
The market analysis section of your business plan separates the entrepreneurs who have done their homework from those who haven’t. Now that you’ve learned how to write a market analysis, it’s time for you to sharpen your axe and grow a successful business. And keep in mind, if you need help crafting your business plan, you can always turn to business plan software or a free template to help you stay organized.
This article originally appeared on JustBusiness, a subsidiary of NerdWallet.
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Home > Business Plan > Marketing Strategy in a Business Plan
… we will get this market share by …
The marketing strategy section of the business plan can be presented in four sections relating to each of the four P’s product, promotion, place, and price as shown in the example layout below.
The marketing strategy is a key section of the business plan, at this stage you are not trying to present a complete marketing plan, but simply trying to show the investor that each major section of the marketing strategy has been thought about and that you have a good marketing mix.
All of the four sections should be consistent with and support each other, for example, if you are planning to adopt a high price strategy, then the product would be aimed at an upmarket target customer, distributed at high end stores, and make use of one to one personal selling.
This is part of the financial projections and Contents of a Business Plan Guide , a series of posts on what each section of a simple business plan should include. The next post in this series sets out the business model which the business intends to use to generate revenue.
Chartered accountant Michael Brown is the founder and CEO of Plan Projections. He has worked as an accountant and consultant for more than 25 years and has built financial models for all types of industries. He has been the CFO or controller of both small and medium sized companies and has run small businesses of his own. He has been a manager and an auditor with Deloitte, a big 4 accountancy firm, and holds a degree from Loughborough University.
Imagine setting out to climb Mt. Everest guided only by intuition. You wouldn’t make it very far without a detailed plan (and an experienced sherpa) to guide the way.
Marketing may not be an extreme sport with life-or-death consequences, but you’ve got big goals to reach nonetheless. And your team’s success relies on a lot more than gut instinct.
That’s why a strategic marketing plan is a must, no matter your industry. Think of it as the roadmap that gets your business where it needs to go each and every year.
Drafting your first marketing plan can feel intimidating, but don’t worry. We’ll walk you through the basics, show you what a strategic marketing plan looks like, and even give you a couple of free templates to get started. Here’s what we’ll cover:
Essential elements of a strategic marketing plan, free marketing plan templates and examples.
Let’s start from square one and define what a strategic marketing plan is.
A strategic marketing plan is a formal document that guides your team’s marketing efforts throughout the year. It maps your annual marketing goals to your company’s overall business objectives, while also outlining how you’ll spend your yearly marketing budget.
A good marketing plan clearly outlines:
Keep in mind that your plan may vary based on your industry and goals. Length and format don’t matter as much as the details you include. Do your research, and make it as easy as possible for company leaders to understand how your strategic marketing plan helps business grow.
A marketing strategy details how you’ll execute a piece of your marketing plan with a specific tactical goal in mind. You might do this by launching an email or social media campaign, publishing a blog series, offering a special promo, or hosting a live event.
A marketing plan , on the other hand, is the high-level framework that drives all your marketing strategies. It’s a big-picture look at the who, what, and why behind your marketing goals, with a focus on tying them to larger organizational objectives.
No two marketing plans are exactly the same, but they do share some common threads. Here are 6 important elements you’ll want to identify and research before you build out your next strategic marketing plan.
Everything you do as a marketing team should support your company’s overall strategy and goals. So summarize your organization’s business objectives, and let it serve as your marketing plan’s true north. Your team and stakeholders should be able to clearly see how the marketing strategies and goals you outline in your plan align with your company’s top priorities.
A SWOT analysis breaks down your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This enables you to assess both the internal and external factors that influence your success so you can build targeted strategies that close gaps and drive results.
Research is the core of any marketing plan because it’s what you’ll use to shape your goals and strategy. Don’t be afraid to dive deep into the details here. A well-researched marketing plan is worth the time invested.
Focusing your research energy on these areas will equip you with a solid base for smart marketing decisions.
It’s important to understand major movements in the industry you’re marketing to so you have a feel for the pulse of the market. Thoroughly research the industry your organization works in, and be sure to report on the general climate, as well as any noteworthy happenings. If your company serves any subindustries, don’t forget to include them in your analysis too.
Marketing to the masses rarely pays off. That’s why narrowing down your target audience is a must for any marketing plan. Consider it the filter you run every marketing strategy through.
The more specific you can get, the better. Answering questions like these can help you paint a clear picture of your ideal buyer so you know how to focus your resources for a bigger impact on the people you want to reach.
It’s also important to understand who and what you’re up against when it comes to attracting your perfect buyer. Identify the key players in your space, and give a brief rundown of what they’re doing to win. This groundwork will make it easier to see how to differentiate yourself from the competition.
Now that you’ve laid the groundwork, it’s time to talk strategy. Outline your strategic marketing goals for the year, and briefly explain how these strategies support company-wide goals. Use a gantt chart to establish a timeline for each goal and monitor results along the way. This is an easy way to set expectations and keep your team and stakeholders in the loop.
Metrics are where the rubber meets the road in your marketing plan. Use your market research to define specific KPIs or key marketing metrics that will serve as your measure for success. This will help you track progress so you know if you need to change course mid-project to ensure you hit your strategic marketing goals.
Marketing channels are the vehicles you’ll use to reach your target audience and grow your brand. Choose your channels wisely based on where you expect to get the most bang for your marketing buck. Briefly explain the purpose of each channel and how it supports your overall marketing strategy and business goals.
Want to build a more detailed plan for each marketing channel so you can bring your ideas to life? Check out our free social media strategy plan and editorial content plan templates for more information on planning by channel.
Establishing a monthly budget for your marketing plan—and tracking it along the way—helps you maximize ROI and identify wasted spend before it drains your marketing dollars.
Start by listing any ongoing expenses you have so you know what you can afford to spend on new initiatives. Then do your best to estimate any new costs you expect in the coming year. Don’t forget to account for any new hires, freelance workers, or third-party agencies you might need to rely on to get the work done.
Not sure where to start? We’ve got you! Here are a few examples of how you might structure a marketing plan so you can easily start writing your own.
Your marketing plan may shake out differently depending on the industry you work in or the goals you’re focused on. Use these marketing plan templates and samples as a guide to jumpstart the process and come up with a marketing plan structure that works for you.
The most common way to create a marketing plan is simply to write it out as a text document. This format enables you to freely elaborate on any research findings you gathered during discovery, while also making a clear case for the marketing goals you’ve set for the year.
We put together a free Google Docs marketing plan template to help you save time so you can get your planning process off the ground faster. This marketing plan example is perfect for documenting and sharing the full scope of your strategic marketing plan with your team and stakeholders.
Here’s a basic breakdown of what the Google Docs marketing plan template covers:
Save a copy of the template to your Google Drive or download it as a Word document, and customize it to fit your own strategic marketing plan needs.
Use template in Google Docs
A plan’s no good if you set it and forget it. That’s where a gantt chart comes in handy. Use this free gantt chart marketing plan template to track your strategic marketing plan all the way to success.
A gantt chart is a great way to lay your marketing plan out in a simple, visual timeline that’s easy to update as work progresses. It gives you a high-level view of your plan’s major goals and strategies, while enabling you to collaborate on and share your plan with your team and stakeholders.
How you use a gantt chart to put your plan into action is up to you. Build a timeline for the tasks you need to complete as you develop your marketing plan, like the example below.
Once you’ve fleshed out the details of your marketing plan, you can use a gantt chart to define and track your strategic marketing goals. For example, you could break your marketing plan down by quarter to show when specific objectives will come into play and update progress as you close in on your goal. Here’s how that might look.
Use template in TeamGantt
We’ve created a free marketing plan template for you in TeamGantt so you can jump right in!
Customizing the template is quick and easy, thanks to TeamGantt’s drag and drop simplicity. And since everything’s online, your whole team can collaborate on activities in real time.
Here are a few pointers to help you get the most out of our free TeamGantt strategic marketing plan template.
Configuring your marketing plan is as easy as dragging and dropping tasks—or entire task groups—into their new rightful place. Click and drag the edges of each taskbar to set a new task duration.
Collaboration is easy with TeamGantt's discussion feature . Share documents and chat with your team directly from a task’s Comments section. Use Notes to communicate important information—like goals, target audience, and budget—at the project level.
Have a more formal marketing plan document? Attach the file or link to your project so everyone has easy access to it.
Plans are meant to be shared, so we made it easy to keep even the most inquisitive stakeholders in the loop. Export your plan to a printer-friendly PDF , or share a view-only link to your project so stakeholders can see your marketing plan progress in real time.
Sign up for a free TeamGantt account today , and save time on project setup with this free marketing plan template!
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What do hiking a trail, driving to a friend’s house, and executing marketing campaigns all have in common? Each requires you to closely follow directions.
Directions are a critical part of our daily life. Used correctly, they can guide decision-making processes, make labor more efficient, and get where you want to go as quickly as possible.
But failing to keep track of directions could cost you — and not just gas money. When it comes to marketing strategies, not having a clear goal tanks web traffic, dissipates brand interest, and costs companies across the United States a whopping $400 billion a year.
Designing a marketing plan is certainly no easy task, but it can be made easier with best practices, strategic tips, and concrete examples from successful businesses all over the world.
A marketing plan is a strategic document that acts as a guide for marketing campaigns and strategies. These critical road maps detail where you are, where you’re going, and how you plan to get there.
The average marketing plan consists of seven major sections:
The more detailed a marketing plan is, the more efficient it will be at accomplishing its goals.
As you might imagine, marketers who bother to write a concrete marketing plan enjoy several benefits :
It’s clear that a successful marketing plan opens pathways to other forms of business success — although the process is underutilized at best. More than three out of four small business owners lack an overarching marketing plan if they don’t have a clear path of growth. Creating a holistic marketing plan is absolutely necessary to scale brands at any level of development.
It’s much simpler to design a plan of action when the groundwork already exists. Below are 10 marketing plans sourced from real companies and brands around the world, highlighting unique approaches to researching, crafting and implementing a marketing strategy .
Popular SaaS Contently developed a visual marketing plan for developing future campaigns. The strategy depicts its plan in a “waterfall” format, with goals blending into methods of application that eventually lead to success metrics. Although far more casual than other examples on this list, the work provides an excellent overview of a marketing plan’s necessary components.
The Baton Rouge area of Louisiana generates millions of dollars every year from tourism alone. The Visit Baton Rouge marketing plan was born from a need to better position the area and create long-term strategies for generating interest. This 38-page document goes into detail describing different destinations, events, and calendars, including recommended measurements for success.
Created by SaaS company HubSpot , this template includes a business summary, SWOT matrix, market strategy, budget, and other important aspects of a marketing plan. By filling it out, you can make informed decisions about your company’s positioning and your marketing in general.
Evernote provides a comprehensive marketing plan template for businesses of any size. Create a plan that walks through overviews, timelines, research, personas, and all other elements of an airtight campaign. If desired, you can also implement this template into your Evernote account to start developing a marketing plan almost immediately.
Even educational institutes need marketing plans. The University of Illinois created a very straightforward document that encapsulates its market context, research efforts, and current campaigns. Objectives and success metrics are completed in the third section, with about 40 pages overall.
Monday.com is a project management platform providing in-house templates to all active users. This marketing plan offers various categories and subcategories that track project progress with data visualizations. Detailed objectives and KPIs can be identified in-app, including columns for a projected cost range.
Popular health and hygiene brand Lush released a comprehensive marketing plan walking through some products, positioning, and a marketing calendar for upcoming product releases. One of the highlights includes a detailed SWOT analysis with easy to read graphics. This is particularly helpful for brands in the personal care industry, among others.
Industry titan Coca-Cola released a strategy video that encompasses all seven elements of a holistic marketing plan. The proposal primarily explains the major content initiatives for the coming year, and focuses on how the brand’s initial ideas can be practically implemented into the existing strategy.
Publicly funded recreational parks often have limited access to resources, which is why the Naperville Park District created a strategic marketing plan right at the beginning. This extremely detailed document walks through the company’s mission, situational analysis, strategy, and budget, on a micro-level.
Unlike the longform documents we’ve seen already, Starbucks takes a more concise approach. This six-page release details a strategy to elevate CX and brand ambassadors around the world. The marketing plan touches on individual strategies and tactics, as well as the methods used to ensure success. It’s important to note the detailed customer journey profiles that fit into a five-year strategy.
Now that you know what a marketing plan looks like, it’s time to explore the initial stages of drafting and publishing your very first plan. Once you establish some basic starting points, a little research is all you need to get started.
Directions simply don’t matter without an endpoint in mind. Craft some meaningful goals for your marketing campaign that envelop your brand’s values, objectives, and year-end plans. It’s best to use the SMART goal framework:
The more specific your goals are, the more effective your marketing plan will be.
Staying abreast of your competitors and market share is critical in the early stages of a marketing plan. Using competitive analysis tools or an internal process, take some time to evaluate the approach that others are using — and how you can do better.
You might want to:
Keep in mind that it’s possible to hire freelancers to perform competitive analysis for you, depending on your needs and time constraints.
Understanding your target market — including their goals, ages, values, and demographics — is the golden rule of marketing. This can be done several ways, either by using data, creating personas, or outlying features in a document.
It’s best to consider everything that may be relevant to your audience in the marketing plan, including how products can be positioned in a way that makes them relevant. For example, a customer with a degree in IT would be more interested in ads that speak to their experience and industry pain points.
If you don’t have a target audience in mind yet, consider using programs like Google Analytics or in-platform insights from Facebook to identify specific segments.
The difference between a good marketing plan and a great marketing plan starts with key performance metrics (KPIs). These will be used to measure the effectiveness of your campaign and provide detailed information about what worked, what didn’t, and what you can change in the future.
Every marketing plan should rely on its own unique set of metrics, all fitted to individual needs. If you’re looking for specific examples, you might want to try:
Keep in mind that your final metrics should adhere to the SMART method for best results.
The marketing plan is a living document and must be updated regularly to remain current. The average plan only has a shelf life of one to five years , on average, and should receive regular revisions in the meantime.
Take a closer look at your past goals, competitors, audience, and KPIs. Are any of these outdated or ill-aligned? What has changed for the company since its initial publication date? Make these adjustments accordingly (and hopefully with members of a team or committee).
It’s not enough to just write a marketing plan. In an increasingly competitive world of iron-clad strategies, marketing pros should take their time developing a plan that lasts. The above examples are a great place to start, especially as you craft an approach that is catered to your industry.
Keep an eye on the growth of your business once your marketing plan hits the shelves. Continue to find new ways to optimize, refine, and otherwise make what you have even better than before. With an airtight marketing plan by your side, the possibilities are virtually limitless.
You’re just in time to hop on the more sales wagon. Learn how .
Marketing strategies vs. marketing plans vs. marketing tactics , types of marketing strategies, how to create the most effective marketing strategies.
Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company or just starting out on your very first small business venture, every company in the world needs an effective marketing strategy to build brand awareness and drive new customers to its products and services. However, if you’ve never been involved in successful marketing strategies, creating one can be easier said than done.
The most effective marketing strategies consider every aspect of the marketing flow, from a thorough understanding of your audience personas to a clear-cut marketing budget and so much more; there’s a lot to cover in a company marketing strategy.
In this guide, we’re going to look at some of the best marketing strategies of all time and explain how you can utilize different types of marketing strategies to maximize your returns in no time.
Before we tell you how to compose an effective marketing strategy, you need to understand what a marketing strategy is and how it can help you improve your advertising.
In simple terms, business marketing strategies are a tool marketers use to outline their various campaigns and marketing models. It’s the how of how you’ll get customers interested in your products and services.
To create an effective marketing strategy, you need to do four things:
You can do it too.
Like a marketing plan, your marketing strategy should cover the five “Ps” of marketing:
Once you’ve answered these questions, you’ll be in a fantastic position to start building your company’s marketing strategy.
Although “marketing strategies” might seem relatively straightforward, there can often be some confusion when establishing whether you’re creating a marketing strategy, marketing plan, or marketing tactic. While all three of these marketing initiatives work together, they cover slightly different aspects and should not be used interchangeably.
A marketing plan is an overview of all your marketing initiatives. This will include all the campaigns you intend to run over a set period of time, your goals and ambitions for the projects as a whole, and any research you’ve compiled to support these aims.
Marketing strategies at first glance appear very similar to the overarching marketing plan. However, the strategies will take a closer look at just a few select parts of the marketing plan.
For example, if your marketing plan is to promote a new product or service, you might have a strategy dedicated to how you’re going to use email marketing to support these broader goals. Every marketing plan will most likely produce several marketing strategies as part of the broader plan.
While the marketing plan and strategies are committed to explaining what you’re going to do, marketing tactics go deeper again and establish how you’re going to do it.
Using the above example, the marketing plan is to build awareness for a new product. The marketing strategy is how you’ll utilize email marketing as part of this. The marketing tactics will detail the specific actions you’ll take as part of the marketing campaign.
Now we understand some of the different marketing terms, it’s time to zone in on marketing strategies and how these work as part of your business plan.
There are numerous different types of marketing strategies you can use depending on your business needs. While we’re not going to cover every marketing strategy type today, these are some of the main ones that you’re likely to come across:
Today, social media marketing is a huge part of any business’s marketing plan as it’s a hugely compelling way to drive traffic, build brand awareness, and take advantage of the social selling revelation that’s taking over online marketing.
According to recent data, around 54% of social media users use social platforms to research brands and products, and 89% of consumers who follow a particular brand will purchase from that brand.
With these figures, if you’re not utilizing an effective social media marketing strategy, you’re missing out on untold rewards.
Anyone who’s ever told you “email is dead” is dead wrong. Capturing your customers’ emails and browsers should be an essential part of your marketing strategy and is an excellent way to continue a conversation with people who have expressed interest in your brand.
There are loads of email marketing tools available to help you in this area. However, you still need an effective email marketing strategy to produce consistent, compelling emails that convert readers into buyers.
An inbound marketing strategy is all about pulling customers in and driving traffic to your website or products. Rather than using “disruptive” marketing techniques (like TV advertising), inbound marketing is about lead generation using people who have shown interest in your products, services, or brand as a whole.
Email marketing can be a good example of an inbound marketing strategy. If someone has subscribed to your mailing list, chances are they’re at least somewhat interested in what you have to say. This enables you to take a softer approach to your marketing, as these leads are already more likely to become sales.
Another inbound marketing strategy could be blog posts. People will only see blog posts relevant to their search terms and interests, meaning they’ve expressed a need that at least somewhat relates to what you’re selling.
A content marketing strategy is likely to overlap with an inbound marketing strategy, but it is more specific. With content marketing strategies, you focus on content creation that will draw people in and build interest.
This is likely to cover blog posts and white papers and can even overlap with your social media marketing.
Effectively, any part of your marketing campaigns that require content will require an effective content marketing strategy.
Taking an editorial approach is a particularly vital marketing strategy for advertising companies as it highlights the content formats, workflows, and channels you’ll be utilizing to hit your marketing goals.
It’s similar to the sort of marketing strategies you would expect to see in a news or media organization and can be essential for brand publishers or advertisers to keep their marketing efforts and ideas in focus.
Your marketing communications strategy should be primarily focused on your brand’s message and value proposition . It’s all about how you’re going to say what you need to say.
For example, is your tone of voice serious or humorous? Are you marketing yourself as an expert in your industry? What is the message you want to get across?
Digital marketing probably doesn’t need much introduction… This marketing strategy will encompass all your online marketing, SEO , social media lead generation, performance marketing , and more…. Effectively, if it’s online, it should be covered by your digital marketing strategy.
Although internal marketing will be less vital for SMBs, it can be a vital part of the marketing efforts for large companies. A good example of an internal marketing strategy would be an internal email that lets employees know they’re eligible to become shareholders or asks existing shareholders to support a new initiative.
Internal marketing can also cover more mundane issues, such as keeping staff up to date on any changes to the company, branding, or internal procedures.
If you’re in business, you’ll probably know how complicated PR strategies can be. Not only does getting PR right ensure you keep your customers happy, but it’s also vital for protecting your brand image in the eyes of your stakeholders, the media, and even governmental bodies or other influential institutions.
Any large business should have a dedicated PR team in charge of the brand’s public image. In addition to protecting it, good PR can also offer invaluable word-of-mouth advertising.
SEO should form part of all the different marketing strategies. Still, you may find it beneficial to have some of your marketing efforts explicitly dedicated to SEO, as this is likely to be your primary source of lead generation.
SEO (or Search Engine Optimization) is pretty much what it says on the tin: the art of using keywords and phrases to boost your visibility when users search for relevant terms on the internet. Getting SEO right is arguably the best way to drive traffic to your website and should be front of mind in all your digital marketing and content marketing strategies.
Naturally, SEO goes beyond just keyword optimization and considers a plethora of other aspects to help you rise on those search engine results pages (SERPs). So, it’s a good idea to have at least one marketing team member dedicated to the latest SEO trends so you can rank #1 on Google.
When it comes to strategic marketing strategies, there isn’t always a one-size-fits-all solution. Strategies can take many different forms, from word documents to flowcharts to slides… But although they can look different on the outside, the most effective marketing strategies will always have a few things in common.
If nothing else, your marketing strategy should cover the following questions:
For this section, you need to really get into the mind of your target audience. This includes building detailed buyer personas and user personas, with information including their demographics, age, location, employment status, interests, passions, pain points, and anything else you can think of. The more detail you can include in your target market research, the better you will understand and communicate with your audience.
As part of your research into your target audience, you should also spend some time considering the places (online and offline) where they spend their time. For many businesses today, most of your marketing strategies will probably be focused on social media. Still, even once you’ve narrowed this down, it can also be valuable to create marketing strategies for the various social media platforms and any other marketing channels you would like to use.
The answer to this question will fuel your Call - to - Action phrases and is essentially nailing down the goals of your entire marketing campaign. Do you want to drive more website traffic? Increase sales? Raise awareness for a new product? Get more followers on social media? Boost your search results rankings? Whatever your goals are, having them clearly laid out as part of your digital marketing strategy is essential.
The next question leads off this, and it’s about how you’re going to convince or inspire consumers to take the desired action. This could incorporate discount codes, summer sales, referral programs, or you could even let your brand, product, or service speak for itself if you’re just hoping to build awareness.
If you have no KPIs or objective method for measuring the success of your marketing campaign, you really have no way of monitoring whether or not your campaigns are working! Having clear, measurable goals and precise targets you can see whether you’re hitting are essential for an effective marketing strategy. For eg, if your target is to get more followers on Instagram for your brand… It’s easy to see when you’re on track. However, you’ll want to dive deeper than this, with goals for conversions, weekly and monthly targets, etc.
Now you have an idea of what a marketing strategy is and how to write some of the best marketing strategies, we wanted to give you some great marketing strategies examples so you can see how these work in the real world.
These examples of marketing strategies of a business will provide you with plenty of inspiration for your own campaigns and help you ace the advertising industry. Plus, we’ve included a bonus example of when a marketing strategy didn’t quite go to plan… Take a look!
Spotify is the go-to music streaming service for most people around the world, but what is it that makes them stand out?
Spotify’s key marketing efforts focus on how the brand is different from other services, providing users with the chance to discover new music with ease and even lets you filter tracks by mood as well as genre. The artificial intelligence in Spotify’s algorithms provides users with carefully curated, bespoke playlists that actually suit their tastes and manages to turn playing music or listening to a podcast into a whole new experience.
Nordstrom is well-known for dominating when it comes to marketing, and this campaign was remarkably successful. Employing the latest retargeting technology and tactics, Nordstrom was able to dramatically boost its bottom line and reduce cart abandonment. This campaign primarily utilized abandoned cart emails alongside social media ads that were activated following a website visit from the user.
GoPro certainly isn’t the first – or the last – company to achieve success with a user-generated-content-led marketing strategy, but that doesn’t make it any less effective or worthy of inclusion in our list! As a brand dedicated to creating on-the-go, fast content, the product lends itself nicely to this marketing tactic, so GoPro can benefit from a “spectacular” Instagram feed without needing a huge budget to take the images itself. And what’s more, each user-generated image that ends up on the feed motivates others to snap pics and share their experiences.
Loyalty programs are a bit of a tale as old as time for maximizing customer retention, but that doesn’t mean all loyalty programs are created equal. Sephora discovered the trick to innovative, inspiring loyalty programs with its tiered approach and generous rewards. These rewards provide plenty of incentive for users to buy and are a fantastic way of increasing word-of-mouth marketing.
These days, the top online stores all offer information about how they engage in sustainable practices, have cruelty-free manufacturing, and/or how they support charities and initiatives around the world. Rainforest Alliance’s “ Follow the Frog ” campaign tapped into this priority by offering B2B and B2C organizations the chance to demonstrate their commitment to the environment and sustainability with a green frog seal on their products and website. This became a well-known symbol that’s highly desirable to other brands in all industries.
Many brands make the mistake of trying to market their product or service to a target audience that’s simply too broad. But that only leads to a confusing message and few real customers. Instead, follow the lead of the social streaming service, Twitch. This company wasted no time or money advertising to people who won’t be interested in what makes the brand unique… Instead, all its efforts went into establishing precisely who the niche market is and how to attract them.
We are all familiar with Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan , but have you ever given the marketing plan behind it any thought? Well, Nike used to be a brand dedicated to providing athleticwear to athletes… But they changed their model to appeal to the masses and put values first. The “Just Do It” and “*If you have a body, you’re an athlete” campaigns have been instrumental in Nike’s prolonged success by making everyone feel included and welcomed.
Contests are always an effective way to build brand awareness or promote a new product. Chipotle’s 2020 social media contest came at a perfect time and gave the audience a fun and unique way of interacting with the brand. The contest was called “Chipotle Royalty” and involved users posting a TikTok video explaining why their Chipotle order was the best. The prizes? A chance to win $10,000 and have their order become a permanent menu fixture. Definitely worth a video!
Similar to Nike’s values before products , Red Bull prioritizes experiences and identity of risk-taking front-and-center when it comes to marketing. With Red Bull sponsorships covering everything from Red Bull Stratos (seriously, take a look, it’s really cool) to rallycross racing to Formula One, and so much more, Red Bull had made its identity and brand persona clear… And ensures we won’t forget it any time soon!
Selling coffee certainly doesn’t sound like a unique endeavor, but Starbucks’ marketing team worked hard to create an experience that wasn’t just about the coffee. With an incredibly famous logo that can be spotted worldwide, Starbucks created a feeling of comfort, inclusion, and home that cannot be rivelled. Coschedule has an interesting, deep-dive article looking at Starbucks ‘ marketing strategy in more detail.
Allbirds’ goal was to create “the world’s most comfortable shoe.” And while they did seem to manage this, it’s not why we’re highlighting their marketing strategy. This strategy really stands out because of the consistent tone of voice and values visible in every piece of marketing, every web page, and every interaction with the brand. The quirky and humorous voice is highly memorable and matches the values of transparency, sustainability, and comfort.
Now we’ve considered some of the best marketing strategies of all time, we also wanted to look at one brand that didn’t do quite so well. When Segway was first introduced, the idea was that it would replace walking as the primary A-to-B method and could go up to 12.5mph. The primary reason Segway failed is because people didn’t want to stop walking, running, or cycling (among others). So, the pain point the device was built to solve wasn’t really a pain point at all, and Segway offered little benefit to users.
The lesson here? Do your target market research thoroughly , and don’t just build a product because you think it looks cool.
No matter how big or small your ad campaigns are, it’s essential to always support them with marketing strategies that summarize how you will convert browsers into consumers. To give you a head start at employing the best and most effective marketing techniques, ensure every strategy you create does the following:
SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-based) goals are essential for an excellent marketing strategy. These will not only give you something to aim for, but they’ll also help you monitor your progress and hold you accountable.
Correctly identifying your target audience, their passions, and their pain points is vital. As we learned from Segway, not having a thorough understanding of your audience and what they need/want is only ever going to be a recipe for disaster.
There’s a lot to be learned from the competition. On the one hand, you can check on other businesses in your industry to see what they’re doing well and what their audience responds to. On the other hand, identifying your competition’s weaker points can be a brilliant springboard to help you find your unique selling proposition and help you stand out.
There’s no point in shouting about your products in a location your customers never visit. As part of your market research, you should also investigate where your customers spend their time online and offline. Then, build a marketing strategy using the platforms and channels your customers are already using.
You don’t need to be a Fortune 500 company to invest in an effective marketing strategy and reap the benefits. Even small businesses need marketing to build brand awareness and get people interested. After all, even with the best products in the world, nobody will buy them if they don’t know who you are!
As the famous quote goes, “failing to prepare is preparing to fail.” And the research backs this up, with 313% of marketers being more likely to report success when they have a documented marketing strategy than those without.
So, don’t waste your precious time and money investing in poorly thought-out marketing campaigns. Instead, take the time to build a detailed plan and strategy with marketing tactics for success, and you’ll be sure to maximize your ROI in no time.
Building a marketing strategy isn’t that different from writing a marketing plan… It’s just more detailed and niche than the overarching plan and focuses on one/two platforms at a time.
It’s worth (if you can) taking a look at some other successful marketing strategy examples from similar companies in your industry before writing your own if you’re not sure where to start. This will give you an idea of what has/hasn’t worked in the past and will enable you to cultivate a better strategy than the one before. Even if you can’t view the marketing strategy document, plenty of research is always necessary for any advertising campaign; the more information you have before you start, the better your marketing strategy will be.
The five “Ps” of marketing are Product, Price, Promotion, Place, and People. These “Ps” are essential to quality marketing efforts and should all be covered in your marketing strategy example.
I'm a content manager at sixads. I'm fiery about marketing, writing and traveling, so you can often find me scribbling away in some unknown corner of the world. If you want to know more ways to increase traffic and attract buyers to your online store get in touch with sixads on one of the channels bellow.
Best email marketing tools for shopify, 40 best black friday quotes to win the sales in 2022.
by Cydney Hatch • March 19, 2020
Marketing is an essential part of any successful business strategy. It has everything to do with identifying and reaching objectives for your business sales, publicity and growth.
What if, for example, your business was to locate, catalog and find homes for archeological treasures?
Indiana Jones was a master planner in that business space. He conducted extensive research, put together his gear, assembled his teams, and then went out to kick butt and find archeological treasures! Then, afterwards, he improvised and pivoted as needed 😉
The bigger the mission, the more funding, planning and field contacts he used. It makes you think of your marketing plan in a more exciting light, am I right?
It might seem like a stretch, but just like Indiana Jones, you need to map out your marketing plan so you can try to avoid having to “make it up as you go.” You can see your marketing plan as a comprehensive document that outlines the marketing strategy, tactics, and activities that your business will undertake to achieve its marketing objectives. Also, as your business grows, so too will the strategies, channels and budgets you might need.
There are plenty of examples of marketing plans that you can use as templates for your own, and we will include some of those here.
Remember that a well-crafted marketing plan can help businesses to identify their target audience, determine the best way to reach them, and allocate resources effectively . There might not be one single marketing plan that captures what you want to include, so remember that you can customize any marketing plan to your own business, including what is more important to you.
In this blog post, we will explore what a marketing plan is and provide some examples of marketing plans . I’m also going to walk you through the steps I used to create a made-up business called “Free People Coffee & Bar.” So grab your hat, your whip and your cargo pants for some intense marketing plan discoveries!
Before we officially start on what a marketing plan is and how to create one, let’s look at a couple of marketing plan examples that worked well!
Most of us are aware of the highly popular Coca-Cola “ Share a Coke ” marketing campaign. That is when, in 2014, you started seeing popular names pop up on Coke cans everywhere. The campaign was designed to encourage consumers to buy Coke products to share with friends and family and sparked a social media frenzy as people searched for bottles with their names on them.
What made this campaign work?
One great example of a marketing plan that includes utilizing an online influencer is the Marriott “Millionth Mobile Check-In” sweepstakes. For that campaign, Marriott wanted to raise awareness and use of their app for mobile check-ins. They partnered with What’s Trending founder and host, Shira Lazar, and Jeana Smith, founder of Prank vs. Prank , to give the millionth mobile check-in guest a day they would never forget.
To celebrate the millionth customer to check-in to their hotels using the mobile app, Marriott surprised couple, Hunter and Tina Swift, in Los Angeles with balloons, music, and more.
They launched their marketing plan with a sweepstakes to win prizes when you check-in with the app and ended it with this huge event complete with a DJ, bellhop acrobats, dancers, and the gift of one million Marriott Rewards points to the happy couple.
This not only raised brand awareness but drove engagement as visitors were prompted to use the app and enter the sweepstakes. Making it legit by throwing the huge party just made Marriott even cooler.
What made this campaign successful?
A marketing plan is a plan of action compiled into organized documents. It takes the essentials of the business and incorporates them into messaging, advertising, outreach, and other initiatives. A marketing campaign cannot be successful without a marketing plan in place.
That means, if you don’t have a marketing plan, you’re basically shooting in the dark. Be the marketer with a plan by starting off with what I’ve crafted. These are the essentials for how to craft a marketing plan.
One of the first parts of a marketing plan is the “Executive Summary.” It may seem a little boring, but it provides clear, compact statements about what each section of your marketing plan will be about. This can be bullet points with descriptions, or a paragraph-style explanation of your plan and what is in it:
Next, you will want to list the many values that you bring to your potential customers—whether it’s products, services or experience. In my marketing plan sample, I wanted to think about how my products and atmosphere helped my potential customers have a different kind of social and dating scene.
I will be offering quality beverages and small food items as well as social-topic activities that allow people to meet in a different kind of way. This structure made popular from the game, VERTELLIS, will allow our potential customers to have a meaningful conversation with new people. In comparison to other bars, ours will allow singles to have a different type of experience to meet and talk to other singles in a softer-music, nicely-lit, socially-focused place.
This is an important place for you to summarize and really hyper-focus what your business will change, do, or offer potential customers.
What is your business value proposition (aka a unique selling proposition – UVP)?
Without a value proposition, there is no reason for people to patronize your business. You should be able to convey in a couple of sentences, what you have to offer and why it is the best.
When you are thinking about your value proposition, be sure to ask yourself whether you have the appropriate infrastructure and resources in place to deliver on your promised value. Pro tip: You should always keep a little space in the back of your mind about how each of these marketing plan pieces will be affected by eventual growth, as well.
In my example, we specifically state our desire/vision to make our community more social. Our vision is to create a place where people can come to have a conversation and a place to facilitate that conversation.
The mission goes further into that statement by answering HOW we will do that. We will create a community bar and coffee shop that potential customers can come and enjoy a different type of bar scene.
No more loud bars, dark rooms and shallow relationship building. FREE PEOPLE allows people to be human, connect and focus on experience supplemented with beverages and food. Like this, you need to think of a vision of WHAT and then move to the mission statement of HOW.
In this section, you’ll want to report on a variety of market-related things that have an impact on your overall marketing plan. This is the nitty-gritty stuff that can indicate where you stand and offer the exact insights you need in order to market and scale just the right way. The following are part of what you should include:
Research your competitors and analyze the following:
Yes, you’re “spying,” but make no mistake, they are or will be spying on you too.
Take note of what they are doing right–how they are getting in front of their audience, and improve upon those tactics. This will also help you find ways to set yourself apart and create a unique place for yourself in that market space.
In my example marketing plan, FREE PEOPLE, I was able to research some of the hottest bars in the San Francisco area as well as single adult organizations that facilitate meetups.
In your research, look for ways that your competitors keep people coming back for more. For Charlie Chaps, I could see that they are a great stand-up bar that has a lot of hot and funny talent coming in every week. For Bourbon and Branch, it is high-quality drinks at a reasonable price with a fantastic view of the city. You too can find patterns, methods and strategies your competition is doing and shape them to your own business.
Ask yourself the following questions:
When you have your competition figured out, you can anticipate their moves, improve on their moves, and find a creative edge over them. Staying ahead of his competitors was probably Indiana Jones’s number one concern.
So, considering the above competition analysis, my coffee and bar house can offer a place for people to meet in a comfortable, person-meeting environment that young people today want and need. The basic market need is a place where singles can meet new, like-minded people.
FREE PEOPLE uses a conversation system to enhance and facilitate singles meeting each other instead of getting muffled through simple bar scene tactics of dark rooms, loud music and structure not conducive to talking and meeting. We will also offer social community conversations where those who are politically, religiously or personally active can come and have community group discussions with local leaders.
We also offer people products they can take home to promote our social structure outside of our facility. We create question packs that allow buying customers to take this social structure we promote to their homes.
As a community coffee and bar house, it is our job to make our community a better place and to feel more connected. Collectively we offer:
By offering not only a place and product but a social change within how we meet others, we can improve the happiness of our potential customers and community. We stand out as a different kind of place where people can be human and connect.
The S.W.O.T. model falls under the research and analysis section of your marketing plan, but it deserves special attention. It stands for: Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats. Again, using this acronym in your research and analysis can help you cut out a unique edge and differentiate yourself from your competition. Let’s get into this a little deeper…
When looking at your business strengths you want to list realistic advantages, strengths and positives you bring to the table. When you think about your value proposition this should come easy.
In my marketing plan sample, FREE PEOPLE speaks to the personal and emotional needs young single adults need in their lives: connection and interaction.
We as a bar and coffee house have strong third-party vendors that give us quality products to make our beverages and appetizers. With great culinary experiences, we have local artists that help us create an aesthetic that promotes creativity, positivity and change. We also have high-quality staff that promotes healthy relationship building and great customer service.
From a business standpoint, we bring new ideas to the bar and social scene that promotes different types of connections that other bars do not. We promote personal conversations, invite meaningful community conversation events with the help of local leaders.
When looking at business weaknesses, consider your competition and what you might lack, compared to them. Don’t be too hard on yourself, but do be honest with yourself. You can’t grow if you can’t see how you need to improve. When you take a look at weaknesses, this also helps you plan out ways to address and improve your business message.
So, in my example, as a new coffee and bar house, we are obviously not as established as some of the known “hot spots” of the city. With that in mind, it also means we do not have as much of an income yet as compared to others for marketing and getting our name out there. This will require us to reach out and try to get influencer endorsement and other free promotions through local news, etc. This will help us draft our content to try and set us up as new, exciting and something to experience.
I always love this part of a SWOT analysis because it is all about growth. Here, look for ways you can and will succeed as a business. Look at your market and how it is projected to grow and how that will benefit your business. Look for ways you can undercut and improve what your competition is doing!
In my example, FREE PEOPLE has a good market to bank on as there are always single people. In fact, San Francisco was named the best city for singles in 2017. With that knowledge, we can monopolize on the sale and other opportunities to reach an ever-growing market of individuals.
If our friend, Indy, didn’t anticipate some threats and difficulties, he wouldn’t be adequately prepared to deal with them. The same is true of everything. Don’t produce a negative effect by dwelling on it or expecting it, but certainly know all that you can about possible threats to your business health. What are the realistic limitations you face? Look for things that will affect your bottom line, limit your target audience, or that will present local problems if not addressed.
In my sample marketing plan, FREE PEOPLE, has to compete with the existing bars people know and love. It is our job to write content, advertise and communicate with the community about how our bar and coffee shop is a different and better type of experience.
When considering threats other than our competition, we need to look at our target audience. Since we are a bar in one of the most expensive places in the United States, that might put a limitation on the younger end of our demographics to enjoy our services and products. Not to mention, our bottom line is affected because of the expense of operating in that locale.
The next major part of your marketing plan is your customer base. Who are you targeting? What are their passions, problems and pain points? What are the different types of customers that are worth your time?
In our example, FREE PEOPLE, we target young single adults ages 25-37, particularly women and socially active adults.
Once you know your customers you can now look at how best to reach them through meaningful marketing objectives.
To dive into your marketing strategy, you need to start by knowing what you want to get out of it. Up to this point, you’ve done some research and you know who your competition is, but what do you really want to achieve with this marketing strategy… in essence, what is a marketing plan to you ?
Marketing objectives are a brand’s defined goals. They outline the intentions of the marketing team, specific numbers and provide clear actions to execute.
Do not rush or focus on execution before you define what success looks like for your business.
For example, here are a few possible goals you might have:
These objectives are fairly broad, but you can get as specific as you need to. As a marketer, it is your job to figure out how to use marketing tactics to achieve these goals! Most plans call for money… so your budget is next up.
By following proven success tactics and being smart with your marketing budget, you can make money stretch further. Don’t splurge because you want to get things up and running. Plan and patiently execute–you will be grateful you did!
So, for our example with FREE PEOPLE Coffee and Bar, I calculated that the business will need to make at least $40,500 a month in revenue to reach the break-even point.
The first two months will be used to set up the physical location, hire personnel, establish vendor relationships and obtain an alcohol license. The third month will be the grand opening. Business during the second month will be understandably slow as a steady customer base takes time to build. This is the stage where the majority of our marketing budget will go.
When you create a tentative financial forecast, you will then need to carefully assign people to the detailed marketing campaigns and tasks. With their detailed tasks, be sure to include deadlines, budgets and expectations.
To break things down further, you will want to map out detailed plans for sales funnel content. So, if I was to brainstorm content around my market research and target customers for FREE PEOPLE:
Awareness Stage
Shopping/ Learning Stage
Decision Stage
Content not only attracts customers but it also provides SEO value . By creating consistent and quality content, your business blog and website will gain more traffic. Google rewards quality stuff so why not attract some organic marketing help and new customers through Google?!
From there you will also need to consider your social media use, online marketing as well as your collaboration plans with other businesses/influencers.
So, in FREE PEOPLE’s example, I wanted to map out specific money amounts we would put towards sponsored ads on Instagram and Facebook.
I also mapped out different types of content and creatives that work for our industry like videos, specifically boomerang. We would also want to make specific hashtags and links people can use so we can start building a network on these platforms.
When looking for influencers we wanted to work with, we would hyper-focus on ones with at least 20k followings and topics that are of interest to us. Specifically Allie.Eats would be a great example of an influencer we would want to pay or invite to experience our new bar as she focuses on bar/food scenes within the San Francisco area.
In return for her promoting our bar, we can give her free products, payment, etc, which promotes a healthy and balanced relationship that can work in the future.
By detailing out these plans, you will be able to track your success and tweak the contracts and campaigns for results in the future. Blogs and backlinks are just a couple of the ways you can make these relationships work for you!
So, for the marketing plan sample of FREE PEOPLE, I made four marketing objectives focused on revenue and exposure. From there, it is my job as the “marketer in charge” to figure out what tactics will help make those objectives happen! I created specific money amounts, platforms and numbers involved to reach the goals we set out as a starting business.
The top priority for FREE PEOPLE’s exposure will be to communicate value to our target audience. This will be done through a variety of methods. The first method will be strategically placed advertisements.
One place that will be used for advertisements is social and local newspapers and magazines. This will be the main source of advertisements because the demographics match up between their audience and ours. We will also do advertisements on Instagram showing users who will partner us as influencers to promote us on that platform. Between paid ads and influencers, we should be able to connect our business with young, single, adult locals.
At a later time, we also want to maximize email marketing for our restaurant/bar . We have to have an agile planning strategy , though, so we can’t get too detailed right now. It’s just something to keep in mind.
Another source of marketing will be through strategic partnerships with companies like gyms that are typically full of single adults. When it came to collaboration with gyms, we were able to offer cross-promotional discounts!
The last exposure marketing tactic we will promote is a grass-roots effort with “bring-a-friend” promotions that invite more people at a reduced cost to experience our business. This tactic will eventually promote brand loyalty as we create an experience people cannot ignore.
Companies are always looking for a new edge to capture mindshare and differentiate their solution within the marketplace. By creating a strong marketing plan you can do that!
Although the above sections are things you should include in your marketing plans, every marketing plan should be fluid and reflect your values and objectives. You will need to customize and scale every plan to your needs but also make it so it’s a living document to adapt to market change.
As you are answering the question, “what is a marketing plan?” for yourself and your company, you will be able to refine your answers until your own marketing plan is ready to launch!
Hopefully, this article and the marketing plan examples in it helped ease your mind and inspire you about how to put your marketing plan together. But if you are still feeling overwhelmed, reach out , we would love to talk!
What do you consider when scaling a marketing plan sample? What are the bigger concerns of templates and using them for different types and sizes of businesses?
Leave a comment, featured posts.
Creating your social media marketing strategy doesn’t need to be painful. Create an effective plan for your business in 9 simple steps.
A social media marketing strategy is a summary of everything you plan to do and hope to achieve on social media. It guides your actions and lets you know whether you’re succeeding or failing.
The more specific your plan is, the more effective it will be. Keep it concise. Don’t make it so lofty and broad that it’s unattainable or impossible to measure.
In this post, we’ll walk you through a nine-step plan to create a winning social media strategy of your own. We’ve even got expert insights from Amanda Wood, Hootsuite’s Senior Manager of Social Marketing.
Bonus: Get a free social media strategy template to quickly and easily plan your own strategy. Also use it to track results and present the plan to your boss, teammates, and clients.
A social media strategy is a document outlining your social media goals, the tactics you will use to achieve them and the metrics you will track to measure your progress.
Your social media marketing strategy should also list all of your existing and planned social media accounts along with goals specific to each platform you’re active on. These goals should align with your business’s larger digital marketing strategy.
Finally, a good social media plan should define the roles and responsibilities within your team and outline your reporting cadence.
Create. Schedule. Publish. Engage. Measure. Win.
No time to read the whole article? Let Amanda, Hootsuite’s own Senior Manager of Social Media Marketing, guide you through our free social media marketing strategy template in less than 10 minutes:
Step 1. choose goals that align to business objectives, set s.m.a.r.t. goals.
The first step to creating a winning social media strategy is to establish clear objectives and goals. Without goals, you have no way to measure success and return on investment (ROI) .
Each of your social media marketing goals should be SMART : s pecific, m easurable, a ttainable, r elevant and t ime-bound.
Psst: Need help getting started? We’ve got social strategy guides for small businesses , financial services , government , higher education , healthcare , real estate , law firms , and non-profits .
Oh, and if you need examples of smart social media goals , we’ve got you covered there too.
Once you’ve decided on your goals, track them in a social media strategy doc — grab our free template if you don’t have one already.
Vanity metrics like number of followers and likes are easy to track, but it’s hard to prove their real value. Instead, focus on things like engagement, click-through, and conversion rates.
For inspiration, take a look at these 19 essential social media metrics .
You may want to track different goals for different social media networks, or even different uses for each network.
For example, if you use LinkedIn to drive traffic to your website, you would measure click-throughs. If Instagram is for brand awareness, you might track the number of Instagram Story views. And if you advertise on Facebook, cost-per-click (CPC) is a common success metric.
Social media goals should align with your overall marketing objectives. This makes it easier to show the value of your work and secure buy-in from your boss.
Start developing a successful social media marketing plan by writing down at least three goals for social media.
“ It’s easy to get overwhelmed by deciding what to post and which metrics to track, but you need to focus on what you want to get out of social media to begin with,” says Amanda Wood, Hootsuite’s Senior Manager of Social Marketing. “Don’t just start posting and tracking everything: match your goals to your business, and your metrics to your goals.”
Get to know your fans, followers, and customers as real people with real wants and needs, and you will know how to target and engage them on social media.
When it comes to your ideal customer, you should know things like:
Here’s a simple guide and template for creating audience/buyer personas .
Don’t forget to document this information in your strategy doc!
Social media analytics can also provide a ton of valuable information about who your followers are, where they live, and how they interact with your brand on social media. These insights allow you to refine your strategy and better target your audience.
Jugnoo, an Uber-like service for auto-rickshaws in India, used Facebook Analytics to learn that 90% of their users who referred other customers were between 18- and 34-years-old, and 65% of that group was using Android. They used that information to target their ads, resulting in a 40% lower cost per referral.
Check out our guide to using social media analytics and the tools you need to track them .
Odds are your competitors are already using social media, and that means you can learn from what they’re doing.
A competitive analysis allows you to understand who the competition is and what they’re doing well (and not so well). You’ll get a good sense of what’s expected in your industry, which will help you set social media targets of your own.
It will also help you spot opportunities and weaknesses you can document in your social strategy doc.
Maybe one of your competitors is dominant on Facebook, for example, but has put little effort into X (Twitter) or Instagram. You might want to focus on the social media platforms where your audience is underserved, rather than trying to win fans away from a dominant player.
Social listening is another way to keep an eye on your competitors.
Do searches of the competition’s company name, account handles, and other relevant keywords on social media. Find out what they’re sharing and what other people are saying about them. If they’re using influencer marketing, how much engagement do those campaigns earn them?
Pro tip : Use Hootsuite Streams to monitor relevant keywords, hashtags and accounts in real-time.
Try Hootsuite for free. You can cancel anytime.
As you track, you may notice shifts in how your competitors and industry leaders are using social media. You may come across new, exciting trends. You might even spot specific social content or a campaign that really hits the mark—or totally bombs.
Use this kind of intel to optimize and inform your own social media marketing strategy.
Just don’t go overboard on the spy tactics, Amanda advises. “ Make sure you aren’t ALWAYS comparing yourself to the competition — it can be a distraction. I’d say checking in on a monthly basis is healthy. Otherwise, focus on your own strategy and results.”
If you’re already using social media, take stock of your efforts so far. Ask yourself the following questions:
Once you collect that information, you’ll be ready to start thinking about ways to improve.
We’ve created an easy-to-follow social media audit guide and template to walk you through each step of this process.
Your audit should give you a clear picture of what purpose each of your social accounts serves. If the purpose of an account isn’t clear, think about whether it’s worth keeping.
To help you decide, ask yourself the following questions:
Asking these tough questions will keep your social media strategy focused.
During the audit, you may discover fake accounts using your business name or the names of your products.
These imposters can be harmful to your brand—never mind that they’re capturing followers that should be yours.
You may want to get your accounts verified too to ensure your fans know they are dealing with the real you.
Here’s how to get verified on:
Decide which networks to use.
As you decide which social networks to use, you will also need to define your strategy for each.
Benefit Cosmetics’ social media manager, Angela Purcaro, told eMarketer : “For our makeup tutorials … we’re all about Snapchat and Instagram Stories. [X], on the other hand, is designated for customer service.”
Hootsuite’s own social team even designates different purposes for formats within networks. On Instagram, for example, they use the feed to post high-quality educational infographics and product announcements and Stories to cover live events or quick social media updates.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Hootsuite 🦉 (@hootsuite)
Pro tip : Write out a mission statement for each network. A one-sentence declaration to keep you focused on a specific goal.
Example: “We will use X for customer support to keep email and call volumes down.”
Or: “We will use LinkedIn for promoting and sharing our company culture to help with recruitment and employee advocacy.”
One more: “We will use Instagram to highlight new products and repost quality content from influencers.”
If you can’t create a solid mission statement for a particular social media channel, you may want to ask yourself if it’s worth it.
Note : While larger businesses can and do tackle every platform, small businesses may not be able to — and that’s ok! Prioritize social platforms that will have the most impact on your business and make sure your marketing team has the resources to handle content for those networks. If you need help focusing your efforts, check out our 18-minute social media plan .
Once you’ve decided which networks to focus on, it’s time to create your profiles. Or improve existing ones so they align with your strategy.
Pro tip : Use high-quality images that follow the recommended dimensions for each network. Check out our always-up-to-date social media image size cheat sheet for quick reference.
We’ve also got step-by-step guides for each network to walk you through the process:
Don’t let this list overwhelm you. Remember, it’s better to use fewer channels well than to stretch yourself thin trying to maintain a presence on every network.
Never heard of social SEO ? It’s time to learn.
44% of Gen Z consumers use social platforms to research their purchase decisions, which means it’s extra critical that your channels are optimized for social search.
That means making sure your profile names are clear and descriptive, you’re including relevant hashtags and keywords in your bio and on every post, and you’re using features like alt text and captions to include your target keywords as naturally as possible.
While it’s important that your brand be unique, you can still draw inspiration from other businesses that are great on social.
“ I consider it my job to stay active on social: to know what’s trending, which campaigns are winning, what’s new with the platforms, who’s going above and beyond,” says Amanda. “This might be the most fun step for you, or the hardest one, but it’s just as crucial as the rest of them.”
You can usually find these on the business section of the social network’s website. ( Here’s Facebook’s , for example.)
Case studies can offer valuable insights that you can apply to your own social media plan.
You could also check out the winners of The Facebook Awards or The Shorty Awards for examples of brands that are at the top of their social media game.
For learning and a laugh, check out Fridge-Worthy, Hootsuite’s bi-weekly awards show highlighting brands doing smart and clever things on social media.
Who do you enjoy following on social media? What do they do that compels people to engage and share their content?
National Geographic, for example, is one of the best on Instagram, combining stunning visuals with compelling captions.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by National Geographic (@natgeo)
Then there’s Shopify. The ecommerce brand uses Facebook to sell themselves by showcasing customer stories and case studies.
And Lush Cosmetics is a great example of superior customer service on X. They use their 280 characters to answer questions and solve problems in an extremely charming and on-brand way.
Source: lushcosmetics on X
Notice that each of these accounts has a consistent voice, tone, and style. That’s key to letting people know what to expect from your feed. That is, why should they follow you? What’s in it for them?
Consistency also helps keep your content on-brand even if you have multiple people on your social media team.
For more on this, read our guide on establishing a compelling brand voice on social media .
Consumers can also offer social media inspiration.
What are your target customers talking about online? What can you learn about their wants and needs?
If you have existing social channels, you could also ask your followers what they want from you. Just make sure that you follow through and deliver what they ask for.
Sharing great content is essential, of course, but it’s equally important to have a plan in place for when you’ll share content to get the maximum impact.
Your social media content calendar also needs to account for the time you spend interacting with the audience (although you need to allow for some spontaneous engagement as well).
Your social media content calendar lists the dates and times at which you will publish types of content on each channel. It’s the perfect place to plan all of your social media activities—from images, link sharing, and re-shares of user-generated content to blog posts and videos. It includes both your day-to-day posting and content for social media campaigns.
Your calendar also ensures your posts are spaced out appropriately and published at the best times to post .
Pro tip: You can plan your whole content calendar and get recommended best times to post on every network based on your past engagement rate, impressions, or link click data in Hootsuite.
Hootsuite’s Best Time to Publish feature
Make sure your content strategy and calendar reflect the mission statement you’ve assigned to each social profile, so that everything you post is working to support your business goals.
(We know, it’s tempting to jump on every meme, but there should always be a strategy behind your social media marketing efforts!)
You might decide that:
Placing these different post types in your content calendar will ensure you maintain the right mix.
If you’re starting from scratch and you’re not sure what types of content to post, try the 80-20 rule :
You could also try the social media content marketing rule of thirds :
Whatever you decide on, be sure to document it in your strategy doc.
If you’re starting a social media marketing strategy from scratch, you may not have figured out how often to post to each network for maximum engagement yet.
Post too frequently and you risk annoying your audience. But, if you post too little, you risk looking like you’re not worth following.
Start with these posting frequency recommendations:
Pro tip : Once you have your social media content calendar planned out, use a scheduling tool to prepare messages in advance rather than updating constantly throughout the day.
We might be biased, but we think Hootsuite is the best social media management tool. You can schedule social media posts to every network and the intuitive calendar view gives you a full picture of all your social activity each week.
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Remember those mission statements you created for each channel in Step 5? Well, it’s time to go a bit deeper, a.k.a. provide some examples of the type of content you’ll post to fulfill your mission on each network.
If you’re not sure what to post, here’s a long list of social media content ideas to get you started. Or (to make it even easier) you can use an AI tool like OwlyWriter to generate on-brand content in a flash.
The idea here is to:
This last point especially will help you avoid any tension when your colleagues want to know why you haven’t posted their case study/whitepaper/blog post to TikTok yet. It’s not in the strategy, Linda!
Ideally, you will generate content types that are both suited to the network and the purpose you’ve set out for that network.
For example, you wouldn’t want to waste time posting brand awareness tweets if you’ve designated X/Twitter for primarily customer support. And you wouldn’t want to post super polished corporate video ads to TikTok, as users expect to see short, unpolished videos on that platform.
It might take some testing over time to figure out which type of content works best on which type of network, so prepare to update this section frequently.
We won’t lie: content creation isn’t as easy as everyone not on the social team seems to think. But if you’re struggling, Amanda suggests going back to basics.
The first question to ask is: is there cohesion between your content types? Is your content providing value? Do you have a good mix of entertaining, or educational content? What does it offer that makes a person stop and spend time? Creating a few different content pillars or categories that encompass different aspects of storytelling for your brand, and what you can offer your audience is a good start.
This brings us to Step 9.
Your social media marketing strategy is a hugely important document for your business, and you can’t assume you’ll get it exactly right on the first try.
As you start to implement your plan and track your results, you may find that some strategies don’t work as well as you’d anticipated, while others are working even better than expected.
That’s why it’s important to document your progress along the way.
In addition to the analytics within each social network (see Step 2), you can use UTM parameters to track social visitors as they move through your website, so you can see exactly which social posts drive the most traffic to your website.
You’ve got your numbers, but how do they stack up to the competition in your industry? Industry benchmarks are a great way to evaluate your performance against other businesses in your category.
If you’ve got Hootsuite Analytics , you can use our built-in social media benchmarking tool to compare the performance of your social accounts against the average of brands in your industry with just a couple of clicks.
You can set up custom timeframes, switch between networks — Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and TikTok — and look up benchmarks for metrics like followers, audience growth rate, engagement rate, clicks, shares, and much more.
You’ll also find resources to improve your performance right in the summary section:
Once this data starts coming in, use it to re-evaluate your strategy regularly. You can also use this information to test different posts, social marketing campaigns, and strategies against one another. Constant testing allows you to understand what works and what doesn’t, so you can refine your social media marketing strategy in real time.
You’ll want to check the performance of all your channels at least once a week and get to know the basics of social media reporting so you can track your growth over time.
Pro tip: If you use Hootsuite, you can review the performance of all your posts on every network in one place. Once you get the hang of checking your analytics, you may even want to customize different reports to show specific metrics over a variety of different time periods.
Surveys can also be a great way to find out how well your social media strategy is working. Ask your followers, email list, and website visitors whether you’re meeting their needs and expectations, and what they’d like to see more of. Then make sure to deliver on what they tell you.
Spoiler alert: nothing is final.
Social media moves fast. New networks emerge, others go through demographic shifts.
Your business will go through periods of change as well.
All of this means that your social media marketing strategy should be a living document that you review and adjust as needed. Refer to it often to stay on track, but don’t be afraid to make changes so that it better reflects new goals, tools, or plans.
When you update your social strategy, make sure to watch our 5-step video on how to updating your social media strategy for 2024:
Ready to start documenting? Grab your free social media strategy template below!
What’s next? When you’re ready to put your plan into action, we’re here to help…
Save time managing your social media marketing strategy with Hootsuite. From a single dashboard you can easily:
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With files from Shannon Tien .
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Christina Newberry is an award-winning writer and editor whose greatest passions include food, travel, urban gardening, and the Oxford comma—not necessarily in that order.
Amanda Wood is a senior social marketing professional who combines analytical and creative thinking to build brands.
As head of social at Hootsuite, Amanda oversees the global social strategy encompassing organic and paid social on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn, a social engagement and listening strategy, and an employee advocacy program.
As the leader of a high-performing social team, she has extensive experience collaborating with creatives to bring campaigns to life on social and drive business results.
Struggling to structure your efforts on social? Set yourself up for success with our guide to setting and exceeding smart social media goals.
A social media audit is the best way to review and improve any social marketing strategy. Our free checklist and template make it easy.
Social media content calendars are the best way to plan and organize your content. Build one in 4 easy steps or use our free templates.
Automate your work, save time, and build better relationships with your audience by using the right social media marketing tools.
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Start your free trial with Shopify today—then use these resources to guide you through every step of the process.
Use this free business plan template to write your business plan quickly and efficiently.
A good business plan is essential to successfully starting your business — and the easiest way to simplify the work of writing a business plan is to start with a business plan template.
You’re already investing time and energy in refining your business model and planning your launch—there’s no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to writing a business plan. Instead, to help build a complete and effective plan, lean on time-tested structures created by other entrepreneurs and startups.
Ahead, learn what it takes to create a solid business plan and download Shopify's free business plan template to get started on your dream today.
This business plan outline is designed to ensure you’re thinking through all of the important facets of starting a new business. It’s intended to help new business owners and entrepreneurs consider the full scope of running a business and identify functional areas they may not have considered or where they may need to level up their skills as they grow.
That said, it may not include the specific details or structure preferred by a potential investor or lender. If your goal with a business plan is to secure funding , check with your target organizations—typically banks or investors—to see if they have business plan templates you can follow to maximize your chances of success.
Our free business plan template includes seven key elements typically found in the traditional business plan format:
This is a one-page summary of your whole plan, typically written after the rest of the plan is completed. The description section of your executive summary will also cover your management team, business objectives and strategy, and other background information about the brand.
This section of your business plan will answer two fundamental questions: “Who are you?” and “What do you plan to do?” Answering these questions clarifies why your company exists, what sets it apart from others, and why it’s a good investment opportunity. This section will detail the reasons for your business’s existence, its goals, and its guiding principles.
What you sell and the most important features of your products or services. It also includes any plans for intellectual property, like patent filings or copyright. If you do market research for new product lines, it will show up in this section of your business plan.
This section includes everything from estimated market size to your target markets and competitive advantage. It’ll include a competitive analysis of your industry to address competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. Market research is an important part of ensuring you have a viable idea.
How you intend to get the word out about your business, and what strategic decisions you’ve made about things like your pricing strategy. It also covers potential customers’ demographics, your sales plan, and your metrics and milestones for success.
Everything that needs to happen to turn your raw materials into products and get them into the hands of your customers.
It’s important to include a look at your financial projections, including both revenue and expense projections. This section includes templates for three key financial statements: an income statement, a balance sheet, and a cash-flow statement . You can also include whether or not you need a business loan and how much you’ll need.
What do financial projections look like on paper? How do you write an executive summary? What should your company description include? Business plan examples can help answer some of these questions and transform your business idea into an actionable plan.
Inside our template, we’ve filled out a sample business plan featuring a fictional ecommerce business .
The sample is set up to help you get a sense of each section and understand how they apply to the planning and evaluation stages of a business plan. If you’re looking for funding, this example won’t be a complete or formal look at business plans, but it will give you a great place to start and notes about where to expand.
A lean business plan format is a shortened version of your more detailed business plan. It’s helpful when modifying your plan for a specific audience, like investors or new hires.
Also known as a one-page business plan, it includes only the most important, need-to-know information, such as:
💡 Tip: For a step-by-step guide to creating a lean business plan (including a sample business plan), read our guide on how to create a lean business plan .
It’s tempting to dive right into execution when you’re excited about a new business or side project, but taking the time to write a thorough business plan and get your thoughts on paper allows you to do a number of beneficial things:
A business plan can be as informal or formal as your situation calls for, but even if you’re a fan of the back-of-the-napkin approach to planning, there are some key benefits to starting your plan from an existing outline or simple business plan template.
A blank page can be intimidating to even the most seasoned writers. Using an established business planning process and template can help you get past the inertia of starting your business plan, and it allows you to skip the work of building an outline from scratch. You can always adjust a template to suit your needs.
If you’ve never sat through a business class, you might never have created a SWOT analysis or financial projections. Templates that offer guidance—in plain language—about how to fill in each section can help you navigate sometimes-daunting business jargon and create a complete and effective plan.
In some cases, you may not need to complete every section of a startup business plan template, but its initial structure shows you you’re choosing to omit a section as opposed to forgetting to include it in the first place.
There are some high-level strategic guidelines beyond the advice included in this free business plan template that can help you write an effective, complete plan while minimizing busywork.
If you’re writing a business plan for yourself in order to get clarity on your ideas and your industry as a whole, you may not need to include the same level of detail or polish you would with a business plan you want to send to potential investors. Knowing who will read your plan will help you decide how much time to spend on it.
Understanding the goals of your plan can help you set the right scope. If your goal is to use the plan as a roadmap for growth, you may invest more time in it than if your goal is to understand the competitive landscape of a new industry.
Writing a 10- to 15-page document can feel daunting, so try to tackle one section at a time. Select a couple of sections you feel most confident writing and start there—you can start on the next few sections once those are complete. Jot down bullet-point notes in each section before you start writing to organize your thoughts and streamline the writing process.
Planning is key to the financial success of any type of business , whether you’re a startup, non-profit, or corporation.
To make sure your efforts are focused on the highest-value parts of your own business planning, like clarifying your goals, setting a strategy, and understanding the target market and competitive landscape, lean on a business plan outline to handle the structure and format for you. Even if you eventually omit sections, you’ll save yourself time and energy by starting with a framework already in place.
What is the purpose of a business plan.
The purpose of your business plan is to describe a new business opportunity or an existing one. It clarifies the business strategy, marketing plan, financial forecasts, potential providers, and more information about the company.
If you need help writing a business plan, Shopify’s template is one of the most beginner-friendly options you’ll find. It’s comprehensive, well-written, and helps you fill out every section.
The five essential parts of a traditional business plan include:
There are several free templates for business plans for small business owners available online, including Shopify’s own version. Download a copy for your business.
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The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Marketing Plan. Get our marketing plan template for FREE + Budget plan + Calculators + best marketing toolkit for 2024.
Rakefet is the CMO at Mayple. She manages all things marketing and leads our community of experts through live events, workshops, and expert interviews. MBA, 1 dog + 2 cats, and has an extensive collection of Chinese teas.
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Natalie is a content writer and manager who is passionate about using her craft to empower others. She thrives on team dynamic, great coffee, and excellent content. One of these days, she might even get to her own content ideas.
Updated May 1, 2024.
It takes time to build a marketing plan and it will change anyway, right? 100%. But creating your digital marketing plan is worth every minute of your time. If you build a business without a marketing plan, it’s like constructing a house without a blueprint. And you need a really good marketing plan template to get you on the right track.
Before we give out all the information and knowledge you need to create your winning marketing plan, let's start by giving you a FREE Digital Marketing Plan Template for 2024 . This is a great example of a great marketing plan that looks snazzy, too 😉.
Click on the image below, and make your own copy or download it to start using this template today.
Now that you have your marketing plan template, let's go over some basics before diving into more advanced aspects of marketing planning.
A marketing plan is a document that details how you're going to execute your strategy. It's written for a specific period of time and explains both your current situation and your future plans.
A marketing plan may be part of an overall business plan. A solid online marketing strategy is the foundation of a well-written marketing plan. While a marketing plan contains a list of actions, without a sound strategic foundation, it is of little use to a business. It has to have a set of concrete tasks and marketing tactics to follow.
There are a ton of reasons why every brand and marketing team needs a good marketing plan.
Here are the top 3 reasons:
When you have specific goals to achieve you can plan your way to achieve them. Having too general goals like "growing my business" VS. measurable KPIs like "I want to grow my revenue by $600K, and to do that I need 1,000 new customers" is different.
Actual KPIs can help you plan exactly what will get you there. We recommend you set up some SMART goals - which stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-framed.
Marketing without focus can be very messy and super ineffective. Have you ever tried to run a company meeting without an agenda? Just like meetings, marketing needs focus.
The best tip we can give you is to focus on specific activities and have them done well. A digital marketing plan will help you focus on exactly the tasks that will impact your success.
Of course, things will change and your plan will change as well. But as long as you are using a good marketing plan outline you will have your next month’s tasks written down and your work will become that much more effective.
The purpose of a marketing plan is to ensure that marketing activities are relevant and timely to achieve the organization's business objectives. It's a plan defining a sustainable competitive position and defining the resources necessary to achieve it.
Now that you know what a marketing plan is and what’s used for let’s talk about the key components that it’s built out of.
A good marketing plan should have the following parts -
And as a bonus we’ve added two more sections:
11. BONUS: How to assemble the right marketing team 12. BONUS: Top tools for marketing plan creation & design
Each of these key elements is vital for the right execution of your marketing strategy and I promise you it’s not as difficult as it looks.
Let’s dive in.
This might seem a little too formal for some marketers out there but it’s essential and I’ll explain why.
Marketing plans tend to get really long so it’s better to create a quick summary and highlight some of the key points of every aspect of your plan right at the beginning. This becomes the foundation of your marketing plan.
There is no set length for an executive summary but it should cover all of the main elements of your marketing plan. It should also quickly tell your story and highlight what you are trying to achieve. Add your KPIs, marketing channels, market strategy, and budget.
A good executive summary should give a quick taste of the entire plan and entice the reader (investor, upper management, CEO, etc) to read the rest.
Here’s a great 2-minute video from Hubspot that shows how to write an executive summary from start to finish.
The next section of the marketing plan has to do with your “why”.
A good mission should have 3 critical components -
The key is to keep it precise, short, and powerful. Don’t write a long essay, don’t just throw a bunch of jargon around, and do get some input from the employees at the company.
Employee feedback on this is critical because marketing and sales activities have to align with the mission of the company so all the various teams in the business have to be in agreement on the general mission.
The worst thing you can do is have a mission that has no direct correlation to the actual activities or tasks. Such a mission won’t help you grow your business .
What’s the difference between the company vision and its mission?
The vision is like the why, the overarching goal and foundation of the company. The company’s mission includes the vision and adds to it the actions and activities that the company will do to help advance its vision. Here’s a great video by Simon Sinek that explains this concept.
Now let’s talk about how you are going to go about achieving that mission.
The first step is to understand the market and your particular industry.
Have you ever seen the TV show Shark Tank?
The first part of any pitch is a personal story and a quick description of the founders’ “why”. This is where you can find the vision and mission of the company.
Next, they almost always mention the size of the market and they quantify the opportunity that they are presenting to the sharks.
This is exactly what a market analysis is.
A market analysis is a quantitative and qualitative assessment of a market. It looks at the size of the market in terms of the value ($) and volume (quantity of product sold) and often highlights some of the latest trends or environmental conditions that define the opportunity cost.
So how do we do this?
A great way to structure this is by using the SWOT analysis technique.
What is a SWOT analysis?
A common marketing framework that can help you create a good marketing analysis is called the SWOT framework . It stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats .
Strengths - what is your company really good at? what makes you unique? what unique advantages do you have over your competition? What is your value proposition? What are some of the key resources, processes, and capabilities that your company has?
Weaknesses - what are the weakest points of the business? What are some of the areas in which you could improve on? What is your company lacking compared to your competitors?
Opportunities - what are the biggest trends in the market that could give your company an edge or an advantage? These could be demographic patterns, lifestyle choices, population dynamics, or governmental regulatory policies.
Threats - what are some of the external factors in the market that could negatively impact your business? What are some environmental factors that you should be aware of? What are some possible changes that could threaten your business performance and success?
Pro tip: Want to do your own SWOT analysis? Get our Marketing SWOT Analysis Template .
The next vital step is to understand your competition and what the competitive landscape looks like in your industry or niche.
The main questions your competitive analysis should answer are:
Here’s one of my favorite competitive analysis frameworks from the renowned Myk Pono:
Now that you’ve completed your competitive analysis it’s time to zero in on your ideal customer.
The best way to create target personas for any brand is by creating a customer journey map. A customer journey map is a visual representation of all the various touchpoints that your brand has with a prospective customer.
This is a critical part of creating your marketing strategy.
Google introduced the moment of truth concept and this really relates to our discussion of marketing channels but it’s important to mention here as well.
Shoppers can find and interact with your brand through hundreds of channels, both online and brick-and-mortar. The Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) concepts represents that stage of the buyer’s journey that leads them to find your product or solution for their problem.
Identifying the specific problem that the customer is looking to solve is critical. This is how you define your persona and this is what ultimately affects the rest of your marketing decisions.
Here's a great buyer persona template from Hubspot to help you create better audience personas.
The first step when building a marketing plan is to understand and define which business goals are the plan aiming to achieve. Business and marketing should always go hand-in-hand - remember that. Questions you should answer are:
Pricing is often part of the market and competitive analysis sections but sometimes brands discuss it separately. It depends on how important price considerations are for your business and how competitive your market is. For example, if a major advantage in your business is that your product is priced significantly lower than your competition then a pricing strategy will play a key role in your marketing plan.
On the other hand, if you are a brand like Apple that is trading on the quality and its other features more than a price comparison, then your focus will be less on price.
There are 5 common pricing strategies:
This is when the price is solely based on the costs of the products. The company simply takes the cost it takes to produce the product or service and adds a markup.
This strategy is based on the perceived value of your product. So a great example here is a company like Apple that prices its products significantly higher than its competitors because of the perceived value they provide.
This is when a company sets a price based on what the competition is charging. A great example here is gas stations. Each gas station competes with the other stations on the block, trying to outbid the other.
This strategy involves setting a high price and then lowering it as the market evolves. A lot of tech products have a high price when they first launch in order to maximize profit and increased their perceived value.
Penetration pricing is the exact opposite of price skimming. It involves pricing a product really low at first in order to enter a competitive market, and then increasing the price slowly over time.
It's important to fit your pricing strategy to the specific customer segment that you are trying to reach. If you are markeing to the early adopters then price skimming will work. If you want to be adopted by the early or late majority then you may have to try penetration pricing.
You can always use customer feedback to get more data on this and make a better decision.
As you can see, there are a lot of different pricing strategies out there. Picking the right one for your business will depend on the previous steps in your marketing plan - the customer (or buyer) pain point, the market analysis, and the competitive analysis.
Your marketing budget plan depends on your business stage
Much like marketing goals and KPIs, your budget planning depends on your business lifecycle stage (are you a startup or an established brand). Normally, startups invest more in gaining market share and acquiring new customers, whereas established brands would invest more in retention and reputation.
Your niche is also a factor
Each industry has a different marketing structure and consumer behavior, so your niche defines your marketing budget allocation as well. eCommerce in a competitive niche like fashion, for example, will need ways to lower its CAC (customer-acquisition-cost) and upsell.
Spending tipping point
You can't expect that if you invested $20,000 and got 1,000 leads to keep the same proportion at $200. Every channel should have a different amount allocated to it based on the return on investment (ROI) and your profit margins.
So make sure you invest enough into each channel to move the needle. You can benchmark with other businesses in your niche, or use a rule-of-thumb by which at least 20% of your expected revenue should be invested in marketing.
Start planning your budget.
The first step when planning your marketing budget is to understand what are the growth channels that have worked for you so far and are part of your digital marketing strategy for the next year. According to each channel's effectiveness and cost, you can start allocating your monthly and yearly spend.
Questions you should answer for that are:
Now that you’ve identified what and how to spend your marketing dollars, it’s time to pick the marketing channels that you will be using to grow your business.
It's important to decide on the specific marketing mix that is best for your business. Social media platforms and other marketing channels have absolutely exploded in the last decade so you have a ton of channels to choose from.
Now, remember to have an authentic brand presence on every channel and only expand to ones that fit your brand strategy . Here are some of the top ones that you should consider for your marketing plan template:
Content marketing is very powerful for inbound marketing. Studies show that 60% of marketers create at least one piece of content per day and the year-over-year growth in traffic is 7.8X higher for content leaders.
Companies like Capterra and Quuu attribute their success to really good content.
Now, remember, content is a long-term game, short-term wins are very rare. You should create, design, and post content consistently and continue to optimize.
Social media is another powerful marketing aspect of any brand’s marketing strategy. It provides an opportunity for you to present your brand in a visual way through images and videos.
Studies show that 90.4% of Millennials, 77.5% of Generation X, and 48.2% of Baby Boomers are active social media users, so don’t ignore these platforms if your brand isn’t “sexy” enough.
The marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk has always said that brands in the construction or plumbing industries should absolutely post content and interact with their audience on social media. If you bring people value you will generate leads that will eventually convert into sales .
>> Want to get more engagement and traffic from social?
Email marketing has the highest ROI of any marketing channel. Studies show that marketers make $44 for every $1 they spend on email marketing. It’s 40X more effective than using social media to generate sales.
If you are a B2C company then this is an absolute must. You should be sending out weekly or biweekly campaigns, you should set up some automatic welcome and cart abandonment flows, and you should definitely set up some email automation for the customers that convert through a popup.
If you are primarily B2B you might think that email marketing is not as powerful for you but that is absolutely not the case. According to WordStream , 59% of B2B marketers say that this is the most effective way to generate sales.
Another great way to use this channel is for branding. For example, a lot of companies leveraged the global COVID pandemic to engage in new ways with their target customers. They used really creative ways to send really helpful and cheerful emails that helped lift people’s spirits.
Last but not least, there’s advertising. This is our specialty here at Mayple . We have over 1,500 talented ads experts that we match with the brands that we work with. Advertising is an important aspect of your marketing strategy that you should absolutely have on your digital marketing plan template.
There are several ways you could utilize advertising as a marketing channel .
First, there is social advertising. You could advertise on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Quora. Then there are Google Ads that come in the form of PPC or you could use a tool like Taboola or Outbrain to leverage Google’s Display Network.
You could also retarget your site visitors using ads on any of these networks. This type of advertising is particularly effective and we recommend it to all the brands that we work with.
Now let’s talk about your marketing or growth strategy.
After you’ve set your marketing goals, KPIs, and budget, it's time to plan your marketing activities for this year! Ready? 💪
After you figured out what are the channels you're going to invest in, the marketing plan should show all the activities you're going to run under each growth channel.
Here are some examples you can use:
To plan and design your paid campaigns correctly you should know what are the most effective channels you are going to start using and to build a marketing funnel that shows you when are you going to advertise to "first-touch" prospects (people that don't know you yet) and what will remarketing prospects will want to see in order to be persuaded to take the next move.
Now, plan the marketing activities for each of your marketing funnel stages (from the awareness stage to the decision stage) and prospects' journeys from the setup stage to the live campaign stage. You can also add special events and design seasonal promotions in your paid campaigns such as sales season and other special occasions.
Content marketing is all about connecting with your customer base and potential buyers at every level of the funnel. An effective content distribution strategy should take into consideration the types of content you want to publish and the ideal distribution channels for your potential customers at each stage of the marketing funnel.
Another important thing to remember about content is consistency.
Don't plan your content on social channels if you won't have the resources to be consistent with your posting. It's better to focus on fewer things and do them well. Content can include any valuable engagement you have with your audience, whether it's on your Facebook, on a blog post, or in your email marketing .
Some of your content efforts will be ongoing (for example, SEO) and some will be building assets for future use (for example, Video).
Ok, so we’ve covered all the aspects of an effective marketing plan.
Now let’s talk about the type of expertise you will need to assemble to execute your strategy.
As we all know, marketing management can be lonely (at every size of business by the way), so a crucial factor in your marketing success is building a good team to execute your marketing plan. It can be an in-house team, a team of experts you hire, or as in most cases, a hybrid of in-house employees combined with marketing service providers ( agencies or freelancers).
Here are the three top elements of a really effective marketing team.
I'll start by saying a good marketing team depends first and foremost on its leader (Yeah, that's you!). When you choose the right people and know how to manage them right, your success rates are already good. At the end of the day, good marketing starts with a good strategy, continues with a reasonable plan, and depends on great execution.
Your strategy and plan require specific human capabilities so they will be executed well. If you're planning on running paid media campaigns, you better start your year with an expert on your team that knows the job and that you can count on to deliver on your expectations.
To decide whether to hire an in-house employee or a service provider, you should consider two things:
In my experience, experienced marketing professionals either demand very high salaries or work independently / in small agencies (for example ecommerce SEO agencies ).
We're back talking about your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and so should you in every marketing decision you make. After you made sure you have all the needed resources in terms of human talent to get your plan running, you'll need to keep tracking, measuring, and motivating them to be focused on achieving your goals and KPIs.
Not an easy task, especially when you need to measure both in-house employees and service providers. It’s important to understand what KPIs are relevant to each of your team members, and how to run these tracking sessions in a way that will bring everyone together to achieving better results for your business.
Questions to ask a
Questions to assess their experience, with respect to your unique business requirements:
Questions that assess their ability to build the campaign strategy you need:
Questions about reporting and KPIs - clear expectations!
Excellent. You now know how to assemble your marketing team.
And you might be asking yourself, how do I write this marketing plan? It’s going to take me ages! There is so much research that goes into it, do I have to do it all manually?
The answer is no way! There are a ton of marketing tools & software that can help you create your actionable marketing plan way faster.
Here are a few.
Here are some of the top marketing tools to use to create your marketing plan.
There are numerous tools to use to obtain all the market research and business analytics for your marketing plan.
Alexa is a great tool to get insights into your market and your competitors. It has some really great advanced features that can show you your site demographics, where your traffic comes from, and the traffic sources of your competitors.
Similarweb is another great tool for research. It’s like Alexa in that it has some very similar features but has more reporting capability, and has other metrics like geography, referring sites, and SEO metrics.
Ahrefs is one of the top SEO tools out there. It can give you some of the most sophisticated information about the types of backlinks you or your competitors have, search engine rankings, and much more.
Basecamp is a great tool for team collaboration. You can use it to message your team, store and organize project files efficiently, and work better with your team. There are so many data points to gather for your marketing plan and you will need to collaborate with multiple teams in your company.
Slack is another great tool for team collaboration. Though it’s more focused on communication it does provide a great way to store information and collaborate with co-workers (and it has a slick design and an easy-to-use interface).
Speaking of design, let’s talk about visual design tools and software for your marketing plan.
This is a great design tool for making charts. They have a really easy-to-use drag and drop design interface that allows you to create fancy charts and diagrams for your marketing plan in minutes.
Canva is a great design tool for all kinds of design projects. It has a wide range of features that you could use to design amazing graphics and download them for your marketing plan.
There are so many areas of digital marketing and if you want to be really efficient you should make a plan for each one. The best way to learn is from the experts so let’s look at some of the best sample marketing plans. You can download any of these or save a copy for yourself.
This is a really great plan for your content. It breaks down every process from discovering your ideal customers, to creating their buyer persona, finding the main challenges that your content could solve, and so on. This is a really in-depth guide designed for any content marketing out there.
Here’s another really great marketing plan example. This one looks really old school, so if you are a visual learner this one is probably not for you. But if you want to see a really well-written explanation of every section of a traditional marketing plan, you will get a lot of this example. Download it and fill it out, you will get a lot of value out of it.
Ok, if that wasn’t simple enough for you, here’s a quick one-page cheat sheet that you can use to quickly summarize your entire marketing plan. This one is really useful for a quick brainstorming session, especially when working with a remote team.
Sumo has some incredible marketing plan templates. I used one of their templates to grow an Instagram account from 0-30k subscribers in 18 months. And here they strike again with a super-specific template & strategy on how to take your blog traffic to 10,000 visits in just 12 weeks.
Speaking of content, let’s talk about video.
Creating a video strategy for a brand can be a pretty complex task. You have a bunch of teams, a variety of factors to consider, and it can become a big mess pretty quickly. So, if you want to create a strategic marketing plan template for a specific project like that, then use this infographic template from Visme to display everything and make it all really easy for the whole team to follow.
This format is especially powerful when you’ve hired a digital marketing consultant because that’s when things can get a little unclear. So organizing every project into a quick infographic can provide a really great way to keep everyone organized.
An email list is one of the most powerful tools any business has. It’s really hard to grow your list and keep subscribers engaged. Here’s a great marketing plan example for growing a list to over 1,500 new subscribers in 12 weeks.
Here’s a great email marketing planning template from Hubspot that helps you create better emails. Hubspot is an incredible software product for any brand and they make incredible templates and guides on virtually every aspect of digital marketing. This template in particular has 3 parts - email planning, analytics, and A/B testing.
We’ve been focusing more and more on eCommerce businesses recently, and you can learn all about it in our eCommerce marketing guide . Here’s an example of a marketing plan that takes you through all the steps of growing your eCommerce revenue in 12 weeks.
Here’s another great marketing plan example from Drip. This one is a broad overview of each section and has some additional tracking info to fill out, that the other plans didn’t cover. It’s a quick and easy one.
This is something that we get asked often. Sometimes a marketing manager or brand owner doesn’t want to design a whole new marketing plan from scratch, but only wants to focus on their social media.
How do you go about creating a social media marketing plan ?
Here’s a high-level overview of how to go about it.
We’ve spoken about this at the beginning of this article, and it’s super crucial that any kind of plan starts with some goals that make sense.
SMART stands for -
Here’s an example of a vague goal:
-We will increase our blog traffic to 100k monthly uniques.
Here’s how you turn that into a SMART goal:
- We will increase our blog traffic by 10% each month for the next 12 months by increasing all of our posts to 3,000 words and optimizing on-page content.
Did you notice how I set a deadline on that SMART goal?
T stands for time-bound and deadlines are absolutely crucial.
It’s time to narrow down who your ideal customer is.
First, start by looking at your data on Google Analytics or any other tool you’re using. Find out as much information on your audience as you can.
This could include:
4. analyze your social data.
Now that you know what your competitors are doing, compare that to where you are holding with your current marketing efforts.
Look at the following things on each channel:
Next, choose the right social media platforms for your business. Decide which ones you want to use and for what purposes. It could be that one channel you could use for impressions, and on the other one, you really care about the engagement.
Here’s what we do at Mayple:
You might find that Pinterest is a perfect platform to get traffic, while Instagram is primarily for sales. It totally depends on the industry, design, content format, and type of business you have.
Now that you’ve decided on the channels you’re going after, look at some of the best social media posts for your niche and make an inspiration wall for yourself.
Look for posts or videos that catch your eye, designs, color schemes & messaging that would work well for your content.
Next, decide on the exact types and formats of your posts.
Here are a few post formats you could pick from:
I recommend deciding on 4-5 formats and testing them out for a few weeks.
Now it’s time to put it all together into one calendar.
Use a scheduling app like eClincher , Sendible , CoSchedule , or Later .
They all have different features, so find something that fits your needs and budget.
Once you upload all of your posts into one calendar you can see it all visually, and see your post frequency for each platform.
Are you excited? It’s time to launch this thing!
Launch your posts for the next 1-2 months and see how they do. After 2 months, re-evaluate your progress, and double down on the posts that did really well.
Take out the posts that didn’t do so well.
Continue optimizing as you go along.
Here are a few of our favorite social media plan templates. You can use these to plan your calendar, to better optimize your strategy, and to rock out like the top brands out there.
This template is a really great general for all of your needs. They have a separate tab for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Pinterest. Each tab is divided into a grid for all your accounts, performance, audience, goals, and even a SWOT analysis. These guys cover it all!
Get it ->
We’ve covered pretty much everything you need to know about how to plan, create, and design your digital marketing plan. Your plan should be the basis for all of the marketing initiatives of your marketing department. It should serve as the guideline for creative marketing material, setting up your campaigns, and your plan of action.
We’ve already created a really effective marketing plan template, which you can get - here .
Ben Kazinik
Octavia Drexler
John Marquez
11 min. read
Updated January 3, 2024
Do you know who your competitors are? If you do, have you taken the time to conduct a thorough competitor analysis?
Knowing your competitors, how they operate, and the necessary benchmarks you need to hit are crucial to positioning your business for success. Investors will also want to see an analysis of the competition in your business plan.
In this guide, we’ll explore the significance of competitive analysis and guide you through the essential steps to conduct and write your own.
You’ll learn how to identify and evaluate competitors to better understand the opportunities and threats to your business. And you’ll be given a four-step process to describe and visualize how your business fits within the competitive landscape.
A competitive analysis is the process of gathering information about your competitors and using it to identify their strengths and weaknesses. This information can then be used to develop strategies to improve your own business and gain a competitive advantage.
Before you start writing about the competition, you need to conduct your analysis. Here are the steps you need to take:
The first step in conducting a comprehensive competitive analysis is to identify your competitors.
Start by creating a list of both direct and indirect competitors within your industry or market segment. Direct competitors offer similar products or services, while indirect competitors solve the same problems your company does, but with different products or services.
Keep in mind that this list may change over time. It’s crucial to revisit it regularly to keep track of any new entrants or changes to your current competitors. For instance, a new competitor may enter the market, or an existing competitor may change their product offerings.
Once you’ve identified your competitors, you need to study the overall market.
This includes the market size , growth rate, trends, and customer preferences. Be sure that you understand the key drivers of demand, demographic and psychographic profiles of your target audience , and any potential market gaps or opportunities.
Conducting a market analysis can require a significant amount of research and data collection. Luckily, if you’re writing a business plan you’ll follow this process to complete the market analysis section . So, doing this research has value for multiple parts of your plan.
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You’ll need to establish criteria for comparing your business with competitors. You want the metrics and information you choose to provide answers to specific questions. (“Do we have the same customers?” “What features are offered?” “How many customers are being served?”)
Here are some common factors to consider including:
You can now begin gathering information about your competitors. Because you spent the time to explore the market and set up a comparison framework—your research will be far more focused and easier to complete.
There’s no perfect research process, so start by exploring sources such as competitor websites, social media, customer reviews, industry reports, press releases, and public financial statements. You may also want to conduct primary research by interviewing customers, suppliers, or industry experts.
You can check out our full guide on conducting market research for more specific steps.
Evaluate each competitor based on the criteria you’ve established in the competitive framework. Identify their key strengths (competitive advantages) and weaknesses (areas where they underperform).
Based on the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors, identify opportunities (areas where you can outperform them) and threats (areas where they may outperform you) for your business.
You can check out our full guide to conducting a SWOT analysis for more specific questions that you should ask as part of each step.
Once you’ve done your research, it’s time to present your findings in your business plan. Here are the steps you need to take:
Who you are writing a business plan for (investors, partners, employees, etc.) may require you to format your competitive analysis differently.
For an internal business plan you’ll use with your team, the competition section should help them better understand the competition. You and your team will use it to look at comparative strengths and weaknesses to help you develop strategies to gain a competitive advantage.
For fundraising, your plan will be shared with potential investors or as part of a bank loan. In this case, you’re describing the competition to reassure your target reader. You are showing awareness and a firm understanding of the competition, and are positioned to take advantage of opportunities while avoiding the pitfalls.
You need to know how your business stacks up, based on the values it offers to your chosen target market. To run this comparison, you’ll be using the same criteria from the competitive framework you completed earlier. You need to identify your competitive advantages and weaknesses, and any areas where you can improve.
The goal is positioning (setting your business up against the background of other offerings), and making that position clear to the target market. Here are a few questions to ask yourself in order to define your competitive position:
There are a few different ways to present your competitive framework in your business plan. The first is a “positioning map” and the second is a “competitive matrix”. Depending on your needs, you can use one or both of these to communicate the information that you gathered during your competitive analysis:
The positioning map plots two product or business benefits across a horizontal and vertical axis. The furthest points of each represent opposite extremes (Hot and cold for example) that intersect in the middle. With this simple chart, you can drop your own business and the competition into the zone that best represents the combination of both factors.
I often refer to marketing expert Philip Kohler’s simple strategic positioning map of breakfast, shown here. You can easily draw your own map with any two factors of competition to see how a market stacks up.
It’s quite common to see the price on one axis and some important qualitative factor on the other, with the assumption that there should be a rough relationship between price and quality.
It’s pretty common for most business plans to also include a competitive matrix. It shows how different competitors stack up according to the factors identified in your competitive framework.
How do you stack up against the others? Here’s what a typical competitive matrix looks like:
For the record, I’ve seen dozens of competitive matrices in plans and pitches. I’ve never seen a single one that didn’t show that this company does more of what the market wants than all others. So maybe that tells you something about credibility and how to increase it. Still, the ones I see are all in the context of seeking investment, so maybe that’s the nature of the game.
Your business plan should also explain the strategies your business will use to capitalize on the opportunities you’ve identified while mitigating any threats from competition. This may involve improving your product/service offerings, targeting underserved market segments, offering more attractive price points, focusing on better customer service, or developing innovative marketing strategies.
While you should cover these strategies in the competition section, this information should be expanded on further in other areas of your business plan.
For example, based on your competitive analysis you show that most competitors have the same feature set. As part of your strategy, you see a few obvious ways to better serve your target market with additional product features. This information should be referenced within your products and services section to back up your problem and solution statement.
Business owners often wish that they had no competition. They think that with no competition, the entire market for their product or service will be theirs. That is simply not the case—especially for new startups that have truly innovative products and services. Here’s why:
You know you have a good idea when other people are coming up with similar products or services. Competition validates the market and the fact that there are most likely customers for your new product. This also means that the costs of marketing and educating your market go down (see my next point).
Being first-to-market can be a huge advantage. It also means that you will have to spend way more than the next player to educate customers about your new widget, your new solution to a problem, and your new approach to services.
This is especially true for businesses that are extremely innovative. These first-to-market businesses will be facing customers that didn’t know that there was a solution to their problem . These potential customers might not even know that they have a problem that can be solved in a better way.
If you’re a first-to-market company, you will have an uphill battle to educate consumers—an often expensive and time-consuming process. The 2nd-to-market will enjoy all the benefits of an educated marketplace without the large marketing expense.
Businesses that have little or no competition become stagnant. Customers have few alternatives to choose from, so there is no incentive to innovate. Constant competition ensures that your marketplace continues to evolve and that your product offering continues to evolve with it.
Without competition, it’s easy to lose focus on your core business and your core customers and start expanding into areas that don’t serve your best customers. Competition forces you and your business to figure out how to be different than your competition while focusing on your customers. In the long term, competition will help you build a better business.
One mistake many new businesses make is thinking that just because nobody else is doing exactly what they’re doing, their business is a sure thing. If you’re struggling to find competitors, ask yourself these questions.
The smart thing to do is ask yourself, “Why isn’t anyone else doing it?”
It’s possible that nobody’s selling cod-liver frozen yogurt in your area because there’s simply no market for it. Ask around, talk to people, and do your market research. If you determine that you’ve got customers out there, you’re in good shape.
But that still doesn’t mean there’s no competition.
There may not be another cod-liver frozen yogurt shop within 500 miles. But maybe an online distributor sells cod-liver oil to do-it-yourselfers who make their own fro-yo at home. Or maybe your potential customers are eating frozen salmon pops right now.
Don’t think of competition as only other businesses that do exactly what you do. Think about what currently exists on the market that your product would displace.
It’s the difference between direct competition and indirect competition. When Henry Ford started successfully mass-producing automobiles in the U.S., he didn’t have other automakers to compete with. His competition was horse-and-buggy makers, bicycles, and railroads.
While it’s important that you know the competition, don’t get too caught up in the research.
If all you do is track your competition and do endless competitive analyses, you won’t be able to come up with original ideas. You will end up looking and acting just like your competition. Instead, make a habit of NOT visiting your competition’s website, NOT going into their store, and NOT calling their sales office.
Focus instead on how you can provide the best service possible and spend your time talking to your customers. Figure out how you can better serve the next person that walks in the door so that they become a lifetime customer, a reference, or a referral source.
If you focus too much on the competition, you will become a copycat. When that happens, it won’t matter to a customer if they walk into your store or the competition’s because you will both be the same.
Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software , a co-founder of Borland International, and a recognized expert in business planning. He has an MBA from Stanford and degrees with honors from the University of Oregon and the University of Notre Dame. Today, Tim dedicates most of his time to blogging, teaching and evangelizing for business planning.
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Written by: Orana Velarde
Communication plans can help you deliver information timely and effectively to stakeholders in various situations — from a PR crisis to a new product launch. They are excellent tools to share with your team and prepare them to communicate properly in any given situation.
If you're intimidated by the idea of creating a communication plan from scratch, it's okay. You can simply use a pre-designed communication plan template to speed up the process.
We've put together a list of 15 professional communication plan examples for various use cases.
The best part?
You can edit these communication plan templates online and download them or share them with your team.
Here's a short selection of easy-to-edit Communication plan templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more below:
Just choose the category from the list below that best describes your needs and start designing a successful communication strategy.
Template #1: strategic communication plan, template #2: crisis communication plan, template #3: it communication plan, template #4: project management communication plan, template #5: internal communication plan, template #6: event communication plan, template #7: simple communication plan, template #8: change management communication plan, template #9: stakeholder communication plan, template #10: donor communication plan, template #11: school communication plan, template #12: emergency communication plan, template #13: marketing communication plan, template #14: product launch communication plan, template #15: diversity and inclusion communication plan, frequently asked questions (faqs).
Before you start scrolling, here’s a video on how to create attractive documents with Visme to get your creative juices flowing.
Strategic communication plans are essential documents that corporations, organizations and companies use to maintain stable and constant communication with their audiences. Below is an example of a communication plan template you can use to streamline communication.
This sleek strategic communication plan uses contrasting desaturation with bright colors to bring attention to the content. The placeholder sections in the table of contents include:
Adding your content is easy as all you have to do is copy and paste into the template and adjust as needed. If you want to add pages with a type of graph or more text content, just duplicate a page. Use the same colors as the rest of the design to have a balanced look and feel.
And if you’re short on time, you can use the Visme AI document generator to generate your communication plans or any other document in a matter of seconds. Just type in your prompt, provide a bit more context, select your preferred design and watch the tool produce your first draft in seconds.
Check out how the AI document generator tool works.
Every startup, company or enterprise is bound to have a moment of crisis to deal with. It could be an unhappy customer or a global pandemic. For that reason, you need a crisis communication plan to specify actionable practices in any crisis.
Create your own Communication Plan with this easy-to-edit template! Edit and Download
With crisis communication plan templates like this one, all involved parties have access to the necessary information. Our designers have put together a collection of pages and sections to get you started, including:
To personalize your brand’s communication plan, simply change the colors and fonts using your Brand Kit . If you need more pages for more key messaging sections, it’s easy to duplicate the pre-designed pages and add your content.
You’ll need to adjust the layout a bit, so the pages don’t look the same. Change the image background for another and customize the text boxes and icons to match your content.
Here’s another great example of a communication plan. Share your project ideas and future goals effectively with our easy-to-use IT communication plan template. It's designed to help you choose the right communication channels and strategies for your IT projects.
The communication template has a bold dark and red design theme that sets a powerful visual tone. With eye-catching visuals and straightforward layouts, this template makes it simple to present your project proposals, timelines, and resource allocation.
Collaborating with your team becomes a seamless experience, ensuring that your message is conveyed accurately and efficiently to all stakeholders.
Upgrade your project communication with this attention-grabbing dark and red-themed IT communication plan template, and make a lasting impression while conveying your ideas and goals with impact.
Is your team working on a project together and you need to keep everything in check and on track? Are you looking for a way to let everyone know what needs to be done and when?
This project management communication plan sample is just what you need as the basis of your action plan.
Be clear and direct about what needs to be done, by whom and when. Putting it all in this project management communication framework template is going to create transparency within your team.
Your job as a project manager is to make sure everything is taken care of correctly and on time. When you use project communication plan templates like this one, your success rates go up.
Use the table of contents in this project management plan to outline all necessary information and key messaging. Explain how and when deliverables are to be expected and who are the key stakeholders in the process.
Link to collaboration channels and give instructions on how to use them best. Give instructions on how to name files and where everything is stored in the cloud.Use the Visme workflow tool to assign and manage each task, set deadlines and review and approve projects—all within your workspace.
Working on a project together takes careful planning. A project manager needs to ensure that everyone knows what’s expected of them and who to contact about different things.
If you’re a project manager or are in charge of an internal project for your company, this internal communications strategy template is just what you need to keep the team on track.
Our professionally designed internal communication plan is easy to use and customize with your content. The sections are separated as follows:
If you plan to share your communication plan as a digital PDF, add links to the respective pages. This way, the reader can navigate to their desired content from the table of contents .
Use the timeline feature in the implementation section to visually schedule the tasks for the project. If you need to make the timeline longer, simply duplicate the page. Customize the colors and fonts for your brand using your Brand Kit.
Simplify the process of planning, organizing, and executing your events with our outstanding event communication plan template.
This complete communication strategy template comes equipped with step-by-step instructions, enabling you to seamlessly coordinate crucial event particulars, create detailed timelines, and ensure your guests are well-informed, all within a single platform.
Featuring captivating visuals, contemporary fonts, and customizable color schemes, this template not only enhances the functionality of your event communication plan. The rich blend of serene blues, pristine whites, and vibrant pinks also adds an aesthetic touch that will leave a lasting impression.
Add flipbook effects so readers can interact with the document as if they are reading a book. Make event planning a breeze while keeping everything visually appealing with this versatile template.
Communications planning doesn’t always need to be complicated. A simple communication plan will do the job for any small project. All you need for effective communication is the key messaging and the relevant links to the preferred communication channels.
This corporate communication plan template is simple and keeps things to only two pages. It effectively uses icons , progress bars and a table format to visualize possible situations of crisis and the appropriate response to each situation.
You can remove the cover page and download your communication plan as a single-page infographic . Or you can add more pages to turn it into a more comprehensive document.
If you’ve ever had to change something inside a company, you know how difficult it can be to it seamlessly. Change can be about a piece of software, a physical working location, a process or system.
A change management communication plan will help everyone involved in the transition by making sure they’re all on the same page.
This change management communication plan designed by our Visme designers uses placeholder content for a change in CRM. The sections apply to any type of change and are:
This is the perfect communication plan template to help your team change something seamlessly without affecting other aspects of your work.
When working on your plan, use Visme’s shortcut tool to easily find anything you want in the editor. Simply type forward slash (/) on your keyboard and search bar will appear. Type in a keyword to easily find design assets, tools and features in the Visme editor.
Having many stakeholders aiming for the same goal requires good organization and planning. Make sure everyone’s on board with this stakeholder communication plan example.
This professionally designed template offers all the pages you need to organize the information for your stakeholders. Share everything they need to know about your company, the goals, objectives, changes, projections and more.
Plus, share all relevant information like the dates for team meetings, a project roadmap , and the manager’s phone number.
If you need more pages than the template provides, simply duplicate and add your content in text boxes. Also, maintain a visual balance in the general look-and-feel of the page.
To keep the communication plan easy to read and understand, link to longer content with popups or external hyperlinks. Make sure to share the finished communication plan as a digital PDF file.
A well-planned donor communication strategy is essential to the success of any fundraising campaign. With our user-friendly template, you can impress your donors and streamline your fundraising efforts. This comprehensive tool includes easy-to-follow sections for outlining your donor engagement strategy, establishing effective communication channels and tracking the progress of your campaigns.
Our template features engaging graphics and icons, sleek fonts, and customizable colors that not only make it visually appealing but also allow you to tailor it to your organization's unique branding.
Every part of this template is customizable. With Visme’s intuitive editor, you can change colors, fonts and more to fit your branding. Elevate your fundraising endeavors and make a lasting impression on your valued supporters with this visually captivating and user-friendly template.
Ensuring that all communication levels are clear and concise within a school setting can be difficult without a communication plan. That's because precise instructions and direction are often essential for teachers, staff, parents and managerial positions.
Our school communication plan sample was created especially for you by our Visme designers. The three main sections cover communication strategies at three different levels:
Customize the tables with your school colors and input your specific information into the cells. Make your communication plan interactive by adding links to the correct communication channels for direct messaging and virtual or in-person meetings, and then share it online.
An effective emergency communication plan is vital for ensuring the safety and well-being of your team members. When a disaster strikes, a well-structured and thorough plan can ensure swift, coordinated responses and minimize risks.
Prepare your organization for emergency situations by sharing proven methods and solutions with this invaluable template. This stunning and user-friendly template simplifies the process, allowing you to outline essential procedures, contact information, and crucial resources. It provides indispensable guidance to your personnel in times of crisis, ensuring they are well-prepared and can respond effectively when needed most.
What makes this template shine are the striking images, visuals and design elements. In Visme’s library, you’ll find tons of visuals and design assets to communicate your ideas. Feel free to swap the template color theme to match your branding.
Need help writing or proofreading content for your plan? Visme’s AI writer is your handy assistant. All you need to do is write an accurate prompt that reflects your need and watch the magic happen.
Marketing and social media campaigns are successful when everyone involved knows what their part is in the process and what their tasks are. Setting every team member up with the information they need to reach a common goal is the primary purpose of this marketing communication plan.
This marketing communication plan example has a colorful, modern feel. Circles form a big part of the visual layout, making the content easier to digest and more interesting to look at.
In this marketing communication plan template, there are four sections for your key messaging:
The SWOT analysis page is a practical guide to see where your project has weaknesses and what strengths will pull it through. On the last page, you’ll find a timeline to help keep every team member on track of their tasks and in what timeframe.
Easily customize the template to match your brand by using your Brand Kit. Share the template with team members to get feedback and collaborate on the final design. Track how many people have viewed or taken action on your plan using our analytics feature .
When launching a new product, it’s good practice to work as a team. The best way to make sure all the pre-launch tasks are taken care of is to create a product launch communication plan.
In the six pages of this attractive product launch communication plan, you can lay out all the steps for your product’s pre and post-launch activities.
Use the timeline page to explain in detail what needs to happen. Specify which communication teams take care of what tasks, like the press release and influencer outreach emails.
Use hyperlinks to more in-depth content for specific teams and don’t forget to share the links to relevant communication platforms.
Use the sections set up for you in the template or create your own. Your key messaging will probably be similar to this but it’s easy to personalize or add more.
Make sure to include the steps for recording post-launch metrics as these are just as important as the ones done pre-launch. Plus, measurable insights can help with other product launch projects in the future.
Achieving diversity and inclusion in the workplace requires a clear and comprehensive communication plan. A plan will serve as a strategic framework to promote diversity and inclusion initiatives across your organization.
This remarkable, fully customizable template is your compass for systematically advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion within your organization. The template has a clean and creative design layout with high-quality images and graphics that add visual excitement.
The eye-catching images are carefully selected to support your narrative and enhance the overall aesthetic of your plan. With its captivating design, you can effortlessly engage your entire workforce, presenting your vision, initiatives, and progress with impact and clarity.
There are multiple options for sharing your plan with stakeholders. You can share it online with a link or embed it on your website or landing page. Alternatively, you can download it in multiple formats.
Creating a communication plan is easy when you have practical and inspiring templates to guide you. To get started with designing your communication plan, simply choose the template that best fits your vision and input your content.
If you're new to Visme, use one of the free templates and adjust the content accordingly. That said, you’d be surprised at what you can do with a premium Visme subscription .
With a premium subscription, not only will you get access to premium templates and graphic assets, you'll also be able to create any type of visual — from documents and presentations to infographics, charts, surveys, social media graphics and more.
You'll also be able to download your designs in multiple formats, from image to PDF to HTML5, work in collaboration with your team, create a Brand Kit and much more.
Ready to get started? Sign up for a free Visme account today and create a great-looking, comprehensive communication plan to share with your team.
Are you still weighing your options about creating a communication plan? Hopefully, the templates on this list inspired you to take a look and give them a try.
But you might still need a little help deciding if this is a suitable document for what you need. That’s why we’ve put together the most common questions asked about communications plans.
A communication plan is a strategic document that shares coordinated, consistent and directed messaging for achieving a specific goal, such as managing a PR crisis or successfully launching a new product.
A communication plan can be printed, sent via email as a PDF or shared as a live online link. A well-structured and effective communication plan is the single most crucial factor of project management in any industry and for every use case.
The primary purpose of a communication plan is to deliver consistent information about a shared goal. It keeps everyone on the team on the same page about what needs to be done, how and when.
A communication plan solves many problems that teams usually face when there’s no clear direction for everyone involved. With a clear communication plan, everything is explained in detail and easy to follow.
All communication needs are laid out in detailed sections covering topics from goals and objectives to timelines and schedules . A communication plan brings together all the communication channels into one single document. From there, team members can spread out through relevant links and supplementary documents.
Every communication plan example is different, just how every project is different. But what remains the same across the majority of communication plans is the relevant and strategic information.
A standard communication plan includes sections like:
Apart from the list above, a communication plan must also include details pertinent to the specific project. If there are folders or systems that people need to access for the project’s success, list them and explain how to use them.
The first step in communication planning is to define the goals you and your team want to achieve. Outline both short and long-term goals so it’s easier to plan the project as pieces of a whole.
Following the goals, set the objectives. Explain how you plan to achieve these with the help of timelines, schedules, and tables. Include a list of involved stakeholders and links to further means of collaboration.
A communication plan’s specific key messages will depend on what you want to achieve and who your target audience is. Your key messages are the most essential communication points for any particular project.
For example, let’s say you’re creating a communication plan for a product launch. The key messages would cover;
An excellent way to make sure all key messaging is clear is to add each one as an item in the Table of Contents.
If you want to create a communication plan that makes an impact, use Visme! Our professionally designed communication plan templates will look amazing with your content and be super easy to customize.
With a Visme communication plan, you can include data visualizations using data from a Microsoft Excel sheet. In fact, if you’ve been creating project communication plans in an Excel spreadsheet, it’s time to upgrade your communication efforts!
Knock your team out of their seats with your impactful communication plan!
Head over to Visme's professional document creator and look through the template library, or click on any of the communication plan template buttons in the list above.
When it comes to communication planning, here are some tips to ensure effective and successful communication:
To effectively use communication plan templates, follow these steps:
Choose a suitable template: Select a communication plan template that aligns with your specific needs and goals. Visme has a comprehensive library of templates that provide a comprehensive structure and include sections relevant to your project or initiative.
Gather relevant information: Collect the necessary information to complete each section of the template.
This may include objectives, target audience details, key messages, communication channels, timelines, budgets, and evaluation methods. Refer to existing documentation, conduct research, and consult with stakeholders as needed to gather accurate and relevant information.
Customize the template: Tailor the template to fit your specific requirements.
Share and collaborate: Share the completed communication plan with relevant team members and stakeholders using Visme's collaboration features . Encourage them to provide feedback, input, and suggestions for improvement.
Implement and monitor : Implement the communication plan and monitor the progress and effectiveness of your communication efforts. Make adjustments as needed based on feedback, data, and changing circumstances.
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Marketing Plan vs. Business Plan. A marketing plan is a strategic document that outlines marketing objectives, strategies, and tactics. A business plan is also a strategic document. But this plan covers all aspects of a company's operations, including finance, operations, and more. It can also help your business decide how to distribute ...
The milestones for the marketing campaign are clearly laid out, which is a great way to show how organized this business strategy is. 3. Small business marketing strategy template. This marketing plan template is perfect for small businesses who set out to develop an overarching marketing strategy for the whole year:
The sample focuses on marketing strategies for one fiscal year, but you can modify this plan for any time period. ... This small business marketing plan template provides an outline for a detailed marketing strategy, including a unique selling proposition, the 4Ps marketing mix, and marketing channels. It builds its strategy on situational ...
You need to have a solid understanding of your target audience before integrating your marketing efforts. Example: If your target audience is executives that spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, focus your social media strategy around placing branded content on LinkedIn. 5. Differentiate with creative content.
Practical, actionable, short-term marketing and business strategy help; Local presence for availability and minimization of costs; Broad skill base combining Fortune 500 training with small business experience. Sales Plan. The short-term Cambridge Strategy Group plan is to complete a total of four client projects, averaging 50 hours each .
This SMART goal guide can help you with more effective goal-setting. 3. Identify your target audience and create buyer personas. To create an effective marketing strategy, you need to understand who your ideal customers are. Take a look at your market research to understand your target audience and market landscape.
1. Have your market research data ready. It's crucial to build your marketing strategy on data, not assumptions. You're probably not developing and launching a product into the marketplace without market research —or at least you shouldn't be. Market research is an essential part of marketing and a topic on its own.
Budget Breakdown: Provide your overall marketing budget and a line-by-line breakdown by initiative. Goals and Strategies: Briefly summarize your marketing goals and the high-level strategies for achieving them. Conclusion: Wrap it up with a few sentences to encourage your audience to read the entire plan.
Marketing Plan Example (Filled Out) Here's a fake content marketing plan example for a fictitious shoe company. Marketing Plan Template: [Project Zeus Running Collection] Marketing Goal. Drive $200,000 in sales for the new Zeus running collection within the first 4 months of launch day. Target Audience.
Edit and Download. Remember to create SMART goals for your marketing plan and strategy. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-Bound. In the template above, notice how the target is defined as a percentage. You can also add a deadline to your marketing goal to make it time-bound.
16. Houghton Mifflin Company Sample Marketing Plan. Sample Marketing Plan - Houghton Mifflin Company. Houghton Mifflin's marketing plan walks business owners through the marketing strategy of a hypothetical company to see how they can implement key sections. Marketing Plan Elements Outline: Executive summary; Environmental analysis; SWOT ...
3. Sony. As this marketing plan example for Sonyshows, it's possible to compose a simple but actionable plan for your team. The plan keeps its introduction, vision, and marketing objectives clean, to-the-point, and easy to read. This marketing plan does a great job of focusing on pricing as a marketing differentiator.
Your business will likely need a combination of the following marketing plans to create an effective, comprehensive marketing strategy: Advertising plan. Branding plan. Content marketing plan. Customer acquisition plan. Direct marketing plan. Email marketing plan. Public relation plan.
Step 4: Calculate market value. You can use either top-down analysis or bottom-up analysis to calculate an estimate of your market value. A top-down analysis tends to be the easier option of the ...
The best part is you can transform data with a variety of data visualizations, including kanban, calendar, timeline, gantt, map, form, workload, and more. 5. Evernote. Evernote is another great example that can help you outline your marketing plan and keep track of your progress.
The marketing strategy section of the business plan can be presented in four sections relating to each of the four P's product, promotion, place, and price as shown in the example layout below. The marketing strategy is a key section of the business plan, at this stage you are not trying to present a complete marketing plan, but simply trying ...
Here are 6 important elements you'll want to identify and research before you build out your next strategic marketing plan. Business objectives. Everything you do as a marketing team should support your company's overall strategy and goals. So summarize your organization's business objectives, and let it serve as your marketing plan's ...
Writing an executive summary. Discussing the mission statement. Listing marketing objectives. Performing a SWOT analysis. Completing market research. Designing a market strategy. Determining a budget. The more detailed a marketing plan is, the more efficient it will be at accomplishing its goals.
How to Write a Sales and Marketing Plan. You've addressed what you're selling and why in the products and services section. You now have an understanding of the market and an ideal customer in mind thanks to your market analysis. Now, you need to explain how you will actually reach and sell to them. The marketing and sales section of your ...
7. Digital marketing strategy. Digital marketing probably doesn't need much introduction…. This marketing strategy will encompass all your online marketing, SEO, social media lead generation, performance marketing, and more…. Effectively, if it's online, it should be covered by your digital marketing strategy. 8.
Check out our Business Plan Software. This interactive tool includes step-by-step guidance for creating a comprehensive business plan for your own use, to secure investments, or share with others. Related articles. Writing your business plan. Marketing plan component of your business plan. Creating action plans for your business plan
Use it to guide your marketing strategy, tweaking the template to meet your business needs. Download the template now. Types of marketing plans Digital marketing plan. A digital marketing plan is a specific type of marketing plan that revolves solely around online channels like social media, email, and search engines.
Marketing is an essential part of any successful business strategy. It has everything to do with identifying and reaching objectives for your business sales, publicity and growth. What if, for example, your business was to locate, catalog and find homes for archeological treasures? ... So, for the marketing plan sample of FREE PEOPLE, I made ...
How to create a social media marketing strategy in 9 steps Step 1. Choose goals that align to business objectives Set S.M.A.R.T. goals. The first step to creating a winning social media strategy is to establish clear objectives and goals.
Clarify marketing strategy, goals, and tactics. Writing a business plan can show you the actionable next steps to take on a big, abstract idea. It can also help you narrow your strategy and identify clear-cut tactics that will support it. Scope the necessary work. Without a concrete plan, cost overruns and delays are all but certain.
A marketing plan may be part of an overall business plan. A solid online marketing strategy is the foundation of a well-written marketing plan. While a marketing plan contains a list of actions, without a sound strategic foundation, it is of little use to a business. It has to have a set of concrete tasks and marketing tactics to follow. Why do ...
Once you've done your research, it's time to present your findings in your business plan. Here are the steps you need to take: 1. Determine who your audience is. Who you are writing a business plan for (investors, partners, employees, etc.) may require you to format your competitive analysis differently.
The four Ps are a "marketing mix" comprised of four key elements—product, price, place, and promotion—used when marketing a product or service. Typically, successful marketers and businesses consider the four Ps when creating marketing plans and strategies to effectively market to their target audience.
Just choose the category from the list below that best describes your needs and start designing a successful communication strategy. 15 Communication Plan Templates for Professionals. Template #1: Strategic Communication Plan; Template #2: Crisis Communication Plan; Template #3: IT Communication Plan; Template #4: Project Management ...
Summarise the main points of your business plan using as few words as possible. You want to get to the point but not overlook important facts. This is your opportunity to sell yourself, but don't overdo it. The summary should include details about your business, market, goals and what makes you different from other businesses.