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Marketing-Insider
  • Home
  • Updates
  • Marketing Explained
    • I: Marketing and the marketing process
      • Definition: What is Marketing?
      • The Marketing Process
      • The 5 Marketing Concepts
      • The Marketing Strategy
        • Market Segmentation
        • Market Targeting
        • Differentiation and Positioning
          • Differentiation
          • Positioning
      • The Marketing Mix – The 4 Ps
      • Marketing Instruments
      • Portfolio Analysis: Boston Matrix
      • Portfolio Planning: Growth and Downsizing
      • SWOT Analysis
      • Definition of Product and Service
    • II: Understanding the marketplace
      • The Macro Environment
      • The Buyer Black Box – Buyer’s Characteristics
      • The Buyer Decision Process
      • B2B Market Characteristics
      • Customer Lifetime Value
      • Customer Relationship Groups
    • III: Designing a marketing strategy
      • How to create a Marketing Plan – 8 Steps
      • The Consumer Product
        • Three Levels of Product
        • 4 Types of Consumer Products
        • Different Types of Consumer Products
      • Product Line and Product Mix Decisions
        • Individual Product Decisions
        • Product Line Decisions
        • Product Mix Decisions
      • New Product Development (NPD)
        • The New Product Development Process
        • New Product Development Strategies
      • Pricing Strategies
        • What is a Price?
        • 3 Major Pricing Strategies
          • Customer Value-based Pricing
          • Cost-based Pricing
        • Additional Pricing Considerations
          • New Product Pricing
          • Product Mix Pricing Strategies
          • Price Adjustment Strategies
          • Initiating price changes
      • Product Life Cycle (PLC)
        • Product Life Cycle Stages (PLC)
        • Product Life Cycle Strategies
      • Branding Decisions
      • Characteristics of Services
    • Interesting
      • New View on Marketing
      • Next-Gen Marketing Tool: Virtual Reality
      • Advertising Evolution
      • The 5 Don’ts of Presentations
      • Successful Mobile Marketing
      • Why Most Marketing Strategies Fail
      • How to create a Marketing Plan – 8 Steps
      • How to write a good Marketing Plan
      • 5 Don’ts of LinkedIn
      • Using Social Media in Marketing
    • SEO
      • What is SEO?
      • How Search Engines work
      • How to do SEO?
      • SEO Rules for 2016
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Monthly Archives

October 2017

    How to write a Marketing Plan - A Framework for the perfect marketing plan - Marketing-Insider.eu
    Marketing Explained

    How to write a Marketing Plan – Framework for writing a perfect Marketing Plan

    by Maximilian Claessens 17th October 2017
    written by Maximilian Claessens

    Marketing does not just happen. Products and services need to be developed carefully to ensure that they reach the consumer in the right way at the right place, time and price to lead to customer satisfaction and resulting profit to the supplier. This requires planning! The marketing plan is the result of all the planning that is required throughout the marketing process. But how to write a marketing plan? This article provides you with a clear framework for writing the perfect marketing plan.

    The Need for a Marketing Plan

    It may be very tempting for young companies or entrepreneurs to rush off to market a new product or service. The planning stage is often partly or completely skipped. When things go wrong afterwards, the cause is often the same: a lack of preparation and planning. The business idea will be very unlikely to be successfully implemented, which causes loss of face, time and money. This can be prevented with a good marketing plan: It is better to sit down and plan carefully before getting off to entering the market.

    How to write a Marketing Plan

    All marketing planning comes together in the marketing plan. The marketing plan is a highly important framework that provides certainty in the potential of the product or service and a roadmap for the implementation. When asking how to write a marketing plan, you often get differing answers. Hence, there is no absolutely fixed definition of what needs to be included and what not. However, if you follow this framework for writing a perfect marketing plan, you will learn how to write a marketing plan – not any marketing plan, but a perfect one.

    The Contents and Structure of the Marketing Plan

    In essence, the marketing plan shows the direction that the marketing mix is expected to take. It gives estimates of crucial success factors such as customer demand in terms of market size and growth, competitor activity, opportunities and threats in the market environment and how outlines the plan for responding to these factors with the right strategies.

    We will now go through the elements of the marketing plan step by step. This will provide you with an overview of how to write a marketing plan in terms of contents and structure.

    How to write a Marketing Plan – The Framework

    How to write a Marketing Plan - Framework - Marketing-Insider.eu

    How to write a Marketing Plan – Framework – Marketing-Insider.eu

    1. Business Mission

    The business mission is a statement encompassing the whole operation, often following a general goal, for instance to be ‘market leader’ or ‘the most innovative supplier of goods and services’ within a selected industry.

    1. Corporate Objective

    The corporate objective covers the specifics of the business mission statement. Usually objectives are given in quantifiable terms, for instance to achieve a given turnover or market share or to increase on previous year’s performance. Qualitative objectives may be used as a supporting element, such as to raise product quality awareness among customers

    1. Environmental Audit

    The environmental audit aims to investigate the market environment in which the firm operates in terms of Political (including legal), Economic, Social and Technological (PEST) issues. This can be extended to include the DEPEST factors, also called DESTEP or PESTLE factors.

    1. Marketing Audit

    The marketing audit is an analysis of competitor activity, providing the relative position of the company within the market. It involves undertaking a SWOT analysis covering the firm’s internal strengths and weaknesses as well as external opportunities and threats.

    1. Market Analysis

    The market analysis involves an assessment of market size, trends and segments; regional and local market characteristics; seasonal variations in sales, etc.

    1. Marketing Objective and Major Strategies

    In this part, the company needs to define objectives in terms of forecasts of increased sales, customer awareness, channel coverage for the product or service and so on. Corporate strategies relate to the analyses of environmental and marketing audits discussed above and provide a roadmap for how to address these issues.

    1. Marketing Programmes and Tactics

    The marketing programme addresses the implementation of marketing tactics to achieve the strategic objectives through the marketing mix, balancing product development, pricing, promotion and channels of distribution (place) decisions.

    1. Market Information Analysis

    The market information analysis is supposed to lead to the discovery of market gaps, new markets/segments, customer characteristics, product life-cycle positioning and targeting, etc. It incorporates developing the Marketing Information System (MIS), marketing research methodology and marketing research implementation. This may also include the selection of a marketing research agency, if appropriate.

    1. Marketing Mix

    The marketing mix should not be a new concept: It is the targeted combination of product, price, promotion and channels of distribution (place) approaches. The four standard elements of the marketing mix include:

    Product

    Assessment of product characteristics, range, features; sales trends, performance history and planned developments.

    Pricing

    Assessment of positioning strategy and customer-perceived values.

    Promotion

    Assessment of media advertising, direct mail, sales promotions, sponsorship, exhibitions, public relations, selling activity and measurement of communication effectiveness.

    Place

    Assessment of channel strategy, channel selection, selling strategy, sales plan and sales force organization.

    1. Additional Elements

    Resources

    Constraints within which the plan has to operate.

    Finance

    Marketing budget, revenue and gross margin forecast, target marketing ratios and cash flow projection.

    Time

    Scheduling of proposed marketing activities within the plan (often portrayed using a Gantt chart).

    Human resource management

    Personnel requirements for implementing the plan, including appropriate recruitment and training.

    17th October 2017
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