Palo Alto Software partnered with marketing guru John Jantsch, creator of the proven Duct Tape Marketing System, in the developement of Marketing Plan Pro v11 powered by Duct Tape Marketing. The software has several outlines to help you tailor your marketing plan.

The 30-Minute Marketing Plan offers just the basics, a very simple plan that you can get done quickly. It is a good way to document your thinking, or just get started. It lets users who are already familiar with the Duct Tape Marketing System briefly summarize the main sections of the marketing action plan.
Click here to see a PDF of a 30 Minute Marketing Plan outline

The Basic Marketing Plan is a modest marketing plan for the people who don’t have the time, or the need for an extremely detailed plan. You can start here, including such topics as internal Marketing Training, drafting your Marketing Materials, and more. You can Switch to the Standard plan later when you need to expand your marketing activities.
Click here to see a PDF of a Basic Marketing Plan outline for the same company.

The Standard Marketing Plan walks you through all the steps of the Duct Tape Marketing System. It includes the most detail, and breaks each task down into smaller steps for you to plan your marketing actions in detail.
Click here to see a PDF of a Standard Marketing Plan outline for the same company.

The marketing plan examples linked above show how the same company begins its marketing program with a simple action plan and then expands its plan and activities. Note that in each case the idea is to write a plan that serves just the needs of moment. It is an action plan.

Write the plan, take the actions, review the results. Keep what works, change what doesn’t, and expand the plan and the actions as the company grows.

• Click here to see a PDF of a 30 Minute Marketing Plan outline
• Click here to see a PDF of a Basic Marketing Plan outline for the same company.
• Click here to see a PDF of a Standard Marketing Plan outline for the same company.

In the real world you’ll want to customize your outline according to whether you are selling products or services, to businesses or consumers, or you’re a nonprofit organization. If you are in an class environment the outline for the plan will reflect the learning experience.

The following outline represents the one example of content of a marketing plan. Although the outline does change in some respects from business to business, this is a good standard example outline for a basic marketing plan.

Example outline for a marketing plan

1.0 Executive Summary
2.0 Situation Analysis
2.1 Market Summary
2.1.1 Market Demographics
2.1.2 Market Needs
2.1.3 Market Trends
2.1.4 Market Growth
2.2 SWOT Analysis
2.2.1 Strengths
2.2.2 Weaknesses
2.2.3 Opportunities
2.2.4 Threats
2.3 Competition
2.4 Services
2.5 Keys to Success
2.6 Critical Issues
2.8 Macroenvironment

3.0 Marketing Strategies
3.1 Mission
3.2 Marketing Objectives
3.3 Financial Objectives
3.4 Target Marketing
3.5 Positioning
3.6 Strategy Pyramids
3.7 Marketing Mix
3.7.1 Services and Service Marketing
3.7.2 Pricing
3.7.3 Promotion
3.7.4 Service
3.7.5 Channels of Distribution
3.8 Marketing Research

4.0 Financials, Budgets, and Forecasts
4.1 Break-even Analysis
4.2 Sales Forecast
4.2.1 Sales Breakdown 1
4.2.2 Sales Breakdown 2
4.2.3 Sales Breakdown 3
4.3 Expense Forecast
4.3.1 Expense Breakdown 1
4.3.3 Expense Breakdown 2
4.3.3 Expense Breakdown 3
4.4 Linking Sales and Expenses to Strategy
4.5 Contribution Margin

5.0 Controls
5.1 Implementation Milestones
5.2 Marketing Organization
5.3 Contingency Planning

This outline was created using Marketing Plan Pro v9 software. To see three different outlines, based on the Duct Tape Marketing System, as used in Marketing Plan Pro v11 read Outline for a Marketing Plan, also here on Mplans.com.