How to Write a Marketing Plan

by Cidnee Stephen of Strategies for Success www.strategiesforsuccess.ca
January is such an exciting time for businesses.  Owners normally find themselves rejuvenated after the holidays and ready for an even BETTER new year.  The desk gets cleared, the blank pages come out, the pen is poised and the first question that comes to mind is, “where do [...]

Even though we agree that marketing plans will vary depending on the exact nature of your plan, it is hard to imagine a plan that doesn’t contain, at the very least, these four essential tables. Usually you’ll have these plus several others.
Market forecast
Analyze your market by segments and project market growth for five years.

Sales forecast
Forecast [...]

Every marketing plan has to fit the needs and situation. Even so, there are standard components you just can’t do without. A marketing plan should always have a situation analysis, marketing strategy, sales forecast, and expense budget.

Situation Analysis: Normally this will include a market analysis, a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), and a [...]

A market forecast is a core component of a market analysis. It projects the future numbers, characteristics, and trends in your target market. A standard analysis shows the projected number of potential customers divided into segments.
Market Forecast – Example
The AMT computer store has a simple market forecast. The plan defines two target market segments, and [...]

The SWOT analysis is a valuable step in your situational analysis. Assessing your firm’s strengths, weaknesses, market opportunities, and threats through a SWOT analysis is a very simple process that can offer powerful insight into the potential and critical issues affecting a venture.
The SWOT analysis begins by conducting an inventory of internal strengths and weaknesses [...]

Understanding the dynamics of competitors within an industry is critical for several reasons. First, it can help to assess the potential opportunities for your venture, particularly important if you are entering this industry as a new player. It can also be a critical step to better differentiate yourself from others that offer similar products and [...]

The competitive analysis process presents an opportunity to describe your major competitors in terms of the factors that most influence revenues. This may include your competitor’s:

organization size
market share
comparative product quality
growth
available capital and resources
image
marketing strategy
target markets
and any attributes you consider important.

Industry associations, industry publications, media coverage, information from the financial community, and their own marketing materials [...]

The exact nature of your business, your marketing strategy, and the uses for your marketing plan dictate its contents. You add detail or take it away to suit your needs. 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 [...]

Relatively few marketing plans are blessed with budgets for professional market research. When you can’t pass the problem to professionals, then you have to make some intelligent estimates. Get comfortable with the idea of making good educated guesses. Many people think there is something magic about this, some technique they don’t know that the experts [...]

A market forecast is a core component of a market analysis. It projects the future numbers, characteristics, and trends in your target market. A standard analysis shows the projected number of potential customers divided into segments.
This example of a simple market forecast defines two target market segments and projects the potential customers in each of [...]