It is no secret that you need a marketing strategy in order for your business to succeed, but creating a marketing plan that works is another story. Whatever your strategy, your marketing plan should be straight forward and forward-thinking, providing you with a clear direction for your marketing efforts for the coming year. Below I have outlined the key points required for creating a successful marketing plan that works.

 

1) Define your marketing situation.

This section should contain a clear, up to date, description of the state of the current market place. Consider your current products or services, your sales and distribution setup, the geographical area of your target market, the demographic of your customer base, your competitors and your company’s success so far. Doing this will give you a clear understanding of the relevant information needed to make a marketing plan, helping you to conjure ideas that will help your business prosper and justify your decisions.

 

2) Consider your marketing objectives.

In this section of the marketing plan, you need to paint the picture for the future: what do you want the plan to achieve? Each objective should include a narrative description of your goals, alongside a numerical target to give you something to aim for, for example you want to achieve X number of sales or make X amount of profit. Doing this will give you something tangible to strive for and a feeling of success and achievement when you hit your goal.

 

3) Don’t skip the detail.

Although it is important to write down your goals for the future, it is vital that you are realistic and don’t skip the finer details. Each objective needs to be paired with a tactic that sets out exactly how you are going to achieve each goal. Focus on the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of each goal that you have set and write down the concrete steps you need to complete in order to meet the end goal and achieve success.

 

What steps do you take to create a successful marketing plan?

 

Further Reading:

Entrepreneur Contributor, ‘The Ingredients of a Marketing Plan’: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/43026