A marketing plan is part of a promotion strategy. It helps a business achieve its goals: enter the market, launch campaigns, etc. We tell you how to create one.
What is a Marketing Plan and Planning
Types of Marketing Plans
Marketing Plan Structure
Developing a Marketing Plan
Examples
Expert advice
What is a Marketing Plan and Planning
Table of Contents
A marketing strategy is drawn up after defining the overall business strategy. A marketing plan is a continuation of the marketing strategy, its step-by-step implementation for the coming year. This is a document that describes a step-by-step program for achieving the goals of a company or project. It includes a list of activities, deadlines, budget , and KPIs — indicators that help evaluate the effectiveness of the work done. A plan can be drawn up for the business as a whole or for a separate area, for example, for developing a corporate brand.
Let’s imagine that a confectionery factory wants to launch a new product on the market – natural marmalade. To draw up a marketing plan, it is necessary to find answers to the following questions: ● Under what brand and for what audience will the marmalade be sold? ● What will the product look like? ● At what price will it be sold? ● Where to sell: in eco-shops, in supermarkets, on marketplaces? ● How to promote: on social networks, using outdoor advertising or other means? ● How much money and time will it take to launch the product?
A marketing plan is sometimes called a media plan, but there is a difference between the two:
● A marketing plan is a broader concept: it describes what to sell, at what price, where and for what audience, etc.
● A media plan is part of a marketing plan, a program for promotion across channels: what types of advertising and where to launch, what budget will be required for this. Some companies – for example, small district clinics, flower shops or coffee shops in the “near home” format – are limited only to a media plan – everything depends on the goals and budget.
The course “Traffic Manager” teaches how to create a media plan and a marketing plan. They also tell you how to conduct profitable advertising campaigns in Yandex Direct, VK Advertising and Google Ads. Students will be able to start working with real projects in just 3-4 months after the start of training.
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Types of Marketing Plans
There is no strict division into types of marketing plans. Companies themselves decide which to use. For example, they draw up a marketing complex plan or use the SOSTAC model.
Marketing Mix Plan
The marketing mix is a set of factors that a company uses to create advantages in the market and promote products. The model on which the marketing mix is built basically consists of four elements – 4P:
1. Product
Products and services that the company offers to the market.
2. Price
The amount that consumers must pay to receive a service or product.
3. Place
Distribution channels. How the product reaches the consumer, where it is sold.
4. Promotion
How the company talks about the benefits of its products and services.
Sometimes three more elements are added to them:
1. People
Everyone involved in selling a product or service.
2. Process
How a person chooses and buys a product.
3. Physical evidence
What surrounds a person when choosing and buying a product.
Each of these elements needs to be analyzed by the questions: who, what, where, when, how. For example, what product or service to bring to market, where and at what price to sell, for what audience and through what channels to launch advertising. The answers form a marketing plan.
Marketing plan as a media plan
The approach to marketing planning in companies may be different – it all depends on the standards in a given industry or a specific business. Somewhere a marketing plan, an event calendar, and a media plan are drawn up. And somewhere the marketing plan consists only of a media plan.
Let’s take, for example, a small clinic in a residential area that works for an audience within a radius of 5-10 kilometers. It may not have a large-scale plan, broken down by marketing complex, but only a promotion plan with specific channels: placement on online maps, on review sites, targeting.
Wholesale companies, on the contrary, can only have a marketing plan without a media plan. Since they do not need large-scale promotion, banner or TV advertising – they sell goods through their sales department or partners and are fully focused on sales. The most they do is place information about themselves in specialized directories, speak at conferences and exhibitions, and hold their own webinars.
The media plan includes only details on advertising placement: from setting goals to launching campaigns and evaluating their results. It is also designed as a table, for example in Excel, where the following is entered:
● type of advertising placement: banners, articles, posts on social networks;
● promotion channel: for example, SEO, contextual advertising;
● promotion timeframe;
● reach – how many users will see the advertisement;
● conversion forecast – the percentage of users who performed the target action: for example, bought a product;
● promotion budget;
● expected profit.
SOSTAC Model Plan
Another type is marketing planning according to the SOSTAC model, such a plan is usually drawn up in the form of a table. SOSTAC is an abbreviation that consists of six elements:
1. Situation Analysis
analysis of the current situation. It is necessary to study the company’s position on the market, its competitors, threats and opportunities.
2. Objectives – setting goals
The company defines and describes the goals in the plan.
3. Strategy
develop a plan for achieving goals.
4. Tactics — tactics
Indicate the tools that will help achieve goals. For example, contextual advertising, search engine optimization, email distribution, etc.
5. Action
At this stage, you need to detail the calendar plan of events step by step and determine the budget for each area.
6. Control
Here you can specify metrics that will help analyze the effectiveness of campaigns. It is also important to indicate the employees who will be responsible for different areas.
Marketing Plan Structure
Each company chooses what to include in marketing planning. But there are mandatory sections that make up the structure of the plan:
● Analysis
Marketers conduct a SWOT analysis – a study of the company’s strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the production and promotion of goods and services, and also study competitors.
● Goals
How to achieve them, what tasks and in what period of time need to be solved for this.
● Tactics
This is a calendar plan with a description of all actions that will lead to achieving the goal: launching advertising campaigns, offline events, changing positioning. For each direction, an employee is assigned who will be responsible for the result.
● Budget
How much money is needed to implement the plan. The budget is usually broken down by expense items and time periods.
● Performance evaluation
It is important to define the metrics by which the results will be evaluated in the plan. For example, coverage, profit, brand awareness. And also decide how often to adjust the tasks.
Developing a Marketing Plan
A marketing plan can be developed using the following algorithm:
1. Analysis of the current state of the company
To do this, you need to study:
● financial indicators. For example, revenue or market share occupied by the company;
● all opportunities and threats that may affect the company. For example, new laws, increase in the key rate, subsidies for business;
● competitors: who they are, what they are stronger and weaker at;
● client profile: gender, age, region of residence, income, hobbies, etc.
2. Setting goals
It is important to define what the company wants to achieve with the marketing strategy and plan. For example, to increase brand awareness, to occupy a new niche in the market, to increase revenue or audience.
3. Study the user’s path
After the general analysis and setting of goals, you can move on to studying the user’s path – the stages that a person goes through before buying a product or service. It is also called the Customer Journey Map (CJM). Each company has its own CJM. For example, a client of a furniture store who needs to furnish a kitchen may go through the following stages:
● Search for information. The client is inspired by pictures from social networks, photos of bloggers – interior designers. Reads about different furniture brands, asks for reviews from friends.
● Search for options where to buy. It is important for the client to touch the product, see its color not in the photo, but in person, so he looks for an offline store.
● Visiting a store. The customer studies the product, looks closely, and looks for alternatives.
● Purchase. The customer is satisfied with the choice and purchases the product.
4. Finding touchpoints
The next step in developing a marketing plan is to outline the touchpoints with the user at each stage of their journey. These are situations, places, and interfaces where the client comes into contact with the company or brand, for example:
● office, warehouse, store, social media accounts, mobile app, store on a marketplace, etc.;
● technologies: website, blog, answering machine, phone number;
● communication with company employees: for example, call center operators or sales consultants in a store;
● advertising materials: for example, blog articles, radio or TV commercials;
● communication channels: through search engines, social networks, pop-ups, promotions, exhibitions, etc.
5. Define timeframes, budgets, and metrics
Before creating a detailed action plan, it is important to determine in advance what metrics will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the events. Also, determine the overall campaign duration and budget. This will help to eliminate tasks that require too much time and money.
6. Create a step-by-step action plan
For each point of contact on the user’s path, it is necessary to describe what exactly to do, what metrics to influence, for what period of time and how much money to allocate for this. For example, how to bring traffic to the product landing page, what to place on it so that the client is interested, how much it will cost and what indicators to track. The result should be a calendar plan of activities and a media plan broken down by promotion channels.
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Examples
Most often, companies draw up marketing plans in the form of tables. Here are examples of plans for two companies – a hotel and a window manufacturing company:
1. Hotel marketing plan
This is what a marketing plan for a hotel in Tolyatti looks like. The first Excel sheet is dedicated to the calendar plan for the year. The company has outlined how it will congratulate clients on International Women’s Day, Mother’s Day, or Valentine’s Day. The second page of the plan is the promotion budget. The expenses for each month are indicated for different channels: contextual advertising, partner websites, radio, and print media.
2. Marketing plan for a window manufacturing company
The brand calendar specifies strategic steps: developing a slogan and a unique product proposition. There is a division by sales channels: aggregator sites, promotions, consultants in shopping centers. Work with Internet communications is planned: posting information about promotions on the site, promoting groups in social networks, publishing positive reviews on forums. A budget for three months is also scheduled.
