Creating a marketing plan: on the road to visibility

Business success depends on a number of factors, such as how good the product or service is, whether it meets the needs of consumers, but also how well organised the company is. However, it is worth noting that even the most professional company cannot profit from the best product if it does not reach its target group and gain attention. This is the field of marketing, of which the marketing plan is the foundation and the holy bastion. In this blog post, we'll explain what a marketing plan is and what elements you need to cover when preparing a marketing plan.

What is a marketing plan?

A marketing plan is part of a business plan, a written document that describes how the company will carry out marketing and advertising activities to achieve its business objectives. In other words, given a target in the business plan, for example, how many customers to bring in over a period of time, and the marketing plan shows how those customers will be acquired. It should be seen as a map that guides us along the path to the targets.

A marketing plan is more than just a list of company channels and advertising opportunities. The tools must be assembled to form a coherent whole, supporting and reinforcing each other. It must therefore take into account the business plan, the specificities of the tools and the environment.

The marketing plan is a basic tool, but it is a mistake to think that it is enough to prepare it once. It is worth revising it from time to time, as the environment and the market are constantly changing and the marketing plan needs to keep pace with these dynamics.

What is the purpose and why is it essential to have a marketing plan?

A marketing plan helps you to better see the market potential and helps you to find your target markets. By creating a marketing plan, you can organise your assets and associate messages with them, while keeping KPIs and cost/revenue in mind.
The marketing plan is designed to channel and control the flow of information about the product or service. It does this in such a way that it guides the company at all points towards achieving its objectives.

Structure of the marketing plan

Executive summary

The executive summary is particularly important, as the marketing plan may end up in the hands of someone who will not read through the detailed document, only the executive summary. It must therefore be of such quality that it will be familiar with the guidelines, objectives and tools to someone who only has the executive summary in his or her hands. The most important information should therefore be summarised here in a maximum of 2 pages.

It is also advisable to prepare the executive summary when you have the other elements in place, so that nothing is left out.

Market and competitive analysis

Market analysis is essential when preparing a marketing plan. It is a research exercise that offers the opportunity to explore the economic, social and technological environment, to learn about industry trends and, last but not least, to analyse competitors. The latter is particularly important, as it is only by knowing what others have come up with that we can put together a marketing plan that will put us first in the market. It can be very useful to take examples and good practices from abroad - you can learn a lot from them.

Analysing the target group

To create the right messages and choose the most effective channels, you need to know your target audience. You need to get an idea of what motivates their buying decisions? What are their needs? What do they expect from your products and services? Once you know these things, it's much easier to find the channels and formulate messages that hit the mark.

Setting targets

A marketing plan can only be effective if you can see where you want to go, have a clear and unambiguous vision of what the mission is and set out objectives. In order to measure the success of the activity, it is useful to set KPIs, i.e. quantified targets, so that it will be easier to decide what is working well and what needs to change.

Setting up a marketing strategy

With the knowledge of the market, the business and the target group, we can draw up a marketing strategy, which contains the specific steps to be taken to achieve the objectives. It summarises what offline and digital marketing tools you want to use and through which channels. This is a major part of the marketing plan and the part that is constantly changing and evolving according to circumstances and the market. It is therefore worth being flexible in terms of strategy, but it is important that the goals and mission do not change!

The marketing budget and risk analysis

A budget helps you to know how much money is available for marketing campaigns and other activities. It is also a good idea to budget for contingencies, as there is always the possibility that an unexpected event will occur and extra resources will need to be allocated. It is worthwhile to gather information on the risks and problems that may arise. For these situations, you should prepare a solution scenario!

Check

Once you have a marketing plan, read it over and over again, trying to think through each element from different angles. If you need to, feel free to touch it up and improve it.

The marketing plan will help you to achieve your business goals, and Meraki will help you to have a marketing plan that can drive you forward on the road to success. Click here to read on our website how we work!