Developing winning marketing strategies is time-consuming. But an effective plan is likely to improve profits and customer satisfaction.
Placing yourself deep in your customer’s mind on their desires and needs helps you understand why they want your product or service rather than your competitor’s.
Getting started is sometimes the biggest hurdle to overcome so we’ve created a simple marketing plan template that anyone can put to work on their business.
A marketing plan outlines the journey your organisation undertakes to deliver a desired financial outcome. It answers many of the following questions:
Here is a basic outline of what your plan should contain. The pdf download below includes additional notes and guidance on completing each section.
A two-page summary of the document providing enough data for someone to quickly grasp your concepts and financial projections.
Information on your market position and external forces influencing your decisions.
Understanding exactly the type of customers who’ll buy from you is essential. B2C target groups have some of the following characteristics:
If you’re targeting a B2B sector, you made also have these traits about your personas:
Information about the type of company you represent, its core values, and how your company communicates with its audience.
A description of the key products or services you’re targeting to the customer groups that you outlined in the previous section.
Calculations on the pricing strategy and discounting tables that the sales team use when dealing directly with customers.
The different wholesale and retail pricing plans together with strategies for retail sales.
Details of the different sales channels used for selling the products. These may include direct sales, face-to-face sales, online transactions, call centres, and affiliate marketing.
List the key communications material produced for your campaign. Explain why you utilise individual media channels such as direct mail or radio together with the Return on Investment (ROI) for each channel.
Highlight the investment together with financial returns over the period of the plan.
You can download a pdf copy of our template below to use for your business.
You can use it for brand development, product launches, service refreshes or any other related marketing activity. This template has been downloaded by students and business owners over 65,000 times over the years and is proven to help develop your ideas into successful plans.
Your completed plan will help you precisely target your chosen customer segments and check if you’ve achieved your objectives at the end of the project.
Use the Ansoff Matrix below to assist with segmentation planning.
Each of the segments could be a target for your marketing. Each have different strategies to improve market share depending on the customers you want to develop.
