How to write a marketing plan

Your marketing plan should start with an executive summary, which gives a quick overview of the main points of the plan.

However, although the executive summary appears at the beginning of the plan, you should write it last. Writing the summary is a good opportunity to check that your plan makes sense and that you haven't missed any important points.

Business strategy

It's a good idea to introduce the main body of the plan with a reminder of your overall business strategy, including:

• what your business is about (your business mission)
• your key business objectives
• your broad strategy for achieving those objectives

This helps to ensure that your marketing plan, your marketing strategy and your overall business strategy all work together. For example, suppose your business strategy is based on providing premium quality products and service. Your marketing strategy and plan will need to take this into account. It should target customers who appreciate quality, promoting your product in ways that help build the right image and so on.

Marketing strategy

You should segment your customers into particular groups characterised by their 'needs'. Identifying these groups and their needs through market research and market reports, and then addressing those needs more successfully than your competitors, should be one of the key elements of your marketing strategy.

You can then create a marketing strategy that makes the most of your strengths and matches them to the needs of the customers you want to target. For example, if a particular group of customers is looking for quality first and foremost, then any marketing activity aimed at them should draw attention to the high quality of your products or service.

Understanding the environment your business operates in is a key part of planning, and will allow you to discern the threats and opportunities associated with your area of business.

An external analysis looks at the wider business environment that affects your business.

An internal analysis looks at factors within your business such as your strengths and weaknesses.

Examining your internal and external analyses together gives you a complete picture of your current situation and the steps you can take to plan your marketing.

PESTLE external analysis

A PESTLE analysis helps you to identify the main external opportunities and threats in your market:

• Political changes such as trade agreements between countries 
• Economic factors such as interest rates, exchange rates and consumer confidence
• Social factors such as changing attitudes and lifestyles, and the ageing population
• Technological factors such as new materials and growing use of the internet
• Environmental factors such as environmental law and impact on the environment
• Legal factors such as new and existing legislation 

SWOT internal analysis 

You also need to understand your own internal strengths and weaknesses. 

A SWOT analysis combines external and internal analysis to summarise your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. For example, a new business may note the following:

• Strength: enthusiastic employees or a unique product
• Weakness: no existing customer base and limited finances
• Opportunity: potential customers with problem the product solves, interested investors
• Threat: competition from established businesses with a bigger budget

You need to look for opportunities that play to your strengths. You also need to decide what to do about threats to your business and how you can overcome important weaknesses.

For example, your SWOT analysis might help you identify the most promising customers to target. You might decide to look at ways of using the internet to reach customers. And you might start to investigate ways of raising additional investment to overcome your financial weakness.

To find out more about strategic analysis, see measure performance and set targets.

Invest NI's Business Direction Tutorial includes a chapter on how to use SWOT analysis to assess your business. See the video below:

Your marketing objectives should be based on understanding your strengths and weaknesses, and the business environment you operate in. They should also be linked to your overall business strategy.

For example, suppose your business objectives include increasing sales by 10 per cent over the next year. Your marketing objectives might include targeting a promising new market segment to help achieve this growth.

For more information on how to identify the best opportunities, see external and internal analysis for your marketing plan.

Objectives should always be SMART:

• Specific - for example, you might set an objective of getting ten new customers.
• Measurable - whatever your objective is, you need to be able to check whether you have reached it or not when you review your plan.
• Achievable - you must have the resources you need to achieve the objective. The key resources are usually people and money.
• Realistic - targets should stretch you, not demotivate you because they are unreasonable and seem to be out of reach.
• Time-bound - you should set a deadline for achieving the objective. For example, you might aim to get ten new customers within the next 12 months.

Once you have decided what your marketing objectives are, and your strategy for meeting them, you need to plan how you will make the strategy a reality.

Many businesses find it helpful to think in terms of the four Ps:

• Product - what your product offers that your customers value, and whether/how you should change your product to meet customer needs.
• Pricing - for example, you might aim simply to match the competition, or charge a premium price for a quality product and service. You might have to choose either to make relatively few high margin sales, or sell more but with lower unit profits. Remember that some customers may seek a low price to meet their budgets, while others may view a low price as an indication of quality levels. See price your product or service.
• Place - how and where you sell. This may include using different distribution channels. For example, you might sell over the internet or sell through retailers.
• Promotion - how you reach your customers and potential customers. 

Some examples of promotion include: 

• advertising: the basics
• public relations (PR)
• direct marketing: the basics  
• social media
• pay-per-click and paid search advertising
• email marketing
• telemarketing

For a more comprehensive approach, you can extend this to seven Ps:

• People - for example, you need to ensure that your employees have the right training. See training your staff.
• Processes - the right processes will ensure that you offer a consistent service that suits your customers.
• Physical evidence - the appearance of your employees and premises can affect how customers see your business. Even the quality of paperwork, such as invoices, makes a difference.

Your marketing plan must do more than just say what you want to happen. It must describe each step required to make sure that it happens.

Schedule

The plan should include a schedule of key tasks. This sets out what will be done, and by when. Refer to the schedule as often as possible to avoid losing sight of your objectives under the daily workload.

Resources

It should also assess what resources you need. For example, you might need to think about what brochures you need, and whether they need to be available for digital distribution (by email or from your website). You might also need to look at how much time it takes to sell to customers and whether you have enough salespeople.

Cost

The cost of everything in the plan needs to be included in a budget. If your finances are limited, your plan will need to take that into account. Don't spread your marketing activities too thinly - it is better to concentrate your resources to make the most of your budget. You may also want to link your marketing budget to your sales forecast. 

Control

As well as setting out the schedule, the plan needs to say how it will be controlled. You need an individual who takes responsibility for pushing things along. A good schedule and budget should make it easy to monitor progress. When things fall behind schedule, or costs overrun, you need to be ready to do something about it and to adapt your plan accordingly.

From time to time, you need to stand back and ask whether the plan is working. What can you learn from your mistakes? How can you use what you know to make a better plan for the future?

To write a successful marketing plan, it is important to:

• set clear, realistic and measurable targets - for example, increasing sales by 10 per cent
• include deadlines for meeting targets
• provide a budget for each marketing activity
• specify who is responsible for each activity

Make sure you think through each of your objectives logically. For example, you might set a target for the number of new enquiries. But if you don't provide the resources and training to follow up these enquiries and turn them into sales, you will have increased costs without any benefits.

Link to your strategy

Assess the business environment to identify the opportunities and threats that you face. Look for where you can capitalise on your strengths or where you need to overcome a weakness.

All parts of your business must work together. For example, if you have limited cashflow you should avoid seeking large orders from customers who demand extended credit or that will involve you in heavy, up-front costs.

Remember to focus on your long-term strategy. Reducing customer service might boost short-term profits, but next year you might not have any customers left.

Make it happen

A plan will not happen by itself. You need to make someone responsible for monitoring progress and chasing up overdue activities. Reviewing progress will also help you learn from your mistakes so that you can improve your plans for the future.

Download a marketing plan template (DOC, 409K).