By: Betty Moore,
(Founder, Ignition Point)
www.ignitionpt.com
The marketing plan
sample is a
pre-requisite for a successful company, and should be followed by a
sales plan. These two key pieces of strategy support a highly
effective business rollout. But how do you put together your marketing
plan? Who should be involved? What supporting evidence is required to
minimize risk? A comprehensive marketing plan will be comprised of two
parts: a strategic plan, and a tactical plan.
The strategic plan
A couple of years ago, I met with a
VP marketing whose company was in a perilous state of decline. They
had been in business for three years, and had made virtually no sales.
Pricing for the flagship product had been volatile, starting out as
high as $40K and ending up as low as $9K, with no real indication of
where it should be. The VP marketing’s time was filled with small
decisions over how to produce cheap graphics. His efforts hurt the
company even further over time, since he was acting without a formal
marketing plan to guide his efforts.
Sometimes, companies make
ill-informed decisions about investing in a good marketing plan. They
move forward based on hunches, reacting to the last thing that took
place in the customer environment. It could not be worse.
Hurting or helping?
Undertaking the effort of doing a
marketing plan sample will help your company see whether its activities are
hurting or helping the effort. I have worked with many people over the
years who generated materials without central guidance from a written,
approved marketing plan. In more than just a few instances, the
investment in unguided marketing collateral has hurt the company’s
efforts, not helped.
Get input from the top
If I owned the company that spent
money to hurt itself, I would be extremely unhappy to know that my
hard-earned money was spent hurting my chances for success. On the
other hand, I guess I’d have to blame myself too. The senior
management team must be involved in the development and ratification
of the marketing plan. The stakes are just too high. If there is no
formal marketing plan in place for your company, get one drafted. Now.
Don’t wait.
A marketing plan doesn’t have to
take months to complete
The marketing plan
sample can be drafted
in about two weeks. It may take about a month to validate its
assumptions, but think of it. Within two weeks, you’ll have a good
idea of what your company must do to achieve its financial goals.
Within 6 weeks, you can move forward with certainty. Get some good
advice when crafting your marketing plan — don’t delegate it to a
junior or a co-op student. Just like an excellent financial footing or
a great product platform, your company needs this to thrive.
Separate strategic from tactical
marketing
Strategic marketing plans are very
different from tactical marketing plans. Strategic plans deal with
foundational issues such as long-term strategy, customer needs, demand
creation, competitive positioning, pricing, distribution, leverage,
program support, strategic alliances, and windows of opportunities.
Market research and third-party support are needed to quantify or
validate assumptions in the strategic plan. This plan can’t be
developed without conversations at senior management level.
Tactical marketing deals with
development of tools and tactics to create awareness and convey the
key arguments for sale. A tactical marketing plan sample will show how ads,
collateral, trade shows, PR and other activities will generate
qualified leads to feed the sales force, fulfill information requests,
advance the sales effort, and support the long-term marketing goals
expressed in the strategic plan.
Marketing strategists
Senior marketing strategists are few and far between. They will be
ambitious, astute individuals who will have a no-nonsense attitude
towards building the master plan. They will build clear-sighted,
aggressive plans to move the company towards its stated business
goals. They will ask for the business plan to guide their efforts, and
will initiate one if it does not exist. They will need sufficient
budgets to advance, and people to support their efforts.
They will need the commitment of the senior management team to guide,
ratify and support the plan. They will need money for market research
to validate assumptions, and will be able to identify the percentage
risk to determine if efforts should be suspended until research
results are in.
Marketing tacticians
There are many experienced marketing tacticians in the Ottawa area.
These individuals have experience in crafting tactical marketing
plans, and can assist in delivering ad campaigns, websites, brochures,
trade shows, customer newsletters, or channel support tools. They will
work with communications professionals to deliver consistent messaging
through PR, in support of the company’s marketing goals.
They will include lead generation targets (how many qualified leads
are needed from this activity), and will provide effectiveness
measurements for the programs they undertake (how many leads were
actually generated?). They may need research budgets to be effective
as well.
I remember one company whose senior
management wanted to significantly improve its customer service
levels, but offered no benchmark measurement of this service level
against which the marketing tacticians could show progress. When a
budget for market research was requested, it was denied — management
claimed they had no money for research. The marketing team had no hope
of making a proven difference through their efforts. It’s like asking
your Formula 1 driver to win the race without telling them where the
finish line is.
Strategic marketing plan
sample framework
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Certain core issues are dealt with
in the strategic plan, including:
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background discussion, revealing the overall market in which the
company operates, the history of the market’s growth, and the current
situation leading to a revelation of the market opportunity
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the
market opportunity (quantified as total available market, anticipated
share, and timing of opportunity window)
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geographic area of activity (short and long-term rollout)
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define
whether the opportunity is horizontal (across many industrial sectors)
or vertical (within distinct industry sectors)
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define
target customer (demographic description, including age, sex,
educational background, job title, salary level, and marital status,
as well as psychographic description, including what the person is
worried about from day to day, both personally and professionally)
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identify
sales influencers and decision chain, to ensure that all those
affecting the decision to buy are targeted
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competitive review (name and rank the competitors, identify their
specific advantages and weaknesses over you, and show which competitor
is your key target for stealing share)
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strategy
for market introduction of product and/or company, or for introduction
of new product/service offering, including timeframes
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recommended positioning and value proposition
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input to
product strategy, based on customer needs assessment
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pricing
strategy (defend it)
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distribution network (for shipping physical product into the field for
purchase by customers, if needed)
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required
budget to support the effort and its related market research
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required
human resources to support the effort
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threats
to success, and how they will be mitigated or reduced
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staged,
step-by-step process for implementation, with timeframes
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overview
of recommended tactical support objectives or methods, with rationales
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strategic allies, if needed
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supporting evidence (research reports, third-party testimonials,
editorial coverage of market in industry publications, etc.)
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