Marketing Plan

The Marketing Plan is an important document for both large and newly started organization it’s a very detailed, deeply researched and, hopefully, well written report that evaluate inside and possibly outside the organization.

    The employees working in marketing department have to understand the result of past marketing decision
    The marketing personnel have to understand the market in which they operate.
   They should set the future goals and provides guideline for future marketing efforts that every employee within the organization should understand and follow.

The Marketing Plan is essential because of the following reasons:

    It’s important part of the yearly planning process in the marketing functional area.
    It’s used for specialized strategy for the introduction of new product planning, entering new markets, or trying a new strategy to fix an existing problem.
    It’s a section of business plan used for the proposal of a new business to the financial community.

There are different ways to write marketing plan one of the way is as follows.

Steps of marketing plan

1. Purpose and Mission
2. Situational Analysis
3. Marketing Strategy and Objectives
4. Tactical Programs
5. Budgets, Performance Analysis and Implementation
6. Additional Consideration

This plan is mostly used for individual product and product lines, however, it can also be used in planning one or more strategic business units (SBU).

1.Purpose and Mission

[sky]You will start you marketing plan from your mission statement or your purpose of the business to more elaborate the concept of mission statement it will be defined as by answering the questions ” what I do””What I want to do?”You will begin your marketing plan mission statement and also defined you product (mission statement is basically the core massage about the company purpose or answers the question why company exist)

2.Situational Analysis

A situation analysis is the base of the strategic planning process for marketing plan. It is the evaluation of both the internal factors (to identify strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (to identify opportunities and threats) it is the most important section of marketing plan and also very time consuming. The following area should be cover in situational analysis i.e. current product, current target market, current distributor network, current competitors, financial analysis and external forces

Current Products

This section of situational analysis describes the current product which the company is offering to their customer in terms of Product attribute, pricing, distribution, promotion and services offered

Product attribute

Describe the features of the product offered to the customer and how it’s beneficial for them if they use it and as well describe the branding strategies.

Pricing

Describe the price on which company offer their product and services not only to the end user but as well to the distributors, incentives and discounts are also mentioned.

Distribution

Describe the availability of offered products for the consumer or end user including the channel used like benefits received by distributors, shipping process and how they will handle the orders.

Promotion

Describe how product will be promoted through advertising and other promotional program like public relations, sales promotion, personal selling and positioning.

Services offered

Describes the services offer to the end users and distributors after purchase of the product this step is not used for the consumable product it’s for the product which cannot be consumed like computer.

Current Target Market

This section of situational analysis describes the target market approach, demographic and psychographics, characteristics of target audience or customer, Product positioning, Attitudes, purchasing process and market size estimates

Target market approach

Via which strategy the marketers will approach their target audience or customers?
Different approaches is used like mass marketing and segmentation approach it’s depend on the product and thinking of marketer that which approach would be batter to approach your target audience or customers

Demographic and psychographics

It describes the profile of your target audience to you want offer your product the profile includes the following factors gender, income occupation age education attitude, purchasing behavior, geographic region this will help us to determine that what is the taste, range of buying and what benefit they get from a product for which they are using a specific product

Product positioning and attitude

Evaluate the customers that what is their perceptions about the product which have relevant attributes doing so you will come to know that your target audience or customer will like your product or not.

Purchasing process

Ask different questions from your customer from which you come to know that

    How the target audience or customers make their purchases?
    What make them to purchase the specific product?
    How they make decisions for buying a product?
    Is the consumer himself or herself is the purchaser?
    Who or what factors persuade the purchase?

Market size estimates

This portion describe the size estimation of the potential market, estimation of current market and future growth rates for estimation you have to get the answer of the following question

Which is the largest market if all is buyer? (Answer will be estimation of potential market and current market)

What is the percentage that actually potential market purchases? (Answer will be estimation of future growth)

Current distributor network

This section of situational analysis describes the channel through which your companies sell and deliver the product
Different options for company for distribution.

    Sell direct to customer
    Sell indirect or through a distributor
    Sell with the combination of both

You should know the required benefits of distributors which will describe you the role of the product in the distributor’s network.

    What is the effect of a product in the distributors business?
    What is the importance of the product in the distributor’s strategy?
    What is the perception of distributors about product?

By these questions you will come to know that how distributors view your product compare to competitors product.As the purchasing process and demographic of target customer is include in current target market section you should also include distributors demographic and purchasing process in this section because if you are selling your product indirectly then distributors becomes your customers

Current Competitors

This section of situational analysis describes the current competitors and products which they are offering to their customers in terms of Product attribute, pricing, distribution, promotion and services offered and competitor is described in terms of strength and weaknesses and consider marketing issues like R&D capabilities, target market perception, financial standing, and future competitive threats

Current Financial Condition

This section of situational analysis describes the current sale analysis which include total market sale, total for marketing product and total for competition and it is sub divided into different categories i.e. Total by segments or product which include total for segments, total for company product and total for competition after that Total by the channel of distribution which include total for each channel, companies product by channel and total for competition the last category in this section is Total by the geographic region which include total for each region, company product by region and total competition by region

Now you would be thinking that why we mention the current sale analysis and the sub divided categories it will help us for profitable analysis which include Revenues and Marketing expenses

Profitable analysis

Revenues

This section is covered from the current sale analysis and its sub divided categories.