Business readiness: Marketing Plan

What is a Marketing Plan?

A marketing plan outlines the marketing goals, objectives and challenges faced by your company and the strategies adopted to mitigate them.

A marketing plan is a comprehensive business document that outlines the marketing objectives and strategies of your company for various business offerings, across jurisdictions.

Prepared for a specific period, a marketing plan usually covers:

• Objectives and Strategies: Short and long-term marketing goals and strategies (including pricing and go-to-market strategy) formulated by your company
• Risks and Challenges: Anticipated challenges in the market and their impact on your brands as well as strategies formulated to mitigate these challenges
• Channels: Key marketing channels and various agencies used by your company to advertise and promote your products or services
• Functional Teams: Details of key marketing personnel of your company and their respective roles and responsibilities
• Products and Services: Details and features of products and services offered by your company, focusing on the unique selling propositions vis-à-vis your competitors
• Budget and Timelines: Marketing budget allocated and key milestones assigned by your company for the execution of the marketing plan
• Success Assessment: Methods used to track and evaluate the performance of marketing strategies adopted by your company

Why is a Marketing Plan important for business today?

A marketing plan enables your company to:

• Communicate marketing objectives and strategies to all stakeholders and bring them onto the same page
• Develop a baseline estimate of resources required to develop and achieve marketing objectives
• Assess the budget allocated and timelines assigned to achieve your marketing plan
• Identify and outline the marketing and distribution channels to be used and their associated costs
• Communicate the features and unique selling propositions of your offerings to your customers
• Set measurable goals and key performance indicators to measure the effectiveness of marketing strategies adopted by your company

Why is a Marketing Plan important for an event tomorrow?

A marketing plan is important for an event tomorrow, as it helps:

• Assess historical marketing targets and strategies as well as the timelines in place to achieve them
• Understand and analyze the reasons behind any volatility in marketing campaign timelines
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the marketing channels and agency work performed for your company
• Benchmark the historical marketing plans’ performance against the timelines and resources allocated
• Evaluate and assess your company’s offerings against those of your competitors
• Analyze and understand the key performance indicators for measuring marketing success
• Identify any challenges faced by your company and asses their impact on your marketing plan
• Evaluate your company’s target market, customer base and marketing capabilities

Pros of addressing Marketing Plans

• Promote and market business offerings efficiently to your customers at optimal prices
• Outline your company’s marketing goals, strategies and challenges
• Mitigate business risks by periodically tracking marketing goals and planning for budget and volatilities
• Identify challenges and potential pitfalls in your overall commercialization strategy
• Enable your marketing teams to plan their resources in advance
• Improve coordination and communication across different departments within your company
• Monitor and benchmark actual marketing spend against budget allocations

Cons of not addressing this topic

• Increase in marketing inefficiencies as marketing objectives, strategies and timelines are not defined
• Limited ability to identify marketing challenges and assessment of their impact on your marketing plan and business growth
• Difficult to communicate the unique selling propositions of your products to your customers
• Restriction on growth potential, as marketing channels and agencies are not identified
• Inadequate understanding of market, customers and competitors
• Difficulty in tracking marketing performance, as success performance metrics are not set up

ALSO LEARN ABOUT

• Sales Strategy
• Top Customers
• Top Suppliers
• Business KPI
• Project Planning Documentation
• Business Processes