How to Create a Marketing Plan

A company's marketing plan is a comprehensive outline of its marketing strategy for the upcoming year. It details your target audience, sales strategies, and tactics for attracting new customers and boosting sales. The goal of creating a marketing plan is to thoroughly outline how to promote your products and services in the target market.

Conducting a Situational Analysis

Step 1: Define Your Company's Goals.

Begin by defining your company’s goals. The purpose of a situational analysis is to understand the current marketing environment your company is in. With this understanding, you can plan and implement the necessary changes in your business. Start by revisiting your company's mission and goals (if your company doesn't have these yet, it’s essential to establish them first) and check whether your current marketing plan helps you achieve these goals.

• For example, if your company offers snow removal and related winter services, your goal might be to increase revenue by 10% through new contracts. Is there a marketing plan in place that describes how to attract additional contracts? If so, is it effective?

Step 2: Analyze Your Current Marketing Strengths and Weaknesses.

Examine your current marketing strengths and weaknesses. What makes your company appealing to customers right now? What attracts customers to your competitors? Likely, your strengths are what draw customers to you. Knowing your strengths gives you a significant marketing advantage.

• Identify clear, undeniable advantages and strengths of your company that appeal to your customers. These relate to the internal characteristics of your company and define customer satisfaction levels.
• Potential advantages could include low prices, excellent customer service, friendliness towards customers, or speedy service.
• Understand what sets you apart from the competition. Differences may relate to your strengths or how exactly you conduct your business. If you want customers to choose you over competitors, you need to know in advance why they should.
• You should also be aware of your company's potential weaknesses, as these are significant internal characteristics for customers. Once you identify your weaknesses, you should begin addressing them, as neglecting them can give competitors a notable advantage.

Step 3: Study the Target Market.

Investigate your target market. It's crucial to know exactly who your products are intended for in order to direct your marketing strategy at the target audience. Understanding the target market and its needs will help you determine where and how to advertise your product. Without a clear understanding of your target market, you won't be able to build an effective system for adapting products and services to customer needs.

Expert Tip: Emily Hickey, MS
Founder of Chief Detective
Emily Hickey is the founder of Chief Detective, a social media marketing agency that helps several of the world's largest retail companies and startups promote themselves on Facebook and Instagram. She has over 20 years of development experience and earned her MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2006.

• Conduct demographic research. It’s useful to know your customers' age, gender, location, and even average income. Additionally, you need to understand the psychology behind their choices. For example, if your company does snow removal and your clients are large corporations, determine what aspect of snow removal services is most important to them.
• Utilize official statistics from your market and industry. You can look up economic indicators like price indexes and cost of goods, as well as employment statistics for the country, region, and city.
• If your company’s budget allows, consider commissioning specialized institutions for customized market research and analysis of current trends in your industry.
• Furthermore, you need to study your competitors. The only way to offer customers something they can’t get from competitors is to know exactly what makes your competitors appealing. Do they offer better prices? Do they have higher turnover rates? If so, how do they achieve this? Are they sometimes cutting corners and taking the easy route when preparing their business plans? Understanding competitors' strengths and weaknesses will allow you to carve the best path to success for your business.

Step 4: Gather Information on External Opportunities and Threats to Your Company.

Collect information on external opportunities and threats to your company. These will be external characteristics of the company that depend on competition, fluctuations in market factors, as well as customers and buyers. The goal is to identify various factors that could impact the business. This will allow you to adjust the marketing plan accordingly.

• Start by analyzing market trends, such as changes in buyer desires and needs, as well as their expectations from companies like yours.
• Pay attention to trends in the financial sector, such as the rise of virtual payment methods or current inflation rates.
• If you own a snow removal business and target government organizations, remember that their limited budgets make them more price-sensitive. In this case, your business development strategy and marketing plan should focus on how to provide the best combination of low price and good quality services.

Reviewing Your Company's Strengths and Weaknesses

Step 1: Send Surveys to Customers by Mail.

Send surveys to customers by mail. If you have a substantial base of regular customers, consider conducting a survey among them. This will help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your company. Consequently, the marketing plan you prepare will be based on your business's strengths (as you will know what customers appreciate). Additionally, you can work on correcting any weak points in your operations.

• Make sure your surveys are short and straightforward. Customers might be interested in participating but won’t want to spend too much time and effort on it. Aim for your survey to take up about half a page of A4 paper. If you need a more extensive survey, it should not exceed two pages (this is an absolute limit).
• Try to formulate questions that require brief, open-ended responses from customers, rather than forcing them to choose from a list of answers. Of course, if desired, you can include a few multiple-choice questions, but the majority should remain open-ended, such as: What do you like about our product/service? What do you like the least? What improvements would you like to see? You can also ask customers if they are willing to...
• Include a prepaid envelope with your survey, addressed to your company. Don’t burden customers with extra efforts and costs. Completing the survey should be as easy as possible for them.
• If you decide to conduct a survey by mail, don’t forget to budget for printing the surveys and mailing costs.

Step 2: Conduct an Email Survey.

Conduct an email survey. This type of survey is appropriate if you have collected email addresses from your customers as part of the contact information for your monthly newsletters. You can ask the same questions that you would include in printed surveys. However, with email surveys, there is a risk that your emails may end up in spam folders. You will never know what percentage of your emails were actually received, and there’s no guarantee that customers who received your email will choose to participate in the survey.

Step 3: Organize a Phone Survey.

Organize a phone survey. Phone surveys can be a sensitive topic, as many people find it annoying when unknown callers reach out with unclear purposes. However, if your business relies heavily on personal interactions with customers, there’s nothing wrong with conducting a phone survey. You can ask most of the same questions you’d include in a written survey: about your company’s strengths and weaknesses, and the likelihood of them recommending your company to others.

• A downside of phone surveys (besides the potential irritation of the customer) is the lack of a written record of the customer's response, which you would get from printed or electronic surveys. Thus, you may need someone with fast typing or writing skills to compile a summary or catalog of your customers' feedback.

Step 4: Conduct One-on-One Customer Surveys.

Conduct one-on-one customer surveys. These do not need to be extensive. You can simply ask a couple of related questions when you contact a customer to process their order or provide assistance. However, the best way to conduct a survey is through direct personal interaction with the customer, where you can precisely identify what improvements your business needs.

• Similar to a phone survey, during a personal survey, you will also need to record customer responses and feedback. This does not make personal surveys ineffective or unfeasible. You just need to plan all the details in advance if you decide to go this route.

Generating Ideas for Your Marketing Plan

Step 1: Gather All Available Information.

Collect all available information. Review the results of all the research you've conducted and decide how to expand your business. Compare your ideas with current realities and obstacles, taking into account actual and projected market trends, expected costs that may arise in the near future, the regions and demographic categories that are most successful for you, and competitors operating in those regions or targeting the same demographic groups.

Step 2: Assign Responsibilities.

Assign responsibilities. While preparing your marketing plan, you will need to designate individuals responsible for specific aspects of your company’s market promotion. Consider which employees are best suited to perform particular marketing functions and define their duties. You will also need to devise a system for assessing the success of those job responsibilities.

Step 3: Declare Marketing Goals.

Declare your marketing goals. What do you want to achieve with your marketing plan? Do you see the end goal as expanding your customer base, informing existing customers about new services and quality improvements, exploring other regions or demographic groups, or something else entirely? Your goals will serve as the foundation for your plan.

• Marketing goals should not contradict your company's core business objectives.
• When setting marketing goals, remember that they should be substantial and measurable. Otherwise, interpreting the results will be difficult, and you won’t be able to understand which strategies and approaches proved effective.
• Use indicators such as revenue growth, increased sales/production volume in physical terms, heightened public awareness of your company, and an increase in new customer numbers as guidelines.
• For example, a goal could be to increase the number of contracts signed by 10% or to boost the spread of information about your company on social media.

Step 4: Determine How to Achieve Your Goals.

Determine how to achieve your goals. Your strategic plan of action should address all three categories of customers: the cold category (those who do not know about you at all and need to be reached through advertising and direct product promotion), the warm category (those who are already familiar with your business or have at least seen your ads or participated in marketing campaigns), and the hot category (interested customers who know your company well and are ready to continue working with you). You will need to brainstorm ideas on how to reach all categories of existing and potential customers, depending on the marketing strategy you apply.

• For example, to inform the cold category of potential customers, you might use social media, radio ads, billboards, or flyers. For potential customers who have shown interest in the past or even had dealings with you, specially trained personnel can work to convince them that your products or services will be the best solution to their problems, based on the information gathered during marketing research.

Step 5: Develop Marketing Strategies to Achieve Your Goals.

Develop marketing strategies to achieve your goals. Once you clearly define your marketing goals and prospects, you will need to think about specific actions to achieve them. There are many different types of marketing strategies, but the most common ones are listed below.

• Corporate events or special activities organized directly in stores are an excellent way to attract customers. The event can be a banquet, social activity, or anything else that leaves a good impression on clients, motivates and unites your staff, or expands your potential client base.
• Social marketing methods are almost always successful. This is because they promote your business while simultaneously generating admiration for your products and services. For example, you could organize a contest in-store or on social media with a small reward for showing interest in your company or for following your social media group.
• Consider paying for short-term open support from a respected individual or group of individuals who already use your products and services. This kind of support can be entirely through social media. Not every budget can withstand such expenses, as costs can be quite high. However, in many cases, this move is very effective.
• Don’t overlook the value of smart and captivating advertising. A well-selected face and voice for your advertising campaign can yield extremely effective results.

Step 6: Think About the Role Social Media Can Play for You.

Consider the role social media can play for you. Various social networks can be a highly effective and cost-efficient means of advertising your business, so they should be included as a distinct component of your marketing plan. Social media can be useful for promoting special offers, discounts, product launches, and engaging with the target audience.

• Being active on social media will help you understand what your customers are thinking. Consider starting a blog or sharing information about potential customer issues and how your company can address them.
• Open discussion topics, online support, and surveys can be excellent ways to attract customer attention while simultaneously exploring their preferences and solidifying your brand in their final selection process.

Step 7: Approve the Budget.

Approve the budget. You may have grand ideas for promoting your business and expanding your customer base, but with a limited budget, you might have to partially rethink your strategy. The budget should be realistic and reflect both the current state of the business and its potential growth in the future.

• Assess your available finances. The realism of your budget lies in the fact that it must reflect the funds you can afford to spend. Don’t inflate the budget in hopes that your marketing plan will lead to a significant influx of revenue in the future. If it fails, you may find yourself wasting money unnecessarily.
• Start small, allocate the funds designated for marketing, and operate based on that. Turn to proven advertising methods that you know have the highest effectiveness in attracting new customers.
• Don’t be afraid to deviate from the plan. If a particular type of advertising doesn’t perform as desired (for example, newspaper ads fail to reach the target audience), try reallocating the time and funds assigned to it toward a more effective type of advertising.

Preparing the Marketing Plan

Step 1: Start with an Executive Summary.

Begin with an executive summary. This section of the marketing plan should include essential information about your products or services and briefly describe the overall content of the document in one or two paragraphs. Preparing the executive summary first will allow you to later expand and elaborate on specific points in the main body of the document.

• Remember that a well-prepared marketing plan is extremely useful for both your direct employees and your consultants.

Step 2: Describe the Target Market.

Describe the target market. The second section of the marketing plan will refer to the results of your research and outline the company’s target market. The text should not be overly complex; simple key points will suffice. Start with demographics of your market (including age, gender, location, and the field of activity of clients, if applicable), and then move on to specify customer preferences regarding your products or services.

Step 3: List Your Goals.

List your goals. This section should not exceed one page of text. It should outline the company's marketing goals for the upcoming year. Remember that the goals you set must satisfy five qualities: they should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely.

• For example, a well-defined goal might state: “Increase total revenue from government sector companies by 10% by the end of 2017.”

Step 4: Describe the Marketing Strategy.

Describe the marketing strategy. This section should contain information on how to implement the marketing plan, meaning a description of your overall marketing strategy. The focus here should be on your company’s unique selling proposition (USP), which is your primary competitive advantage. It will be easier to prepare the text for this section after you’ve laid out and planned the main strategic ideas. Remember, the strategy should help you sell your USP.

• This section should include information on how to contact customers (through trade shows, radio ads, phone calls, online advertising) and explain the overall approach to motivating people to make purchases. All this should be built around customer needs and how your USP can satisfy them.
• The more specific you can be in this section, the better.

Step 5: Specify the Budget.

Specify the budget. This section of the marketing plan should indicate the total amount of funds that should be spent on promoting products, as well as specific goals for spending that amount. It’s wise to divide all upcoming expenses into categories and summarize costs for each expenditure direction.

• For example, 500,000 rubles should be allocated for participation in trade shows, 500,000 for radio advertising, 20,000 for flyers, 100,000 for new promotional methods, and 200,000 for optimizing the company’s website.

Step 6: Update the Marketing Plan Annually (at a minimum).

Update the marketing plan annually (at a minimum). Don’t assume the marketing plan will continue to function without adjustments. In most cases, marketers recommend reviewing marketing plans at least once a year. This helps to understand what goals have already been achieved, what (based on current data) will continue to support further growth, and which elements of the marketing plan need adjustments.

• When reviewing the marketing plan annually, be objective. If something isn’t working or if someone responsible is not acting in the best interests of the company, you can openly discuss existing issues and failures with the staff. If things are going particularly poorly, you may need to prepare a completely new marketing plan. In such cases, it can be helpful to hire an outside consultant to assess the pros and cons of the old marketing plan and its effectiveness.