Marketing Plan Outline
This marketing plan outline will help small business owners put together a strategy to launch a new product or service or will help those who are starting a small operation or running their business.
Marketing Plan Outline:
1.Executive Summary:
The executive summary is really a spotlight page of the contents of the marketing plan outline. Typically it needs to reference the key points of your plan and come back with the who, what, why, when, where, and how questions. This summary is always done at the end – after the other parts of the system are finished.
2.Company Review:
◦Background data on the organization (date incorporated, operation purpose, history, number of employees, primary product/service.
◦Include the company’s vision statement, which is a view of the company’s long-term and future direction, and the company’s value argument. Both will keep your strategy focused and aligned on your business.
3.Environmental Scan:
◦Industry analysis
◦Competitive Analysis; including an analysis of competitive advantage
◦Suppliers to your business
◦Regulatory
◦Customers
4.Market:
There are two types of markets: mass markets (you’re selling to the world – much like an online operation) or target markets (you’re selling to a specific targeted segment of the market) – also referred to as target marketing or marketing segmentation.
As a small business owner, typically you will want to direct your market and you will therefore need to do market segmentation.
◦Market segmentation is about segmenting the target market so that you can better target them with your offer. This could be done at a fairly basic or at a very detailed level.
5.Identify Your Target market with your marketing plan outline:
◦Select your chief, secondary, and perhaps even your tertiary markets based on your marketplace segmentation.
6.Build Your marketplace Strategy:
Your market strategy needs to contain a main goal or mission statement (that connects to the Company’s mission statement). It also needs to have your marketing objectives and how you plan to accomplish them (the action plan next steps).
◦Why does what you sell benefit your (potential) customer?
◦Describe your market’s needs and wants.
◦Describe how your operation will meet them.
◦Define your product’s status from the perspective of your target client and relative to your competitors.
◦Define the general strategies you will use (keeping in mind your target market’s need and wants and your operation product or service benefits.
◦Define marketing mix:
◦Product or Service: Features, advantages, benefits, specifications, improvements, problems/challenges.
7.Measure Your outcomes:
Your marketing plan outline must contain a system to measure operation performance and specific marketing outcomes.
◦How many sales did you get through your affiliate or referral programs?
◦How many orders through the web; through walk-in?
◦Did buyers flood your phone lines after they read about you in the local paper?
Keep track of your selling strategies, programs and tactics and measure results against these activities. Focus on those activities that give you the best outcomes and spend less time, energy and money on those activities that don’t increase sales.
8.Marketing Plan Outline – Additional Elements To Include:
Your marketing plan outline needs to also include the orders plan, the operation operations strategy and operation financial strategy.
Marketing Plan Outline