The marketing component of a business plan is crucial. It is the process of reaching out to potential customers in order to market and sell products or services. No matter how big or small the company, having a solid marketing strategy is essential to its success. There are unlimited approaches to marketing plan, as well as goals that can influence the structure of the plan. As for the purpose of this article, I will be discussing an effective marketing plan structure for a business growth.
Executive summary should be your first heading, which highlights the overall marketing plan, including aspects such as professional overview of the company (i.e., key mission, industry, and company value proposition) and goals (i.e., current goals and time frame of campaign).
Market research is the second heading where it discusses the company information that you gathered to develop the marketing plan. You will need to conduct a SWOT analysis of the company, competitive landscape (i.e., market size and competition), and crafting a buyer persona that represent the ideal customers of the company’s products or services.
Strategy is the following heading, which has the details of how you will be conducting the marketing plan and what tactics will be used. In this section, you should your goals, objectives, and KPIs deep details. For example, if your objective was increasing brand awareness, your KPIs should have a specific percentage such as increase website traffic by 30% or increase engagement by 20%. Below is a model of a recommended structure to craft an effective strategy:
Goal #1
- Objective 1 – Goal #1
- KPI #1 – Objective #1
- KPI #2 – Objective #2
- Objective 2 – Goal #2
- KPI #1 – Objective #1
- KPI #2 – Objective #2
Marketing Budget is the fourth heading where it is all about numbers. In this phase, you will create a table that discusses the cost of each marketing expense you will be using for your marketing plan and for how long. It should have specific details such as cost per click and target of number of click for each platform if you are doing a social media advertisement.
Execution calendar is following heading that highlights the details of the marketing plat timeline. This section has detail certain actions to be taken at a particular time. By this time, you should have already crafted your strategy, where you will design a time frame for each objective and KPI to be accomplished. If your company aim to achieve annual goals through the marketing plan, the recommended timeline for an effective marketing plan execution is 12 weeks to accomplish those annual goals.
Analytics lastly, which discuss the metrics, monitoring and evaluation of the marketing plan and KPIs. By this part of the marketing plan, you should know what metrics that you recommend monitoring to drive results. Also, how do suggest your metrics to be monitored and evaluated.