Marketing Plan

Marketing Plan

A Marketing plan is an essential part to any startup. If you want to sell lemonade on the side of the road, run for president of the United States, or start a nonprofit that helps Homeowners stop foreclosure then you are going to need a marketing plan. No matter how big or how small the business is going to be a marketing plan is a must.

This Hub is about the general nature of a marketing plan.

What is a Marketing Plan?

Marketing Plan

• A document that displays the procedures, processes, steps, and overall plans of how a product and or service will be sold or marketed.

Main Topics or Ideas in a Marketing Plan:

• Product- A marketing plan will obviously need a detailed description of a product or service that will be sold.
• Price- A marketing plan needs to explain pricing strategy.
• Promotion- How will the product or service be advertised and promoted.
• Place- A marketing plan needs to describe the distribution process and strategy. Where will the product be sold

What Goes into Making a Marketing Plan?

Making a marketing plan or maybe a better way to phrase it the process of marketing planning should follow the same basic blue print. The detail and depth of a marketing plan will of course vary with the size and type of Business and product and or service.

Marketing Planning Processes or Steps

1. You need to do your research. You want to gather any relevant data available with in your company as well as outside your company. You are going to want a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of your company and your product or service.
2. You need to create some basic Assumptions. You will not be able to know or predict the future. But you need to have a guesstimate at the very least. For instance if your distribution methods are going to involve considerable fuel costs then you need to try and predict the gas prices of the future.
3. You are going to want to come up with some basic marketing objectives. What are you going to try and accomplish?
4. You need to develop some marketing strategies. How are you going to differentiate from the competition? What are your selling points?
5. You are going to want to create some budgeting models and forecasts. What are the costs and the expenses? How many units will you sell per year what are the growth rates.
6. Updates corrections and revisions over and over.

What can a Marketing Plan be Used For?

All marketing plans generally follow the same structure but the exact nature or I should say use of a marketing plan will usually fall into one of three categories or purposes.

1. As part of a complete business plan

2. Prepare an argument for introducing a new product or service to a companies existing products

3. To improve on a existing product and or service