What Is a Marketing Plan?

Every business needs a marketing plan. It helps guide your marketing efforts and keeps you on track to hit your marketing objectives. The problem is that creating one can get complicated, really complicated. It’s not so bad if you’re familiar with marketing jargon and acronyms like swot and kpi. But if you’ve never created one before and want to hit the ground running, it can feel like you need an mba in marketing just to get started. That’s why we created the one-page marketing plan. You’ll learn how to fill it in shortly. But first, let’s make sure we understand the basics… despite many people using these terms interchangeably, they’re very different things.

學會了你連電影看起來都有味道 註：本文內容參考了書籍： one page business strategy : streamline your business plan in four simple steps 、 good strategy bad strategy: the difference and why it matters 。其中one page business strategy裡面針對goal和objective的定義和我的定義相反，不過不影響整體概念。 想像個情景，你是個幹行銷的，今天去應徵一家賣電器的，老闆在面試的時候丟給你這麼一個問題： 你會怎麼來推廣我們家的電器？我們電器該怎麼進入市場？我們要怎麼提供銷量？ 抓了抓腦袋，你給了以下的答案： 1. 做個買二送一的活動 2. 跟著母親節做個限量紅色款，跟個熱點 3. 拍個爆紅的影片，像之前skoda的抖肩舞，或者是找howhow拍個業配， 4. 找偶像代言 好像有回答到問題，但是感覺又缺乏了什麼東西。你也知道這樣答案有點虛，但是又不知道怎麼樣去完善，然後再被問了更多，就打不出個所以然來： 為什麼要用這些方法啊？ 那…如果這些方法沒有用的話怎麼辦？ 簡單來說，這些答案只是戰術等級的思維，而不是一個較高層級的策略性思考。戰術等級通常會比較偏重在執行的維度，在這種高度做出來的marketing plan會多點開花卻不前後貫通，彼此推廣之間沒有個脈絡。相反的，站在策略性的高度做出來的plan卻是會非常有邏輯，整體規劃會非常嚴謹，會很明確的知道為什麼做ａ、ｂ、ｃ、ｄ、ｅ，以及失敗了該怎麼調整。 如果你還是對策略性思考沒有什麼概念，以下的文章可以幫助你起個頭… 首先先來了解兩個名詞：goal & objective。 兩個都可以翻譯成目標，但是實際上的意義有相當差別。goal，指的是一個比較宏觀、比較概念、相對前瞻性的目標，會推動整體公司往前；objective則比較小、比較具體、量化成份較高、被細化出來的標的。一般來說，goal有的時候太過宏觀，也太過抽像，不容易讓人體會也不知道該怎麼去執行，如果只是把goal列出來，反倒會讓人無所適從，所以需要輔以短時間內較有參考性、有可執行性的objective 換句話說，goal像個高高在上、遠在天邊的標的，objective像個比較觸手可及、有脈絡可循的milestones。當objectives一一達到時，goal也會隨之達成。例如： goal 2025年時，我們家的電器在台灣的市佔率要達到50%。 objective 1. 2022年我們要開出250家店面，150家在台北、台中、高雄 2. 2018年的營業額要達到五億台幣，並且每年以50%的速度成長 3. 我們要開出十條產品線，包含冷氣、電視、微波爐等 如果達到以上三點的objectives，就有可能達到前面設定的goal：250家店面才有可能賣出更多的產品，十條產品線才有辦法服務更多的人群、刺激銷量，而營業額的成長目標就更不言而諭了。 實際狀況因人而已，我這邊舉的goal的例子相對具體，在小公司、以銷售為導向的公司這種goal比較常見；有些公司較為成熟，所以他們的goal可能會是“2025年前，要在台灣被消費者信賴品牌中排名前三名”等更抽象的概念，此時所選擇的objetive就必須圍繞著這個goal，把這個抽象的概念更具體化。簡單來說，objective一定要比goal更小、更集中、更具體，如果上頭的goal是這麼抽象，那決策者就必須要去決定什麼樣的objectives達到了可以反應“被消費者信賴品牌中排名前三名”；另一方面，如果設定的goal太小，無法被底下的objective再細化，就可能代表思維程度不夠高，想得不夠遠或者是格局不夠大。 為什麼要這麼認識goal跟objective呢？因為考慮到這兩個元素之後，決策者才會從策略思考的高度和具體執行的低度兩方面具體去看待整個市場，做出來的planning才會有意義。 再來介紹另外兩個名詞：strategy & tactic。 strategy中文翻譯成戰略、策略，tactic則翻譯成戰術。簡單來說，strategy具體是為了goal的安排，所以同樣的也比較宏觀、思維層級比較高；tactic則相對具體、明確，具體是為了達到objective的手段。 說得更多一點，strategy的時間維度拉得很長，可能是半年到一年或更久，不容易也不可以輕易改變；tactic則時間比較短，具體執行可能是幾個禮拜到幾個月，最多半年到一年，並且會時時變化，並且會有具體的操作細節。兩者如果和前面提到的goal和objective配合，看起來就會是這樣： goal 2020年時，我們家的電器要在台灣50%的市佔率。 strategy 我們先從台北的大學生開始進入市場，因為年輕人對新品牌接受度高，並且傳播力強，加上台北的學校多學生也多，很多外宿的新生會需要購買新的電器。之後將一路拓展到中南部的學校，學生族群確定了之後再往更高年齡層去發展。 （插播） 雖然精煉下來strategy就這麼一兩句話，但是背後的含義其實不小，因為會牽動到背後的定價策略、產品策略、甚至是通路策略：因為鎖定了年輕人，所以價格不會高，包裝也可以大膽創新；也因為是學生，所以公司會優先規劃筆電、微波爐、冷氣、除濕機等產品，先暫緩烤箱、烘衣機等笨重型家電；而年輕人沒有逛實體店面的習慣，所以著重在線上平台的開發…等。 objective 1. 2019年在台北重點學校（台大、政大、師大等）的市佔率達到30%，年底出貨量三萬台 2. 2022年底要在拓展到北部所有學校，整體市佔率要達到30%，並且在重點學校的販售率達到50%，全年出貨量要在八萬台 3. 針對要成立一個個大學校的粉絲頁，裡面的活躍人數要有兩萬人、或者公司網站會員要有五萬人 4. 在大學做品牌調查時最少要有40%的人看過我們的宣傳 5. 營收的80%需要來自線上（展店250的規劃暫緩，因為年輕人沒有去實體店面消費的習慣） （插播） 因為strategy寫出來時會考慮到定價策略、產品策略、通路策略、甚至是鎖定客群，所以objective也會隨之調整。如以上objective所述，跟前一段的objective內容已經有所不同。 tactic 1. 和各院校的系學會/社團合作推廣 2. 徵招學校品牌大使 3. 推出“開學季”優惠或清寒學生折半方案 4. 贊助大學體育活動 5. 和補習班異業結盟、針對高三指考畢業完後的學生推廣 6. 到學生常出沒的ppt、facebook、line群洗版 兩者相比，strategy就是這麼宏觀，且看起來沒有什麼可執行的細節；tactic就是更具體，清晰到好像可以派給底下的實習生去操作一樣。 為什麼strategy和tactic的差別有這麼重要？因為strategy影響的是一個公司未來的方向，會具體決定接下來半年到一年的前進方向；而戰術是短時間的衝刺，可以隨時調整隨時改變，也必須隨時保持可變、靈活的特質。如果今天一家公司改變了strategy，代表著產品定位、鎖定客群、定價、通路安排等都會受到影響，因為strategy是配合著公司資源、公司願景、公司未來方向去訂定整個安排。 從goal到strategy到objective到tactic的邏輯會非常嚴謹，整套邏輯順下來之後，才是一個具體、可執行的計畫。 如果再配合 conversion funnel ，整個規劃下來會更縝密。如左圖，可以發現大部分的tactics都是增加awareness的人群，而供給interest和preference的動作卻很少。另外如果想要讓業績長紅一路到2025，回頭客也必須兼顧，所以針對conversion的人群也得增加。 這樣就結束了嗎？其實不是。goal、strategy、objective、tactic四個做下來其實是一個guiding principle，真正完整的planning還缺了兩個元素：現況分析、持續追蹤並優化的過程。和guiding principle搭配起來，就相當於以下： 對狀況分析 guiding principle 持續追蹤並且優化的過程 如果沒有針對現況做分析，整體的guiding principle其實沒有意義。這裡的對狀況分析其實就是前面提到的在規劃做出來前，決策者必須考量到公司資源、公司產品、公司發展方向、市場現況等狀況。如果只是直接丟出了一個規劃，缺乏任何事前的分析、策略怎麼套用的情境，就像不告訴你東西南北也不告訴你人在哪裡然後叫你往前走就可以一路走到台北一樣。 以及一個重要的概念是strategy~tactic不是亙古不變的，一個規劃一定要有追蹤並且優化的過程。就算邏輯再嚴謹，第一次推出的planning通常不會是最好的。再多歷練的高手也是得持續修改、持續精進，才能逐漸優化出最適合的方案，達到最好的效果。 整體搭配起來，才是一個完整的marketing planning。 所以回到一開始面試的答案，你現在會怎麼看這些回答？ 1. 做個買二送一推廣，就可以增加銷量了 2. 跟著母親節的活動做個限量粉紅色款，創造稀奇感 3. 拍個爆紅的影片，像個之前skoda的抖肩舞，名字傳出去後就好了。 4. 找個偶像代言，例如找那個howhow拍個推廣影片就可以刺激銷量了 以上的回答只能算是marketing planning中的guiding principle中的tactic，距離整體的planning其實還差得非常非常遠。 除了marketing plan，這套思維也可以應用在生活跟職場各個不同的層面。game of thrones有句台詞：i’ve won every battle, but i’m losing this war. 就是經典的strategy vs tactic層級的思考。 再推銷一次，我成立個粉絲頁啦，名字就叫做 名字沒想好 。因為我有很多好玩有趣詼諧的內容不適合以medium這麼正經八百的形式出現，所以另外成立了粉絲頁放上較輕鬆但是同樣有價值的內容。 往後內容主要是我這段期間在中國、美國、台灣的工作經驗。不管你幹不幹行銷、來不來自台灣、在不在創業公司待著、未來會不會出國工作，都希望會對你有幫助。因為想不出個驚天動地的名字，所以就姑且取作“名字沒想好”了，請多多關注唷😝😝😝😝 ----2.

The temptation at this point might be to jump right in and start sharing. Just one more step before you do. Your foray into social media will be more focused and more on point if you come up with a voice and tone for your content right off the bat. To do so, you could spend time developing marketing personas and debating the finer points of your mission statement and customer base. These are all well and good . But for a social media marketing plan just getting off the ground, you can make this process a bit easier. Start with questions like these:.

A marketing plan outlines your intended marketing/advertising activities for a specific period, usually over the next 12 months. It describes how you’ll reach, attract and persuade customers to buy your products or services, with clear goals, actions and accountabilities. While large corporations might have an overarching marketing strategy with individual plans for each part of the strategy, kazim recommends entrepreneurs with smaller businesses keep things simple. “think in practical terms,” she says. “it’s not about capital-s ‘strategy’, it’s a how-to for achieving your targets. ”the marketing plan is your attack plan for chasing after your high-priority revenue opportunities.

Your marketing plan details how you intend to meet your customers’ needs and communicate the benefits of your products or services to them. When deciding about market positioning, pricing, promotions, and sales, your customers should be top of mind.

What Is a Marketing Plan Template?

Develop an effective marketing plan with this accessible marketing plan template for word. The marketing planning template includes sections for objective, target market, message summary, call to action, and much more. Search for marketing strategy to find additional matching templates. Word.

Our marketing plan template helps you identify who your customers are, how you'll meet their needs and what marketing tactics you might undertake.

But of course! you weren’t expecting to do all that work and not actually put it somewhere, were you? i high ly recommend creating your own personal marketing plan. After all, your goal is to be unique here, right? however, you can still take inspiration from these personal marketing plan templates to help you execute your marketing goals: keep these valuable tips in mind while developing your personal marketing plan and you’ll have more success sooner than later. ↑ table of contents ↑.

The internet is full of useful tools, including paid and free marketing plan templates to help you build a successful marketing plan. Whether you are looking for a free template generator to build a new marketing plan, a benchmarking tool to evaluate your current strategies, or a video tutorial to learn more about marketing plans, there are several great resources available. Keep in mind that the best marketing plan for your business will be a customized one. “ultimately, you should design a marketing plan that best serves the needs of your team as you see fit,” said dill. “don’t force yourself into a plan that doesn’t fit your team.

Your marketing plan should show that you've carefully considered how to produce a product or provide a service that is innovative, unique and marketable. Marketing plan templates may vary, but a good marketing plan captures basically the same information. The contents of your plan should include: a background analysis the effects on the organisational an evaluation and monitoring plan a summary of your plan and supporting documentation.

What Is an Executive Summary in a Marketing Plan?

Marketing campaigns should not be considered individual functions. Marketing is the story of your brand as told to customers; like any narrative, its tone and characters should remain consistent. An executive summary details your marketing goals for the next year and helps tie each campaign together. When establishing your marketing goals, they should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound – or smart. These goals should work together to achieve both internal and external harmony, telling a consistent story that informs customers of your exact message while building on its previous chapters. For example, you may set a smart goal to increase your company’s social media traffic by 15% in a 90-day time frame, and plan to achieve this by creating four relevant, informative and high-quality posts per week on each platform, using your company’s brand kit.

Marketing plans are useful for communicating dates and deliverables to the team because they coordinate everyone around one timeline of work. You can create different types of marketing plans to reflect the type of work you are doing. You can also share a high-level view of the marketing plan with executives and other stakeholders to convey progress against the company goals. Many teams use marketing plan templates to create a repeatable planning process.

Your marketing plan should start with an executive summary, which gives an overview of the main points of the plan. Although the executive summary appears at the beginning of the plan, you should write it last. Writing the summary is a good opportunity to check that your plan makes sense and that you haven't missed any important points. You should introduce the main body of the plan with a reminder of your overall business strategy, including: what your business is about (your business mission) your key business objectives your broad strategy for achieving those objectives this helps to ensure that your marketing plan, your marketing strategy and your overall business strategy all work together.

Summary[ edit ] a marketing plan is a comprehensive document or blueprint that outlines the advertising and marketing efforts for the coming year. It describes business activities involved in accomplishing specific marketing objectives within a set time frame. A marketing plan also includes a description of the current marketing position of a business, a discussion of the target market and a description of the marketing mix that a business will use to achieve their marketing goals. A marketing plan has a formal structure, but can be used as a formal or informal document which makes it very flexible. It contains some historical data, future predictions, and methods or strategies to achieve the marketing objectives.

What Is a Top-Down Marketing Strategy?

Method of measuring and monitoring the effectiveness of each strategy. Now, lets deal with each of these aspects of the marketing plan individually. Related topics what is a marketing plan?.

Everything you do as a marketing team should support your company’s overall strategy and goals. So summarize your organization’s business objectives, and let it serve as your marketing plan’s true north. Your team and stakeholders should be able to clearly see how the marketing strategies and goals you outline in your plan align with your company’s top priorities.

How do you determine if there are enough people in your market willing to purchase what you have to offer at the price you need to charge to make a profit? the best way is to conduct a methodical analysis of the market you plan to reach. The market analysis presents your conclusions regarding external market factors that will affect your business. It examines the totality of the business environment in which you will compete. Topics addressed in the market analysis include the existence and type of competitors, the characteristics of your target customers, market size, distribution costs, trends in your industry, and in the market in general.

Marketing strategy vs. Marketing plan: what is the difference? marketing strategy is what the company will do to actualize the organization’s vision, leveraging strengths while mitigating risks. The marketing plan documents how the company will actualize the marketing strategy. 1. Marketing strategy is what the company wants to do to achieve the desired states and outcomes for their business. A complete marketing strategy includes the company’s value proposition, brand messaging, agreed-upon strategic approach, and business objectives. Each strategic action item should align with top-level goals and ultimately fulfill the company’s vision statement. Simply put, a marketing strategy is a philosophy that drives marketing decisions and keeps track of goals.

How Much Does a Marketing Plan Cost?

A marketing plan is a business document outlining your marketing strategy and tactics. It's often focused on a specific period of time (i. E. Over the next 12 months) and covers a variety of marketing-related details, such as costs, goals, and action steps. But like your business plan , a marketing plan is not a static document. It needs to change and evolve as your business grows, and as new and changing marketing trends develop. Especially in today's changing world, you need to keep up-to-date on the best ways to reach and engage your market.

Whether done well or poorly, business activity always costs money. Your marketing plan needs to have a section in which you allocate budgets for each activity planned. This information shouldn't appear on the activity matrix since there's enough detail there already. But it should be in writing with the individual carrying overall program responsibility. People responsible for portions of the marketing activity should know exactly what funds are available to them. In fact, you would be wise to involve them in planning those budgets. Be as objective as you can about those costs you can anticipate. For things with which you have no budget experience, add 25 percent to your best estimate.

It is important for a marketing plan to: set clear, realistic and measurable targets - for example, increasing sales by 10 per cent include deadlines for meeting targets provide a budget for each marketing activity specify who is responsible for each activity make sure you think through each of your objectives logically. For example, you might set a target for the number of new enquiries. But if you don't provide the resources and training to turn these enquiries into sales, you will have increased costs without any benefits. Link to your strategy assess the business environment to identify the opportunities and threats that you face.

A marketing plan is the first step in creating a successful marketing program for your new business. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be complicated in order to work. Here are the ten basic components of a marketing plan. You started a company and now you’re thinking about developing a marketing program. You need to begin with a marketing plan. Having been in marketing for more than a decade, i’ve seen my share of marketing plans. Some are short and to the point, while others are hundreds of pages thick and cost thousands of dollars to produce. The irony is that many of the expensive marketing plans end up on a shelf and rarely get implemented.