Marketing Plan

A marketing plan articulates in one cohesive document your assessment of the markets needs, the strengths and the weaknesses of your organization, as well as those of your existing and expected competitors. It spells out your strategy for creating value for your target customers and defines how you will make a profit. A marketing plan also includes action plans, financial projections and metrics for assessing your performance against the plan.

The completed plan includes related graphs, tables and diagrams to facilitate understanding
and to allow for constructive analysis and subsequent questioning.

A sample plan includes:

• Executive summary and mission statement
• Summary of performance
• Situation analysis
  • Ansoff analysis
  • Market size analysis
  • Market trends/growth rate analysis
  • Gap analysis
  • Product life cycle analysis
  • Segmentation, target market, and customer needs analysis
  • Decision process and buying cycle analysis
  • Portfolio analysis
• SWOT analysis
  • Strengths
  • Weaknesses
  • Opportunities
  • Threats
  • Issues to address
• Marketing objectives
  • Strategic focus
  • Product mix
  • Product development
  • Product deletions
  • Market extensions
  • Target customer groups
  • Positioning
• Marketing
  • Product
  • Price
  • Place
  • Promotion
• Financial projections
  • Three-year forecast
  • Budgets
• Measurement and controls
  • Implementation
  • Contingency planning