Marketing Planning
Developing a Marketing Plan
Marketing planning refers to development of a plan for marketing strategy with an aim to promote the company’s products or service, or the company itself. But in order to develop a marketing plan that will achieve the desired effect – increased sales or/and improved brand awareness, a prior research is necessary on the target market and the firm’s position in the market.
Marketing Plan as a Part of the Business Plan
Many marketing plans are based on or are an integral part of the firm’s overall business plan. The integration of marketing plan into the business plan is used by both start-up and established firms with an aim to attract investors because it reveals how the firm will grow and how the investment will be returned.
What Covers the Development of a Marketing Plan
There is no unique view of what marketing plan should cover. Different marketing companies follow different principles which also depend on the objectives of marketing campaign. However, the development of a marketing plan is most often based on one of the following two models:
Model 1
This model promotes products and services by answering the following questions:
- who is the target audience/market
- what are target audience/market needs
- how the target audience/market needs will be served by the firm
Model 2
This model is considered a golden standard for brand marketing plans:
- financial information
- product information
- sales information
- marketing strategy
- market information
Regardless which model is followed and regardless what are the objectives of the marketing plan, the latter always includes:
- review of the markets; research of the overall market including economic and political factors, organisation of the market, customer behaviour, competition and overview of trends on the market over time
- review of the firm’s marketing objectives and how these objectives will be achieved
- review of the marketing strategy and tactics; these are usually determined once a year to cover the year ahead but they must be adjusted to the market conditions which are notorious for constant changes
Setting the Budget for Marketing
Obviously, the sales must be in a favourable ratio to marketing expenses. In other words, marketing expenses must be lower than the sales. In order to achieve this, marketing planning must clearly define what it wants to achieve, when and how. The marketing expense and sales ratio, however, also depends greatly on the factors discussed above such as the market conditions, competition, position of the firm in the market, pricing policy, etc.. Setting the budget for marketing therefore requires a throughout analysis of a variety of factors and variables.