7 Steps to Crafting a Winning Marketing Plan
Without effective marketing, most businesses struggle to survive. With 9 out of 10 startups failing, the core goal of your marketing strategy should be to…
Without marketing, most companies will fail. Did you know that 9 out of 10 organizations fail?
The goal of marketing is to make customers know, like, and trust you.
Many small businesses do not take the time to prepare a comprehensive marketing plan. Marketing is the fuel without which your company will not move toward its customers.
Usually, the marketing plan is part of the company's general Business Model, but it is preferable for this plan to be separate.
Developing a marketing plan increases the chances of success for companies, because as is well known, an hour of planning saves 4 hours of execution. The plan will save companies money, time, and effort, and reduce errors. Also, there are many financial and government institutions that require this plan as a prerequisite for contracting.
Table of Contents:
4Ps Marketing Mix
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
7 Steps to Prepare a Successful Marketing Plan
1. Setting Marketing Goals
2. Defining Buyer Personas
3. Competitive Analysis
4. Describing Products, Services, and Competitive Advantage
5. Determining Business Strategy
6. Defining the Marketing Budget
7. Identifying Marketing Channels and Media
A marketing plan is considered one of the most important components of the general strategic plan for any facility; it is the cornerstone for the success of any project, no matter how small.
It is a report that clarifies the marketing strategy for the coming year. It can be considered an action plan and a guide that can be referred back to later to evaluate performance.
Researchers have differed on the number of steps in a marketing plan, but we will present the stages by asking 7 questions.
Every company must answer these questions if it wants to prepare a successful marketing plan:
What are the company's marketing goals?
What are the Buyer personas?
Who are the competitors?
What are the products or services?
What is the pricing strategy and promotion?
What is the budget?
What marketing channels are used?
Before starting to answer these questions, I want to highlight 3 essential tools used during the preparation of the marketing plan, which are the 4Ps marketing mix, SWOT analysis, and KPIs.
4Ps Marketing Mix
The marketing mix is considered the foundation for building a successful marketing plan. It primarily contains 4 elements that can be referred to periodically when launching any new product and when conducting a performance evaluation. Sometimes a simple change in one of the four elements may lead to an amazing increase in sales, so be accurate and careful when studying the marketing mix:
Product: You must answer these questions: Describe the products or services the company will introduce to the target market? What value will the product or service provide to the consumer? What differentiates your product from competing products? When will you launch this product in the market?
Pricing: What is the price of the product? Is it the market price for the same product? What pricing strategy will you follow? Is the price appropriate for the current market reality?
Promotion: This involves using all communication channels with your customer to persuade them to buy your product. How will you tell them about your product or service? What is the most effective way to convince them to purchase? How do you promote this product? What are the advertising campaigns? How will you sell and improve the sales process? Did you know that delegating to a promotion specialist can double your sales?
Place: The location where you will sell your product and how it will be delivered to the customer. What is the after-sales plan?
Used to analyze the company's current situation and competitive landscape regarding strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors; in other words, they are factors within the business owner's control, for which they can make decisions, implement them, and see the results.
Opportunities and threats are external factors; they are outside the business owner's control and cannot be prevented, but the owner can take available measures to address them.
Example: You may have unique technology, a strong team, a corporate reputation or notable brand, a large budget, or a customer base.
Being a new company unknown to most consumers, low brand awareness, and a small loyal customer base can be weaknesses.
Example: Tax exemptions and facilities provided by the government to commercial companies. Another example: a disinfectant company and the spread of diseases or viruses in a certain area; this is an opportunity to enter and expand in the market. Or an increase in demand for a certain commodity due to increased awareness, etc.
For example, if you have a restaurant, hotel, or tourism company and a pandemic spreads, such as the Coronavirus that swept the world in early 2020. Or unexpected changes in laws and taxes.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
An abbreviation for Key Performance Indicators, the main goal of which is to measure the performance of business units within the organization and compare them against the organization's strategic objectives.
High-level KPIs focus on overall business performance, while low-level KPIs focus on processes in departments such as sales, marketing, human resources, support, and others.
Examples of Key Performance Indicators:
Sales Growth Percentage
Number of New Contracts
Number of Potential Customers Engaging with Marketing Posts
Conversion Rate Time
Revenue Growth Rate
Net Profit Margin
Gross Profit Margin
Operating Cash Flow
Inventory Turnover Ratio
Number of Retained Customers
Market Share Percentage
Number of Monthly Website Visitors
User Bounce Rate
Frequency of Website Visits
7 Steps to Prepare a Successful Marketing Plan
1. Defining Marketing Goals
Clearly defining the company's objectives, specifically marketing goals, is the first introductory step to writing effective marketing plans.
Here, goals must be written according to SMART criteria: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. They rely primarily on KPIs for evaluation.
Examples of some goals:
Increase sales at Branch B by 15% compared to last year.
Acquire X new customers over the coming year.
Sell X number of products from category X within 3 months.
Reach X followers on our YouTube channel.
To define these goals, you must ask yourself: where do you want to take your brand? What should others know about you, your company, and your products? And what is your target market?
Among the goals you should focus on are:
Financial return: Since you and your team put a lot of effort and time into your organization, profits must be a primary goal.
Expanding and diversifying your projects, and competing with yourself first before others, by creating creative plans and new, desirable projects.
Increasing your customer base and audience by developing a plan and strategy to acquire more customers and achieve greater reach in the new year.
You might also be interested in the benefits and types of content marketing.
2. Defining Buyer Personas
A buyer persona is a representation of your ideal customer based on market research and data from existing customers.
To define a buyer persona, you must answer three questions:
What does the customer need? You must understand their needs and motivations and identify their pain points. You should know at least 50 problems your customer faces, otherwise, you don't know them well.
When and where does the customer want this? Knowing your customer's problem is not enough; you must determine the method, place, and time for the solution.
How can you help them? Discover the best mechanism to deliver value to the customer. Service quality and value are the foundation.
When creating your company's buyer persona, you must define the target segment and customer demographics (age, gender, language, country, education level, income level, etc.).
You must know which social media channels the buyer uses; they might use a platform you hadn't considered, and consequently, you would waste money marketing on the wrong platform.
3. Competitor Analysis
Competitor analysis during the preparation of a marketing plan is a strategy for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors. This analysis provides an offensive and defensive strategic context for identifying opportunities and threats.
You can use the 4Ps marketing mix and SWOT analysis during this stage to identify the weaknesses, strengths, opportunities, and threats of competitors.
There is a famous model for competitor analysis called the Five Forces model.
It is a model that analyzes five competitive forces in every industry.
Competition in the industry
Potential of new entrants into the industry
Bargaining power of buyers
Bargaining power of suppliers
Threat of substitute products
Competitor Analysis
There are specialized tools for competitor analysis depending on the type:
Tools for analyzing competitors in a specific sector such as tourism, transportation, trade, or technology.
Tools for analyzing competition based on a specific product type.
Tools for analyzing competitors on social media.
Tools for analyzing competitors regarding content and search engine rankings.
4. Description of Products, Services, and Competitive Advantage
Understanding your product and service is the cornerstone of preparing a marketing plan. You must clarify the specifications and features of the products and services, and analyze the product life cycle.
Some questions to ask at this stage:
What are the specifications and quality of the products/services you will offer? What are the categories of products/services? How does what you offer differ from your competitors' product or service? How do customers perceive the benefits of the product/service you provide? What is the competitive advantage of your product/service?
How will you deliver your product/service to customers? Is there a high demand for your product/service in the market?
What is the possibility of providing after-sales services?
5- Defining the Business Strategy
The most important of these strategies are the pricing and promotion strategies. There are different methods for pricing strategies, and we recommend reading the dedicated article on them.
What special offers will you make to secure more new customers and attract previous customers back to you?
Your overall marketing goals are divided into smaller marketing strategies, utilizing all efforts to achieve them within a specific timeline using SMART goals.
For example, suppose your company promotes skincare products and their related issues; you can draft a new product marketing plan as follows:
Explanation: Through this, you will clarify important information related to the product, how to use it, and when it will be launched in the markets to attract potential customers from search engine results and social networks.
Goal: Create advertising and promotional campaigns for the product and a website that enables visitors to purchase easily, and deliver it to all target audiences.
Measurement: By tracking performance indicators and conversions, you can determine the number of visits, sales percentage, and the profits you have earned from this product.
6. Defining the Marketing Budget
Determining the budget is considered one of the most important factors in the success of a marketing plan for any product; it is the amount of money you have allocated from the general budget for the marketing team to pursue the implementation of the desired strategies and goals.
Launching a new business or product relies on using advertising to introduce it to people, so what is the amount you are prepared to invest in advertising the product?
Set a specific figure for each item you will spend on, whether it is social media account management, website optimization, paid advertisements, mobile application development, or other various marketing items.
7. Defining Marketing Channels and Media
Advertising and choosing the appropriate media to reach the audience play a major and effective role in the marketing plan, whether it is a digital marketing plan or a traditional one in newspapers, radio, and television.
You must first choose the appropriate advertising methods to reach your target customer segment and the places where you will publish your marketing content.
In our present time, we find these are diverse and endless, including:
Email campaigns, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, paid advertisements in newspapers, radio, and television, billboards, website, blog, mobile application, and many others.
You can read the article: 5 Steps to Create a Successful Marketing Campaign.
In the end, it may have become clear to you how to write a successful marketing plan that helps you showcase your products and services, spreads awareness of your brand, and works to generate potential customers and acquire new ones.
Through a set of foundations and rules that contribute to knowing your market and its needs, and help you draft messages specifically targeted to the actual market, and reaching it more efficiently and effectively.
If you would like to seek the assistance of digital marketing companies and professional social media advertising, you can contact the venets team.
We offer you a group of specialists in professional website design services, social media services, SEO, and many other diverse digital marketing services.
Hurry up and contact us through our various digital platforms, or visit the official venets website.
Articles you might be interested in reading on our blog :
The Importance of Logo and Visual Identity
How to Market Through Influencers
Mohammad Alsawas
Marketing Department Manager
For more information about digital marketing services, join our Facebook page
For more details, subscribe to our Instagram account
Follow Venets tweets on Twitter
Our team's latest work is available on YouTube
Download PDF Order Now Share this blog Order Now