marketing aspect of business plan

What is a Marketing Plan & How to Write One [+ Examples]

Published: August 07, 2024

One of my favorite ways to break through writer’s block, whether the assignment is a marketing plan or a short story, is simply reading more examples. (I also recommend taking a long walk; you’d be surprised.)

I can’t take you on a walk, but I can give you some examples, some inspiration, and some guidelines to get your creativity humming.

If you don’t know where to start, we’ve curated lists of marketing plans and marketing strategies to help you write a concrete plan that will produce results.

Let’s start by understanding the differences between the two.

Featured Resource:   Free Marketing Plan Template

Looking to develop a marketing plan for your business?   Click here to download HubSpot's free Marketing Plan Template to get started .

Table of Contents

Marketing Strategy Examples

What is a marketing plan, marketing plan vs. business plan, how to write a marketing plan, types of marketing plans, marketing plan examples, marketing plan faqs, sample marketing plan.

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A marketing plan is a strategic road map that businesses use to organize, execute, and track their marketing strategy over a given period. Marketing plans can include different marketing strategies for various marketing teams across the company, all working toward the same business goals.

The purpose of a marketing plan is to write down strategies in an organized manner. This will help keep you on track and measure the success of your campaigns.

Your marketing plan lays out each campaign‘s mission, buyer personas, budget, tactics, and deliverables. With all this information in one place, you’ll have an easier time staying on track with a campaign, and you can figure out what works and what doesn’t.

To learn more about creating your marketing plan, keep reading or jump to the relevant section:

A marketing plan is a strategic document that outlines marketing objectives, strategies, and tactics.

A business plan is also a strategic document. But this plan covers all aspects of a company's operations, including finance, operations, and more. It can also help your business decide how to distribute resources and make decisions as your business grows.

A marketing plan is a subset of a business plan; it shows how marketing strategies and objectives can support overall business goals. And if you need an assist executing a marketing plan, might I recommend HubSpot’s marketing hub ?

Marketing Strategy vs. Marketing Plan

A marketing strategy is the part of your marketing plan that describes how a business will accomplish a particular goal or mission.

This includes which campaigns, content, channels, and marketing software you’ll use to execute that mission and track its success.

A marketing plan contains one or more marketing strategies. It's the framework from which all your marketing strategies are created, and it helps you connect each strategy to a larger marketing operation and business goal.

For example, suppose your company is launching a new software product, and it wants customers to sign up. The marketing department needs to develop a marketing plan that'll help introduce this product to the industry and drive the desired sign-ups.

The department decides to launch a topical blog, debut a YouTube series to establish expertise, and create new X and Instagram accounts to join the conversation around this subject. All this serves to attract an audience and convert this audience into software users.

To summarize, a business' marketing plan is dedicated to introducing a new software product to the marketplace and driving sign-ups for that product. The business will execute that plan with three marketing strategies : a new industry blog, a YouTube video series, and an X account.

Of course, the business might consider these three things as one giant marketing strategy, each with its own specific content strategies. How granular you want your marketing plan to get is up to you. Nonetheless, every marketing plan goes through a particular set of steps in its creation.

• State your business' mission.
• Determine the KPIs for this mission.
• Identify your buyer personas.
• Describe your content initiatives and strategies.
• Clearly define your plan's omissions.
• Define your marketing budget.
• Identify your competition.
• Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

1. State your business' mission.

Your first step in writing a marketing plan is to state your mission. Although this mission is specific to your marketing department, it should serve as your business' main mission statement.

In my experience, you want to be specific, but not too specific. You have plenty of space left in this marketing plan to elaborate on how you'll acquire new customers and accomplish this mission.

For those of you running startups or small businesses, HubSpot’s starter bundle is a great all-in-one solution — it can help you find and win customers, execute content marketing plans, and more.

If your business' mission is “to make booking travel a delightful experience,” your marketing mission might be “to attract an audience of travelers, educate them on the tourism industry, and convert them into users of our bookings platform.”

Need help building your mission statement? Download this guide for examples and templates and write the ideal mission statement.

2. Determine the KPIs for this mission.

Every good marketing plan describes how the department will track its mission‘s progress. To do so, you need to decide on your key performance indicators (KPIs) .

KPIs are individual metrics that measure the various elements of a marketing campaign. These units help you establish short-term goals within your mission and communicate your progress to business leaders.

Let's take our example of a marketing mission from the above step. If part of our mission is “to attract an audience of travelers,” we might track website visits using organic page views. In this case, “organic page views” is one KPI, and we can see our number of page views grow over time.

Also, make sure to check whether your current reporting software facilitates the KPIs you need. Some reporting tools can only measure a set of pre-defined metrics, which can cause massive headaches in particular marketing campaigns.

However, other tools, like HubSpot’s analytics software , can offer full flexibility over the KPIs you wish to track.

You can generate custom reports that reveal average website engagement rates, page visits, email, social media traffic, and more.

These KPIs will come into the conversation again in step 4.

3. Identify your buyer personas.

A buyer persona is a description of who you want to attract. This can include age, sex, location, family size, and job title.

Each buyer persona should directly reflect your business' current and potential customers. All business leaders must agree on your buyer personas.

4. Describe your content initiatives and strategies.

Here‘s where you’ll include the main points of your marketing and content strategy.

Because there‘s a laundry list of content types and channels available today, you must choose wisely and explain how you’ll use your content and channels in this section of your marketing plan.

When I write this section, I like to stipulate:

• What types of content I'll create. These might include blog posts, YouTube videos, infographics, and ebooks.
• How much I'll create. I typically describe content volume in daily, weekly, monthly, or even quarterly intervals. It all depends on my workflow and the short-term goals for my content.
• The goals (and KPIs) I'll use to track each type. KPIs can include organic traffic, social media traffic, email traffic, and referral traffic. Your goals should also include which pages you want to drive that traffic to, such as product pages, blog pages, or landing pages.
• The channels on which I'll distribute my content. Popular channels include Facebook, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram.
• Any paid advertising that will take place on these channels.

5. Clearly define your plan's omissions.

A marketing plan explains the marketing team's focus. It also explains what the marketing team will not focus on.

If there are other aspects of your business that you aren‘t serving in this particular plan, include them in this section. These omissions help to justify your mission, buyer personas, KPIs, and content.

You can’t please everyone in a single marketing campaign, and if your team isn’t on the hook for something, you need to make it known.

In my experience, this section is particularly important for stakeholders to help them understand why certain decisions were made.

6. Define your marketing budget.

Whether it's freelance fees, sponsorships, or a new full-time marketing hire, use these costs to develop a marketing budget and outline each expense in this section of your marketing plan.

You can establish your marketing budget with these 8 free marketing budget templates .

7. Identify your competition.

Part of marketing is knowing your competition. Research the key players in your industry and consider profiling each one.

Keep in mind that not every competitor will pose the same challenges to your business. For example, while one competitor might rank highly on search engines for keywords that you’re also chasing, another competitor might have a heavy footprint on a social network where you plan to launch an account.

Easily track and analyze your competitors with this collection of 10 free competitive analysis templates .

8. Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

With your marketing plan fully fleshed out, it‘s time to explain who’s doing what.

I don’t like to delve too deeply into my employees’ day-to-day projects, but I know which teams and team leaders are in charge of specific content types, channels, KPIs, and more.

Now that you know why you need to build an effective marketing plan, it’s time to get to work.

Starting a plan from scratch can be overwhelming if you haven't done it before.

That’s why there are many helpful resources that can support your first steps. We’ll share some of the best guides and templates to help you build effective results-driven plans for your marketing strategies.

Ready to make your own marketing plan? Get started with this free template.

The kind of marketing plan you create will depend on your company, your industry, and your business goals. We compiled different samples to suit your needs:

1. Quarterly or Annual Marketing Plans

This marketing plan by Visit Oxnard, a convention and visitors bureau, is packed with information: target markets, key performance indicators, selling points, personas, marketing tactics by channel, and much more.

It also articulates the organization’s strategic plans for the upcoming fiscal year, especially as it grapples with the aftereffects of the pandemic.

Lastly, it has impeccable visual appeal, with color-coded sections and strong branding elements.

• It states clear and actionable goals for the coming year.
• It includes data and other research that shows how the team made its decisions.
• It outlines how the team will measure the plan’s success.

4. Safe Haven Family Shelter

This marketing plan by a nonprofit organization is an excellent example to follow if your plan will be presented to internal stakeholders at all levels of your organization.

It includes SMART marketing goals , deadlines, action steps, long-term objectives, target audiences, core marketing messages , and metrics.

The plan is detailed yet scannable. By the end of it, one can walk away with a strong understanding of the organization’s strategic direction for its upcoming marketing efforts.

• It confirms ongoing marketing strategies and objectives while introducing new initiatives.
• It uses colors, fonts, and formatting to emphasize key parts.
• It closes with long-term goals, key themes, and other overarching topics to set the stage for the future.

5. Wright County Economic Development

• “Going viral” isn’t a goal; it’s an outcome.
• Be surprising. Subvert expectations.
• Be weird and niche if you want to be weird and niche, but establishing a shared cultural understanding might result in a bigger audience.

Pridemore Properties’ Instagram smash hit is unexpected, to say the least. You think you’re getting a home tour that takes your figurative breath away; you get a home tour that takes the agent’s literal breath away.

Verizon’s toe-tapping, hip-shaking Totalmente (aka Total by Verizon, a contractless phone plan) ad debuted during Univision’s Spanish-language broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII. The ad reinvents the 1998 Elvis Crespo song “Suavemente,” an earworm if I’ve ever heard one, replacing the lyrics with Total by Verizon features.

Verizon Value’s CMO and VP of Marketing, Cheryl Gresham, has admitted that she didn’t know much about marketing to a majority-Latinx audience.

In an interview with Campaign Live , she said she didn’t think the idea would have gotten off the ground “if it had just been me and a lot of other people that had a background like myself in that room.”

CampaignLive wrote, “Gresham says the team opted for a creative concept that spoke to all the Latinos in the room — despite Gresham herself not understanding the connection.”

Gresham’s marketing strategy hinged on knowing her audience and, just as importantly, trusting her fellow marketers who knew how to reach that audience.

Strategic Takeaways for Demographic Marketing

• Know what you don’t know.
• Foster diversity in marketing leadership and staff.
• Know your audience.

The catchy tune and the great storytelling certainly don’t hurt.

But more than that, Ogilvy and Verizon dug deep into Latinx culture — more than 25 years deep — to craft an ad that doesn’t feel like it’s just responding to the latest trend. They also tapped Venezuelan American comedian, musician, and producer Fred Armisen to direct the spot.

6. Chappell Roan

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Marketing Plan

A document that lays out the marketing efforts of a business in an upcoming period

What is a Marketing Plan?

A marketing plan is a document that lays out the marketing efforts of a business in an upcoming period, which is usually a year. It outlines the marketing strategy, promotional, and advertising activities planned for the period.

Elements of a Marketing Plan

A marketing plan will typically include the following elements:

Marketing objectives of the business : The objectives should be attainable and measurable – two goals associated with SMART, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Current business marketing positioning : An analysis of the current state of the organization concerning its marketing positioning.

Market research : Detailed research about current market trends, customer needs, industry sales volumes, and expected direction.

Outline of the business target market : Business target market demographics.

Marketing activities : A list of any actions concerning marketing goals that are scheduled for the period and the indicated timelines.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) to be tracked

Marketing mix : A combination of factors that may influence customers to purchase products. It should be appropriate for the organization and will largely be centered on the 4Ps of marketing – i.e., product, price, promotion, and place.

Competition : Identify the organization’s competitors and their strategies, along with ways to counter competition and gain market share .

Marketing strategies : The development of marketing strategies to be employed in the coming period. These strategies will include promotional strategies, advertising, and other marketing tools at the disposal of the organization.

Marketing budget : A detailed outline of the organization’s allocation of financial resources to marketing activities. The activities will need to be carried out within the marketing budget .

Monitoring and performance mechanism : A plan should be in place to identify if the marketing tools in place are bearing fruit or need to be revised based on the past, current, and expected future state of the organization, industry, and the overall business environment.

A marketing plan should observe the 80:20 rule – i.e., for maximum impact, it should focus on the 20% of products and services that account for 80% of volumes and the 20% of customers that bring in 80% of revenue.

Purpose of a Marketing Plan

The purpose of a marketing plan includes the following:

• To clearly define the marketing objectives of the business that align with the corporate mission and vision of the organization. The marketing objectives indicate where the organization wishes to be at any specific period in the future.
• The marketing plan usually assists in the growth of the business by stating appropriate marketing strategies, such as plans for increasing the customer base.
• State and review the marketing mix in terms of the 8Ps of marketing – Product, Price, Place, Promotion, People, Process, Physical Evidence, and Performance.
• Strategies to increase market share, enter new niche markets, and increase brand awareness are also encompassed within the marketing plan.
• The marketing plan will contain a detailed budget for the funds and resources required to carry out activities indicated in the marketing plan.
• The assignment of tasks and responsibilities of marketing activities is well enunciated in the marketing plan.
• The identification of business opportunities and any strategies crafted to exploit them is important.
• A marketing plan fosters the review and analysis of the marketing environment, which entails market research, customer needs assessment, competitor analysis, PEST analysis , studying new business trends, and continuous environmental scanning.
• A marketing plan integrates business functions to operate with consistency – notably sales, production, finance, human resources, and marketing.

Structure of a Marketing Plan

The structure of a marketing plan can include the following sections:

Marketing Plan Objectives

This section outlines the expected outcome of the marketing plan with clear, concise, realistic, and attainable objectives. It contains specific targets and time frames.

Metrics, such as target market share, the target number of customers to be attained, penetration rate, usage rate, sales volumes targeted, etc. should be used.

Market Research – Market Analysis/Consumer Analysis

Market analysis includes topics such as market definition, market size, industry structure, market share and trends, and competitor analysis. Consumer analysis includes the target market demographics and what influences their buying decisions – e.g., loyalty, motivation, and expectations.

Target Market

This defines the target customers by their demographic profile, such as gender, race, age, and psychographic profile, such as their interests. This will assist in the correct marketing mix for the target market segments.

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis will look at the organization’s internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats. SWOT analysis includes the following:

• Strengths are the organization’s competitive advantages that are not easily duplicated. They represent the skills, expertise, and efficiencies that an organization possesses over its competitors.
• Weaknesses are impediments found in the operations of an organization, and they stifle growth. These can include outdated machinery, inadequate working capital, and inefficient production methods.
• Opportunities are prospects for growth in the business through the adoption of ways to take advantage of the chances. They could include entry into new markets, adopting digital marketing strategies, or following new trends.
• Threats are external factors that can affect the business negatively, such as a new powerful competitor, legislative changes, natural disasters, or political situations.

Marketing Strategy

The marketing strategy section covers actual strategies to be included according to the marketing mix. The strategy centers on the 8Ps of marketing. However, firms are also at liberty to use the traditional 4 P’s of marketing – product, price, place, and promotion. The 8 P’s are illustrated below.

The correct marketing mix is determined by the target market. The most expensive options are advertising, sales promotions, and PR campaigns. Networking and referrals are less costly.

Marketers also need to pay attention to digital marketing strategies that make use of technology to reach a wider market and have also proven to be cost-effective.

Digital marketing channels, which became popular in the early 21 st century, may eventually overtake traditional marketing methods. Digital marketing encompasses trending methods, such as the use of social media for business.

Other strategies within the marketing strategy include pricing and positioning strategy, distribution strategy, conversion strategy, and retention strategy.

Marketing Budget

The marketing budget or projection outlines the budgeted expenditure for the marketing activities documented in the marketing plan. The marketing budget consists of revenues and costs stated in the marketing plan in one document.

It balances expenditures on marketing activities and what the organization can afford. It’s a financial plan of marketing activities to be carried out – e.g., promotional activities, cost of marketing materials and advertising, and so on. Other considerations include expected product volume and price, production and delivery costs, and operating and financing costs.

The effectiveness of the marketing plan depends on the budget allocated for marketing expenditure. The cost of marketing should be able to make the company break even and make profits.

Performance Analysis

Performance analysis aims to look at the variances of metrics or components documented in the marketing plan.  These include:

Revenue variance analysis : An analysis of positive or negative variance of revenue. A negative variance is worrisome, and reasons should be available to explain the cause of deviations.

Market share analysis : An analysis of whether the organization attained its target market share. Sales may be increasing whilst the organization’s share of the market is decreasing; hence, it is paramount to track this metric.

Expense analysis : An analysis of marketing expense to sales ratio . This ratio needs to be compared to industry standards to make informed comparisons.

The ratio enables the organization to track actual expenditures versus the budget. It is also compared to other metrics, such as revenue analysis and market share analysis. It can be dissected into individual expenditures to sales to get a clearer picture.

Administration of a Marketing Plan

The marketing plan should be revised and adapted to changes in the environment periodically. The use of metrics, budgets, and schedules to measure progress towards the goals set in the marketing plan is a continuous process by marketing personnel.

There should be a continuous assessment to verify that the goals of the marketing plan are being achieved. The marketing manager should be able to review if the strategies documented are being effective, given the operating environment.

It is irrational for the marketing manager to notice anomalies and wait to review at year-end when the situation might have already deteriorated.

Changes in the environment may necessitate a review of plans, projections, strategies, and targets. Therefore, a formal periodical review – such as monthly or quarterly – may need to be in place. This may mean preparing an annual marketing plan but reviewing the plan quarterly to keep targets and plans aligned closely to environmental changes. It goes without saying that plans are as good as their feasibility to succeed in the given environment.

More Resources

Thank you for reading CFI’s guide to Marketing Plan. To keep learning and advancing your career, the additional CFI resources below will be useful:

• 4 P’s of Marketing
• Market Research
• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
• Competitive Advantage
• See all management & strategy resources
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What Is a Marketing Plan and How To Write One (+ Template)

Learn the key elements of a marketing plan, access templates to get started, and get tips on how to write an effective plan.

No matter how much you stick to a plan, things go wrong. As the famous quote by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower goes: “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

When it comes to ecommerce, consumer trends shift, circumstances change, and initial experiments don’t always go as planned. All of these things impact your marketing plan. 

Research shows that marketers who proactively write a marketing plan are 356% more likely to report success. So, what does a realistic ecommerce marketing plan look like? And how do you handle unexpected obstacles and overestimations that threaten your company’s marketing strategy? This guide shares the answers.

What is a marketing plan?

A marketing plan is the strategy a business uses to get its products or services in front of its target customer. It includes who the target market is, the channels used to reach them, and the messaging that will help the business sell its products. 

The purpose of a marketing plan isn’t to create a step-by-step, never-fail manual. Rather, it’s a roadmap to help you accomplish the best-case scenario, while also maintaining realistic expectations for your marketing initiatives and establishing backup plans if something doesn’t work.

Marketing plan vs. business plan

A business plan paints a bigger picture of how you plan to run your business. It includes a mission statement, products you’ll launch, and market research. A marketing plan, on the other hand, is a specific document that details how you plan to achieve these wider goals through marketing . 

Marketing plan vs marketing strategy

An overarching marketing strategy details how marketing will drive business results. A marketing plan is the route you’ll use to get there. It’s more specific than a strategy and includes a practical roadmap on how you’ll put your marketing activities into play. 

Free marketing plan template to help you get started

Creating your own marketing plan is no small job. You put hours into customer and competitor research to find the channels likely to have the biggest impact on your marketing goals. You can check out marketing plan examples , but when it comes to creating your own, you can save time with a template.

Ditch the intimidating blank screen by building a marketing plan using Shopify’s free marketing plan template. Use it to guide your marketing strategy, tweaking the template to meet your business needs.

Download the template now

Types of marketing plans

Digital marketing plan.

A digital marketing plan is a specific type of marketing plan that revolves solely around online channels like social media, email, and search engines. It doesn’t include offline channels like billboards or radio ads.

Social media marketing plan

A social media marketing plan focuses specifically on how a business will use social media to reach its target market. It gives you a framework of which channels you’ll use, the types of content you’ll create, whether you’ll invest in social media ads, and how you’ll drive product sales. This can take place either through your online store or a social media storefront such as Facebook and Instagram Shops .

Content marketing plan 

A content marketing plan details how you’ll produce content that turns people into paying customers. This can span multiple formats, including an email newsletter, infographics, product documentation, and user-generated content (such as social media posts). 

Alongside the more traditional elements of a marketing plan, a content-marketing-specific strategy would include:

• Keywords you plan to target
• Who you’ll use to create the content (e.g., freelancers or in-house marketers)
• How you’ll promote and repurpose your content

Offline marketing plan

An offline marketing plan details how a business will reach its target market without using digital channels. This might include billboards, radio ads, direct mail, event sponsorships, and outdoor advertising. 

How to write a marketing plan

Detail your unique value proposition, outline your buyer personas, run a swot analysis, detail product features and benefits, set key performance indicators, outline your marketing funnel.

• Define your marketing channels

Decide on your content formats

• Plan your marketing resources

Create a measurement and optimization plan

A unique value proposition underlines your entire marketing plan. Regardless of the channels and formats you plan to use, consistency is key. Mixed messages on what you sell and what your brand stands for will only confuse potential customers.

A simple way to refine your messaging is to focus on your unique selling point. Costco, for example, is cheaper than its competitors. Harper Wilde’s products are comfier than any other bra retailer. Find the marketing channels each retailer uses and you’ll see messaging centered around its adjective.

Consult your customers if you’re unsure what your value proposition adjective should be. Research is the biggest part of any copywriting process . Survey people who’ve already bought from you, run an Instagram poll to discover why people follow your brand, and see where your competitors’ weaknesses lie. Look for adjectives that crop up frequently during the process.

What overarching goal are you trying to accomplish with the business? Why does it exist? Summarize it in one sentence, and you’ll have a mission statement to inform everything you do, which includes your marketing strategies .

Going overboard with assumptions is a common mistake among marketers. The end result is a marketing plan that doesn’t actually result in revenue.

While data won’t give you a foolproof plan, every assumption is one more bit of uncertainty you’re folding into your marketing goals . If an amazing plan has a 40% chance of holding up to real-world scenarios, one without much rigor—and lots of assumptions—might hold up 10% of the time.

Consult your customer segments and buyer personas to get as much information as you can about the person buying your products, such as: 

• Demographic data (location, age, and income level) 
• Interests, goals, and challenges 
• Channels they use to discover new products

Be careful not to confuse this with your target audience . Children would be the target audience of a toy brand; parents are the buyer persona. The latter is who you’ll be reaching out to with your marketing plan. 

A SWOT analysis helps uncover your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats relative to your competitors. It’s useful to include one as part of your marketing plan because it can help anticipate problems you might encounter, make more data-driven decisions, and spot areas where you can get ahead of your competitors. 

Dive deep into the data you already have about your customer base by investigating marketing analytics , social media audiences, and customer surveys . It reiterates who you’re trying to reach—and more importantly, the triggers that would make them buy your product over a competitor’s.

Remind yourself of your unique selling proposition (USP) throughout this process. Tailor your marketing plan around key takeaways from these. 

Include any special features, competitive advantages, or customer favorites your marketing plan will lean on.

You could have the best mattress in the world—one made with 100 springs and cotton stitching, vigorously tested by sleep experts. But you’d struggle to market it if you lean too heavily on product features. A customer cares more about getting a peaceful night’s sleep than detailed product specifications.

“Every great marketing plan needs one thing first: a product that is 10 times better than the next,” says Nick Saltarelli, co-founder of Mid-Day Squares . “Once you have that, marketing is about deep human connections.”

Nick says, “It felt obvious that there was a sweet spot somewhere in between: people who wanted to follow along, and a true behind-the-scenes look into building a massive chocolate business from the ground up.”

As a result, the Mid-Day Squares marketing plan doesn’t prioritize product promotion. The brand instead “focuses on getting people to fall in love with us, the founders, to scale the human connection,” Nick says.

What are you trying to achieve with your marketing plan? Create both short- and long-term business goals that relate to financial metrics like revenue growth, retention , or new customers .

Most marketers measure success using return on investment (ROI) —the revenue you expect to generate after spending your marketing budget. It’s every marketer’s dream to get $100,000 in sales from $1,000 in marketing spend. While that isn’t the most realistic expectation, knowing your target ROI will prevent overspending. If your ROI is hurtling beyond your predictions, you can better allocate that budget to be spent elsewhere.

But there’s more to marketing measurement than dollar returns. Revenue isn’t always the end goal. Brand awareness, website traffic, and social media followers are short-term marketing objectives that aim to get new people into your marketing funnel. Nail them early on and you set your business up for success later down the road.

Not everyone will see your products and convert into a customer instantly. Most people progress through a sales funnel. Content that will make someone progress to the next stage depends on the one they’re currently in. 

If you were to use Facebook ads to sell your products to a generic audience modeled on your buyer persona, for example, you might not get the highest conversion rate. These people don’t know who you are, what you stand for, or why they should choose you over a competitor. 

But if you used Facebook ads to specifically target people at the bottom of your marketing funnel, you could use retargeting ads to show items someone had in their shopping cart. You’re bound to get a better return on your investment with this strategy because you’re only investing money into reaching people who just need a final nudge to convert. 

Let’s break down how you might outline your marketing funnel in a marketing plan. 

Top of the funnel (TOFU)

People at the top of your marketing funnel don’t understand who you are or what you sell. Social media, podcasts, and video content play huge roles here. Each channel is used by potential customers looking to learn or be inspired.

For this stage, prioritize metrics that give insight into how people are engaging with your top-funnel content, such as:

• Video views
• Website clicks
• Click-through rate (CTR)
• Cost per click (CPC)

Middle of the funnel (MOFU)

People reach the middle of the funnel when they know they have a problem that needs to be solved. Look at the marketing channels and formats you’re using to target these people. Most often, it’s search engines and retargeted ads.

Google Analytics is your best bet here. While the dashboard can feel overwhelming for a lot of people, you don’t need to look at every report. Use the following metrics to see how people engage with your middle-funnel content:

• Bounce rate
• Pages per session 
• Users by traffic source
• Email subscriber conversion rate 

To track the data above, especially for advertising campaigns, add the Meta pixel to all pages of your store.

Bottom of the funnel (BOFU)

Going for the hard sell? For marketing messages where the only goal is to convert your audience into paying customers, consult the back end of your ecommerce store. It’s home to sales and product-related data that helps you understand whether your marketing plan is successful, such as:

• Added to cart conversion rate
• Average order value (AOV)
• Number of orders
• Reached checkout conversion rate
• Sales conversion rate

Post-funnel and retention

Planning to build a steady stream of paying customers off the back of your ecommerce marketing plan? It's easy to assume revenue growth comes from audience growth. But oftentimes, the easiest way to grow your revenue is by focusing on the people we forget about: existing customers.

Resist the temptation to focus on flashy metrics like social media followers and YouTube subscribers. Instead, involve existing customers in your marketing plan. Use them as a source of testimonials and word-of-mouth referrals.

“Happy customers have been powerful word-of-mouth catalysts for our brand, and it has made sense to keep them engaged,” says Chris Campbell, partner at The Charming Bench Company . “We’ve been getting a steady stream of five-star ratings on websites and social media, which we then share on our Facebook, X [formerly known as Twitter], Pinterest, and Instagram profiles. It’s a great alternative to pushing loud sales messages that don’t always work.”

Define your marketing channels 

Channels are the platforms you’ll use as part of your marketing plan. Go back to your market research and uncover the online and offline channels your target audience is using to shop and get entertained or inspired.

Some of the most popular channels for ecommerce businesses include:

• Social media . Social media is used by more than six out of 10 people . Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and Pinterest are free to use (on the whole) and help brands reach their target audience. 
• Search engines . Some 44% of online shoppers start their product research on search engines. By making search engine optimization (SEO) part of your marketing plan, you can generate new business by reaching people when they’re actively looking for your products or services.
• Email marketing  and  SMS marketing . Email and text message inboxes are two of the most sacred places for a marketer to reach. A phone number or email address gives you a direct line of communication with your target customers, if they opt in to hear from you.
• Podcasts . Record conversations you have with your team, customers, or experts in the industry and share them with your audience. By establishing yourself or your brand as a thought leader in your industry, you’ll inspire confidence that in turn builds trust in your products.
• Offline channels. While digital marketing is vital in today’s world, offline and in-person marketing efforts can be equally powerful. Get in front of people when they’re not online, using channels like word-of-mouth recommendations , radio, billboards and outdoor advertising , or TV marketing campaigns.

There’s a sweet spot to how many channels your marketing plan should include. Go too wide and you burn resources on channels with poor returns. But become too reliant on one channel and you’re at risk.

Algorithms power most digital marketing channels. They’re praised as the type of technology that delivers personalized experiences for their users, but any changes to an algorithm can make marketing plans utterly useless overnight.

“If you rely on SEO, then any algorithm updates could potentially cut your revenue for months before you recover,” explains Marquis Matson, VP of Growth at Sozy . “If you rely on paid ads, then any changes to privacy policies can cut your revenue. If you rely on email marketing, then any ESP  [email service provider]  policy changes can cut your revenue. Diversifying your acquisition is crucial in a fast-paced digital marketing world.”

Footwear brand Hippy Feet is one ecommerce brand that failed to diversify channels. “The original marketing plan was to drive traffic to our Shopify store through ads—relying heavily on paid Facebook and Instagram traffic,” says Sam Harper, Hippy Feet’s co-founder and CEO. “While this is still a major component of our marketing strategy, the decreasing effectiveness of these ads has forced us to expand our marketing efforts.

“A diverse media strategy is crucial to helping an ecommerce business survive in this highly-dynamic market. By driving traffic through SEO, email, and media coverage, we’re more resilient and less impacted by a single tech platform changing their algorithm.”

For each channel, define which content formats you’ll use to capture attention and drive website traffic. That could include:

• Audio. Reach podcast and radio listeners with audio content. 
• Images. Capture visual learners and shoppers on visually dominant social media sites with infographics, GIFs, and memes.
• Video. Get listed on YouTube , the world's second largest search engine, with explainer videos and product demonstrations. Many social media platforms— Instagram and TikTok included—are also evolving to prioritize video content. 
• Written content. Most search engine results retrieve links to optimized written content, such as blogs , transcripts, or landing pages .

Content marketing is a beast that constantly needs to be fed. Customers want newer, fresher, more exciting content on a regular basis. That’s demanding for a small business to keep up with.

If this sounds unsustainable, consider a content marketing strategy that collects user-generated content (UGC) from existing customers. The more they share their experiences with others, the more content you have to repurpose on each channel. It’s an effective route to scale your content marketing plan and stretch your editorial calendar if your marketing department has limited resources. Don’t have time to invest in promoting the content you create? Partner with popular influencers in your niche—those whose loyal audience overlaps with your target market .

Your marketing budget is the dollar amount you expect to spend executing your marketing plan. If you’re bootstrapped, you can run a marketing plan on a tight budget .

As part of your own marketing plan, state whether you intend to use each channel organically or boost it with advertising. Most channels allow businesses to run sponsored content, which is guaranteed to reach your target market across online and offline channels, like door-to-door sales , social media, TV, billboards, and radio.

“I apply for any competitions, press opportunities, and awards to get my small business out there at any given opportunity,” says Terri-Anne Turton, founder of The Tur-Shirt Company . 

The strategy has worked: The Tur-Shirt Company has won a Junior Design Award for best fashion newcomer and a shoutout from media entrepreneur Steven Bartlett after entering his #DeserveToBeFound competition with Facebook.

“I focus on those my target market knows of to build credibility,” says Terri-Anne. “Plus, most of the awards I enter are free or low-cost; they just need some time investment and creativity to take part. It proves my USP to my target market—that my kids’ clothing products are unique—without investing thousands into advertising.”

While you can run a strategy with little to no budget, this section of your marketing plan needs to account for more than any planned advertising spend. Time is a resource that needs to be managed and accounted for. Be sure to detail how much time you plan to spend executing your marketing strategy.

If you have a designated marketing team, it’s also worth noting who will be responsible for each element of your marketing plan. Who’s responsible for this marketing plan? Which team members are executing it? What experience do they have with marketing?

More importantly, detail what you expect from the resources you’re putting into your marketing plan. If you plan to spend $40,000 throughout the coming year, how much revenue will you get in return? If you’re producing a marketing plan for a large or public company, this is what stakeholders really want to see.

Go back to the KPIs (key performance indicators) you set in the earlier section of your marketing plan. How will you determine whether you’ve met these KPIs? What happens if you’re exceeding or falling short of your target? It’s good to have a plan of action for either case.

Let’s put that into practice and say you expected to increase sales by 20% through your social media marketing plan. Detail exactly how you’d measure this, for example, you could say, “we’ll look at our Shopify sales report once per month and analyze which channel is meeting this KPI. If a channel falls behind, we’ll evaluate why and either adjust our marketing plan or deprioritize it in favor of more effective channels.” 

The best marketers approach their plans with an open mind. The hypothesis you started with might be proven wrong. Don’t take that as a negative. You just got closer to finding what will work. 

Tips for creating your marketing plan

Set conservative expectations.

While it’s good to approach your marketing goals with confidence, high expectations often lead to disappointment when we fail to meet them. That disappointment is magnified in a marketing plan, as stakeholders or founders will have already bought into unrealistic predictions and business objectives.

Start small

Don’t overwhelm yourself and your team by trying to generate results with all marketing tactics at once: running Facebook ads, tweeting like crazy, writing daily blog posts for SEO, and making constant changes to site and content strategy to improve your conversion rate.

If you’re very lucky, one of these tactics will bring you consistent traffic and sales. But more often than not, trying everything at once will make you extremely busy without anything to show for it.

Take it from Jameela Ghann, owner of Alora : “When we first started Alora, 10 years ago, our marketing plan was unrealistic. We were just a couple of people making plans that were good on paper but almost impossible to execute with a small team.” 

Originally, Jameela’s team planned to invest in several marketing channels—online and offline advertising, PR, trade shows, influencer marketing, and blogging included. However, the team changed its marketing plan. They went deep on one channel instead of spreading resources too thin by trying to be everywhere at once.

“We stuck to one course of action that was where our customers were, and ready to buy, and easiest for us to see a good ROI,” Jameela says. “What really worked for us was focusing on a handful of channels that we knew we could do well.”

Go back to your audience research and identify three channels your target audience uses most often. Put most of your energy into perfecting those before overcomplicating things with a more comprehensive marketing plan.

Use historical data as a guide

Past performance can help you temper your expectations for your marketing plan. If you know your click-through rate (CTR) for Facebook ads is 0.1%, don’t stray too far from that baseline with your social media marketing .

The same goes for website content optimized for search : If you’re currently getting 10,000 visitors per month from Google, scaling your traffic up to a million is a tough battle. Instead, 50,000 visitors is a more achievable goal.

Allow for flexibility

The purpose of a marketing plan isn’t to create a never-fail manual. Whether your marketing team has fallen victim to completion bias or focused too heavily on one channel, sticking rigidly to your original plan can be a big mistake.

Imine Martinez, assistant manager at Rainbowly , says: “Our regular campaigns targeting mainly birthday celebrations and anniversaries offered poor return on ad spend and inconsistent results over the months.

“That said, during festive seasons, such as Christmas or New Year’s, our targeted campaigns were particularly profitable, achieving five times return on ad spend with much cheaper cost per click and impression.”

Continuing with the same marketing strategies despite this data would only have resulted in heartbreak. Rainbowly would be pouring money down the drain on ads that wouldn’t perform, just because its marketing plan said to do so.

Creating a marketing plan is the first step

A lot of hard work goes into a successful marketing plan. To create an attainable one, you’ll need to spend hours diving into competitive research, audience data, and channels your target market consults when researching new products.

Most importantly, know that marketing is unpredictable. There are thousands of scenarios that fundamentally change the marketing strategy that’s best for your business. Global pandemics, PR crises, and the emergence of new social media platforms are unpredictable.

Treat your marketing plan like the best-case scenario. Plan SMART goals and strategies but remember to be flexible to give your marketing the best chance of success.

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Marketing plan FAQ

How much does a marketing plan cost, how often should a marketing plan be reviewed, what are the 4 steps of a marketing plan.

• Conduct market research
• Outline your marketing channels and formats
• Create goals and measure performance

Why is marketing plan important?

What are some marketing plan mistakes.

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Blog Marketing What is a Marketing Plan & How to Create One [with Examples]

What is a Marketing Plan & How to Create One [with Examples]

Written by: Sara McGuire Oct 26, 2023

A marketing plan is a blueprint that outlines your strategies to attract and convert your ideal customers as a part of your customer acquisition strategy . It’s a comprehensive document that details your:

• Target audience:  Who you’re trying to reach
• Marketing goals:  What you want to achieve
• Strategies and tactics:  How you’ll reach your goals
• Budget:  Resources you’ll allocate
• Metrics:  How you’ll measure success

In this article, I’ll explain everything you need to know about creating a marketing plan . If you need a little extra help, there are professionally designed marketing plan templates that’ll make the process much easier. So, let’s ditch the confusion and get started!

Click to jump ahead:

What is a marketing plan?

How to write a marketing plan .

• Marketing plan v.s. business plan
• Types of marketing plans

9 marketing plan examples to inspire your growth strategy

Marketing plan faqs.

A marketing plan is a report that outlines your marketing strategy for your products or services, which could be applicable for the coming year, quarter or month.  

Watch this quick, 13-minute video for more details on what a marketing plan is and how to make one yourself:

Typically, a marketing plan includes:

• An overview of your business’s marketing and advertising goals
• A description of your business’s current marketing position
• A timeline of when tasks within your strategy will be completed
• Key performance indicators (KPIs) you will be tracking
• A description of your business’s target market and customer needs
• A description of how you will measure the performance of the strategy

For example, this marketing plan template provides a high-level overview of the business and competitors before diving deep into specific goals, KPIs and tactics:

Learning how to write a marketing plan forces you to think through the important steps that lead to an effective marketing strategy . And a well-defined plan will help you stay focused on your high-level marketing goals.

With Venngage’s extensive catalog of marketing plan templates , creating your marketing plan isn’t going to be hard or tedious. In fact, Venngage has plenty of helpful communications and design resources for marketers. If you’re ready to get started, sign up for  Venngage for Marketers   now. It’s free to register and start designing.

Whether you’re a team trying to set smarter marketing goals, a consultant trying to set your client in the right direction, or a one-person team hustling it out, Venngage for Marketers helps you get things done.

As mentioned above, the scope of your marketing plan varies depending on its purpose or the type of organization it’s for.

For example, you could look for performance marketing agency to create a marketing plan that provides an overview of a company’s entire marketing strategy or simply focus on a specific channel like SEO, social media marketing, content marketing and more, like in this example:

A typical outline of a marketing plan includes:

• Executive summary
• Goals and objectives
• User personas
• Competitor analysis/SWOT analysis
• Baseline metrics
• Marketing strategy
• Tracking guidelines

Below you will see in details how to write each section as well as some examples of how you can design each section in a marketing plan.

Let’s look at how to create a successful marketing plan (click to jump ahead):

• Write a simple executive summary
• Set metric-driven marketing goals
• Outline your user personas
• Research all of your competitors
• Set accurate key baselines & metrics
• Create an actionable marketing strategy
• Set tracking or reporting guidelines

1. Write a simple executive summary

Starting your marketing plan off on the right foot is important. You want to pull people into your amazing plan for marketing domination. Not bore them to tears.

One of the best ways to get people excited to read your marketing plan is with a well-written executive summary. An executive summary introduces readers to your company goals, marketing triumphs, future plans, and other important contextual facts.

Basically, you can use the Executive Summary as a primer for the rest of your marketing plan.

Include things like:

• Simple marketing goals
• High-level metrics
• Important company milestones
• Facts about your brand
• Employee anecdotes
• Future goals & plans

Try to keep your executive summary rather brief and to the point. You aren’t writing a novel, so try to keep it under three to four paragraphs.

Take a look at the executive summary in the marketing plan example below:

The executive summary is only two paragraphs long — short but effective.

The executive summary tells readers about the company’s growth, and how they are about to overtake one of their competitors. But there’s no mention of specific metrics or figures. That will be highlighted in the next section of the marketing plan.

An effective executive summary should have enough information to pique the reader’s interest, but not bog them down with specifics yet. That’s what the rest of your marketing plan is for!

The executive summary also sets the tone for your marketing plan. Think about what tone will fit your brand ? Friendly and humorous? Professional and reliable? Inspiring and visionary?

2. Set metric-driven marketing goals

After you perfect your executive summary, it’s time to outline your marketing goals.

(If you’ve never set data-driven goals like this before, it would be worth reading this growth strategy guide ).

This is one of the most important parts of the entire marketing plan, so be sure to take your time and be as clear as possible. Moreover, optimizing your marketing funnel is key. Employing effective funnel software can simplify operations and provide valuable customer insights. It facilitates lead tracking, conversion rate analysis, and efficient marketing optimization .

As a rule of thumb, be as specific as possible. The folks over at  VoyMedia  advise that you should set goals that impact website traffic, conversions, and customer success — and to use real numbers. Complement your goals with website optimization tools (e.g., A/B testing speed with Nostra – check Nostra AI review to learn more) to further improve conversions.

Avoid outlining vague goals like:

• Get more Twitter followers
• Write more articles
• Create more YouTube videos (like educational or Explainer videos )
• Increase retention rate
• Decrease bounce rate

Instead, identify  key performance metrics  (KPI) you want to impact and the percentage you want to increase them by.

Take a look at the goals page in the marketing plan example below:

They not only identify a specific metric in each of their goals, but they also set a timeline for when they will be increased.

The same vague goals listed earlier become much clearer when specific numbers and timelines are applied to them:

• Get 100 new Twitter followers per month
• Write 5 more articles per week
• Create 10 YouTube videos each year
• Increase retention rate by 15% by 2020
• Decrease bounce rate by 5% by Q1
• Create an online course  and get 1,000 new leads
• Focus more on local SEO strategies
• Conduct a monthly social media report to track progress

You can dive even deeper into your marketing goals if you want (generally, the more specific, the better). Here’s a marketing plan example that shows how to outline your growth goals:

3. Outline your user personas

Now, this may not seem like the most important part of your marketing plan, but I think it holds a ton of value.

Outlining your user personas is an important part of a marketing plan that should not be overlooked.

You should be asking not just how you can get the most visitors to your business, but how you can get the right visitors.

Who are your ideal customers? What are their goals? What are their biggest problems? How does your business solve customer problems?

Answering these questions will take lots of research, but it’s essential information to get.

Some ways to conduct user research are:

• Interviewing your users (either in person or on the phone)
• Conducting focus groups
• Researching other businesses in the same industry
• Surveying your audience

Then, you will need to compile your user data into a user persona  guide.

Take a look at how detailed this user persona template is below:

Taking the time to identify specific demographic traits, habits and goals will make it easier for you to cater your marketing plan to them.

Here’s how you can create a user persona guide:

The first thing you should add is a profile picture or icon for each user persona. It can help to put a face to your personas, so they seem more real.

Next, list demographic information like:

• Identifiers
• Activities/Hobbies

The user persona example above uses sliding scales to identify personality traits like introversion vs. extroversion and thinking vs. feeling. Identifying what type of personality your target users tend to have an influence on the messaging you use in your marketing content.

Meanwhile, this user persona guide identifies specific challenges the user faces each day:

But if you don’t want to go into such precise detail, you can stick to basic information, like in this marketing plan example:

Most businesses will have a few different types of target users. That’s why it’s pertinent to identify and create several different user personas . That way, you can better segment your marketing campaigns and set separate goals, if necessary.

Here’s a marketing plan example with a segmented user persona guide:

The important thing is for your team or client to have a clear picture of who their target user is and how they can appeal to their specific problems.

Start creating robust user personas using Venngage’s user persona guide .

4. Conduct an extensive competitor analysis

Next, on the marketing plan checklist, we have the competitor research section. This section will help you identify who your competitors are, what they’re doing, and how you could carve yourself a place alongside them in your niche — and ideally, surpass them. It’s something you can learn to do with rank tracking software .

Competitor research is also incredibly important if you are starting a blog .

Typically, your competitor research should include:

• Who their marketing team is
• Who their leadership team is
• What their marketing strategy and strategic marketing plan are (this will probably revolve some reverse-engineering)
• What their sales strategy is (same deal)
• Social Media strategy (are they using discounting strategies such as coupon marketing to get conversions)
• Their market cap/financials
• Their yearly growth (you will probably need to use a marketing tool like Ahrefs to do this)
• The number of customers they have & their user personas

Also, take as deep a dive as you can into the strategies they use across their:

• Blog/Content marketing
• Social media marketing
• SEO Marketing
• Video marketing
• And any other marketing tactics they use

Research their strengths and weaknesses in all parts of their company, and you will find some great opportunities. Bookmark has a great guide to different marketing strategies for small businesses  if you need some more information there.

You can use this simple SWOT analysis worksheet to quickly work through all parts of their strategy as well:

Click the template above to create a SWOT chart . Customize the template to your liking — no design know-how needed.

Since you have already done all the research beforehand, adding this information to your marketing plan shouldn’t be that hard.

In this marketing plan example, some high-level research is outlined for 3 competing brands:

But you could take a deeper dive into different facets of your competitors’ strategies. This marketing plan example analyses a competitor’s inbound marketing strategy :

It can also be helpful to divide your competitors into Primary and Secondary groups. For example, Apple’s primary competitor may be Dell for computers, but its secondary competitor could be a company that makes tablets.

Your most dangerous competitors may not even be in the same industry as you. Like the CEO of Netflix said, “Sleep is our competition.”

5. Set accurate key baselines & metrics

It’s pretty hard to plan for the future if you don’t know where your business stands right now.

Before we do anything at Venngage, we find the baselines so we can compare future results to something. We do it so much it’s almost like second nature now!

Setting baselines will allow you to more accurately track your progress. You will also be able to better analyze what worked and what didn’t work, so you can build a stronger strategy. It will definitely help them clearly understand your goals and strategy as well.

Here’s a marketing plan example where the baselines are visualized:

Another way to include baselines in your plan is with a simple chart, like in the marketing plan example below:

Because data can be intimidating to a lot of people, visualizing your data using charts and infographics will help demystify the information.

6. Create an actionable marketing strategy

After pulling all the contextual information and relevant metrics into your marketing plan, it’s time to break down your marketing strategy.

Once again, it’s easier to communicate your information to your team or clients using visuals .

Mind maps are an effective way to show how a strategy with many moving parts ties together. For example, this mind map shows how the four main components of a marketing strategy interact together:

You can also use a flow chart to map out your strategy by objectives:

However you choose to visualize your strategy, your team should know exactly what they need to do. This is not the time to keep your cards close to your chest.

Your strategy section may need to take up a few pages to explain, like in the marketing plan example below:

With all of this information, even someone from the development team will understand what the marketing team is working on.

This minimalistic marketing plan example uses color blocks to make the different parts of the strategy easy to scan:

Breaking your strategy down into tasks will make it easier to tackle.

Another important way to visualize your marketing strategy is to create a project roadmap. A project roadmap visualizes the timeline of your product with individual tasks. Our roadmap maker can help you with this.

For example, this project roadmap shows how tasks on both the marketing and web design side run parallel to each other:

A simple timeline can also be used in your marketing plan:

Or a mind map, if you want to include a ton of information in a more organized way:

Even a simple “Next, Now, Later” chart can help visualize your strategy:

7. Set tracking or reporting guidelines

Close your marketing plan with a brief explanation of how you plan to track or measure your results. This will save you a lot of frustration down the line by standardizing how you track results across your team.

Like the other sections of your marketing plan, you can choose how in-depth you want to go. But there need to be some clear guidelines on how to measure the progress and results of your marketing plan.

At the bare minimum, your results tracking guidelines should specify:

• What you plan to track
• How you plan to track results
• How often you plan to measure

But you can more add tracking guidelines to your marketing plan if you see the need to. You may also want to include a template that your team or client can follow,  for  client reporting ,  ensure that the right metrics are being tracked.

The marketing plan example below dedicates a whole page to tracking criteria:

Use a task tracker to track tasks and marketing results, and a checklist maker to note down tasks, important life events, or tracking your daily life.

Similarly, the marketing plan example below talks about tracking content marketing instead:

Marketing plan vs. marketing strategy

Although often used interchangeably, the terms “marketing plan” and “marketing strategy” do have some differences.

Simply speaking, a marketing strategy presents what the business will do in order to reach a certain goal. A marketing plan outlines the specific daily, weekly, monthly or yearly activities that the marketing strategy calls for. As a business, you can create a marketing proposal for the marketing strategies defined in your company’s marketing plan. There are various marketing proposal examples that you can look at to help with this.

A company’s extended marketing strategy can be like this:

Notice how it’s more general and doesn’t include the actual activities required to complete each strategy or the timeframe those marketing activities will take place. That kind of information is included in a marketing plan, like this marketing plan template which talks about the content strategy in detail:

Marketing plan v.s business plan

While both marketing plans and business plans are crucial documents for businesses, they serve distinct purposes and have different scopes. Here’s a breakdown of the key differences:

Business plan is a comprehensive document that outlines all aspects of your business, including:

• Mission and vision
• Products or services
• Target market
• Competition
• Management team
• Financial projections
• Marketing strategy (including a marketing plan)
• Operations plan

Marketing plan on the other hand, dives deep into the specific strategies and tactics related to your marketing efforts. It expands on the marketing section of a business plan by detailing:

• Specific marketing goals (e.g., brand awareness, lead generation, sales)
• Target audience analysis (detailed understanding of their needs and behaviors)
• Product:  Features, benefits, positioning
• Price:  Pricing strategy, discounts
• Place:  Distribution channels (online, offline)
• Promotion:  Advertising, social media, content marketing, public relations
• Budget allocation for different marketing activities
• Metrics and measurement to track progress and success

In short, business plans paint the entire business picture, while marketing plans zoom in on the specific strategies used to reach your target audience and achieve marketing goals.

Types of marketing plans that can transform your business strategy

Let’s take a look at several types of marketing plans you can create, along with specific examples for each.

1. General marketing strategic plan / Annual marketing plan

This is a good example of a marketing plan that covers the overarching annual marketing strategy for a company:

Another good example would be this Starbucks marketing plan:

This one-page marketing plan example from coffee chain Starbucks has everything at a glance. The bold headers and subheadings make it easier to segment the sections so readers can focus on the area most relevant to them.

What we like about this example is how much it covers. From the ideal buyer persona to actional activities, as well as positioning and metrics, this marketing plan has it all.

Another marketing plan example that caught our eye is this one from Cengage. Although a bit text-heavy and traditional, it explains the various sections well. The clean layout makes this plan easy to read and absorb.

The last marketing plan example we would like to feature in this section is this one from Lush cosmetics.

It is a long one but it’s also very detailed. The plan outlines numerous areas, including the company mission, SWOT analysis , brand positioning, packaging, geographical criteria, and much more.

2. Content marketing plan

A content marketing plan highlights different strategies , campaigns or tactics you can use for your content to help your business reach its goals.

This one-page marketing plan example from Contently outlines a content strategy and workflow using simple colors and blocks. The bullet points detail more information but this plan can easily be understood at a glance, which makes it so effective.

For a more detailed content marketing plan example, take a look at this template which features an editorial calendar you can share with the whole team:

3. SEO marketing plan

Your SEO marketing plan highlights what you plan to do for your SEO marketing strategy . This could include tactics for website on-page optimization , off-page optimization using AI SEO , and link building using an SEO PowerSuite backlink API for quick backlink profile checks.

This SEO marketing plan example discusses in detail the target audience of the business and the SEO plan laid out in different stages:

4. Social media marketing plan

Your social media marketing plan presents what you’ll do to reach your marketing goal through social media. This could include tactics specific to each social media channel that you own, recommendations on developing a new channel, specific campaigns you want to run, and so on, like how B2B channels use Linkedin to generate leads with automation tools and expand their customer base; or like making use of Twitter walls that could display live Twitter feeds from Twitter in real-time on digital screens.

For B2C brands, you can target Facebook and Instagram. Gain Instagram likes to build trust for your brand’s profile and post engaging content on both platforms. Leverage AI social media tools to automate and scale your content plan..

Edit this social media marketing plan example easily with Venngage’s drag-and-drop editor:

5. Demand generation marketing plan

This could cover your paid marketing strategy (which can include search ads, paid social media ads, traditional advertisements, etc.), email marketing strategy and more. Here’s an example:

1. Free marketing plan template

Here’s a free nonprofit marketing plan example that is ideal for organizations with a comprehensive vision to share. It’s a simple plan that is incredibly effective. Not only does the plan outline the core values of the company, it also shares the ideal buyer persona.

Note how the branding is consistent throughout this example so there is no doubt which company is presenting this plan. The content plan is an added incentive for anyone viewing the document to go ahead and give the team the green light.

2. Pastel social media marketing campaign template

Two-page marketing plan samples aren’t very common, but this free template proves how effective they are. There’s a dedicated section for business goals as well as for project planning .

The milestones for the marketing campaign are clearly laid out, which is a great way to show how organized this business strategy is.

3. Small business marketing strategy template

This marketing plan template is perfect for small businesses who set out to develop an overarching marketing strategy for the whole year:

Notice how this aligns pretty well with the marketing plan outline we discussed in previous sections.

In terms of specific tactics for the company’s marketing strategy, the template only discusses SEO strategy, but you can certainly expand on that section to discuss any other strategies — such as link building , that you would like to build out a complete marketing plan for.

4. Orange simple marketing proposal template

Marketing plans, like the sample below, are a great way to highlight what your business strategy and the proposal you wan to put forward to win potential customers.

5. One-page marketing fact sheet template

This one-page marketing plan example is great for showcasing marketing efforts in a persuasive presentation or to print out for an in-person meeting.

Note how the fact sheet breaks down the marketing budget as well as the key metrics for the organization. You can win over clients and partners with a plan like this.

6. Light company business fact sheet template

This one-page sample marketing plan clearly outlines the marketing objectives for the organization. It’s a simple but effective way to share a large amount of information in a short amount of time.

What really works with this example is that includes a mission statement, key contact information alongside all the key metrics.

7. Marketing media press kit template

This press kit marketing plan template is bright and unmistakable as belonging to the Cloud Nine marketing agency . The way the brand colors are used also helps diversify the layouts for each page, making the plan easier to read.

We like the way the marketing department has outlined the important facts about the organization. The bold and large numbers draw the eye and look impressive.

8. Professional marketing proposal template

Start your marketing campaign on a promising note with this marketing plan template. It’s short, sharp and to the point. The table of contents sets out the agenda, and there’s a page for the company overview and mission statement.

9. Social media marketing proposal template

A complete marketing plan example, like the one below, not only breaks down the business goals to be achieved but a whole lot more. Note how the terms and conditions and payment schedule are included, which makes this one of the most comprehensive marketing plans on our list.

What should marketing plans include?

Marketing plans should include:

• A detailed analysis of the target market and customer segments.
• Clear and achievable marketing objectives and goals.
• Strategies and tactics for product promotion and distribution.
• Budget allocation for various marketing activities.
• Timelines and milestones for the implementation of marketing strategies.
• Evaluation metrics and methods for tracking the success of the marketing plan.

What is an executive summary in a marketing plan and what is its main goal?

An executive summary in a marketing plan is a brief overview of the entire document, summarizing the key points, goals, and strategies. Its main goal is to provide readers with a quick understanding of the plan’s purpose and to entice them to read further.

What are the results when a marketing plan is effective?

When a marketing plan is effective, businesses can experience increased brand visibility, higher customer engagement , improved sales and revenue, and strengthened customer loyalty.

What is the first section of a marketing plan?

The first section of a marketing plan is typically the “Executive Summary,” which provides a concise overview of the entire plan, including the business’s goals and the strategies to achieve them.

Now that you have the basics for designing your own marketing plan, it’s time to get started:

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How to Write an Effective Marketing Plan

Alan Gleeson

3 min. read

Updated October 27, 2023

A marketing plan is a core component of a business plan. It relates specifically to the marketing of a particular product or service and it describes:

• An overall marketing objective
• A broad marketing strategy
• The tactical detail related to specific marketing activities
• The various costs associated with these activities
• Those tasked with delivering these activities by name

The starting point for any marketing plan is an analysis of the strategic context, as a typical objective for most plans is promoting a good or service as effectively as possible. An assessment of the company, its environment and its customers helps to ensure that the author of the plan obtains a holistic view of the wider context. In turn this helps them to focus their energies and resources accordingly. This is particularly important given that most marketing managers will be subject to that all-too-familiar constraint—limited resources (invariably financial). In effect, a marketing plan is produced to ensure that limited resources are allocated to activities that are likely to bring the maximum return.

An assessment of the context will include analysis of both internal and external factors. There are a number of frameworks and tools designed to assist you with this:

• A SWOT analysis forces you to consider internal Strengths and Weaknesses alongside external Opportunities and Threats.
• Porter’s Five Forces is a framework designed to assist you in considering the broader competitive and environmental context.

It is also vital that you have a thorough understanding of your customers; look to whether segments exist within your broad customer group that can be profitably served utilizing specific and targeted marketing activities.

Following an analysis of broader conditions, a marketing strategy can then be put in place. This strategy needs to include financials so that all activities can be assessed in the context of their cost as a portion of the overall marketing budget. Regardless of the product or service, the objectives tend to be similar for most managers; create awareness, stimulate interest in the offering, and ultimately (profitably) convert this awareness into sales. All these factors are intertwined and, hence, the importance of effective market planning.

Using a local restaurant as an example, their marketing activities are going to be predominantly concentrated within a two to three mile radius of their restaurant, as this area is where the vast majority of their customers are likely to come from. Tactically, there is no point in such a restaurant advertising on TV (even locally) as the cost would be prohibitive in the context of their business model. They are limited in terms of capacity (number of seats) and their average cost per head so that, even if they created huge awareness and interest via TV advertising, the resultant revenues would still be unlikely to cover the cost of the specific marketing activity. On the other hand, stuffing leaflets through local letterboxes is extremely targeted and comes at low relative cost, which explains the sheer volume of fast-food fliers most of us get on a daily basis.

The reader of the plan should clearly be able to relate to the marketing initiatives in terms of the message, the target audience and the means to accessing this audience. A good marketing plan will detail specifics, i.e., a number of marketing activities, their respective costs, and the expected return on investment. Measuring return on marketing has historically been one of the greatest challenges the industry has faced. The advent of PPC (pay-per-click) advertising via the Internet has finally resulted in managers being able to track sales resulting from specific campaigns and adverts. However, this is just one means of advertising, and calculating effective ROI (return on investment) figures for other forms, such as billboards and TV, remains as elusive as ever.

In summary, a marketing plan should enable marketing managers to document their assessment of the opportunity in terms of effective allocation of limited resources. While most managers would love the luxury of a seven-figure marketing budget to spend on every conceivable advertising medium, the reality is that most need to market effectively on a pittance. A marketing plan assesses the most efficient means to attract potential customers and ultimately convert them to sales. Without a plan, a business is essentially rudderless and marketing activities are more likely to be reactive and, hence, considerably less effective.

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Alan Gleeson is a CMO, consultant and entrepreneur with a background in marketing and SaaS. He currently works for Contento, a company building a Headless CMS for Tech Companies. Gleeson has experience in a variety of industries including financial services, technology, and SaaS.

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Create a Detailed Marketing Plan With 6 Effective Templates

Want to make costly marketing errors and waste time and resources? Start without a marketing plan.

A marketing plan is not only an essential part of your business plan, but it is the roadmap that will provide your team focus and direction in all their marketing efforts.

A good marketing plan is backed by research and facts. Below, we’ve covered the steps you need to follow when creating a marketing plan that will help you attract potential customers to your product and services and convince them to buy.

Understand Your Current Market and Market Position

Set your smart marketing goals, outline your marketing processes, set a budget for your marketing activities.

• Marketing Strategies and Tactics

Advanced Strategies for Experienced Marketers

Ready to create your own marketing plan.

Pricing, promoting and creating brand messages , all depend on your current market and your position in it.

When understanding your current market position, there are a few things that you need to look into;

Understand Your Product

This is where you look into the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats associated with your product.

With your team and a SWOT analysis , this will take only a few hours. Once you understand your product in terms of these four areas, it’ll be easier to understand your market position.

To create a SWOT analysis template for Marketing Plan:

• Define your objective.
• Gather relevant information.
• Use a SWOT analysis template.
• Analyze strengths (internal factors).
• Evaluate weaknesses (internal factors).
• Identify opportunities (external factors).
• Assess threats (external factors).
• Analyze results and look for insights.
• Develop strategies based on findings.

Understand Your Customer

Everything – from what words you use to communicate your message to what marketing channels you use to promote your product – depends on who your customer is.

How old are they? Are they employed? What are their interests? While you need both quantitative and qualitative data on your customers, you can collect them via email surveys, direct interviews, questionnaires, and research.

Using the data you collect, create several user personas based on user segments. You can refer to these whenever you are developing a marketing strategy.

To create a buyer persona template for Marketing Plan:

• Research your target audience.
• Define key characteristics.
• Give the persona a name and image.
• Describe background and demographics.
• Detail goals and motivations.
• Outline challenges and pain points.
• Document preferred channels and information sources.
• Capture buying behavior and decision-making process.
• Add additional relevant details.
• Create a visual template for easy reference.
• Validate and update regularly.

Understand Your Competitors

This is where you identify your top competition, assess their strengths and weaknesses and analyze their marketing strategies in the market. The information you collect can be used to build effective strategies to improve your competitive advantage.

Once you conduct research, gather and analyze data on your competitors, you’d be able to understand whether you are a leader or a follower in the market.

To create a competitor analysis template for Marketing Plan:

• Identify key competitors.
• Determine evaluation criteria.
• Gather information.
• Create a table or spreadsheet.
• Analyze each competitor.
• Compare and contrast.
• Identify competitive advantages.
• Make strategic decisions.
• Update regularly.

Understand Your Brand Positioning

Your brand position is how you want your customers to perceive your brand. In order to determine this, you need to

• Know what your customer wants. The target market research you did earlier will help you with this.
• Understand what your brand’s capabilities are. Again refer to the SWOT analysis you did of your product.
• Understand how your competitors are positioning their brands in the market. You can figure this out with the help of the competitor analysis you did earlier.

Hence, your brand positioning should resonate with your consumers, can be delivered by you and should be different from that of your competitors. Keep these in mind when you are setting your marketing goals.

The Brand Asset Scorecard

Compare your brand with the average brands in the market by scoring each of the following five brand asset categories using a 20-point scale with a maximum possible score of 100. This way you can derive a score that indicates the relative strength of your brand against your competitors.

To create a brand asset scorecard template for Marketing Plan:

• Identify brand assets.
• Define evaluation criteria.
• Determine rating scales.
• Evaluate brand assets.
• Calculate scores and summarize.
• Identify improvement areas.
• Set action plans.
• Regularly review and update.

Now that you know where you stand in the market, it’s time to define your marketing goals. They are the only way to measure the success of the effort your marketing team is putting in.

Based on your current performance and your marketing objectives, your goals might change, but make sure that they align with the SMART goal criteria .

To create a SMART marketing goal template for Marketing Plan:

• Start with a specific objective.
• Make it measurable with clear metrics.
• Ensure it’s achievable with the allocated resources.
• Check if it’s relevant to business goals.
• Set a time-bound deadline.
• Document in a template.
• Review and track progress regularly

Once you know the goals you want to achieve, you can easily outline the steps that you need to take to accomplish them.

With a process map or flowchart , you can map the tasks you need to complete in order to achieve each of your goals. Once you’ve diagrammed your strategy, you can share it with your team and analyze whether the process needs to be improved or not.

Whether it is to run a social media campaign or to get an ad published in a newspaper, you need to spend money.

Now that you have identified the tasks/ steps you need to take, figure out how much money you’ll have to spend on each activity and where you’d take the money from. Having planned how you spend money earlier will help you keep track of your finances.

Before winding up, let’s also take a look at popular marketing strategies and tactics you can use and implement along with a marketing plan.

Different marketing strategies and tactics may be more effective depending on your industry, target market, and business goals. It’s important to regularly assess the effectiveness of your marketing initiatives, make any necessary adjustments, and monitor results. Here are some examples of marketing strategies and tactics commonly used by businesses.

• Target Market Segmentation

Based on demographics, psychographics, or other relevant factors, divide your overall market into smaller, more manageable categories. Customize your marketing messaging and strategies to engage and effectively reach each category.

Content Marketing

To attract and engage your target audience, produce and distribute relevant material, such as blog posts, videos, infographics, or whitepapers. Focus on delivering helpful information, resolving issues, and building your reputation as an industry expert.

Social Media Marketing

Use well-known social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn to promote your goods or services, build brand awareness, and interact with your audience. To achieve your marketing objectives, combine organic posts with sponsored adverts, influencer partnerships, and community engagement.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Increase the visibility of your website and online content by optimizing it. To increase your website’s visibility and organic traffic, conduct keyword research, provide high-quality content, optimize meta tags and descriptions, and develop quality backlinks.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

Run targeted internet advertising where you only pay when someone clicks on them on search engines (like Google advertising) or social media platforms (like Facebook Ads). For your campaigns to be as effective as possible, set specified budgets, target keywords, demographics, or interests, and keep an eye on them.

Email Marketing

Create an email list of prospective or current clients and send them targeted, customized emails. To cultivate leads, promote conversions, and increase customer loyalty, use email newsletters, promotional offers, product updates, or automated drip campaigns.

Influencer Marketing

To promote your business or products, collaborate with influential individuals or popular social media personalities in your industry. These influencers can create content, share reviews, or endorse your offerings, helping you reach their dedicated audience and increase brand awareness.

Referral Programs

You can encourage your current clients to recommend your company to their friends, relatives, or coworkers by providing rewards or incentives. Create referral programs that give discounts, exclusive access, or loyalty points to both the referrer and the new consumer.

Event Marketing

Participate in or organize trade exhibitions, conferences, events, or webinars that are relevant to your field. These events provide opportunities to network, showcase your products, share knowledge, and generate leads.

Personalization and Customer Segmentation

Tailor your marketing messages and offers to individual customers or specific customer segments based on their preferences, behavior, or purchase history. Deliver personalized experiences across numerous channels by utilizing customer data, analytics, and marketing automation tools.

Advanced strategies require a deep understanding of your target audience, extensive data analysis, and ongoing experimentation. To ensure optimal performance and maintain an edge over the competition, it’s critical to regularly assess the outcomes, iterate, and change your methods.

• Account-Based Marketing (ABM): Tailor personalized marketing campaigns to specific high-value accounts, using personalized content, targeted advertising, and outreach to engage and convert them.
• Marketing Automation: Streamline marketing processes with automation tools, automating tasks, nurturing leads through personalized workflows, and leveraging data and analytics to deliver targeted content and offers.
• Predictive Analytics: Use large datasets and machine learning to gain insights into future customer behavior, enabling data-driven decisions, anticipating needs, and personalizing marketing efforts effectively.
• Retention Marketing: Focus on retaining existing customers through personalized communication, loyalty programs, exclusive offers, proactive customer support, and targeted upselling or cross-selling campaigns.
• Omnichannel Marketing: Create a seamless customer experience across multiple channels, integrating online and offline marketing efforts for consistent messaging and customer interactions.
• Data-driven Personalization: Utilize customer data and advanced segmentation to deliver highly personalized experiences, tailoring marketing messages, recommendations, and offers based on individual behavior and demographics.
• Influencer Relationship Management: Build long-term relationships with influencers and thought leaders, collaborating beyond one-off campaigns for continuous brand exposure and audience engagement.
• Customer Advocacy Programs: Encourage satisfied customers to become brand advocates through incentives for sharing positive reviews, referrals, or user-generated content, leveraging their influence and social proof.
• Account-Based Retargeting: Combine ABM principles with retargeting strategies, using personalized ads and email campaigns to engage key accounts that have shown interest but have not converted.
• Experimental Marketing: Take calculated risks and experiment with innovative tactics, channels, or technologies to discover unique growth opportunities, such as virtual reality experiences, chatbots, voice search optimization, or emerging social media platforms.

A marketing plan doesn’t necessarily need to contain hundreds of pages. What is important is that it provides your marketing team the roadmap to get started.

Make use of the visualization techniques we looked at when discussing each step to make things clearer to your team.

And don’t forget to share your ideas on how to create a marketing plan with us.

Join over thousands of organizations that use Creately to brainstorm, plan, analyze, and execute their projects successfully.

FAQs About Marketing Plans

What is a marketing plan, why is a marketing plan important for a business.

• Provides direction: It helps align marketing activities with business goals, ensuring all efforts work cohesively towards achieving desired outcomes.
• Increases efficiency: By defining objectives, strategies, and tactics in advance, it helps prioritize tasks, allocate resources effectively, and minimize wasted efforts.
• Facilitates decision-making: A marketing plan provides a framework for evaluating different marketing opportunities, making informed decisions, and adjusting strategies based on market conditions.
• Enhances focus and accountability: It sets clear targets, timelines, and responsibilities, allowing team members to stay focused and accountable for executing the marketing plan.

What are the key components of a marketing plan?

While the components of a marketing plan can vary, here are some common key elements:

• Executive Summary
• Market Research and Analysis
• Competitive Analysis
• Marketing Objectives
• Implementation Timeline
• Budget Allocation
• Measurement and Tracking Metrics
• Risk Assessment and Contingency Plans

How do I measure and track the effectiveness of my marketing plan?

To measure and track the effectiveness of a marketing plan, consider the following approaches,

• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Define relevant KPIs such as sales revenue, website traffic, conversion rates, customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, social media engagement, or email open rates.
• Analytics and Tracking Tools: Utilize web analytics tools, CRM systems, social media analytics, or email marketing software to gather data and insights on customer behavior, campaign performance, and ROI.
• Regular Reporting and Analysis: Review and analyze the collected data regularly to evaluate the success of marketing activities, identify areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions for adjustments or optimizations.

What are some common challenges in implementing a marketing plan?

• Limited Resources: Insufficient budgets, time, or manpower can hinder the execution of planned marketing activities.
• Competitive Landscape: Competitors' actions or market dynamics may require adjustments to the planned strategies.
• Changing Consumer Behavior: Shifts in consumer preferences, trends, or technologies may demand adaptability and flexibility in marketing approaches.
• Measurement and Analysis: Difficulties in accurately measuring and attributing the impact of marketing activities to business outcomes.
• Internal Alignment: Ensuring that the marketing plan is well-communicated and aligned with other departments within the organization.

Addressing these challenges requires flexibility, ongoing monitoring, agility, and effective communication within the marketing team and across the organization.

More Related Articles

Amanda Athuraliya is the communication specialist/content writer at Creately, online diagramming and collaboration tool. She is an avid reader, a budding writer and a passionate researcher who loves to write about all kinds of topics.

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Featured Reads

• Marketing |
• How to create a winning marketing plan, ...

How to create a winning marketing plan, with 3 examples from world-class teams

A marketing plan helps leaders clearly visualize marketing strategies across channels, so they can ensure every campaign drives pipeline and revenue. In this article you’ll learn eight steps to create a winning marketing plan that brings business-critical goals to life, with examples from word-class teams.

To be successful as a marketer, you have to deliver the pipeline and the revenue.”

In other words—they need a well-crafted marketing plan.

Level up your marketing plan to drive revenue in 2024

Learn how to create the right marketing plan to hit your revenue targets in 2024. Hear best practices from marketing experts, including how to confidently set and hit business goals, socialize marketing plans, and move faster with clearer resourcing.

7 steps to build a comprehensive marketing plan

How do you build the right marketing plan to hit your revenue goals? Follow these eight steps for success:

1. Define your plan

First you need to define each specific component of your plan to ensure stakeholders are aligned on goals, deliverables, resources, and more. Ironing out these details early on ensures your plan supports the right business objectives, and that you have sufficient resources and time to get the job done. 

Get started by asking yourself the following questions: 

What resources do I need? 

What is the vision?

What is the value?

What is the goal?

Who is my audience?

What are my channels?

What is the timeline?

For example, imagine you’re creating an annual marketing plan to improve customer adoption and retention in the next fiscal year. Here’s how you could go through the questions above to ensure you’re ready to move forward with your plan: 

I will need support from the content team, web team, and email team to create targeted content for existing customers. One person on each team will need to be dedicated full-time to this initiative. To achieve this, the marketing team will need an additional $100K in budget and one new headcount. 

What is the vision?  

To create a positive experience for existing customers, address new customer needs, and encourage them to upgrade. We’ll do this by serving them how-to content, new feature updates, information about deals and pricing, and troubleshooting guides. 

According to the Sales Benchmark Index (SBI) , CEOs and go-to-market leaders report that more than 60% of their net-new revenue will come from existing customers in 2023. By retaining and building on the customers we have, we can maintain revenue growth over time. 

To decrease the customer churn rate from 30% to 10%, and increase upgrades from 20% to 30% in the next fiscal year. 

All existing customers. 

The main channel will be email. Supporting marketing channels include the website, blog, YouTube, and social media. 

The first half of the next fiscal year. 

One of the most important things to do as you create your marketing strategy is to identify your target audience . As with all marketing, you need to know who you’re marketing to. If you’re having a hard time determining who exactly your target audience is, try the bullseye targeting framework . The bullseye makes it easy for you to determine who your target audience is by industry, geography, company size, psychographics, demographics, and more.

2. Identify key metrics for success 

Now it’s time to define what key marketing metrics you’ll use to measure success. Your key metrics will help you measure and track the performance of your marketing activities. They’ll also help you understand how your efforts tie back to larger business goals. 

Once you establish key metrics, use a goal-setting framework—like objectives and key results (OKRs) or SMART goals —to fully flush out your marketing objectives. This ensures your targets are as specific as possible, with no ambiguity about what should be accomplished by when. 

Example: If a goal of your marketing plan is to increase email subscriptions and you follow the SMART goal framework (ensuring your objective is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound) your goal might look like this: Increase email subscription rate from 10% to 20% in H1 . 

3. Research your competition 

It’s easy to get caught up in your company’s world, but there’s a lot of value in understanding your competitors . Knowing how they market themselves will help you find opportunities to make your company stand out and capture more market share.

Make sure you’re not duplicating your competitors’ efforts. If you discover a competitor has already executed your idea, then it might be time to go back to the drawing board and brainstorm new ways to differentiate yourself.  By looking at your competitors, you might be surprised at the type of inspiration and opportunities you’ll find.

To stay ahead of market trends, conduct a SWOT analysis for your marketing plan. A SWOT analysis helps you improve your plan by identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. 

Example: If your competitor launches a social media campaign identical to what you had planned, go back to the drawing board and see how you can build off their campaign. Ask yourself: How can we differentiate our campaign while still getting our message across? What are the weaknesses of their campaign that we can capitalize on? What angles did they not approach?

4. Integrate your marketing efforts

Here’s where the fun comes in. Let’s dive into the different components that go into building a successful marketing plan. You’ll want to make sure your marketing plan includes multiple supporting activities that all add up into a powerful marketing machine. Some marketing plan components include: 

Lead generation

Social media

Product marketing

Public relations

Analyst relations

Customer marketing

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Conversational marketing

Knowing where your consumer base spends the most time is significant for nailing this step. You need to have a solid understanding of your target audience before integrating your marketing efforts. 

Example: If your target audience is executives that spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, focus your social media strategy around placing branded content on LinkedIn. 

5. Differentiate with creative content

Forty-nine percent of marketers say visual images are hugely important to their content strategy. In other words, a clear brand and creative strategy is an essential component to every marketing plan. As you craft your own creative strategy, here are some tips to keep in mind: 

Speak to your audience: When defining your creative strategy, think about your audience—what you want them to feel, think, and do when they see your marketing. Will your audience find your creative work relevant? If your audience can’t relate to your creative work, they won’t feel connected to the story you’re trying to tell. 

Think outside the box: Find innovative ways to engage your audience, whether through video, animations, or interactive graphics. Know what screens your creative work will live on, whether desktop, mobile, or tablet, and make sure they display beautifully and load quickly across every type of device. 

Tie everything back to CTAs: It’s easy to get caught up in the creative process, so it’s important to never lose sight of your ultimate goal: Get your audience to take action. Always find the best way to display strong Calls to Action (CTAs) in your creative work. We live in a visual world—make sure your creative content counts.

Streamline creative production:   Once you’ve established a strong creative strategy, the next step is to bring your strategy to life in the production stage. It’s vital to set up a strong framework for your creative production process to eliminate any unnecessary back and forth and potential bottlenecks. Consider establishing creative request forms , streamlining feedback and approval processes, and taking advantage of integrations that might make your designers’ lives easier.

Example: If your brand is fun and approachable, make sure that shows in your creative efforts. Create designs and CTAs that spark joy, offer entertainment, and alleviate the pressure in choosing a partner.

6. Operationalize your marketing plan

Turn your plan into action by making goals, deliverables, and timelines clear for every stakeholder—so teams stay accountable for getting work done. The best way to do this is by centralizing all the details of your marketing plan in one platform , so teams can access the information they need and connect campaign work back to company goals.  

With the right work management tool , you can: 

Set goals for every marketing activity, and connect campaign work to overarching marketing and business objectives so teams focus on revenue-driving projects. 

Centralize deliverables for your entire marketing plan in one project or portfolio .

Mark major milestones and visualize your plan as a timeline, Gantt chart, calendar, list, or Kanban board—without doing any extra work. 

Quickly loop in stakeholders with status updates so they’re always up to date on progress. This is extremely important if you have a global team to ensure efforts aren’t being duplicated. 

Use automations to seamlessly hand off work between teams, streamlining processes like content creation and reviews. 

Create dashboards to report on work and make sure projects are properly staffed , so campaigns stay on track. 

With everything housed in one spot, you can easily visualize the status of your entire marketing plan and keep work on track. Building an effective marketing plan is one thing, but how you operationalize it can be your secret to standout marketing.

Example: If your strategy focuses on increasing page views, connect all campaign work to an overarching OKR—like “we will double page views as measured by the amount of organic traffic on our blog.” By making that goal visible to all stakeholders, you help teams prioritize the right work. 

See marketing planning in action

With Asana, marketing teams can connect work, standardize processes, and automate workflows—all in one place.

7. Measure performance

Nearly three in four CMOs use revenue growth to measure success, so it’s no surprise that measuring performance is necessary. You established your key metrics in step two, and now it’s time to track and report on them in step eight.

Periodically measure your marketing efforts to find areas of improvement so you can optimize in real-time. There are always lessons to be learned when looking at data. You can discover trends, detect which marketing initiatives performed well, and course-correct what isn’t performing well. And when your plan is complete, you can apply these learnings to your next initiative for improved results. 

Example: Say you discover that long-form content is consistently bringing in 400% more page views than short-form content. As a result, you’ll want to focus on producing more long-form content in your next marketing plan.

Marketing plan examples from world-class teams

The best brands in the world bring their marketing plans to life every day. If you’re looking for inspiration, check out these examples from successful marketing teams.

Autodesk grows site traffic 30% three years in a row

When the Autodesk team launched Redshift, it was initially a small business blog. The editorial team executed a successful marketing plan to expand it into a premier owned-media site, making it a destination for stories and videos about the future of making. 

The team scaled content production to support seven additional languages. By standardizing their content production workflow and centralizing all content conversations in one place, the editorial team now publishes 2X more content monthly. Read the case study to learn more about how Autodesk runs a well-oiled content machine. Trinny London perfects new customer acquisition 

In consumer industries, social media is crucial for building a community of people who feel an affinity with the brand—and Trinny London is no exception. As such, it was imperative that Trinny London’s ad spend was targeted to the correct audience. Using a work management tool, Trinny London was able to nail the process of creating, testing, and implementing ads on multiple social channels.

With the help of a centralized tool, Trinny London improved its ad spend and drove more likes and subscriptions on its YouTube page. Read the case study to learn more about how Trinny London capitalized on paid advertising and social media. 

Turn your marketing plan into marketing success 

A great marketing plan promotes clarity and accountability across teams—so every stakeholder knows what they’re responsible for, by when. Reading this article is the first step to achieving better team alignment, so you can ensure every marketing campaign contributes to your company’s bottom line. 

Use a free marketing plan template to get started

Once you’ve created your marketing strategy and are ready to operationalize your marketing plan, get started with one of our marketing templates . 

Our marketing templates can help you manage and track every aspect of your marketing plan, from creative requests to approval workflows. Centralize your entire marketing plan in one place, customize the roadmap, assign tasks, and build a timeline or calendar. 

Once you’ve operationalized your entire marketing plan with one of our templates, share it with your stakeholders so everyone can work together in the same tool. Your entire team will feel connected to the marketing plan, know what to prioritize, and see how their work contributes to your project objectives . Choose the best marketing template for your team:

Marketing project plan template

Marketing campaign plan template

Product marketing launch template

Editorial calendar template

Agency collaboration template

Creative requests template

Event planning template

GTM strategy template

Still have questions? We have answers. 

What is a marketing plan.

A marketing plan is a detailed roadmap that outlines the different strategies your team will use to achieve organizational objectives. Rather than focusing solely on the end goal, a marketing plan maps every step you need to reach your destination—whether that’s driving pipeline for sales, nurturing your existing customer base, or something in-between. 

As a marketing leader, you know there’s never a shortage of great campaign and project ideas. A marketing plan gives you a framework to effectively prioritize work that aligns to overarching business goals—and then get that work done. Some elements of marketing plans include:

Current business plan

Mission statement  

Business goals

Target customers  

Competitive analysis 

Current marketing mix

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

Marketing budget  

What is the purpose of a marketing plan?

The purpose of a marketing plan is to grow your company’s consumer base and strengthen your brand, while aligning with your organization’s mission and vision . The plan should analyze the competitive landscape and industry trends, offer actionable insights to help you gain a competitive advantage, and document each step of your strategy—so you can see how your campaigns work together to drive overarching business goals. 

What is the difference between a marketing plan and a marketing strategy? 

A marketing plan contains many marketing strategies across different channels. In that way, marketing strategies contribute to your overall marketing plan, working together to reach your company’s overarching business goals.

For example, imagine you’re about to launch a new software product and the goal of your marketing plan is to drive downloads. Your marketing plan could include marketing strategies like creating top-of-funnel blog content and launching a social media campaign. 

What are different types of marketing plans? 

Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, what your timeline is, or which facet of marketing you’re driving, you’ll need to create a different type of marketing plan. Some different types of marketing plans include, but aren’t limited to:

General marketing plan: A general marketing plan is typically an annual or quarterly marketing plan that details the overarching marketing strategies for the period. This type of marketing plan outlines marketing goals, the company’s mission, buyer personas, unique selling propositions, and more. A general marketing plan lays the foundation for other, more specific marketing plans that an organization may employ. 

Product launch marketing plan: A product launch marketing plan is a step-by-step plan for marketing a new product or expanding into a new market. It helps you build awareness and interest by targeting the right audience, with the right messaging, in the right timeframe—so potential customers are ready to buy your new offering right away. Nailing your product launch marketing plan can reinforce your overall brand and fast-track sales. For a step-by-step framework to organize all the moving pieces of a launch, check out our product marketing launch template .

Paid marketing plan: This plan includes all the paid strategies in your marketing plan, like pay-per-click, paid social media advertising, native advertising, and display advertising. It’s especially important to do audience research prior to launching your paid marketing plan to ensure you’re maximizing ROI. Consult with content strategists to ensure your ads align with your buyer personas so you know you’re showing ads to the right people. 

Content marketing plan: A content marketing plan outlines the different content strategies and campaigns you’ll use to promote your product or service. When putting together a content marketing plan, start by identifying your audience. Then use market research tools to get the best insights into what topics your target audience is most interested in.

SEO marketing plan: Your SEO marketing plan should work directly alongside your content marketing plan as you chart content that’s designed to rank in search results. While your content marketing plan should include all types of content, your SEO marketing plan will cover the top-of-funnel content that drives new users to your site. Planning search engine-friendly content is only one step in your SEO marketing plan. You’ll also need to include link-building and technical aspects in order to ensure your site and content are as optimized as possible.

Social media marketing plan: This plan will highlight the marketing strategies you plan to accomplish on social media. Like in any general or digital marketing plan , your social media strategy should identify your ideal customer base and determine how they engage on different social media platforms. From there, you can cater your social media content to your target audience.  

Related resources

How Asana streamlines strategic planning with work management

Write better AI prompts: A 4-sentence framework

What is content marketing? A complete guide

Smooth product launches are simpler than you think

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What is a Marketing Plan & How To Write One? [Easy Guide]

What is a Marketing Plan?

A marketing plan is a strategic guide that helps businesses map out their advertising and promotional strategies to attract prospective customers and connect with their intended audience. It offers clear and detailed direction on how to achieve business objectives through targeted marketing efforts. 

Marketing Plan vs. Business Plan

Understanding the distinction between a marketing plan and a business plan is crucial for any organization aiming to navigate the complexities of strategic planning and resource allocation.

• Marketing Plan: This is a focused document dedicated to the marketing segment of an organization’s strategy. It meticulously outlines the marketing objectives, strategies, and tactics that will be employed to achieve the desired market presence and customer engagement. 
• Business Plan: A business plan has a broader scope, encompassing every facet of the company’s operations. While it includes marketing, it also delves into finance, operations, human resources, and more, providing a comprehensive overview of the entire business. 

Marketing Strategy vs. Marketing Plan

Differentiating between a marketing strategy and a marketing plan is essential for implementing effective marketing operations within a business. These two elements, while closely related, serve distinct functions in the marketing process.

• Marketing Strategy: This aspect defines the overarching approach and long-term vision for a company’s engagement in the market. Each element of the marketing strategy is designed to align with the company’s top-level goals and contribute to realizing its vision statement. In essence, the marketing strategy answers the “what” and “why” behind a company’s marketing efforts, outlining what the company aims to achieve and why those goals are important.
• Marketing Plan: In contrast, the marketing plan focuses on the “how” of reaching strategic objectives. It is a practical document that outlines specific actions, timelines, and resources required to execute the marketing strategy. It details the campaigns, channels, tools, and tactics that will be used to achieve the strategic goals outlined in the marketing strategy. 

3 Hours | 25 Modules | Beginner

Modern Marketing: Strategy and Execution

Learn from Inc. Magazine’s prize-winning editorial content about the basic concepts of digital marketing, including targeting, value proposition, and more.

Types of Marketing Plans

Marketing plans vary depending on their focus, scope, and objectives. Understanding the different types of plans is crucial for businesses aiming to target their marketing efforts and resources effectively. Here are some of the key types:

• Go-to-market/Product Launch: This plan is specifically designed to introduce a new product. It outlines the target audience, market entry strategy, and advertising tactics to be employed.
• Social Media : A social media plan is tailored to the unique dynamics of social media platforms. It details the advertising strategies to be used on these platforms, focusing on engaging with users and leveraging specific features to maximize reach and impact.
• General Marketing Strategic Plan / Annual Marketing Plan: This comprehensive plan covers a company’s overall marketing activities for the entire year. It encompasses various marketing efforts and campaigns, outlining a cohesive strategy that supports the company’s annual goals.
• Content Marketing Plan : Focused on content creation and distribution, this plan outlines the strategies, campaigns, and tactics for using content to achieve business objectives. It details how different types of content (blog posts, videos, infographics) will be used to attract and engage the target audience.
• SEO Marketing Plan: Dedicated to search engine optimization, this plan outlines the strategies and actions to improve a website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). It focuses on keyword research, content optimization, link building, and other tactics to drive organic traffic to the website.

Benefits of a Marketing Plan

Having a structured plan is invaluable. It acts as a strategic roadmap, guiding businesses toward achieving their goals through well-organized and monitored marketing activities. 

Here are five important benefits of creating a marketing plan:

• Goal Setting: It allows your business to define clear marketing objectives and set measurable targets. This facilitates focused efforts toward lead generation, sales increase, market share expansion, brand awareness, and customer acquisition.
• Strategic Direction: The plan provides a detailed outline of your promotional strategy, helping identify the target audience, their preferences, and the best methods to reach and engage them effectively.
• Competitive Advantage: A plan helps you articulate and leverage your unique selling proposition (USP), ensuring you stand out in the market and secure a competitive edge.
• Consistency and Integration: The plan fosters consistency and integration in marketing efforts, ensuring a unified brand message and customer experience across all marketing channels and touchpoints,
• Long-term Sustainability: A comprehensive plan not only focuses on immediate goals but also lays the groundwork for sustained growth and adaptability to market evolution, customer demands, and emerging trends.

How To Write a Marketing Plan

• Create a mission statement

The foundation of any effective marketing plan begins with a clear and concise mission statement. This crucial step sets the stage for all subsequent planning by articulating the core purpose and direction of your company’s marketing efforts. A mission statement serves as a compass, guiding your marketing strategies and ensuring they align with your organization’s broader goals.

Developing a mission statement is more than just a formality; it’s a strategic exercise that clarifies your marketing vision and sets a purposeful path for your team. With a compelling mission statement in place, you can craft a plan that resonates with your audience and drives your business toward its long-term objectives.

• Set your goals/KPIs

Establishing clear goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) is a pivotal step in crafting a marketing plan that aligns with your company’s value proposition and ensures measurable success. This stage involves setting financial and non-financial objectives to guide your marketing efforts and evaluate their effectiveness.

Marketers who set specific goals are significantly more likely to report success. By defining financial and non-financial objectives, you create a comprehensive framework for guiding your marketing strategies. This dual focus not only drives economic value but also fosters qualitative improvements in your marketing efforts, ensuring a balanced approach to achieving your company’s vision.

• Identify Your Target Market

Pinpointing your target market is a crucial step in any marketing plan. Understanding who your product or service is for and why forms the backbone of your marketing efforts and influences decisions on marketing channels, content creation, and overall outreach strategies.

A key outcome of market research is the development of buyer personas. These semi-fictional representations of your ideal customers are crafted based on real data and insights about your existing clientele. Buyer personas detail your target market’s characteristics, needs, and motivations, offering a detailed profile that guides your marketing strategies.

• Conduct Competitive Analysis

Conducting a competitive analysis is integral to crafting a robust marketing plan. This process involves identifying your main competitors, understanding their strategies, and evaluating how your business can establish a distinctive and superior position in your niche. Through this analysis, you’ll gain insights into the competitive landscape, helping you to leverage your own strengths and identify areas for improvement.

Understanding both the internal and external factors that influence your market positioning is crucial. They include:

• Internal factors: Examine what could impact your competitive advantage, such as your team’s expertise, proprietary technology, or customer service practices.
• External factors: Look beyond your immediate competitive environment to broader market conditions that could affect your position. This includes economic trends, regulatory changes, and technological advancements.
• Economic considerations: Assess how the current economic climate might influence consumer purchasing behavior and, consequently, your market strategy.
• Sociological trends: Understand shifting societal values, lifestyles, and consumer behaviors and how they offer new market opportunities.
• Industry trends: Keep an eye on overarching trends within your industry, including emerging technologies, shifts in consumer preferences, and new regulatory frameworks.
• Set Your Budget

Your marketing budget is the planned amount of money you’ll spend to achieve your marketing goal. Knowing the financial resources you have available for marketing activities allows you to craft a plan that maximizes impact while maintaining fiscal responsibility. This financial foresight prevents overspending and ensures that every dollar spent contributes to achieving your marketing objectives.

This overview should include all sources of funding and any constraints or stipulations attached to them. Having a comprehensive understanding of your financial resources sets the groundwork for all subsequent planning and decision-making.

• Execute your Plan

Execution involves the detailed scheduling of marketing activities, assigning responsibilities to team members, and setting deadlines that align with the marketing plan’s timelines. It’s about bringing the plan to life through a series of coordinated efforts, from launching advertising campaigns to engaging with customers on social media platforms. This phase is where the theoretical aspects of the plan, such as target audience engagement and brand messaging, are put into practice through concrete actions like content creation, digital marketing, and promotional events.

In conclusion, a well-crafted marketing plan is the linchpin of successful marketing efforts, offering a strategic blueprint that guides businesses through the intricate landscape of market engagement and customer interaction. From the initial stages of understanding the marketing plan’s scope and its relationship with the overarching business strategy to the detailed planning and execution of marketing activities, each step is vital in steering an organization toward its desired market position.

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12 Key Elements of a Business Plan (Top Components Explained)

Starting and running a successful business requires proper planning and execution of effective business tactics and strategies .

You need to prepare many essential business documents when starting a business for maximum success; the business plan is one such document.

When creating a business, you want to achieve business objectives and financial goals like productivity, profitability, and business growth. You need an effective business plan to help you get to your desired business destination.

Even if you are already running a business, the proper understanding and review of the key elements of a business plan help you navigate potential crises and obstacles.

This article will teach you why the business document is at the core of any successful business and its key elements you can not avoid.

Let’s get started.

Why Are Business Plans Important?

Business plans are practical steps or guidelines that usually outline what companies need to do to reach their goals. They are essential documents for any business wanting to grow and thrive in a highly-competitive business environment .

1. Proves Your Business Viability

A business plan gives companies an idea of how viable they are and what actions they need to take to grow and reach their financial targets. With a well-written and clearly defined business plan, your business is better positioned to meet its goals.

2. Guides You Throughout the Business Cycle

A business plan is not just important at the start of a business. As a business owner, you must draw up a business plan to remain relevant throughout the business cycle .

During the starting phase of your business, a business plan helps bring your ideas into reality. A solid business plan can secure funding from lenders and investors.

After successfully setting up your business, the next phase is management. Your business plan still has a role to play in this phase, as it assists in communicating your business vision to employees and external partners.

Essentially, your business plan needs to be flexible enough to adapt to changes in the needs of your business.

3. Helps You Make Better Business Decisions

As a business owner, you are involved in an endless decision-making cycle. Your business plan helps you find answers to your most crucial business decisions.

A robust business plan helps you settle your major business components before you launch your product, such as your marketing and sales strategy and competitive advantage.

4. Eliminates Big Mistakes

Many small businesses fail within their first five years for several reasons: lack of financing, stiff competition, low market need, inadequate teams, and inefficient pricing strategy.

Creating an effective plan helps you eliminate these big mistakes that lead to businesses' decline. Every business plan element is crucial for helping you avoid potential mistakes before they happen.

5. Secures Financing and Attracts Top Talents

Having an effective plan increases your chances of securing business loans. One of the essential requirements many lenders ask for to grant your loan request is your business plan.

A business plan helps investors feel confident that your business can attract a significant return on investments ( ROI ).

You can attract and retain top-quality talents with a clear business plan. It inspires your employees and keeps them aligned to achieve your strategic business goals.

Key Elements of Business Plan

Starting and running a successful business requires well-laid actions and supporting documents that better position a company to achieve its business goals and maximize success.

A business plan is a written document with relevant information detailing business objectives and how it intends to achieve its goals.

With an effective business plan, investors, lenders, and potential partners understand your organizational structure and goals, usually around profitability, productivity, and growth.

Every successful business plan is made up of key components that help solidify the efficacy of the business plan in delivering on what it was created to do.

Here are some of the components of an effective business plan.

1. Executive Summary

One of the key elements of a business plan is the executive summary. Write the executive summary as part of the concluding topics in the business plan. Creating an executive summary with all the facts and information available is easier.

In the overall business plan document, the executive summary should be at the forefront of the business plan. It helps set the tone for readers on what to expect from the business plan.

A well-written executive summary includes all vital information about the organization's operations, making it easy for a reader to understand.

The key points that need to be acted upon are highlighted in the executive summary. They should be well spelled out to make decisions easy for the management team.

A good and compelling executive summary points out a company's mission statement and a brief description of its products and services.

An executive summary summarizes a business's expected value proposition to distinct customer segments. It highlights the other key elements to be discussed during the rest of the business plan.

Including your prior experiences as an entrepreneur is a good idea in drawing up an executive summary for your business. A brief but detailed explanation of why you decided to start the business in the first place is essential.

Adding your company's mission statement in your executive summary cannot be overemphasized. It creates a culture that defines how employees and all individuals associated with your company abide when carrying out its related processes and operations.

Your executive summary should be brief and detailed to catch readers' attention and encourage them to learn more about your company.

Components of an Executive Summary

Here are some of the information that makes up an executive summary:

• The name and location of your company
• Products and services offered by your company
• Mission and vision statements
• Success factors of your business plan

2. Business Description

Your business description needs to be exciting and captivating as it is the formal introduction a reader gets about your company.

What your company aims to provide, its products and services, goals and objectives, target audience , and potential customers it plans to serve need to be highlighted in your business description.

A company description helps point out notable qualities that make your company stand out from other businesses in the industry. It details its unique strengths and the competitive advantages that give it an edge to succeed over its direct and indirect competitors.

Spell out how your business aims to deliver on the particular needs and wants of identified customers in your company description, as well as the particular industry and target market of the particular focus of the company.

Include trends and significant competitors within your particular industry in your company description. Your business description should contain what sets your company apart from other businesses and provides it with the needed competitive advantage.

In essence, if there is any area in your business plan where you need to brag about your business, your company description provides that unique opportunity as readers look to get a high-level overview.

Components of a Business Description

Your business description needs to contain these categories of information.

• Business location
• The legal structure of your business
• Summary of your business’s short and long-term goals

3. Market Analysis

The market analysis section should be solely based on analytical research as it details trends particular to the market you want to penetrate.

Graphs, spreadsheets, and histograms are handy data and statistical tools you need to utilize in your market analysis. They make it easy to understand the relationship between your current ideas and the future goals you have for the business.

All details about the target customers you plan to sell products or services should be in the market analysis section. It helps readers with a helpful overview of the market.

In your market analysis, you provide the needed data and statistics about industry and market share, the identified strengths in your company description, and compare them against other businesses in the same industry.

The market analysis section aims to define your target audience and estimate how your product or service would fare with these identified audiences.

Market analysis helps visualize a target market by researching and identifying the primary target audience of your company and detailing steps and plans based on your audience location.

Obtaining this information through market research is essential as it helps shape how your business achieves its short-term and long-term goals.

Market Analysis Factors

Here are some of the factors to be included in your market analysis.

• The geographical location of your target market
• Needs of your target market and how your products and services can meet those needs
• Demographics of your target audience

Components of the Market Analysis Section

Here is some of the information to be included in your market analysis.

• Industry description and statistics
• Demographics and profile of target customers
• Marketing data for your products and services
• Detailed evaluation of your competitors

4. Marketing Plan

A marketing plan defines how your business aims to reach its target customers, generate sales leads, and, ultimately, make sales.

Promotion is at the center of any successful marketing plan. It is a series of steps to pitch a product or service to a larger audience to generate engagement. Note that the marketing strategy for a business should not be stagnant and must evolve depending on its outcome.

Include the budgetary requirement for successfully implementing your marketing plan in this section to make it easy for readers to measure your marketing plan's impact in terms of numbers.

The information to include in your marketing plan includes marketing and promotion strategies, pricing plans and strategies , and sales proposals. You need to include how you intend to get customers to return and make repeat purchases in your business plan.

5. Sales Strategy

Sales strategy defines how you intend to get your product or service to your target customers and works hand in hand with your business marketing strategy.

Your sales strategy approach should not be complex. Break it down into simple and understandable steps to promote your product or service to target customers.

Apart from the steps to promote your product or service, define the budget you need to implement your sales strategies and the number of sales reps needed to help the business assist in direct sales.

Your sales strategy should be specific on what you need and how you intend to deliver on your sales targets, where numbers are reflected to make it easier for readers to understand and relate better.

6. Competitive Analysis

Providing transparent and honest information, even with direct and indirect competitors, defines a good business plan. Provide the reader with a clear picture of your rank against major competitors.

Identifying your competitors' weaknesses and strengths is useful in drawing up a market analysis. It is one information investors look out for when assessing business plans.

The competitive analysis section clearly defines the notable differences between your company and your competitors as measured against their strengths and weaknesses.

This section should define the following:

• Your competitors' identified advantages in the market
• How do you plan to set up your company to challenge your competitors’ advantage and gain grounds from them?
• The standout qualities that distinguish you from other companies
• Potential bottlenecks you have identified that have plagued competitors in the same industry and how you intend to overcome these bottlenecks

In your business plan, you need to prove your industry knowledge to anyone who reads your business plan. The competitive analysis section is designed for that purpose.

7. Management and Organization

Management and organization are key components of a business plan. They define its structure and how it is positioned to run.

Whether you intend to run a sole proprietorship, general or limited partnership, or corporation, the legal structure of your business needs to be clearly defined in your business plan.

Use an organizational chart that illustrates the hierarchy of operations of your company and spells out separate departments and their roles and functions in this business plan section.

The management and organization section includes profiles of advisors, board of directors, and executive team members and their roles and responsibilities in guaranteeing the company's success.

Apparent factors that influence your company's corporate culture, such as human resources requirements and legal structure, should be well defined in the management and organization section.

Defining the business's chain of command if you are not a sole proprietor is necessary. It leaves room for little or no confusion about who is in charge or responsible during business operations.

This section provides relevant information on how the management team intends to help employees maximize their strengths and address their identified weaknesses to help all quarters improve for the business's success.

8. Products and Services

This business plan section describes what a company has to offer regarding products and services to the maximum benefit and satisfaction of its target market.

Boldly spell out pending patents or copyright products and intellectual property in this section alongside costs, expected sales revenue, research and development, and competitors' advantage as an overview.

At this stage of your business plan, the reader needs to know what your business plans to produce and sell and the benefits these products offer in meeting customers' needs.

The supply network of your business product, production costs, and how you intend to sell the products are crucial components of the products and services section.

Investors are always keen on this information to help them reach a balanced assessment of if investing in your business is risky or offer benefits to them.

You need to create a link in this section on how your products or services are designed to meet the market's needs and how you intend to keep those customers and carve out a market share for your company.

Repeat purchases are the backing that a successful business relies on and measure how much customers are into what your company is offering.

This section is more like an expansion of the executive summary section. You need to analyze each product or service under the business.

9. Operating Plan

An operations plan describes how you plan to carry out your business operations and processes.

The operating plan for your business should include:

• Information about how your company plans to carry out its operations.
• The base location from which your company intends to operate.
• The number of employees to be utilized and other information about your company's operations.
• Key business processes.

This section should highlight how your organization is set up to run. You can also introduce your company's management team in this section, alongside their skills, roles, and responsibilities in the company.

The best way to introduce the company team is by drawing up an organizational chart that effectively maps out an organization's rank and chain of command.

What should be spelled out to readers when they come across this business plan section is how the business plans to operate day-in and day-out successfully.

10. Financial Projections and Assumptions

Bringing your great business ideas into reality is why business plans are important. They help create a sustainable and viable business.

The financial section of your business plan offers significant value. A business uses a financial plan to solve all its financial concerns, which usually involves startup costs, labor expenses, financial projections, and funding and investor pitches.

All key assumptions about the business finances need to be listed alongside the business financial projection, and changes to be made on the assumptions side until it balances with the projection for the business.

The financial plan should also include how the business plans to generate income and the capital expenditure budgets that tend to eat into the budget to arrive at an accurate cash flow projection for the business.

Base your financial goals and expectations on extensive market research backed with relevant financial statements for the relevant period.

Examples of financial statements you can include in the financial projections and assumptions section of your business plan include:

• Projected income statements
• Cash flow statements
• Balance sheets
• Income statements

Revealing the financial goals and potentials of the business is what the financial projection and assumption section of your business plan is all about. It needs to be purely based on facts that can be measurable and attainable.

11. Request For Funding

The request for funding section focuses on the amount of money needed to set up your business and underlying plans for raising the money required. This section includes plans for utilizing the funds for your business's operational and manufacturing processes.

When seeking funding, a reasonable timeline is required alongside it. If the need arises for additional funding to complete other business-related projects, you are not left scampering and desperate for funds.

If you do not have the funds to start up your business, then you should devote a whole section of your business plan to explaining the amount of money you need and how you plan to utilize every penny of the funds. You need to explain it in detail for a future funding request.

When an investor picks up your business plan to analyze it, with all your plans for the funds well spelled out, they are motivated to invest as they have gotten a backing guarantee from your funding request section.

Include timelines and plans for how you intend to repay the loans received in your funding request section. This addition keeps investors assured that they could recoup their investment in the business.

12. Exhibits and Appendices

Exhibits and appendices comprise the final section of your business plan and contain all supporting documents for other sections of the business plan.

Some of the documents that comprise the exhibits and appendices section includes:

• Legal documents
• Licenses and permits
• Credit histories
• Customer lists

The choice of what additional document to include in your business plan to support your statements depends mainly on the intended audience of your business plan. Hence, it is better to play it safe and not leave anything out when drawing up the appendix and exhibit section.

Supporting documentation is particularly helpful when you need funding or support for your business. This section provides investors with a clearer understanding of the research that backs the claims made in your business plan.

There are key points to include in the appendix and exhibits section of your business plan.

• The management team and other stakeholders resume
• Marketing research
• Permits and relevant legal documents
• Financial documents

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How to structure an effective marketing plan in 15 sections

Using the RACE OSA process to structure a marketing plan

A marketing plan is an essential tool to compete and grow your business since it gives focus to your marketing activities by setting realistic, achievable priorities within your budget.

It simply defines what you want to gain from your investment in marketing and how you will achieve these goals through selecting the best marketing strategies and channels to acquire and retain customers.

A typical definition of a marketing plan used by traditional marketers is:

" A marketing plan is a strategic document that specifies your organization’s target markets, marketing objectives, programs, and activities to achieve them, expected timescales, resources to be utilized, according to defined budgets, and how success will be measured ".

This is logical and simple and that's what we need to achieve through the structure of an effective marketing plan. However, for today's marketing where digital marketing channels are so important we need a marketing plan and template structure that are fit for purpose. That's why we developed the RACE Growth System since it details the communications activities that need to be used for success.

In this post, I will explain RACE OSA, a practical three-part marketing plan structure particularly suitable for small and medium businesses to rapidly develop comprehensive marketing plans. OSA stands for:

Opportunity > Structure > Action. 

For each of these 3 parts, I will summarize what you need to include and why. There are 5 steps in each part giving 15 sections in all. This is simple enough to make it quick and easy, but detailed enough to work in the real world.

You can download our Free marketing plan template based on this 15-step OSA structure!

Free marketing plan template

Our popular marketing planning template is structured across the Smart Insights RACE OSA Framework. Join Smart Insights as a Free Member to download our marketing plan template today

Access the Free marketing plan template

Many marketing plan templates were created long ago for larger businesses and aren’t so relevant to small and startup businesses competing in today’s marketplace where effective digital marketing is essential. Long plans with sections labelled ‘mission and vision statement’ and ‘corporate strategies’ are irrelevant for smaller businesses.

Our recommended format is far more practical since it relates to the real-world challenges and opportunities of a smaller business. The template shares the key features of our RACE Growth system since it is designed to be:

• Quick to create and implement an actionable plan with simple steps
• Data-driven, defining SMART objectives based on forecasts
• Practical to implement using a 90-day planning approach to give you focus
• Designed for smaller businesses, but relevant for larger businesses too

But first, we need to remind ourselves of the goals for our marketing plan and how it fits within the business as a whole. We will also introduce the Smart Insights RACE Growth System.

What is the purpose of a marketing plan?

The purpose of a marketing plan is to define strategies to engage audiences in order to achieve business objectives.

The goal of a marketing plan is to ensure marketing activities are structured, relevant, and timely to achieve an organization’s objectives.

It’s a plan defining your company's sustainable competitive position, structuring and setting marketing goals, and defining the resources necessary to achieve your business vision.

A marketing plan should include:

• The current performance , priorities , and direction of your organization
• Its marketplace position in relation to external environmental factors including competitors and PESTLE macro-factors
• A critical analysis of your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. We recommend using the powerful TOWs marketing plan analysis summary .
• Clearly defined SMART marketing objectives and a way to benchmark their success
• The means by which to achieve those objectives through strategies for STP: Segmentation, Targeting and Brand Positioning
• Relevant and timely actions and responsibilities by function, product or service, and market segment
• Investment in communications activities to reach your audience and convince them to convert including, all important always-on marketing activities .
• Investment in sales and customer service activities to encourage them to buy for the first time and repeat purchases.
• The finances and resources required and forecasted revenues
• Regular measurement of progress and outcomes against benchmarks

So, to summarize, a solid marketing plan outline has:

• Clear, realistic goals that you can be confident of hitting
• The best strategy  to achieve these goals against your competition
• Sufficient details of the tactics and actions  needed to translate the strategy into action
• A method to check  you are on track with your plans

The business context of a marketing plan

Where does the marketing plan fit within the business? Here’s another way of understanding the context of a marketing plan, to put it into context with other types of plans, as shown in this table:

When to use a marketing plan?

The process of marketing planning within an organization will differ, depending on whether a strategic marketing plan or an operational marketing plan is utilized. Here are the differences between the two:

• A  strategic marketing plan outlines the overall strategy within a market, connecting customers, competitors, and what the organization is capable of achieving.  It is typically created at divisional or company level.
• An  operational marketing plan outlines the marketing mix strategy that will be used to gain an advantage in the market.  It typically focuses on products; market segments and how marketing communications and campaigns achieve targets defined in the strategic marketing plan. It usually has separate sections covering tactics for customer acquisition and retention which will sometimes be covered in separate plans in larger organizations.

In an organization’s planning process, marketing links:

• Customers’ needs and wants
• Competitor value proposition and actions
• Strategic direction
• Organizational objectives

What should your plan include? Our recommended marketing plan structure

Before we get into the details, let's look at the big picture which defines the process you will follow to develop and implement your marketing plan.

3-step marketing plan outline

Within the RACE system, we call this process OSA to keep it simple - marketing plans don't have to be complex.  OSA stands for Opportunity, Strategy, Action. The visual outline shows some of the activities that are needed to plan for success under each stage of OSA.

Within OSA for a marketing plan format, these are the sections we recommend that are included in our template with more details on each.

Opportunity

• Audit performance
• Review marketplace
• Key issues summary
• Set objectives
• Review marketing and digital strategy options
• Assess budget / business case
• Prioritize and select strategic initiatives
• Plan 90-day activities
• Implement plans
• Review results

Use our free planning templates to get started with using RACE to grow your business. These will help you create a 90-day prioritized plan to improve your results from digital marketing. We recommend 25+ key marketing activities across RACE that are essential for businesses to compete by improving their digital marketing maturity.

Which types of businesses use marketing plans?

Marketing planning will assist in the day-to-day running of any size, type or age of business. The targets and milestones set will help organizations, from small start-ups to large corporates, to effectively:

• Allocate resources and budget
• Motivate teams
• Manage the performance of staff members and marketing efforts

Marketing plans for small businesses

In smaller businesses, the scope of a plan is typically annual and for the whole business. Typically, SMEs are working with smaller budgets and tighter turnaround times.

A marketing plan for a small business typically looks to identify where to prioritize the investment of time and available budget to generate results.

Smaller organizations typically have:

• Small market shares
• Owners involved in all aspects of strategic and operational management
• Independence
• A high degree of uncertainty
• Difficulty innovating owing to limited resources

Such differences between large and smaller organizations tend to be reflected in the development of marketing plans.

When establishing a small start-up, marketing planning is an essential element.  A small number of these businesses launch and grow, but for those that are successful, a strategic marketing approach will ensure continued development.

Marketing plans for large organizations

In large organizations, its focus will change, depending on the type of organization.  A separate marketing plan might be:

• Geographically-based
• Product-based
• Business unit based
• Focused on segmentation

A marketing plan in a large organization may integrate a number of plans, specific to individual parts of the business. It is practical planning that takes place at a divisional, business unit, or individual company level.

Larger organizations with clearly defined management structures and a wealth of resources will make use of marketing principles very differently from smaller organizations.

Structure an effective marketing plan with RACE

Did you know - nearly half of companies don't have a clearly defined digital marketing strategy ? These companies are missing opportunities for better integration and risk losing customers due to out-of-date processes.

Savvy marketers and Smart Insights members already recognize that a practical, integrated marketing plan is essential for business growth in 2024 and beyond.

If you're looking for a quick marketing plan structure to hone your performance and strategize your approach to marketing, why not download our free marketing plan template ?

How to format your marketing funnel

Although the techniques for marketing planning may vary between different sizes and types of organizations, the outcome is always the same: to implement the objectives, strategies, and activities in order to gain an advantage.

That's why our RACE Framework is structured across a simple 5-step marketing and sales funnel which can be applied to every size of business from startups to multinational corporations:

How does a marketing plan relate to other plans?

The plan should not be formulated or used in isolation; it should be informed by the corporate objectives identified in your organization’s business plan .

Integrated with a marketing plan may also be a digital plan, multi-channel plan and campaign plan, for example.  The marketing plan informs these plans and vice-versa.

An effective marketing plan will ensure the integration of activities, the scheduling of requirements, distinguishing responsibilities and the provision of benchmarks for measuring success.

Different organizations will utilize differing plans, covering different areas and timeframes. What is crucial in a business is that the plans being utilized, the timeframes allocated, and how they integrate with each other are collectively established.

Structure your marketing plan around a funnel proven to boost performance. Join Smart Insights as a Free Member for instant access to our Free marketing plan template to hone your skills and drive the results you need.

By Dave Chaffey

Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights. 'Dr Dave' is known for his strategic, but practical, data-driven advice. He has trained and consulted with many business of all sizes in most sectors. These include large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. Dave is editor of the templates, guides and courses in our digital marketing resource library used by our Business members to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here . Dave is also keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice . In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. My personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists my latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary . Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question .

Turbocharge your results with this toolkit containing 7 resources

• Marketing campaign plan template
• Campaign timeline/project plan template and example
• Editorial calendar spreadsheet
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Your Guide to Creating a Small Business Marketing Plan

Follow these templates and guidelines to get started on your business's marketing plan.

Table of Contents

To have a successful business, you need a well-thought-out marketing plan to promote your products or services. Although making a few social media posts or blasting a few promotional emails may seem simple enough, disjointed marketing efforts not only confuse your target audience, but can ultimately harm your business. 

What is a marketing plan?

A marketing plan is a strategic road map for how you communicate (online and offline) with your target audience to successfully promote your products or services. Depending on your goal, marketing plans can be extremely basic or highly detailed.

According to Molly Maple Bryant, vice president of marketing at Vibrent Health, a marketing plan is not simply a list of things you want to accomplish. Instead, it should list the outcomes you seek — measurable and contextual, like the pipeline you’re developing, or leads you’re generating — and it should explain the high-level strategies you will use to achieve those outcomes. Developing strategies can be complicated, but they make a major difference in keeping you on track and avoiding diversions, also called scope creep .

“Once you have an agreed-upon plan, you are able to compare any incoming requests against your strategies to determine ‘Yes, this adheres to my strategy so we can add it,’ or ‘No, this sounds good in theory, but it doesn’t adhere to our agreed-upon strategy, so we won’t adjust resources,'” Bryant told us.

Types of marketing plans

There are several different types of marketing plans you can use based on certain strategies that make sense for your organization. Your business will likely need a combination of the following marketing plans to create an effective, comprehensive marketing strategy:

• Advertising plan
• Branding plan
• Content marketing plan
• Customer acquisition plan
• Direct marketing plan
• Email marketing plan
• Public relation plan
• Print marketing plan
• Reputation management plan
• Retention plan
• Search engine optimization plan
• Social media marketing plan

Why is it important to have a marketing plan for your business?

A marketing plan is a crucial resource for any small business because it helps you identify the market needs your product or service meets, how your product is different from competitors, and who your product or service is for. Marketing plans also serve as a road map for your sales strategy, branding direction and building your overall business. This is important for successfully conveying your brand messaging to your target audience .

Another significant benefit of a marketing plan for your company is that rather than simply guessing metrics, it forces you to sit down and do the math about your business goals and how to realistically fulfill them. When you look at your growth outcomes, you can delve further to determine what it will take to get to those numbers.

Bryant offered the following example: “Need $100,000 in revenue? How many sales is that? If 10, what’s your close rate? Let’s say 10 percent from lead to closed deal. Now you have a metric to start with — to get to 10 sales, we need 100 leads. Where will they come from, and what strategies will you use? The plan helps you put it all on paper so you can map out resources and tactics later with a lot of preparation and realism,” said Bryant.

When analyzing outcomes and resources, you can save time and avoid scope creep by focusing only on strategies that are relevant to your marketing plan. A marketing plan helps you think realistically about your strategies, gets your stakeholders on the same page, and holds your marketing team accountable for their decisions.

“When everyone’s tasks and goals are laid out for the stakeholders and company partners to see, it is much easier for the entire team to feel at ease about reaching sales goals and allowing the marketing team the space and freedom needed to execute work without constant supervision,” said Cassady Dill, digital marketing consultant and owner of Ethos Agency.

Additionally, Dill said a marketing plan should be easily understood by your entire team, executives and outside departments. Your plan should also serve as an easy guide for future marketing managers and team members to understand and implement.

What are the key elements of an effective business marketing plan?

A marketing plan should be customized to fit your business; however, Dill said, all marketing plans contain five essential functions:

• Your business goals
• Key metrics (how you quantify and measure success)
• Strategies (an overview of implementation and how that will achieve goals)
• A plan (the details of execution and the human resources, departments and software that will be involved)
• Reporting (what reports of progress will include and/or look like)

We broke down those five functions into 10 actionable categories to help you create a marketing plan that is unique and effective for your business.

1. Executive summary

The executive summary is a great place to give the reader of your plan an overview of your business’s mission or goals, as well as the marketing strategy you’re looking to employ. An executive summary is often written after you’ve completed the rest of the marketing plan, to ensure it covers all the important elements of your plan. If the executive summary is the only part of your marketing plan that someone reads (which is highly possible), you want to be sure they understand the most crucial details.

2. Mission statement

The mission statement , not to be confused with a vision statement, is a statement that encompasses your company’s values and how they relate to your overall goals as an organization. Here are some good questions to get you thinking:

• What does your company do today?
• What’s important to your company?
• What would your company like to do in the future?
• What is your brand identity?
• What’s your culture like ?
• How does your company benefit customers, employees and stakeholders?

3. Target markets

Identifying your target market is one of the most important parts of your marketing plan. Without a defined target audience, your marketing expenses will be wasted. Think of it like this: Some people need your service or product but don’t know it exists yet. Who are those people?

Here are some other questions to help you brainstorm your target market :

• What is the demographic of your customers (gender, age, income, education, etc.)?
• What are their needs and interests?
• What’s their psychographic profile (attitudes, philosophies, values, lifestyle, etc.)?
• How do they behave?
• What are some existing products they use?

4. Products and services

In this section, don’t just list what your product or service is. Think critically about what you have to offer your customers and what that value proposition means to them.

• What do you make or provide for customers?
• What are your customers’ needs?
• How does your product or service fulfill customers’ needs?
• What value do you add to your customers’ lives?
• What type of product or service are you offering?

5. Distribution channels

At this point in your report, you should transition your thinking into actual marketing theory and practices. Distribution channels are the avenues you’ll use to reach a prospective customer or business . Think of all current and potential sales channels on which your specific target audience is active. One distribution channel that works great for one organization may be useless to another. For example, one company may host their website for free on a site like HubSpot and solely rely on that as their sales channel, while another company may have a whole team of people using Pinterest to drive sales. [Learn how CRM systems can help track your marketing leads based on various distribution channels.]

Examples of sales channels include the following:

• Mobile text message marketing
• Social media
• Print (newspapers, magazines, brochures, catalogs, direct mail)
• Broadcast (TV, radio)
• Press releases
• Trade shows, product demonstrations, event marketing

6. Competitive profile

One of the major aspects of your marketing plan is developing your unique selling proposition (USP). A USP is a feature or stance that separates your product or service from competitors. Finding your USP is all about differentiation and distinguishing your company as a sole proprietor of one type of good or service. Conduct a competitive analysis to identify your competitive profile and how you stack up against the competition. It is important to remain unbiased when conducting this analysis.

Here are some ideas to consider:

• What’s your USP?
• Who are your competitors? What do they offer?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of your competition?
• What needs of the market (or customer) are not being served? What can you do to meet those needs?

7. A pricing strategy

Consider pricing when drafting your marketing plan. Developing the right pricing strategy helps you better market your product. Think about your current and projected finances when developing a long-term marketing strategy that is realistic and beneficial for your business. Here are some key questions to ask yourself about your pricing:

• What are reasonable margins to make a profit and cover production costs?
• Is there a market for products or services at your projected price point?
• Are you willing to sacrifice profit margins in return for a greater market share?
• What are your marketing and distribution costs?

8. Objectives

Consider your objectives when developing a marketing plan. This aspect of your plan should involve specific goals related to market penetration and revenue targets. Be sure to keep your marketing objectives on-brand with your business. Here are some things to consider:

• Sales quotas
• Number of new customers gained
• Customer retention percentages
• Revenue targets
• Market penetration
• Brand awareness
• Website traffic

9. Action plans

With all of the above items outlined, determine what steps need to be taken to enact your marketing plan. This includes determining the proper steps, setting goals, breaking down responsibilities, and establishing an overall timeline.

It’s also important to brainstorm potential roadblocks your business could face and some solutions to overcome them. Your research is useless if you don’t have an actionable plan that can be realistically implemented to carry out your ideas.

10. Financial projections

This last step allows you to establish a realistic marketing budget and better understand your marketing plan from a cost perspective. In addition to setting a budget, consider the overall return on investment as well. Here are some other financial projections to consider:

• Cost of implementation
• Cost to produce product or service
• Existing and projected cash flow
• Projected sales
• Desired profit margin on projected sales

What is a template for creating a successful marketing plan?

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 or a benchmarking tool to evaluate your current strategies, several great resources are 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. Use templates to shorten the workload time, but then adjust it for a more custom plan.”

Here are some tools and templates to get you started:

• Free marketing plan template : business.com has developed a free template that is fully customizable based on the needs of your business. Each section provides in-depth explanations, examples and resources to help you create an impressive marketing plan.
• Smart Insights: In addition to offering marketing plan templates, some companies, like Smart Insights, offer marketing benchmarking templates to help you evaluate your strategy performance. These are accessible with a free Smart Insights membership.
• GERU: Similarly, GERU offers a funnel-planning, profit-prediction and simulation tool to help you assess mock business ideas and simulations. This can help you identify weak points in your marketing strategy that need improvement. Although GERU requires users to sign up for a paid account, you can access a free trial to test it out.

What mistakes should you avoid when creating your marketing plan?

When creating an effective marketing plan, you need to avoid falling for common missteps and mistakes. For starters, failing to identify any of the 10 actionable categories above is an obvious mistake.

Here are some other key mistakes to avoid:

• Setting unrealistic budgets: Underestimating the costs of marketing activities or setting an unrealistic budget can limit your ability to execute your plan effectively. Marketing can be expensive, so it’s important to fully understand the estimated cost and budget before building a marketing strategy that you can’t afford.
• Focusing on quantity over quality: “More” doesn’t always mean “better” if you are posting on irrelevant marketing channels or your efforts are bringing in unqualified leads. Prioritizing the quantity of marketing activities over their quality can lead to superficial engagement and a lack of meaningful results.
• Not testing campaigns: Launching large campaigns without testing can lead to wasted resources if the messaging or tactics don’t resonate as expected. Test out your new campaigns to ensure they achieve your intended goal.
• Ignoring customer feedback: You may be tempted to ignore negative feedback, but disregarding customer comments and failing to address their concerns can lead to negative perceptions of your brand. Instead, use customer feedback to your advantage to improve your product and marketing efforts.
• Overpromising and underdelivering: Setting unrealistic expectations in your marketing messages that your products or services can’t fulfill can damage your brand’s reputation.
• Ignoring seasonality and trends: Failing to account for seasonal trends and market changes can result in missed opportunities for timely marketing efforts.
• Not reviewing and updating your plan: A rigid marketing plan that doesn’t allow for adjustments in response to market feedback and changing conditions can hinder your success. A marketing plan should be a living document that is regularly reviewed and updated to reflect changes in the market and your business’s goals.

Avoiding these mistakes and missteps can help you create a more effective and successful marketing plan that drives results for your business.

How can you take action with your new marketing plan?

Before you dive into marketing plan templates, it’s important to understand how to think about a marketing plan.

A good marketing plan targets who your buyers are, establishes the service or product you are offering, and determines your unique selling proposition. From here, you will tackle the marketing planning process and develop the best way to get your product in front of buyers who want your product or service.

Dill created a simple four-step process for how small businesses can take action with creating a marketing plan.

• The first step is to hold a marketing meeting with all the marketing team and executives or stakeholders. This gives them time to offer questions, concerns and criticisms you haven’t thought of so you can go back to the board room and revise your strategy or plan.
• Next, add a timeline to all your tasks and assign team members and all the help you’ll need to execute that plan.
• Once your plan is in action, hold weekly check-ins in person or by email to keep everyone on track.
• Share a weekly progress report with all parties involved and execs to ensure you are moving in the right direction.

In addition to drafting your own plan, you can work with a digital marketing agency or use internet marketing and pay-per-click management services to leverage your online presence.

Once you’ve established a general road map, update it annually. Developing an evolving marketing plan sets your business up for continued success because it allows you to prepare for the unexpected and establish a connection between your brand and your audience.

Matt D’Angelo contributed to this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.

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What Is Marketing? Definition, Strategies & Best Practices

Updated: Jun 6, 2024, 12:20pm

Table of Contents

Marketing definition, how marketing works for small businesses, marketing strategies, benefits of marketing, marketing best practices, bottom line, frequently asked questions (faqs).

As a small business, you need a way to attract and lure customers to your products and services. Enter marketing.

What is marketing? It’s the process of creating and delivering value-based arguments for your offerings. If you’re not sure where to start with a marketing plan for your business, we’re here to help. Use this guide on marketing strategies and best practices to help convert consumers into customers.

Marketing encompasses every part of a plan to turn a prospective consumer into a happy and satisfied customer. It includes everything from market research to advertising. The goal of marketing is to convince a person that your product is worth investing in, establish brand loyalty and increase overall sales.

As you probably already know, this is no easy task. That’s why marketers need to spend time learning more about potential customers. This lets them discover which marketing strategies might be most effective in breaking through a crowded sea of marketing ploys.

According to studies , nearly 90% of small businesses invest in marketing. Marketing is an excellent tool for increasing awareness of your products as well as establishing yourself as a reliable and reputable brand in your chosen niche.

If you want to jump on the marketing train with your small business, a good first step is to consider the four Ps of marketing . These include:

• Product. What are you offering? It can be a physical product, digital item, service, event or experience. Curate the key features of your product and define what makes it unique in your market.
• Price. What are you charging for your product? Calculate this by determining your net cost of goods and then adding on an additional amount to meet your desired profit margin.
• Place. Where do you sell your goods? For example, you may have a brick-and-mortar store or an e-commerce platform. Where you sell determines where and how you market your product.
• Promotion. How do you get the word out about your products? This is usually a mix of various marketing strategies, including paid advertising, content marketing, social media marketing and more.

With these four principles in mind, you will find it easier to decide on a solid marketing strategy.

There is a huge variety of marketing strategies available to small businesses. Generally, most businesses use a mix of traditional and digital marketing tools to help reach as many people as possible. Take a look at some of these popular ideas to see if any would work for your budding company.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is an incredibly popular approach, with 90% of companies ranking it as important to their overall success. And we can see why, as companies earn $42 for every dollar they spend on email marketing.

Email marketing involves collecting interested consumers’ emails and then sending them informative updates about your products and company. Some email campaigns function as lead nurturing tools that build interest in your products over time, while others can include promotions, seasonal deals or even newsletter updates.

Want to learn more about email marketing, but not sure how to get started? Check out our list of the best email marketing software to compare our favorite tools for developing email campaigns.

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Direct Mail

If you’re wary of relying too heavily on digital marketing, consider direct mail. It involves sending promotional materials such as postcards, brochures or flyers to potential customers you’ve identified through market research. For example, they might live in your store’s neighborhood, or they might have abandoned their shopping cart on your website.

Direct mail is one of the most profitable forms of traditional marketing, with a 29% return on investment. It’s particularly fruitful if you want to market to the Baby Boomer generation, as 31% prefer direct mail over other marketing channels.

• Social Media Marketing

Research estimates that 92% of businesses use social media for marketing. Social media marketing is so popular because, for the most part, it’s free to create an account and post content about your brand. And best of all, each social media channel can help you tailor to a specific audience.

For example, Facebook is excellent for targeting the Baby Boomer generation, while YouTube, Instagram and TikTok are all better for reaching younger users. You can use a mix of photos, videos, links and long-form content to engage and delight your followers.

• Content Marketing

Content marketing is the process of creating blogs, white papers, videos, infographics and other forms of media to attract customers. It often goes hand in hand with SEO marketing , which attempts to optimize pages so that they rank higher in search results.

Currently, about 82% of marketing teams use content marketing as part of their strategy, with 40% ranking it as an important part of their overall marketing approach. With the right content, you can boost audience retention, land higher conversion rates and establish your authority in your space.

Any time you pay to have your content shared with users, it’s considered a paid ad. Paid advertisements can come in a lot of different forms.

For example, you may pay a podcast to do an ad read about your company at the end of the show. Or, you might use pay-per-click advertising to get search engines such as Google to display your website at the top of relevant search results.

Paid advertising has a lot of purposes, but 33% of marketers use it to boost brand awareness. When paid ads are done right, you can reach relevant audiences who are more likely to benefit from your products.

By now, we’ve showcased some of the benefits of marketing. But here’s a more thorough list of just how investing in marketing can help your small business:

• Increases your sales. It’s hard to say exactly how much marketing will improve your sales. But putting your products in front of your target audience is very likely to boost your purchase rate.
• Curates a stellar reputation. If your company becomes known for having excellent customer service (not to mention a dash of cunning) on social media, it can help unaware consumers see your brand as more reputable.
• Builds brand awareness. It takes five to seven impressions for someone to remember a brand. Getting your brand in front of people via advertising can help your company stay front of mind when it’s time to make a purchase.
• Helps you educate customers. In a lot of cases, customers don’t know they need your product or service because they’re in the dark about certain facts or issues. Using marketing as a tool to educate helps customers learn more about how your product can help improve their lives.
• Gives you room to grow. The more your brand gets out there and the more customers you get, the bigger your business will become. If all goes well, you might graduate from small business to big business.

After you’ve chosen your marketing strategy, you’re almost ready to get started with your first campaign. But before you dive in head first, consider some of these marketing best practices. They’ll help you stay on track and avoid crucial mistakes as you work to spread the word about your company.

• Define your goals. Before you start any campaign, think about what you want to get out of it. Increased sales? More page views? More email newsletter sign-ups? Establishing a goal helps you better measure the efficacy and ROI of your campaign—and it’ll help you know what you can improve on next time.
• Define and study your target demographics. Think about who would benefit most from your products. You might even be able to gather this data from your existing sales database. It may help to create a customer profile for each segment of your target audience and use that when crafting content for your campaigns.
• Plan out your campaign. Always create a guideline to follow throughout the campaign and make sure you have all of the assets you’ll need ready to go.
• Start soft, then follow up. This delves into inbound marketing , which is an approach where you create curated content for the user rather than generic ads catering to the general public. Lure in potential customers with interesting content that’s not necessarily sales-y. Then, as the consumer progresses through the marketing funnel , get more aggressive with your calls to action.
• Offer a discount or coupon. Discounts can count toward your marketing budget, and they offer peace of mind to consumers who are on the fence.
• Analyze to see what’s working. Services such as Google Analytics or HubSpot can help you track page views and interactions with landing pages and ads. Crunch the numbers to see which parts of your campaign were most effective, and use this data for future marketing.

Marketing is a complex and in-depth tool you can use to promote your business. When done right, you can benefit from increased sales, improved reputation and brand awareness and better customer retention rates. Of course, there are many strategies to choose from, so we recommend combining at least a few approaches to see the best results.

What is the best definition of marketing strategy?

A marketing strategy is your company’s approach to turning consumers into customers. Your strategy will include your brand’s value proposition as well as your brand messaging. You’ll also need to narrow down your target demographic, decide on distribution channels and create content for the campaign.

What are the four Cs of marketing?

The four Cs of marketing include customer, cost, convenience and communication. First, you need to think about the customer’s wants and needs. Second, consider cost to ensure you’re getting a good return on your investment. Finally, convenience is about making it easy for customers to buy your product, and communication refers to sharing the right information about your product.

How is marketing different from sales?

Marketing caters more to building brand awareness—in other words, getting your company’s name out there in a sea of competitors. Sales, on the other hand, is about completing a deal and turning the interested consumers a marketing team has gathered into customers.

What are some effective marketing strategies?

Most small businesses use a mix of traditional and digital marketing tools to reach as many people as possible. Around 90% of companies rank email marketing as important to their overall success. Other strategies include direct mail, social media marketing, content marketing and paid advertising. Read our Digital Marketing Strategy Guide to learn more.

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Business Plan vs. Marketing Plan

Back to Business Plans

Written by: Carolyn Young

Carolyn Young is a business writer who focuses on entrepreneurial concepts and the business formation. She has over 25 years of experience in business roles, and has authored several entrepreneurship textbooks.

Edited by: David Lepeska

David has been writing and learning about business, finance and globalization for a quarter-century, starting with a small New York consulting firm in the 1990s.

Published on March 3, 2023 Updated on August 18, 2024

Starting a business usually requires both a business plan and a marketing plan. The first has many components, including a marketing section, and covers all facets of the business. The second is essentially an expanded and more detailed version of the marketing section of your business plan.

Both are dynamic documents that will change over time as you learn more about your business. This guide lays out all the details of what goes into a business plan and what is in a marketing plan.

• Business Plan Components

A business plan has eight essential components .

1. Executive Summary 

The executive summary opens your business plan, but it’s the section you’ll write last . It summarizes the key points and highlights the most important aspects of your plan. Often investors and lenders will only read the executive summary; if it doesn’t capture their interest they’ll stop reading, so it’s important to make it as compelling as possible.

The components should include:

• The business opportunity – what problem are you solving in the market?
• Your idea, meaning the product or service you’re planning to offer, and why it solves the problem in the market better than other solutions.
• The history of the business so far – what have you done to this point? When you’re just getting started, this may be nothing more than coming up with the idea, choosing a business name , and forming a business entity.
• A summary of the industry, market size, your target customers, and the competition.
• A strong statement about how your company is going to stand out in the market – what will be your competitive advantage?
• A list of specific goals that you plan to achieve in the short term, such as developing your product, launching a marketing campaign, or hiring a key person. 
• A summary of your financial plan including cost and sales projections and a break-even analysis.
• A summary of your management team, their roles, and the relevant experience that they have to serve in those roles.
• Your “ask”, if applicable, meaning what you’re requesting from the investor or lender. You’ll include the amount you’d like and how it will be spent, such as “We are seeking $50,000 in seed funding to develop our beta product”. 

Remember that if you’re seeking capital, the executive summary could make or break your venture. Take your time and make sure it illustrates how your business is unique in the market and why you’ll succeed.

The executive summary should be no more than two pages long, so it’s important to capture the reader’s interest from the start. 

2. Company Description/Overview

In this section, you’ll detail your full company history, such as how you came up with the idea for your business and any milestones or achievements. 

You’ll also include your mission and vision statements. A mission statement explains what you’d like your business to achieve, its driving force, while a vision statement lays out your long-term plan in terms of growth. 

A mission statement might be “Our company aims to make life easier for business owners with intuitive payroll software”, while a vision statement could be “Our objective is to become the go-to comprehensive HR software provider for companies around the globe.”

In this section, you’ll want to list your objectives – specific short-term goals. Examples might include “complete initial product development by ‘date’” or “hire two qualified sales people” or “launch the first version of the product”. 

It’s best to divide this section into subsections – company history, mission and vision, and objectives.

3. Products or Services Offered 

Here you’ll go into detail about what you’re offering, how it solves a problem in the market, and how it’s unique. Don’t be afraid to share information that is proprietary – investors and lenders are not out to steal your ideas. 

Also specify how your product is developed or sourced. Are you manufacturing it or does it require technical development? Are you purchasing a product from a manufacturer or wholesaler? 

You’ll also want to specify how you’ll sell your product or service. Will it be a subscription service or a one-time purchase?  What is your target pricing? On what channels do you plan to sell your product or service, such as online or by direct sales in a store? 

Basically, you’re describing what you’re going to sell and how you’ll make money.

4. Market Analysis 

The market analysis is where you’re going to spend most of your time because it involves a lot of research. You should divide it into four sections.

Industry analysis 

Research and describe exactly what’s happening in your industry, such as growth rate, market size, and current trends. Where is the industry predicted to be in 10 years? Provide links to your sources. 

Detail your company’s place in the market. Will your product fit a certain niche? Is there a sub-industry your company will fit into? How will you keep up with industry changes? 

Competitor analysis 

Now you’ll dig into your competition. Detail your main competitors and how they differentiate themselves in the market. For example, one competitor may advertise convenience while another touts superior quality. Also highlight your competitors’ weaknesses.

Next, explain how you’ll stand out. Detail your competitive advantages and how you’ll sustain them. This section is extremely important and will be a focus for investors and lenders. 

Target market analysis 

Here you’ll describe your target market and whether it’s different from your competitors’.  For example, maybe you have a younger demographic in mind? 

You’ll need to know more about your target market than demographics, though. You’ll want to explain the needs and wants of your ideal customers, how your offering solves their problem, and why they will choose your company. 

You should also lay out where you’ll find them, where to place your marketing and where to sell your products. Learning this kind of detail requires going to the source – your potential customers. You can do online surveys or even in-person focus groups. 

Your goal will be to uncover as much about these people as possible. When you start selling, you’ll want to keep learning about your customers. You may end up selling to a different target market than you originally thought, which could lead to a marketing shift. 

SWOT analysis 

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and it’s one of the more common and helpful business planning tools.   

First describe all the specific strengths of your company, such as the quality of your product or some unique feature, such as the experience of your management team. Talk about the elements that will make your company successful.

Next, acknowledge and explore possible weaknesses. You can’t say “none”, because no company is perfect, especially at the start. Maybe you lack funds or face a massive competitor. Whatever it is, detail how you will surmount this hurdle. 

Next, talk about the opportunities your company has in the market. Perhaps you’re going to target an underserved segment, or have a technology plan that will help you surge past the competition. 

Finally, examine potential threats. It could be a competitor that might try to replicate your product or rapidly advancing technology in your industry. Again, discuss your plans to handle such threats if they come to pass. 

5. Marketing and Sales Strategies

Now it’s time to explain how you’re going to find potential customers and convert them into paying customers.  

Marketing and advertising plan

When you did your target market analysis, you should have learned a lot about your potential customers, including where to find them. This should help you determine where to advertise. 

Maybe you found that your target customers favor TikTok over Instagram and decided to spend more marketing dollars on TikTok. Detail all the marketing channels you plan to use and why.

Your target market analysis should also have given you information about what kind of message will resonate with your target customers. You should understand their needs and wants and how your product solves their problem, then convey that in your marketing. 

Start by creating a value proposition, which should be no more than two sentences long and answer the following questions:

• What are you offering
• Whose problem does it solve
• What problem does it solve
• What benefits does it provide
• How is it better than competitor products

An example might be “Payroll software that will handle all the payroll needs of small business owners, making life easier for less.”

Whatever your value proposition, it should be at the heart of all of your marketing.

Sales strategy and tactics 

Your sales strategy is a vision to persuade customers to buy, including where you’ll sell and how. For example, you may plan to sell only on your own website, or you may sell from both a physical location and online. 

On the other hand, you may have a sales team that will make direct sales calls to potential customers, which is more common in business-to-business sales. Sales tactics are more about how you’re going to get them to buy after they reach your sales channel. 

Even when selling online, you need something on your site that’s going to get them to go from a site visitor to a paying customer. By the same token, if you’re going to have a sales team making direct sales, what message are they going to deliver that will entice a sale? 

It’s best for sales tactics to focus on the customer’s pain point and what value you’re bringing to the table, rather than being aggressively promotional about the greatness of your product.

Pricing strategy

Pricing is not an exact science and should depend on several factors. First, consider how you want your product or service to be perceived in the market. If your differentiator is to be the lowest price, position your company as the “discount” option. 

Think Walmart, and price your products lower than the competition. If, on the other hand, you want to be the Mercedes of the market, then you’ll position your product as the luxury option. 

Of course you’ll have to back this up with superior quality, but being the luxury option allows you to command higher prices. You can, of course, fall somewhere in the middle, but the point is that pricing is a matter of perception. 

How you position your product in the market compared to the competition is a big factor in determining your price. Of course, you’ll have to consider your costs, as well as competitor prices. Obviously, your prices must cover your costs and allow you to make a good profit. 

Whatever pricing strategy you choose, you’ll justify it in this section of your plan.

6. Operations and Management 

This section is the real nuts and bolts of your business – how it operates on a day-to-day basis and who is operating it. Again, this section should be divided into subsections.

Operational plan

Your plan of operations should be specific , detailed and mainly logistical. Who will be doing what on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis? How will the business be managed and how will quality be assured? Be sure to detail your suppliers and how and when you’ll order raw materials. 

This should also include the roles that will be filled and the various processes that will be part of everyday business operations. Just consider all the critical functions that must be handled for your business to be able to operate on an ongoing basis. 

Technology plan

If your product involves technical development, you’ll describe your tech development plan with specific goals and milestones. The plan will also include how many people will be working on this development, and what needs to be done for goals to be met.

If your company is not a technology company, you’ll describe what technologies you plan to use to run your business or make your business more efficient. It could be process automation software, payroll software, or just laptops and tablets for your staff. 

Management and organizational structure 

Now you’ll describe who’s running the show. It may be just you when you’re starting out, so you’ll detail what your role will be and summarize your background. You’ll also go into detail about any managers that you plan to hire and when that will occur.

Essentially, you’re explaining your management structure and detailing why your strategy will enable smooth and efficient operations. 

Ideally, at some point, you’ll have an organizational structure that is a hierarchy of your staff. Describe what you envision your organizational structure to be. 

Personnel plan 

Detail who you’ve hired or plan to hire and for which roles. For example, you might have a developer, two sales people, and one customer service representative.

Describe each role and what qualifications are needed to perform those roles. 

7. Financial Plan 

Now, you’ll enter the dreaded world of finance. Many entrepreneurs struggle with this part, so you might want to engage a financial professional to help. A financial plan has five key elements.

Startup Costs

Detail in a spreadsheet every cost you’ll incur before you open your doors. This should determine how much capital you’ll need to launch your business. 

Financial projections 

Creating financial projections, like many facets of business, is not an exact science. If your company has no history, financial projections can only be an educated guess. 

First, come up with realistic sales projections. How much do you expect to sell each month? Lay out at least three years of sales projections, detailing monthly sales growth for the first year, then annually thereafter. 

Calculate your monthly costs, keeping in mind that some costs will grow along with sales. Once you have your numbers projected and calculated, use them to create these three key financial statements: 

• Profit and Loss Statement , also known as an income statement. This shows projected revenue and lists all costs, which are then deducted to show net profit or loss. 
• Cash Flow Statement. This shows how much cash you have on hand at any given time. It will have a starting balance, projections of cash coming in, and cash going out, which will be used to calculate cash on hand at the end of the reporting period.
• Balance Sheet. This shows the net worth of the business, which is the assets of the business minus debts. Assets include equipment, cash, accounts receivables, inventory, and more. Debts include outstanding loan balances and accounts payable.

You’ll need monthly projected versions of each statement for the first year, then annual projections for the following two years.

Break-even analysis

The break-even point for your business is when costs and revenue are equal. Most startups operate at a loss for a period of time before they break even and start to make a profit. Your break-even analysis will project when your break-even point will occur, and will be informed by your profit and loss statement. 

Funding requirements and sources 

Lay out the funding you’ll need, when, and where you’ll get it. You’ll also explain what those funds will be used for at various points. If you’re in a high-growth industry that can attract investors, you’ll likely need various rounds of funding to launch and grow. 

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

KPIs measure your company’s performance and can determine success. Many entrepreneurs only focus on the bottom line, but measuring specific KPIs helps find areas of improvement. Every business has certain crucial metrics. 

If you sell only online, one of your key metrics might be your visitor conversion rate. You might do an analysis to learn why just one out of ten site visitors makes a purchase. Perhaps the purchase process is too complicated or your product descriptions are vague. 

Learning why your conversion rate is low gives you a chance to improve it and boost sales. 

8. Appendices

In the appendices you can attach documents such as manager resumes or other documents that support your business plan.

• Marketing Plan Components

A marketing plan, as mentioned above, is a more detailed version of the marketing strategy section of your business plan. It includes six components.

1. Marketing Objectives

Start by detailing your short-term marketing goals. This could be “Reach 10,000 monthly site visitors by next year’” or “Acquire 500 new customers by May”. Be sure to set clear and attainable goals so your marketing team understands its targets. 

2. Target Market

You’ll want to document exactly who you’re trying to reach with your marketing. You should’ve already done a target market analysis for your business plan, and you’ll use it here. 

What Problem Are You Solving?

Whatever your product or service, it needs to solve a problem in the market. So, ask yourself, what problem does my business solve? Next, consider who faces that problem. 

A plumbing company, for instance, solves the problem of broken pipes. Who deals with that problem?  Homeowners and property owners and managers. 

Depending on your business, it may not be obvious who has the problem you’re solving. If it’s not clear, do more research. Either way, knowing who faces the problem you’re solving is just the beginning. You need to know much more about your target customers.

Research Your Market and Competition

Now, dig into your market with some online research. Do some Google and Bing searches about your target demographic, where they shop and live, what appeals to them and so on. 

Next, check out your competition to see who they’re marketing to. It may help to study their marketing through the eyes of a consumer. 

What need do they fill? Who would find their marketing appealing? Where do they advertise? If their ads appear on TikTok, they’re looking to attract a younger market. 

This market research should give you a general profile of your target market – but that’s not enough.

Talk to Potential Customers

To learn more about your target market, go straight to the source. The best way to learn their needs and wants, why they’d buy your product and how they’ll use it, is to ask them via a phone or email survey. 

If you’ve yet to make any sales, it’s probably best to post your survey online then promote it on social media by offering a small reward, such as a gift certificate. Just make sure you ask the right questions to get the information you’re looking for. 

You can also hold in-person focus groups and offer your goods at a discount for participants. 

Create Customer Profiles

Now it’s time to build detailed profiles of your target customers. You may have found that your product will appeal to more than one group of people. These are called customer segments, and all your segments together make up your target market. 

Create descriptions of each group with all the information you’re learned. These profiles should include:

• Pain points: the problems they have that you’re solving
• Benefits your product provides
• Their interests: what do they care about?
• Buying patterns: where do they shop?
• Age, location, income level, other factual information 

3. Value Proposition

Now you can use these profiles to craft a value proposition that will serve as the foundation of all your marketing. You may need to devise more than one value proposition to target different segments.

Your value propositions should be no more than two sentences long and answer the following questions:

• How is it better than competitors’ products

An example might be “Payroll software that handles all the payroll needs of small business owners, making life easier for less.” 

Remember that you need to align your value proposition with the wishes of your target market.

4. Marketing Activities

Now you’ll layout the specific marketing activities that you plan to conduct. Your target market analysis should have told you where you’re most likely to find potential customers, so if you found out that your potential customers use TikTok, you can post and run ads there. 

You’ll want to only perform the marketing activities that are most likely to reach your potential customers so that you’re not wasting marketing dollars. If getting found online is important to you, focus on search engine optimization (SEO) and social media ads.

Make the activities as specific as possible, such as “Run a TikTok ad promoting ____ for three months.”

5. Marketing Budget

Now, determine what these activities will cost and set a budget. When you go through this process, you may find that you need to adjust your marketing to stick to the budget you can afford.

Your marketing budget needs to align with your goals. If one of your goals is to obtain 500 new customers, which will generate $10,000 in revenue, you can’t spend more than that on marketing. You have to make sure you’re getting a good return on your investment, or at least breaking even. 

Now you’ll determine your key performance indicators (KPIs) to gauge the success of your marketing.

If you sell only online, one of your key marketing metrics might be your visitor conversion rate. You might do an analysis to learn why just one out of ten site visitors makes a purchase. 

Perhaps the purchase process is too complicated or your product descriptions are vague. The point is, learning why your conversion rate is low gives you a chance to improve it and boost sales. 

Similarly, if you’re not getting enough site visitors, you may need to revisit your SEO strategies. 

A business plan outlines the overall mission, objectives, and strategies of a business, encompassing aspects like operations, finances, and organizational structure.

In contrast, a marketing plan focuses specifically on strategies and tactics to promote products or services, detailing target audiences, promotional methods, and market positioning.

While the business plan provides a comprehensive view of the entire business, the marketing plan hones in on attracting and retaining customers.

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How To Write a Marketing Strategy for Your Business Plan

Potential investors want to see how you plan to sell

Alyssa Gregory is an entrepreneur, writer, and marketer with 20 years of experience in the business world. She is the founder of the Small Business Bonfire, a community for entrepreneurs, and has authored more than 2,500 articles for The Balance and other popular small business websites.

How Marketing Strategy Fits Into Your Business Plan

The 4 ps: product, promotion, price, and place, 7 tips for writing a marketing strategy, the bottom line, frequently asked questions (faqs).

Bulent Ince / E+ Collection / Getty Images

A marketing strategy is important for all businesses because it clearly outlines how they'll find new customers and promote their products and services to ultimately achieve more sales. You can use the marketing strategy as a stand-alone tool, as part of a marketing plan, or as part of a business plan, all with slightly different components.

Let's focus on some marketing strategy examples for your business plan. 

• A solid marketing strategy addresses the four Ps: product, promotion, price, and place.
• Your success can depend on understanding your clients’ needs and being flexible enough to find a way to meet them.
• Keep your budget in mind. You can only do what you can afford to do, and you should plan for accommodating periodic shortfalls.

The marketing strategy section of your business plan builds upon the market analysis section . The marketing strategy outlines where your business fits into the market and how you'll price, promote, and sell your product or service. It can also act as a source of important information for potential investors who are analyzing your business.

You can break down the key information in the marketing strategy section using the 4 Ps of marketing concept: product, promotion, price, and place.

Product can refer to either a physical product or a service that you plan on offering. Some of the product areas that fall into this section include:

• Related products or services
• Functionality

Promotion covers the various aspects of how you plan on marketing your product or service. The areas you should address include:

• Advertising
• Marketing budget
• Promotional strategy
• Publicity and public relations
• Sales force
• Sales promotion

This addresses the way you plan on pricing your product or service. The aspects of pricing you should address are:

• Bundling (if you have related products/services)
• Pricing flexibility
• Pricing strategy
• Retail price
• Seasonal price (if applicable)
• Wholesale (volume) price

Also known as distribution, this part is all about the delivery of your product or service to your customers. Some areas you should cover include:

• Distribution centers
• Distribution channels
• Inventory management
• Order processing
• Transportation
• Warehousing

Keep seven things in mind as you write the marketing strategy section of your business plan to make it as effective and relevant as possible.

Show How Unique You Are

The foundation of your marketing strategy should be your unique selling proposition (USP). This is the statement that outlines what differentiates you from everyone else in the market. Create your USP first, then build upon it by relating it to each of the 4 Ps.

The common thread through each part of your marketing strategy should be how your business solves a problem or meets a need better than anyone else.

Know Your Customers/Clients

The information you include in your marketing strategy should incorporate all the research you conducted in your market analysis . Make sure you have a clear idea of who your ideal customers or clients are, what they like, what they need, and what they expect. This will make your marketing strategy more accurate and applicable to your target audience.

Be Flexible

The 4 Ps of marketing work well for physical products, but you may have to tweak them a bit for services. For example, you might use your website instead of a physical location for the place section. Your website should also be a part of your promotion section, as should any social media platforms that you participate in.

Do Your Research

When you’re determining your pricing, you should have plenty of data to back up your decision when you're determining your pricing. Include industry reports, competitor ads, and comparisons that demonstrate the research you conducted and how you came to the conclusion that you're pricing your product or service correctly.

Use Visuals

As in other sections of your business plan, using charts, graphs, and images to illustrate your facts can make them easier for your audience to absorb and understand. Is your pricing right at the median of the industry? Are you planning to use a four-step distribution process?

Use visual aids to drive your point home.

Remember Your Budget

You'll outline the financial analysis of your company in another section of your business plan but keep those numbers in mind as you write your marketing strategy. Your marketing process may look good by itself, but you'll have a difficult time meeting your goals unless you tie it directly to your financial status.

Include Your Collateral

You should include samples as exhibits if you're going to talk about your marketing collateral in your marketing section. These might include brochures, fact sheets, videos, and photos.

Your marketing strategy is your overall plan for how you're going to make your business profitable. Larger enterprises might have different strategies for various arms of their operations. Sole proprietors carry the weight of a single plan on their own. But addressing all these components will increase your odds of success in any case.

What are the four types of marketing strategies?

Many consider the four Ps to be the basic types of marketing strategies, but others focus on four possible ways you can reach clients and consumers: search engine optimization, paid advertising, content marketing, and sales.

What are the seven Cs of marketing?

The seven Cs organize your marketing strategy. They can vary depending on who you talk to and the nature of your business, but you can tailor yours to best meet your goals and needs. Most include customer, consistency, creativity, and communication. Some include other factors, such as convenience, competition, credibility, culture, and change.

American Marketing Association. " The Four Ps of Marketing ."

Notes Learning. " 7 Cs of Marketing ."

OBC. " The 7 Cs of Marketing: How to Apply Them ."

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What Is a Marketing Mix?

What are the 4 ps of a marketing mix, what are other marketing tools, what are the four elements of a marketing mix, what are the 7 ps in a marketing mix, what is the purpose of a marketing mix, the bottom line.

• Marketing Essentials

Marketing Mix: The 4 Ps of Marketing and How to Use Them

Investopedia / Mira Norian

A marketing mix includes multiple areas of focus as part of a comprehensive marketing plan . The term often refers to a common classification that began as the four Ps : product, price, placement, and promotion.

Effective marketing touches on a broad range of areas as opposed to fixating on one message. Doing so helps reach a wider audience, and by keeping the four Ps in mind, marketing professionals are better able to maintain focus on the things that really matter. Focusing on a marketing mix helps organizations make strategic decisions when launching new products or revising existing products.

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Key Takeaways

• A marketing mix refers to a framework that uses the four Ps of product, price, placement, and promotion.
• This concept traces back to 1960, when marketing professor E. Jerome McCarthy first published it in a book entitled Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach.
• The different elements of a marketing mix work in conjunction with one another with the ultimate purpose of generating higher sales.
• In addition to the 4 Ps, three approaches can also be integrated that include people, process, and physical evidence to reinforce a consumer-centric type of marketing strategy.
• This type of strategy extends beyond a product-focused marketing approach.

The four Ps classification for developing an effective marketing strategy was first introduced in 1960 by marketing professor and author E. Jerome McCarthy. It was published in the book entitled Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach. Depending on the industry and the target of the marketing plan, marketing managers may take various approaches to each of the four Ps. Each element can be examined independently, but in practice, they often are dependent on one another. 

This represents an item or service designed to satisfy customer needs and wants. To effectively market a product or service, it's important to identify what differentiates it from competing products or services. It's also important to determine if other products or services can be marketed in conjunction with it.

The sale price of the product reflects what consumers are willing to pay for it. Marketing professionals need to consider costs related to research and development, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution—otherwise known as cost-based pricing. Pricing based primarily on consumers' perceived quality or value is known as value-based pricing .

Value-based pricing plays a key role in products that are considered to be status symbols.

When determining areas of distribution, it's important to consider the type of product sold. Basic consumer products, such as paper goods, often are readily available in many stores. Premium consumer products, however, typically are available only in select stores.

Joint marketing campaigns are called a promotional mix. Activities might include advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, and public relations. One key consideration is the budget assigned to the marketing mix. Marketing professionals carefully construct a message that often incorporates details from the other three Ps when trying to reach their target audience . Determination of the best mediums to communicate the message and decisions about the frequency of the communication also are important.

Not all marketing is product-focused. Customer service businesses are fundamentally different than those based primarily on physical products, so they often will take a consumer-centric approach that incorporates additional elements to address their unique needs.

Three additional Ps tied to this type of marketing mix might include people, process, and physical evidence. "People" refers to employees who represent a company as they interact with clients or customers. "Process" represents the method or flow of providing service to clients and often incorporates monitoring service performance for customer satisfaction. "Physical evidence" relates to an area or space where company representatives and customers interact. Marketers take into consideration elements such as furniture, signage, and layout.

Additionally, marketers often study consumers in order to refine or update strategies related to services or products. This requires a strategy for communicating with consumers in order to obtain feedback and define the type of feedback being sought.

Traditionally, marketing commences with identifying consumers' needs and ceases with the delivery and promotion of a final product or service. Consumer-centric marketing is more cyclical. Its goals include reassessing customers' needs, communicating frequently, and developing strategies to build customer loyalty .

The four primary elements of a marketing mix are product, price, placement, and promotion. This framework aims to create a comprehensive plan to distinguish a product or service from competitors that creates value for the customer. Often, these elements are dependent on each other.

Product refers to a good or service that meets a customer's needs. Here, companies focus on features that differentiate it from its competitors. An organization may also consider complementary products that fit within its suite of product or service offerings.

Price represents the price point or price range for the product or service. Ultimately, the goal is to maximize profit margins and return on investment while considering the price that customers are willing to pay.

Placement refers to distribution channels. Specifically, where is this product being promoted, and how can you get it in front of your target audience?

Promotion focuses on creating brand awareness around your product or service. Importantly, it looks at how utilizing certain channels can drive sales.

Sometimes, the marketing mix can extend beyond the classic four Ps of product, price, placement, and promotion established by professor E. Jerome McCarthy in 1960. These additional categories include people, physical evidence, and process.

In this way, people represent the employees who interact with customers. A company may consider company culture as it relates to its brand strategy. This may include customer relationship management (CRM) , which aims to increase brand loyalty among customers.

Physical evidence might include the packaging or the layout of a physical store, which can reinforce a brand and create more value to the customer.

Finally, the process identifies areas, often from a logistical standpoint, that enable the customer to have the most seamless experience possible with a product or service. This may include everything from delivery logistics and shipping to managing third-party retailers.

At its core, a marketing mix is focused on promoting a product or service to generate revenue for a company. On the whole, it integrates key marketing strategies that create brand awareness, build customer loyalty, and drive product sales.

The development of a comprehensive, effective marketing plan takes into consideration a marketing mix that includes several areas of focus. Typically, the marketing mix refers to the four Ps: product or service, its price, placement, and promotion. This concept was developed in 1960, when marketing professor E. Jerome McCarthy first published it in a book entitled Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach.

However, because not all marketing is focused on products, customer-service businesses rely on other marketing tools that might include three additional Ps: the people who interact with customers, the process that creates a seamless customer experience, and physical evidence, or the area where customers and company representatives interact.

All of these tools are used to promote a product or service and build brand awareness and customer loyalty in order to generate revenue for a business.

E. Jerome McCarthy. " Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach ," Page vi. R.D. Irwin, 1960.

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