Every business needs a marketing plan. A marketing plan is a comprehensive document that outlines the strategic plan for your business.

What is included in a marketing plan?

A marketing plan should have the following elements:

- A summary

o This is a snapshot of your marketing plan

- A background analysis of your business and your target market

o Provide an overview of your business and your product or service.

o Identify your target market. Include any relevant statistics about the market and any key demographic information. You should also define your ideal customer, discussing their needs, buying patterns and motivation for buying.

o Include information about your competitors. Is there a product or service that directly competes with your offering? What are they doing to establish themselves in the market?

- Your marketing objectives and strategy for your business

o Outline your objectives, whether they are financial, about building awareness or engaging with customers.

- Your marketing mix

o This section will outline your overall marketing strategy and how you plan to position yourself in the market to meet the needs of your customers. Include all activities and promotion you plan to use such as PR, digital marketing, advertising, blogs etc.

- Your action plans and budgets

o Once you have established your marketing mix, detail specific activities to achieve your objectives. E.g.: booking online advertising or producing a media release to announce your product or service.

o Work out what your marketing activities will cost you. This is best broken down by activity, month by month.

- Evaluation and monitoring strategies

o It’s important to establish what works and what doesn’t. Review your marketing activities periodically to determine if they worked and whether you will implement them in future marketing plans.

Keep in mind that your marketing plan is not a set and forget document. It’s important that you keep it up to date with any new opportunities that present themselves and tweak it to suit the needs of your business. A good quality, evolving marketing plan will make a useful reference document for your business.

If you would like help to develop a marketing plan, contact Absolute Marketing Communications. Contact Us.

Planning is important to any business. Every business should have three key marketing plans; a marketing plan, a content marketing plan and a social media plan.

What is the difference between each?

Marketing Plan

A marketing plan is your strategic plan for marketing your business. It includes your brand and product strategies, who you are targeting and what you are going to do to achieve your goals (PR, content, advertising etc).

While it outlines your overall plan, it doesn’t go into detail about when and how you will implement these marketing activities which is why you need a content plan and a social media plan.

Content Marketing Plan

A content marketing plan outlines your topics and the type of content you will produce (blogs, videos, live streams etc) and where and how you will publish and promote this content.

Social Media Plan

A social media plan outlines your strategy and specific objectives for each social media platform you have outlined in your marketing plan. It should detail how often you will post and how you will use that platform to support your broader business.

By having these three plans in place, you will have a good foundation for setting your business up for success.

If you would like assistance with developing any of these three plans, please contact Absolute Marketing Communications via email.