A marketing plan is your roadmap to marketing success.

If you have a sense of where you want to go, in business or in life, doesn’t it make sense to have a plan for getting there? Saying yes shows good judgment for long-range travel and personal growth.  It also makes sense for an organization wanting to achieve it’s marketing goals. If you have an important destination in mind, you need to know if it's the right destination, what may stand in your way, and what you need to do to get there. That’s where a marketing plan becomes imperative for your business. A report by CoSchedule in 2019 stated that companies with marketing plans and strategies are times as likely to achieve success as those who do not.
 

How many pages should a marketing plan be? 

There is no set answer in terms of how many pages you need for an effective marketing plan.  The length of a marketing plan is generally dependent upon the scope of marketing goals and resources. More substantial marketing programs can require marketing plans of up to and over 100 pages. More modest marketing plans can be captured in just a few pages, sometimes even a single page.
 

What goes into the marketing plans we prepare?

Although the web is filled with free marketing plan templates that can be downloaded, we struggle with the idea that there is such a thing as a one size fits all, fill in the blanks marketing plan template that gets the job done. We say that having looked at hundreds of templates and written scads of marketing plans for all sorts of companies and organizations.

“Companies with marketing plans are three times as likely to achieve success as those who do not.”

Our custom approach, in developing marketing plans, is to start with a rough outline of key components that we add to and subtract from depending on the situation and what we uncover during initial discussions and research.
 

Our marketing plan components

Here’s what we typically include when we develop marketing plans for companies of all sizes, in a wide variety of industries

• Situation Analysis
  where are you today, where you want to go.
   
• Market Research
  everything you need to know about the market dynamics of the sector you’re in. 
   
• Target Markets
  in-depth details about the people or companies most likely to buy your products or services. 
   
• Products/Services
  how are you meeting or not meeting the needs of your target markets. 
   
• Competition
  who are your competitors and what are your competitive advantages. 
   
• Messaging Strategies
  the key messages that describe who you are selling to, what you’re selling and how you are different. 
   
• Marketing Objectives
  quantifiable goals you can apply numbers to such as units sold or revenue generated. 
   
• Marketing Strategies
  how you will promote and deliver your products while giving yourself a competitive advantage and being financially viable as a business. 
   
• Marketing Channels
  where and how will you market yourself from advertising to selling and public relations. 
   
• Positioning/Pricing
  how you will be positioned in the market in relation to competitors, how you will price your offerings. 
   
• Branding
  what role will be your brand play in marketing. 
   
• Marketing Budget
  how much is needed to reach the marketing goals identified.
   
• Monitoring Methods
  how you plan to keep track of results and make adjustments along the way.
  
   

Putting your marketing plan to work

Like many other documents and reports, too many marketing plans end up gathering dust on a shelf or languishing inside a long-forgotten folder. That’s why it’s important to assign responsibilities for managing, implementing and monitoring the marketing plan once it’s been approved.  We normally suggest regular marketing plan meetings and updates.