Steps for preparing a marketing plan

Marketing is a set of activities and processes whose primary goal is to discover the needs and desires of customers, develop products or services that meet these needs, and promote them in an effective way to sell them and achieve profits.
The marketing process, whether traditional or electronic marketing, begins before the production process by identifying customer needs and studying the market, leading to product awareness, sales, and after-sales follow-up.

What is the concept of a marketing plan?

The concept of marketing plans can be clarified as a written plan or document that defines the company's marketing strategy and objectives to be achieved within a specific period of time, which may be a year or more.

What is the importance of the marketing plan?

If you want to achieve your goals, you must develop a solid marketing plan. Without a marketing plan, chaos and randomness prevail. It is not possible to determine the budget, or clearly define the goals, the required employees, and the necessary resources for marketing success. Its importance can be determined in several points, including:

Helps achieve marketing goals
Ensure all marketing activities are consistent with each other, improving business efficiency.
The plan provides the marketing team with a clear workflow and defines each individual's responsibilities.
It allows measuring the success of marketing efforts through specific indicators, allowing the necessary adjustments to be made to improve performance.

What are the goals of the marketing plan?

The marketing plan is the map that determines the course of marketing work and achieving its objectives. The most prominent objectives of the marketing plan are:

Increase brand awareness.
Generate high-quality leads.
Acquiring new customers.
Increase website traffic.
Establishment of the industry body.
Increase customer value.
Boost brand engagement.
Increase revenue.
Improve internal branding.

Basic elements of the marketing plan

The most important elements and components of the marketing plan are the following:

Analysis of the current situation that includes analysis of the market, competitors, strengths and weaknesses
Determine marketing objectives
Determine marketing strategy
Determine the business plan
Determine the evaluation plan
Determine the budget

Responsible for preparing the marketing plan?

The person responsible for the marketing plan varies depending on the size of the company and its organizational structure. The person responsible may be:

The business owner or general manager is responsible for developing the marketing plan.
Sales, marketing, and finance employees collect information and set goals.
Marketing department.
Director of Marketing.
The marketing team collaborates with employees from other departments such as sales, products, and research and development.

Types of marketing plans

The type of marketing plan depends on the company being dealt with, and the most popular types of marketing plans are:

Quarterly or annual marketing plans that are based on implementing several strategies during a specific period
Social media marketing plan
Content marketing plan is based on different strategies for using content to market the business or product
New product launch marketing plan
Growth marketing plan relies on data and experimental growth to achieve results

How to prepare a marketing plan?

The steps for preparing the marketing plan are summarized in several points:

Preparing a business summary that includes the name of the company, its location, and its work tasks
SWOT analysis that includes strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities
Commercial initiatives, explains marketing projects, and defines the different objectives for each department
Customer analysis helps identify the target audience and potential customers
Competitor Analysis: In order to be able to create a solid marketing plan, a careful and comprehensive analysis of competitors and their weaknesses and gaps is necessary
Market strategy defines the appropriate way to deal with the market and competitors
The budget specifies the potential expenditures in the marketing plan, the specific amount to be invested in marketing, and the expected return on investment
Marketing channels, that is, determining the target place to publish your marketing content, to attract customers and raise awareness about the product.
Marketing technology includes identifying the tools used in your marketing plan

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

Marketing plan: It is the specific methods and tactics that have been carefully developed to determine the objectives of the marketing strategy
Marketing strategy: includes challenging the company's goals, researching the market and competitors, and determining the appropriate brand and its location

The difference between marketing and sales plan?

Marketing plan: aims to attract customers, brand awareness, and conversion rate, as it focuses on market needs and audience behaviors, and requires a larger budget and longer time.
Sales: It aims to achieve sales and convert potential customers into actual customers, focuses on the individual needs of customers, and is concerned with the number of sales, profit and achieving goals.

The most important problems of marketing planning

The most important problems facing the marketing plan are the following:

Achieving strong alignment between sales and marketing
Hiring the best marketing talent for the job
Identify social issues that the target audience cares about
Create powerful content that attracts potential customers
Lack of clarity of goals
Lack of resources
Poor communication between the work team
Not adapting to changes
Not measuring results
Not having a backup plan

A ready-made marketing plan template

https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/louisville-2019/images/LT-Marketing-Plan-Booklet.pdf