Marketing Plan Template

Contents
Executive Summary
INTRODUCTION
Your executive summary should begin with an introduction that briefly explains what the reader
can expect. It provides valuable context and will make the subsequent points easier to understand.
Briefly explain the project, the purpose of your marketing plan and the key benefits to potential
customers. Keep the introduction simple, short and direct.

Example: This plan is presented for XYZ Company, which sells widgets for the IT industry. We've created
a new widget for the healthcare industry, and our marketing plan will show that we have a unique
opportunity to expand into a new market.

DESCRIPTION OF YOUR COMPANY AND TEAM

Briefly describe your business, including its history, structure, customer base and sales figures.
List the main people involved with the business, including their positions and responsibilities, their
respective skills and experience, and their responsibilities with respect to achieving your marketing
goals. Include relevant external service providers (e.g., accountants, marketing experts and suppliers).

Example: XYZ Company has been around since 2010 and is based in Anaheim, California. We sell widgets
for the IT industry, which are designed to increase energy efficiency and reduce operating costs.

DESCRIPTION OF MARKET FACTORS AND TRENDS

Describe the marketplace and industry sectors in which you sell your products and services, and
the main trends that affect them. List the factors that influence the market, the innovations that are
taking place and the main drivers or players involved.

Example: There are several large companies and a few smaller specialty companies that sell similar
widgets to the IT industry. Innovations in this market can cause disruptions but only when they provide
significant benefits in cost savings or efficiencies.

DESCRIPTION OF PRODUCTS AND SERVICES BEING MARKETED

Describe your products or services, and explain their key features and benefits. Outline your
products' or services' unique selling propositions to show how they differ from or are better than
competitors' offerings.

Example: We've created a new widget for the healthcare industry, which is outside our current market.
This new product provides healthcare companies with greater efficiencies and cost savings not currently
offered by existing products. There are similar products designed for other industries, but there are
currently no widgets designed specifically for the healthcare industry.

Description of your customer base and related marketing activities

Describe the key aspects of your target audience, as well as how you identify those customers. Briefly
explain where you find your target customers and how you will reach them. Outline your promotional
strategy, including its main objectives and related timelines. Describe your key marketing priorities and
how they relate to specific business activities (e.g., entering a new market, creating new products).
Explain what methods you will use to distribute your products or services.

Example: Our target market is large healthcare companies, including hospitals, clinics and manufacturers
of healthcare devices. We plan to do a marketing campaign through direct sales and social media
marketing.

Summary of financial planning and projections

Clearly define key financial information related to short-term and long-term marketing activities. Provide
line-by-line budget details for individual activities and related metrics to determine their success.

Example: Our marketing budget for the year is $100,000, which will be spread over the following
marketing activities.

Summary of overall objectives and related strategies

Briefly describe the project's goals and the strategies that will be involved in achieving those goals.
Conclude with a couple of sentences that will encourage the reader to review your marketing plan.

Example: We've developed a marketing plan that will help us to quickly reach key stakeholders in the
healthcare industry and become the main provider of widgets to this market. We will use our experience
in selling to the IT industry to showcase the benefits of our widget.

Business current state

The Market
Segmenting the Market
Behavioural segments
Customer segments
Segment Profiles
Goals and Objectives
Goals
Long-term
Medium-term
Objectives
Strategy
Product
Current Product Mix
Future Product Mix
Product Road Map – Product Development
Price
Sample Market Price Analysis
Place
 Direct Distribution Channels
In-Direct Distribution partners
Promotion
Promotional/Campaign Communications Plan
Budget
Next Steps

Executive Summary

<This is where you give the reader a synopsis or high-level view of the document and outcomes so they
can read the executive summary to get the key points of the document without reading the entire
marketing plan document.>

Business current state

<This is where you describe where your business is currently at in the business life cycle. You should
include information like;
 What is your business about
 What is your businesses history
 What market(s) do you compete in (local, regional, national, international)
 What is your unique selling proposition (USP)
 What products or services do you sell as a high level overview
 What are your long term goals for the business
 If this is an on-going marketing plan include your ‘win’s’ from the previous marketing period and
lessons learnt.
By including this information you will be well on your way to creating an overview of your businesses
current state.>

The Market (in which you compete)

<To understand how to compete in your chosen market you must also understand the drivers of that
market. This is a process of identifying areas which may affect your business directly and indirectly. A
good way to do this is to create a PESTE analysis which is:
 Political – what legislation, laws and government policies affect your business positively or
negatively
 Economic – What is happening at a Regional, National and International level, do things like the
Global Financial Crises affect your business or not?
 Sociological – what trends and cultural factors affect your business directly such as changes in
consumer demand from Free Range eggs over Battery farmed eggs for ethical consumers.
 Technology – what new technologies have been developed which you can use or benefit from or
may be a threat to your business, for instance Newspapers are under huge threat from Google
and News Aggregators online. Or, maybe you have used Social Media as an opportunity to
connect with your customer through
 Environmental - is your product sustainable or not, can you use your certified green credentials
to support your brand(s) and product positioning and value positioning? Having answers to
these questions will help your business answer questions from your customers and may well
support your marketing and brand building activities.
By understanding and ranking the identified PESTE elements you will be able to hen look at which factors
you will actively need to work with/manage to support your businesses strategy in your competitive
market.

Segmenting the Market

Behavioural segments
Create your markets segments based on your customers data which you have captured in your business
and with desktop research and also any research you may have conducted yourself (surveys, online
surveys etc.)
<To fully understand your market you must understand that your customers are not all alike and the
reasons they purchase products and services may be wide and varied. Consideration of your brand could
be front of mind, impulse or even driven by recommendation. Importantly for all businesses
understanding the customer is probably the most important driver of business and it certainly is for
marketing. A good way to improve your businesses understanding of the customer is to create segments
and like traits of customer sets as profiles. This way you will be able to understand with more detail the
different types of customers your business has and how best to server these existing and potential new
customers.>
[Replace the suggested bullet points with your own product and services]
Instances:
 When is your product used (toothpaste)
 What opportunities can drive usage (bad breath)
 What other instances can drive usage (after dining)
 Can your products use be extended? (Mini-toothpaste disposables when you’re out and about)
Usage:
 Are your customers; heavy, medium, light
 Are your customers buying due to distress/event based
Loyalty:
 Do you customers by frequently
 Does your product sell quickly or do you have long durations between sales due to the cost of the
items your selling
 Which customers are most valuable?
 Do you encourage loyalty
 Do you reward loyalty
 Does your business operate by selling high volume low cost or are you a premium product with
high cost – different rewards and loyalty programmes can be used for both types –what type is
your business?
 Do you have data you can use to contact your customers to support a loyalty programme?

Benefits derived:
 What are the different benefits customers receive from your product
 Think about different categories of soft drink, full sugar or no sugar, or light sugar with
sweeteners added
 How many different customer types do you have for instance with toothpaste;
o Taste
o Anti-Plaque
o Sensitive
o Cosmetic (whitening)
o Medicinal
o Natural (baking soda)

Recognised Needs
<If you are reading and working with this document to build a marketing plan for your business then you
have a recognised need that Marketing and Planning are important to your businesses success. The
same concept can be used when thinking about your customers and the segments they create.>
What are your customer’s current needs now:
 What recognised need(s) does your product and service deliver
 What levels of variation is present in the product/service categories in your market
 Does your business currently meet all the known needs of your customers
Unmet Needs
<An unmet need is pretty much what it the name suggests the difficulty is in the ‘uncovering’ of unmet
needs to create new products and services to meet needs which customers may not yet realise they
have.>
What are some potential unmet needs of your existing customer now?
 What unrecognised need(s) does your product and service deliver
 What levels of variation is not present in the product/service categories in your market
 Does your business currently meet all the known needs of your customers
 Have customers suggested new products and services to you?

Customer Segments – Identified by Descriptor Variables

Descriptor variables with segments which are readily identifiable and known traits about customers to
help your business profile your customers and better serve their needs.
Demographics
Age
Income
Gender
Family size
Education

Geographic Location
Town
Province
Type of house (detached /Semi /Flat /Apartment /Villa etc.)

From this analysis you will be able to identify your existing customer groups and create specific
segments; this will require analysis externally through data gathered about your existing customers.
<By understanding you company’s customer data you will be able to answer questions like;
 Where are your customers located
 How many are in each state/suburb/postcode
 What is the best way to contact your customers, have they sighted preferences to you? (such as;
email, direct mail, face to face, on the phone)
 Are there ‘like’ customers who you have not contacted yet (prospects) in the identified segments
(other States/Suburbs etc.)
  Why do these segments buy from you – what is important to them?
 How can you target these customers with different advertising methods (Papers, Online, and
Direct Mail etc.)

Segment Profiles
Based on the behavioural and descriptor variables described above, we can then construct the segment
profile(s) that your business should focus its marketing strategy and communication mix on.
<As an example we have included here two segments from consumers of ISP’s with segment profiles
based on the prior criteria.>
1. Profile 1 (20-35)‘Wired for Lifers’
(WFL’s) – Experienced Internet Users
 Technologically Savvy – Innovators
 Over-represented with early adopters in this profile
 Most likely to have internet access at work
 Highest use of ‘netivities’; e-mail, shopping, finance
 Rising Earnings Power

2. Profile 2 (36-60)‘The Professional’s

(TP’s) – Use the Internet to add value to existing life-style
 Relatively less time on-line but above average spending.
 Function first – not into chatting or games
 Arranging leisure time; hotel bookings, tickets, travel, groceries gifts
 Prefer quick effective on-line sessions (‘Need for Speed’)
 At height of earnings power

Goals and Objectives

All organisations regardless of business size and age should have long-term goals couple with objectives
which will support the medium and long-term goals. Marketing Goals and Objectives support the overall
business plan but are focused on marketing measures such as; customer loyalty, customer value, market
differentiation etc. It is important that when you create your businesses Goals and Objectives that they
are realistic and obtainable with your company’s given resources and capabilities. A good method to
make sure Goals and Objectives are realistic is to use the principles of SMART; Specific, Measurable,
Agreed, Realistic, Time based.

Goals
The key goals for our business are:

Long-term
 To reach annual turnover of $000 in 5 years
 To be recognised as a market leader
 To have a loyalty rate (%) higher than the competition
  To have satisfied employees and associates

Medium-term
 Drive new business from new State markets by (%) in 2 years
 Develop an online portal for <activity>
 Target the Government sector for medium term contracts

Objectives
The key objectives for our business in this marketing plan for <YYYY> are to:
 Add <number> of new customers by end of the financial year
 Increase turnover by (%) and retain existing customers
 Build brand recognition
 Drive new uses to the website
 Increase subscriptions to online services
 Build the customer mailing list
 Send 8 direct mail campaigns with response rates higher than (%) compared to industry
standard
SMART
To ensure our company’s Goals and Objectives are SMART we have applied the following principles to
understand our Goals and Objectives are realistic.
S - specific, noteworthy
M - Measurable, significant, motivational
A - Agreed upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable
R - Realistic, relevant, reasonable, results-oriented
T - Time-based or temporal, tangible

Strategy
Marketing strategy is not a single paragraph or mission statement, it is not choosing to try and do
everything – Marketing Strategy is choosing to do only a select set of marketing activities and to do them
better than your competition
To help you to focus your select marketing strategy we have created this section on strategy which all
businesses need to create to plan for strategic marketing success. We have focused on the core four
marketing ‘P’s’ which are; Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

Product

Current Product Mix

Your businesses existing current products and services currently offered in your market.
Future Product Mix
Your businesses existing potential new products and services currently offered/not offered in your
market.

Price
Your pricing strategy is clearly important for you and your customers. Price helps to define what type of
business you are in the market, are you super-premium or are you a budget competitor, all of these
elements reflect your businesses pricing strategy and your chosen target markets and segments.
In this section you should have your price list and define your margins and opportunities for growth with
specific objectives are they from your suppliers by increasing volumes and reducing your costs as well as
either taking this margin as additional profit or using in the market to reduce your prices and increase
competition.
You should have top-line information here such as;
 Price list (RRP) / Margins / Costs / GST
 Your set discount rates for your products/services
 Up-coming promotions and specials which you may be running
 Promotions should have a sub-section where you have created break-even points and additional
sales will show you the uplift in gross revenue
 Return on Investment should also be considered here as the sales data will be fundamental to
you RoI calculations and measures of marketing success
At the end of the day your pricing will be dependent a great deal by what the ‘market’ is prepared to
pay. This does not mean that you will not sell anything if you are too expensive or too much if you are
too cheap. The point is you will need to review your competition and stay informed of the markets price
points, medians, means so you can ensure that not only are you competitive if your business is
profitable.

Place
This is simple where you sell your product and in marketing can sometimes be referred to as ‘channel’ or
‘distribution’. You can sell your product via; wholesale, retail outlets, re-sellers, telemarketing, face to
face sales, online via a website, through direct marketing catalogues or a combination of these, it all
comes down to what the strategy you have chosen to sell your products and services. Distribution is also
broken into two categories ‘Direct’ and ‘In-Direct” in that with direct your own team sells the
products/services directly but with In-Direct you are relying on re-sellers and partners to sell your
services and products.
Here you should describe your chosen ‘place’ or distribution points for your products and services.

Direct Distribution Channels

1. Retail Chains
 2. Private Retail stores

In-Direct Distribution partners

1. Wholesale partner

Promotion
Promotional/Campaign Communications Plan
What are your promotional strategies. Provide sample of your promotional strategy. How much
it cost/budget? What are its objectives or targets?

Budget
How much budget does your business have for marketing and what will be the key measures of success.
How will you measure your success. You can use this table as a guide to help you analyse your budget
and overall planed activity.
What is the size and source of budget allocation for this plan and how was it determined?

Cost In market Measure Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Quarter 3 Quarter 4

date(s) of success

Next Steps

After completion of the marketing plan you need to assign tasks, deliverables and whom, will be
responsible for the activities contained in the new plan.
1. Assign roles and responsibilities
2. Assign tasks and deliverables
3. Measure performance
4. Implement