Your Marketing Plan, part of the Business Plan, will need to incorporate the Business Marketing Plan looking at your Marketing Strategy and Marketing Goals
Marketing
Put simply, what marketing looks at is the following: Product, Price, Promotion and Place. It starts to incorporate your future advertising, your distribution and your selling.
It looks at the current and future needs and wants of your customers, primarily through research. It will help your business to be successful in selling your product to the customers that want it.
In other words this part of the plan will be how you achieve your goals and objectives.
1. Marketing Strategy
Here you will need to set your marketing goals. Remember, these should still be in line with your business goals and objectives, your mission and your vision statement.
2. Target Markets (Market Segments)
You need to appreciate the importance of customers and the importance or retaining customers. In order to get and retain your customers you need to KNOW your customers.
In order to determine your target market, you need to list the characteristics of your target market.
Identify your target market: age, sex, status (married, single, divorced etc.), occupation, income bracket, location, hobbies, what products they currently use.
Who will be buying your product (or using your service), analyse your individual people (or businesses) using your product.
3. Marketing Distribution
You need to look at the type of market that you will be selling to and at which stage of the process it will be. For example will you sell direct to the end consumer, the distributor, through corporate markets or even internationally.
It could be that it is a combination of the above.
4. Market Segmentation Sustainability
What do you do when you have found your target market? You then have to ask the question is this market segment suitable, sustainable and profitable for your business?
5. Product Positioning
Next you need to outline your product positioning. Once you have identified your target market, you will need to think about your marketing approach. Will you be advertising to the mass market or a niche market?
Once you have answered all the above, click on the Market Research page to continue with your marketing plan.
For further information on marketing have a look at the
Wikipedia Marketing Definitions
Return to the top of the
Marketing Plan
page or go to the next step which is the
Market Research
page, or return to
Writing a Business Plan
