Always begin your marketing plan with a one-page summary of the circumstances and principal recommendations contained in the plan. Situation Analysis describes where your company stands at that moment in time. It includes background on past sales, major competitors, and explanations of recent sales and profit results. It should also feature a forecast for the industry, including opportunities and threats and some mention of the company’s strengths and weaknesses versus the competition.
Every company has objectives. They are simply a matter of deciding where you want to be and when you want to get there. Is the purpose of your marketing plan to launch a new product or line of products? If so, your objective should be something like this. To achieve 10 percent market share within the first 12 months of product launch. Strategies are the things you need to do to accomplish your objectives. If your objective is where you want your company to be, the strategy is the route you need to take to get there.
For example, if the objective is to increase sales revenue, your strategies might be one or more of the following:
1) Increase the average price on all units
2) Increase overall sales volume
3) Sell more of the higher-priced units
4) Any combination of these
Tactics that are deployed to ensure the desired results could be as under:
Whereas strategies establish a broad outline of how you want to achieve your objectives, tactics are specific actions. “Increase awareness among potential customers” is a strategy. “Develop a brochure to send to new prospects” is simply a tactic for implementing that strategy.
Of course, each tactic has a price. Add up all that you plan to use and you know what your budget must be to achieve your goals.
These are some of the key elements that one needs to look at when creating a marketing plan for any product or service.
By Rammohan Sundaram @ 3:48 am