For those new to marketing planning, the thought of completing a plan
from start to finish may feel daunting. It need not. The level of detail
you choose to include in your marketing plan will depend on your
resources and situation. If you have extremely limited manpower or other
resources, you may be constrained to a "broad brush" approach.
If your plan must support your Web site’s validity to others in the
company, a lot of back-up detail may be appropriate.
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Basic Marketing
Plan Content
- Start with a summary. Like any business report, your plan
write-up should begin with a summary. The traditional executive
summary is one option. I prefer to include - either in addition to or
instead of the executive summary - a one-page table. The table makes
everyday use of your plan easier. In one glance you can be reminded of
your main challenge, objective, strategies, and tactics as well as
budgets and deadlines. Also, as your plan evolves throughout the year,
the table makes it easier to strategically modify the plan.
- Explain your reasoning. Make some reference to why you chose
the specific objective(s) and strategies in your plan. This will make
it easier to justify the plan to others (if necessary). It will also
help you make smarter, strategic decisions.
- Identify your target customers. By doing so, you will be
better able to develop effective advertising messages.
- Write one or more positioning statements. In the statement(s),
specify the customer needs you are fulfilling, benefits your
products/services offer, and features that deliver those benefits.
- Explain key issues and opportunities. These can best be
identified through industry and/or competitive analyses.
- Include preliminary budgets and timelines for your action
plans.
Expanded
Content for Your Marketing Plan
You can also expand your marketing plan write-up to include detailed
analysis and arguments to substantiate your plan:
- Describe the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats your
business and/or Web site face (SWOT analysis).
- Explain the online business environment. What are your competitors’
Web strategies? How do your customers use your site, competing sites,
and the Internet in general? What potential substitutes are available?
- Include the trends in your industry and how they affect both online
and offline activity. Show growth projections.
- Detail the financial aspects. Include break even analysis for your
site as well as for the tactics included in your plan. Discuss
assumptions made when completing your financial analysis. Show how
implementation of your plan will be profitable to your business.
- Include a calendar of events that shows milestones in the coming
weeks or months.
You can be as detailed or top-line as needed with the final marketing
plan write-up. In any case remember that your marketing plan is always a
work in progress. It may be current, but it is never "done".
About the Author
Bobette Kyle is author of the
marketing plan book "How Much for Just the Spider? Strategic Web Site
Marketing". The 5- step marketing plan approach detailed in the book
helped Bobette's site, WebSiteMarketingPlan.com, rise to the top .3% in just
four months. http://www.WebSiteMarketingPlan.com/sr.htm
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