Developing a good  marketing plan  is a challenge that all marketers face at the beginning of the year or the course. This document is in charge of guiding our steps and guiding our decisions, so it is essential that it is well planned. For the  business marketing plan to  be effective, it must contain all the necessary information. To give you a cable, let’s look at the 15 key sections of a marketing plan  according to Forbes.

Marketing plan: the basics to get started

1) Definition of the target audience

This section describes the consumers your brand is targeting, including both their demographic (age, gender) and psychographic (their interests) profiles and Romania Phone Number List their wants and needs related to the products and services you offer. My recommendation for this section of the marketing plan is that you stop to develop a  buyer persona  or “robot portrait” of your ideal client. The fundamental data that you must include are:

• Who is it? General profile, demographic data and identifiers.
• What motivates you? Your primary and secondary goals and challenges and what the company can bring you.
• Do you need us? Your most common goals, complaints, and problems.
• How can we help? Marketing and sales messages that can help us connect with him.
• What are your pain points or pain points? Here we must identify what is the problem that leads the user to make a specific search and what words he uses for it.
• By clearly identifying our target customers, we can more effectively target our ads and speak to them in their own language.

2) Unique sales proposition

Having a unique sales proposition is essential to  distinguish your company from the competition. So much so, that many successful companies define themselves by their unique sales proposition. For example, this is the case of Mercadona and its “always low prices”. If you have not yet defined your company’s unique sales proposition, the marketing plan is a good place to include it.

3) Price and positioning

Decisions on pricing and positioning must always be  aligned either s . For example, if you want to position your brand as the highest quality in the industry, being priced too low could be detrimental. To get the most appropriate pricing policy and positioning right, a good market study should be carried out to see the gaps left by the competition. It is also necessary to take into account the objective characteristics of our product and its manufacturing cost.

4) Distribution plan

Along with the price, the product and the promotion, the distribution or “placement” is another of  the classic 4 P’s of marketing , so it cannot be missing in the company’s marketing plan. The distribution plan details  how your products and services can be purchased , for example, through an ecommerce on your website or through distributors such as supermarkets. Of course, it is possible to combine different distribution channels to optimize reach.

5) Offers

The offers and promotions are aimed at getting new customers and getting previous customers to buy your product again. Although they are not essential for the proper functioning of the company, they can help you grow faster. In this section of the business marketing plan you must detail aspects such as free trials, money-back guarantees, packs of different products and, of course, discounts.

6) Marketing materials

Marketing materials are all the  content  that you use to promote your brand for current and future customers: website, catalogs, cards, banners and much more. In this section of the business marketing plan you will be in charge of reviewing which marketing materials you need, which ones are already available and which ones you need to create from scratch or review. Thus, you will have everything ready to start your actions.

The marketing strategy step by step

7) Promotion strategy

This is one of the most important sections of your business marketing plan, as it details how you are  going to reach new customers. To do this, you have many options, both traditional and digital marketing: online advertising, television ads, fairs, press releases, events … Choose the most appropriate for your target audience and think about how you can create synergies between them.

8) Online marketing strategy

Another fundamental pillar of the marketing plan, since in many cases its importance exceeds that of conventional advertising. Make sure to include these  sections :

• Keyword strategy : the terms for which you want to optimize your website.
• SEO strategy : the actions that you will carry out on your website to improve its search engine positioning.
• Online advertising strategy : here we include both the SEM and banners, ads on social networks and others.
• Content strategy : to feed your website, blog and social networks and launch native advertising campaigns.
• Social media strategy : how are you going to use social media to attract and retain customers?

To create your  digital marketing plan step by step  we have this video that will help you dig deeper:

9) Conversion strategy

This section includes the techniques we use to convert potential customers into real customers: improve your sales pitch, include elements of social proof on your landing pages, etc.

10) Partner strategy

Here we will look for other brands that we can  collaborate with  for mutual benefit. For example, if you sell spare parts for cars, you may be interested in Phone Number List collaborating with workshops and dealers. To detect collaboration opportunities, think about other products associated with yours and that consumers buy before, at the same time or later. Include a list of related companies in your marketing plan and a plan for contacting them.

11) Referral strategy

A good referral program can increase your sales exponentially: think about what would happen if each of your clients brought you two new clients! But for this type of marketing strategy to work, you need to have a good referral plan that includes how you are going to encourage customers to make recommendations and the rewards you can offer in return.

12) Strategy to increase the amount of the purchase

The  average purchase amount  is a fundamental metric for the success of any company. Generally, it is much more efficient to get existing customers to buy more than to try to get new customers. For this reason, it is necessary to include a section in the company’s marketing plan on actions aimed at increasing the average value of the purchase, for example, a considered price increase or a promotional pack.

13) Loyalty strategy

Loyalty strategies seek that customers make  repeat purchases  over time, increasing profits without incurring the cost of constantly looking for new customers. Two very common examples of loyalty actions are point cards and newsletters.

The final ingredients of the marketing plan

14) Financial projections

For a business marketing plan to be realized, the numbers have to add up. Therefore, it is essential to project the  expenses  derived from the actions detailed in the plan and the  benefits  that are expected to be obtained with them.

15) Executive summary

Although it is normal for this section to go right at the beginning of the marketing plan, I have included it at the end because it is the last thing you should write. As its name suggests, this section is a summary of all the previous sections, designed to quickly find the most important information.