Ever heard the saying,“if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail?” Indeed, if you’re going to own a business, you would need to map out your plans regarding administration, financing, marketing, and just about everything. 

The need to get an air-tight marketing plan is pinned to the fact people typically have varying interests, purchasing capacities, and accessibility to products or services. Therefore, from your end, the mission will be to close these gaps. Also, you would want to make your business available to customers and clients whenever they are in the right shape to make a purchase. 

The next few subheadings will highlight the five steps you need to consider in creating a marketing plan. After that, we recommend that you read our article on marketing plan outlines to get a better picture of the items to consider in your plan. 

5 Steps To Consider in Creating a Marketing Plan

#1. Analyse Your Business Situation

Analysing your business situation is the very first step you should take in creating a marketing plan. At this initial point, a founder needs to gather information on themselves, and as well compare their stand against competitors. They will also assess their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in a SWOT evaluation.  

Some things to consider at this stage when creating your marketing plan are:

1. Who your major competitors are
2. How your competitor’s products or services compare to yours
3. What your competitors are doing differently 
4. What your position in the market is (whether you are a major competitor in your industry or not)

#2. Take a Look at Your Target Audience 

There’s no marketing without a target audience. That being the case, businesses have a lot of work to do in getting their products to the right people, whether customers or clients. 

This marketing plan step involves five things. They are research or observation, data collection, data analysis, and data projection or forecast. 

Research and observation helps founders meet with the general public in hopes of finding their potential customers. This works much like a stroll in the park for someone who is outgoing and love to make new friends. 

The point of data collection is where businesses proceed to interact with who they believe to be a potential customer or client. They may offer questionnaires, request for participation in a survey, or ask for a service or product review. 

Here, our imaginary park friend would be building a conversation with a stranger - perhaps sitting next to them. 

Once an interesting amount of data has been collected, a company can move forward to the next step in the marketing plan. That would be analysing the data. Doing this allows companies to get an actual understanding of their potential customers. They’d know when they make purchases, what inspires them to do so, and what it is they love to purchase. 

Businesses can use the data interpretation from their analysis to better design their services, products and other offerings including customer support. And for our park friend, this stage would likely involve understanding and getting to know more about the person they just met. 

#3. Engage The SMART Technique 

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SMART technique involves making goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. The technique should rightly be used in every aspect of a business - and not just marketing. 

By engaging the SMART technique, businesses will avoid having unambiguous plans. Additionally, they’ll have plans that are feasible. These plans will also prove important in the development of the business and to its marketing efforts. 

Lastly, having SMART goals will ensure that marketing plans are all made with a specific time frame in mind. What this means is that each plan will have a well-known start time, end time, and period.

#4. Cap Your Budget

Budgeting comes as the fourth step in creating a marketing plan. It entails investigating the cost of every marketing channel and activity. For example, what it would take to perform a full competitor analysis. 

Having a list of all your marketing channels and activities will allow you calculate your total expenditure. Also, depending on the average cost of each item, you can make additional budget allowance to cover any miscellaneous marketing expenses. 

#5. Review Your Procedure

Step five in creating a working marketing plan is to review your procedure. Of course, to get a fail-proof plan, you should go over the details of your plan more than once. This helps to make sure that you have considered absolutely everything necessary. It also ensures that the details of the plan are all accurate. 

Conclusion

But now, you would understand that analyzing your situation, taking a close look at your target audience, engaging the S.M.A.R.T. technique, caping your budget, and reviewing your procedure are all the mandatory steps in creating a marketing plan. Does it sound easy? We hope it does? 

However, a full detail of each marketing plan item will help you understand the process much more. You can find this and many other relevant content our blog. Don’t forget to tell us how much this helped you in creating your own marketing plan. 

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