How to Develop a Marketing Plan
Any potential lender or investor will want to see a marketing plan for your new product before making a commitment. Developing a marketing plan also gives you the opportunity to organize your thoughts and discover any trouble spots in your strategy.
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Things You'll Need
- Marketing Book
- Plan-idea Books
- Computers
- Business Plan Software
- Database Software
- Spreadsheet Softwares
Instructions
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1
Describe your product in detail. What are its most significant features? Is the product still in development, or is it ready to roll?
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Identify your target market. Who will this product appeal to most? Include all market research, including historical figures for sales of your type of product.
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Size up the competition. Who are your major competitors? How does your product compare to theirs? How strong of a foothold do they have in the market? Look at the methods they use to market their products.
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Detail your marketing strategy. How will you advertise and market your product? Which features of the product will you focus on? What will be the product's price and why?
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Describe your operations. Include your plan for customer service, proposed credit and sales terms, qualifications and achievements of your management team, and the physical location of your business.
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Prepare financial statements based on projections of sales, operating costs and expenses. Include cash flow projections, profit and loss reports and income statements for at least three years.
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Tips & Warnings
Divide the plan into sections based on the above topics. Begin with a summary that gives an overall picture of your product and its winning features.
In each section of the plan, always try to show how your product and strategy beats the competition.
Marketing plans can be just a few pages or as lengthy as novels. But keep in mind that the more thorough you are in supporting your plan with research, detailed information and financial projections, the more likely you will be to gain support from investors or lenders.
Have an accountant review your financial projections for accuracy.
Have the plan copy edited and proofread by a reliable source. Sometimes, too much "jargon" can turn off prospective lenders.
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Comments
View all 11 Comments-
We are trying to Market Tourism in Tanzania, Africa. We have lots of Attractions, Mostly natural attractions including Mount Kilimanjaro, Serengeti national park and Ngorongoro Crater. Please do visit us some day.
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This is an excellent tool to get your business ideas into writing.
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hope002
Jan 18, 2010
I agree with Joanna 100%. You need a niche or advantage over what competitors are doing. This can be a obvious difference in the product or service ofered that the consumer is easily able to identify, or it can be under the radar such as a pricing strategy. You can even just try to be more efficent then your competitor at what your competitor is doing. Which would place me in opposition to the Anonymous guy. If I were to rebuttal his claim I would mention a company known as Microsoft. This was a great article the only thing I thought it was missing was the "Niche Factor" as well as the notion that you will constantly have to update and reupdate your Marketing plan and price models. it never stops. -
Joanna Lees Castro
Jul 30, 2008
Before you even start on a marketing plan, you must have identified a clear, concise Value Proposition that resolves a top Pain Point for your target customer. If you can't describe that in 30 seconds... you're not ready to commit a marketing plan to paper. Of course, going through the marketing plan exercise could help you refine your value proposition and the pain point you are addressing, but keep those in mind first.
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Joanna Lees Castro
Jul 30, 2008
Before you even start on a marketing plan, you must have identified a clear, concise Value Proposition that resolves a top Pain Point for your target customer. If you can't describe that in 30 seconds... you're not ready to commit a marketing plan to paper. Of course, going through the marketing plan exercise could help you refine your value proposition and the pain point you are addressing, but keep those in mind first.
