Marketing Management: The Importance of a Marketing Plan
Development of a marketing plan is the first critical step in optimizing the results you get from the time and money invested in marketing. A marketing plan is a road map for keeping all members of the sales and marketing team working together. It establishes specific objectives, identifies the challenges a company faces, its current situation, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It outlines tactical steps to achieve marketing objectives. It also addresses resources to accomplish objectives. The plan should be reassessed several times during the year and adjusted, depending on changes in the marketplace
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Financial Accountability
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A marketing plan helps you determine how much money to budget for a campaign and provides a way to track budgeted versus actual expenses. Expenditure tracking is important, because media prices can change during the year. In addition, unanticipated expenses may be incurred, such as the need to issue and distribute an unplanned press release.
Positioning
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The marketing plan includes a positioning statement that clearly defines the identity of a company and differentiates it from its competitors. It also includes one or more unique buying advantages defining why a consumer should purchase from that company versus another. One example is the well-known campaign by Domino's Pizza, which achieved unique positioning with the pledge that if the pizza wasn't delivered fresh in 30 minutes, it was free to the customer.
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Definition and Branding
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Since all products or services are not intended for the same market, and some products are new in markets, the marketing plan defines each product and service. Part of this definition involves branding. Branding clearly establishes the identity of a product, service or company. Branding can include a slogan, tag line and symbol, and should be consistent across all marketing channels.
Target Audience
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The marketing plan also defines the target audience for your product and the appropriate media to reach it. For example, if the plan defines the target as teenagers in St. Louis and New York, radio stations appealing to that age group in each location would be selected. The time of day for radio spots would also be driven by the plan's demographics. Weekends, for instance, would be a prime period to reach teens.
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