Stages of Marketing Plans
According to the United States Small Business Administration, one of the best ways to prepare your company for a successful marketing effort is to develop a marketing plan. It can help you allocate your marketing budget appropriately and outline your promotional goals and objectives for the coming year.
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Mission Statement
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The mission statement is the first stage of a marketing plan. Write a basic overview of your company, including a description of your product or service; identify your marketing goals and objectives; and provide a high-level look at the strategies you will use to accomplish those objectives.
Market Analysis
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In the market analysis stage of your marketing plan, identify your market. To do this, communicate the size of your market, the demographic characteristics of your key customer segments and your product positioning, or how you will differentiate your product from competitors in the marketplace.
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Competition
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Next, you need to describe each of your competitors in the market. Identify your top-five competitors, communicate the similarities and differences between their product and your product, compare their strengths and weaknesses to your strengths and weaknesses and compare your marketing techniques to theirs.
Pricing
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The pricing stage of a marketing plan refers to how you will price your product or service. Communicate internal and external factors that affect your pricing decisions, such as market conditions and competitive threats. Then, describe your pricing strategy. For example, you may decide to use a low-cost pricing strategy to position your company as the cost leader in the market.
Promotional Mix
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The next stage of your marketing plan is determining your promotional mix, which is the combination of marketing tactics you will use to promote your product or service. Examples include television and radio advertising; public relations tactics, such as press releases; search engine marketing; referral marketing; and networking at events.
Action Plan
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The action plan is the final stage of your marketing plan. This is where you should include an outline of the promotional tactics you described in Section 5 along with an allotted budget and timeline for each tactic. Your timeline ideally should span one year in length.
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