the difference between business plan and marketing plan

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Marketing plan vs business plan: What’s the difference?

Marketing Plan

Marketing plan vs business plan: What’s the difference?

For business owners, nonprofit directors, and community group leaders, the process of writing a business plan or creating a marketing plan can seem intimidating. They may know the ins and outs of what they do every day and have fantastic ideas on how to grow and market their organizations, but the act of putting it on paper often feels like stepping into a world with opaque rules and confusing jargon.

Fortunately, the reality of both business and marketing plans is that they aren’t nearly as complicated as many people think. In fact, most business owners have written both without realizing it, even if only in an informal manner.

Creating a formal business or marketing plan uses a lot of the same steps business owners already take when sketching out new marketing ideas on a napkin or doing some quick back-of-the-envelope math to figure out how to expand into a new city.

But before moving forward with the process, it’s important to know which one you need. In other words, what’s the difference between a marketing plan and a business plan?

Create a marketing plan that works for your business with Jotform’s easy-to-use marketing form templates .

The biggest difference between a business plan and a marketing plan is the scope of what they cover. While both documents can be quite lengthy and thorough, they don’t address the exact same information.

A business plan is typically a much broader document that covers every aspect of your business: operations, supply chains, human resources, materials costs, and — yes — marketing. In fact, a marketing plan will usually be a section of a business plan.

Marketing plans tend to focus much more narrowly on the specifics of making customers aware of and likely to buy a product or service. A marketing plan may touch on some of the same things a business plan does, like the cost of goods sold, but only as they relate to being able to sell those goods to consumers.

Another key difference between the two is how far into the future they look. Business plans, for example, tend to cover a much longer period than marketing plans. A typical window for a business plan, for example, is about five years. A typical window for a marketing plan, on the other hand, will be a year to three years.

The two are updated differently as well. Business plans rarely need to be replaced or updated unless there’s a significant change in the business — a completely new product category, a new business model, or some global event that changes the way a company performs its core function.

Marketing plans are often updated every year. They tend to be part of the yearly budgeting activities that help business owners plan how they will allocate resources to various departments.

This makes sense when you think about it. Companies change their marketing much more often than they change their business model.

The reasons for creating a marketing plan and a business plan are often similar but not identical. Most often, business owners create both to secure financing. Banks and investors frequently ask for business and marketing plans before agreeing to loan money or invest in the company.

But external demands aren’t the only or even the most important reasons to write both kinds of plans. A business plan is a great way to formalize the ideas behind how and why a company works the way it does. It’s a fantastic way for business owners to put down on paper many of the things they’ve been intuitively doing, and cement processes and procedures for running a company.

Business plans are also great at helping you to prepare for future needs. By going through the exercise of writing a full business plan, business owners get an idea of where they are and what kinds of initiatives and resources they need to meet their goals.

Marketing plans are also incredibly useful internally. As we mentioned above, they are an important part of the annual budgeting process. Sitting down and thinking through all of the marketing needs can help both validate a company’s marketing initiatives as well as determine the ideal amount of money to allocate toward marketing.

The bottom line

A marketing plan is a part of a business plan. That’s the easiest way to remember the difference between the two. The business plan shapes everything about the way a company works, and lays out big-picture goals and ideas.

The marketing plan paints a more detailed picture of how the company will use marketing to achieve the goals laid out in the business plan. The marketing plan is department level and has to coexist with plans for other departments — HR, operations, legal and regulatory, and others.

Both plans are important in successfully running a company, but the business plan is more important because it will at least outline some marketing initiatives. For business owners who only have time to create one, the business plan is the logical choice.

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Business Plan vs. Marketing Plan

Back to Business Plans

Written by: Carolyn Young

Carolyn Young is a business writer who focuses on entrepreneurial concepts and the business formation. She has over 25 years of experience in business roles, and has authored several entrepreneurship textbooks.

Edited by: David Lepeska

David has been writing and learning about business, finance and globalization for a quarter-century, starting with a small New York consulting firm in the 1990s.

Published on March 3, 2023 Updated on December 11, 2023

Starting a business usually requires both a business plan and a marketing plan. The first has many components, including a marketing section, and covers all facets of the business. The second is essentially an expanded and more detailed version of the marketing section of your business plan.

Both are dynamic documents that will change over time as you learn more about your business. This guide lays out all the details of what goes into a business plan and what is in a marketing plan.

Business Plan Components

A business plan has eight essential components .

1. Executive Summary

The executive summary opens your business plan, but it’s the section you’ll write last . It summarizes the key points and highlights the most important aspects of your plan. Often investors and lenders will only read the executive summary; if it doesn’t capture their interest they’ll stop reading, so it’s important to make it as compelling as possible.

The components should include:

The business opportunity – what problem are you solving in the market?
Your idea, meaning the product or service you’re planning to offer, and why it solves the problem in the market better than other solutions.
The history of the business so far – what have you done to this point? When you’re just getting started, this may be nothing more than coming up with the idea, choosing a business name , and forming a business entity.
A summary of the industry, market size, your target customers, and the competition.
A strong statement about how your company is going to stand out in the market – what will be your competitive advantage?
A list of specific goals that you plan to achieve in the short term, such as developing your product, launching a marketing campaign, or hiring a key person.
A summary of your financial plan including cost and sales projections and a break-even analysis.
A summary of your management team, their roles, and the relevant experience that they have to serve in those roles.
Your “ask”, if applicable, meaning what you’re requesting from the investor or lender. You’ll include the amount you’d like and how it will be spent, such as “We are seeking $50,000 in seed funding to develop our beta product”.

Remember that if you’re seeking capital, the executive summary could make or break your venture. Take your time and make sure it illustrates how your business is unique in the market and why you’ll succeed.

The executive summary should be no more than two pages long, so it’s important to capture the reader’s interest from the start.

2. Company Description/Overview

In this section, you’ll detail your full company history, such as how you came up with the idea for your business and any milestones or achievements.

You’ll also include your mission and vision statements. A mission statement explains what you’d like your business to achieve, its driving force, while a vision statement lays out your long-term plan in terms of growth.

A mission statement might be “Our company aims to make life easier for business owners with intuitive payroll software”, while a vision statement could be “Our objective is to become the go-to comprehensive HR software provider for companies around the globe.”

In this section, you’ll want to list your objectives – specific short-term goals. Examples might include “complete initial product development by ‘date’” or “hire two qualified sales people” or “launch the first version of the product”.

It’s best to divide this section into subsections – company history, mission and vision, and objectives.

3. Products or Services Offered

Here you’ll go into detail about what you’re offering, how it solves a problem in the market, and how it’s unique. Don’t be afraid to share information that is proprietary – investors and lenders are not out to steal your ideas.

Also specify how your product is developed or sourced. Are you manufacturing it or does it require technical development? Are you purchasing a product from a manufacturer or wholesaler?

You’ll also want to specify how you’ll sell your product or service. Will it be a subscription service or a one-time purchase? What is your target pricing? On what channels do you plan to sell your product or service, such as online or by direct sales in a store?

Basically, you’re describing what you’re going to sell and how you’ll make money.

4. Market Analysis

The market analysis is where you’re going to spend most of your time because it involves a lot of research. You should divide it into four sections.

Industry analysis

Research and describe exactly what’s happening in your industry, such as growth rate, market size, and current trends. Where is the industry predicted to be in 10 years? Provide links to your sources.

Detail your company’s place in the market. Will your product fit a certain niche? Is there a sub-industry your company will fit into? How will you keep up with industry changes?

Competitor analysis

Now you’ll dig into your competition. Detail your main competitors and how they differentiate themselves in the market. For example, one competitor may advertise convenience while another touts superior quality. Also highlight your competitors’ weaknesses.

Next, explain how you’ll stand out. Detail your competitive advantages and how you’ll sustain them. This section is extremely important and will be a focus for investors and lenders.

Target market analysis

Here you’ll describe your target market and whether it’s different from your competitors’. For example, maybe you have a younger demographic in mind?

You’ll need to know more about your target market than demographics, though. You’ll want to explain the needs and wants of your ideal customers, how your offering solves their problem, and why they will choose your company.

You should also lay out where you’ll find them, where to place your marketing and where to sell your products. Learning this kind of detail requires going to the source – your potential customers. You can do online surveys or even in-person focus groups.

Your goal will be to uncover as much about these people as possible. When you start selling, you’ll want to keep learning about your customers. You may end up selling to a different target market than you originally thought, which could lead to a marketing shift.

SWOT analysis

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and it’s one of the more common and helpful business planning tools.

First describe all the specific strengths of your company, such as the quality of your product or some unique feature, such as the experience of your management team. Talk about the elements that will make your company successful.

Next, acknowledge and explore possible weaknesses. You can’t say “none”, because no company is perfect, especially at the start. Maybe you lack funds or face a massive competitor. Whatever it is, detail how you will surmount this hurdle.

Next, talk about the opportunities your company has in the market. Perhaps you’re going to target an underserved segment, or have a technology plan that will help you surge past the competition.

Finally, examine potential threats. It could be a competitor that might try to replicate your product or rapidly advancing technology in your industry. Again, discuss your plans to handle such threats if they come to pass.

5. Marketing and Sales Strategies

Now it’s time to explain how you’re going to find potential customers and convert them into paying customers.

Marketing and advertising plan

When you did your target market analysis, you should have learned a lot about your potential customers, including where to find them. This should help you determine where to advertise.

Maybe you found that your target customers favor TikTok over Instagram and decided to spend more marketing dollars on TikTok. Detail all the marketing channels you plan to use and why.

Your target market analysis should also have given you information about what kind of message will resonate with your target customers. You should understand their needs and wants and how your product solves their problem, then convey that in your marketing.

Start by creating a value proposition, which should be no more than two sentences long and answer the following questions:

What are you offering
Whose problem does it solve
What problem does it solve
What benefits does it provide
How is it better than competitor products

An example might be “Payroll software that will handle all the payroll needs of small business owners, making life easier for less.”

Whatever your value proposition, it should be at the heart of all of your marketing.

Sales strategy and tactics

Your sales strategy is a vision to persuade customers to buy, including where you’ll sell and how. For example, you may plan to sell only on your own website, or you may sell from both a physical location and online.

On the other hand, you may have a sales team that will make direct sales calls to potential customers, which is more common in business-to-business sales. Sales tactics are more about how you’re going to get them to buy after they reach your sales channel.

Even when selling online, you need something on your site that’s going to get them to go from a site visitor to a paying customer. By the same token, if you’re going to have a sales team making direct sales, what message are they going to deliver that will entice a sale?

It’s best for sales tactics to focus on the customer’s pain point and what value you’re bringing to the table, rather than being aggressively promotional about the greatness of your product.

Pricing strategy

Pricing is not an exact science and should depend on several factors. First, consider how you want your product or service to be perceived in the market. If your differentiator is to be the lowest price, position your company as the “discount” option.

Think Walmart, and price your products lower than the competition. If, on the other hand, you want to be the Mercedes of the market, then you’ll position your product as the luxury option.

Of course you’ll have to back this up with superior quality, but being the luxury option allows you to command higher prices. You can, of course, fall somewhere in the middle, but the point is that pricing is a matter of perception.

How you position your product in the market compared to the competition is a big factor in determining your price. Of course, you’ll have to consider your costs, as well as competitor prices. Obviously, your prices must cover your costs and allow you to make a good profit.

Whatever pricing strategy you choose, you’ll justify it in this section of your plan.

6. Operations and Management

This section is the real nuts and bolts of your business – how it operates on a day-to-day basis and who is operating it. Again, this section should be divided into subsections.

Operational plan

Your plan of operations should be specific , detailed and mainly logistical. Who will be doing what on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis? How will the business be managed and how will quality be assured? Be sure to detail your suppliers and how and when you’ll order raw materials.

This should also include the roles that will be filled and the various processes that will be part of everyday business operations. Just consider all the critical functions that must be handled for your business to be able to operate on an ongoing basis.

Technology plan

If your product involves technical development, you’ll describe your tech development plan with specific goals and milestones. The plan will also include how many people will be working on this development, and what needs to be done for goals to be met.

If your company is not a technology company, you’ll describe what technologies you plan to use to run your business or make your business more efficient. It could be process automation software, payroll software, or just laptops and tablets for your staff.

Management and organizational structure

Now you’ll describe who’s running the show. It may be just you when you’re starting out, so you’ll detail what your role will be and summarize your background. You’ll also go into detail about any managers that you plan to hire and when that will occur.

Essentially, you’re explaining your management structure and detailing why your strategy will enable smooth and efficient operations.

Ideally, at some point, you’ll have an organizational structure that is a hierarchy of your staff. Describe what you envision your organizational structure to be.

Personnel plan

Detail who you’ve hired or plan to hire and for which roles. For example, you might have a developer, two sales people, and one customer service representative.

Describe each role and what qualifications are needed to perform those roles.

7. Financial Plan

Now, you’ll enter the dreaded world of finance. Many entrepreneurs struggle with this part, so you might want to engage a financial professional to help. A financial plan has five key elements.

Startup Costs

Detail in a spreadsheet every cost you’ll incur before you open your doors. This should determine how much capital you’ll need to launch your business.

Financial projections

Creating financial projections, like many facets of business, is not an exact science. If your company has no history, financial projections can only be an educated guess.

First, come up with realistic sales projections. How much do you expect to sell each month? Lay out at least three years of sales projections, detailing monthly sales growth for the first year, then annually thereafter.

Calculate your monthly costs, keeping in mind that some costs will grow along with sales. Once you have your numbers projected and calculated, use them to create these three key financial statements:

Profit and Loss Statement , also known as an income statement. This shows projected revenue and lists all costs, which are then deducted to show net profit or loss.
Cash Flow Statement. This shows how much cash you have on hand at any given time. It will have a starting balance, projections of cash coming in, and cash going out, which will be used to calculate cash on hand at the end of the reporting period.
Balance Sheet. This shows the net worth of the business, which is the assets of the business minus debts. Assets include equipment, cash, accounts receivables, inventory, and more. Debts include outstanding loan balances and accounts payable.

You’ll need monthly projected versions of each statement for the first year, then annual projections for the following two years.

Break-even analysis

The break-even point for your business is when costs and revenue are equal. Most startups operate at a loss for a period of time before they break even and start to make a profit. Your break-even analysis will project when your break-even point will occur, and will be informed by your profit and loss statement.

Funding requirements and sources

Lay out the funding you’ll need, when, and where you’ll get it. You’ll also explain what those funds will be used for at various points. If you’re in a high-growth industry that can attract investors, you’ll likely need various rounds of funding to launch and grow.

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

KPIs measure your company’s performance and can determine success. Many entrepreneurs only focus on the bottom line, but measuring specific KPIs helps find areas of improvement. Every business has certain crucial metrics.

If you sell only online, one of your key metrics might be your visitor conversion rate. You might do an analysis to learn why just one out of ten site visitors makes a purchase. Perhaps the purchase process is too complicated or your product descriptions are vague.

Learning why your conversion rate is low gives you a chance to improve it and boost sales.

8. Appendices

In the appendices you can attach documents such as manager resumes or other documents that support your business plan.

Marketing Plan Components

A marketing plan, as mentioned above, is a more detailed version of the marketing strategy section of your business plan. It includes six components.

1. Marketing Objectives

Start by detailing your short-term marketing goals. This could be “Reach 10,000 monthly site visitors by next year’” or “Acquire 500 new customers by May”. Be sure to set clear and attainable goals so your marketing team understands its targets.

2. Target Market

You’ll want to document exactly who you’re trying to reach with your marketing. You should’ve already done a target market analysis for your business plan, and you’ll use it here.

What Problem Are You Solving?

Whatever your product or service, it needs to solve a problem in the market. So, ask yourself, what problem does my business solve? Next, consider who faces that problem.

A plumbing company, for instance, solves the problem of broken pipes. Who deals with that problem? Homeowners and property owners and managers.

Depending on your business, it may not be obvious who has the problem you’re solving. If it’s not clear, do more research. Either way, knowing who faces the problem you’re solving is just the beginning. You need to know much more about your target customers.

Research Your Market and Competition

Now, dig into your market with some online research. Do some Google and Bing searches about your target demographic, where they shop and live, what appeals to them and so on.

Next, check out your competition to see who they’re marketing to. It may help to study their marketing through the eyes of a consumer.

What need do they fill? Who would find their marketing appealing? Where do they advertise? If their ads appear on TikTok, they’re looking to attract a younger market.

This market research should give you a general profile of your target market – but that’s not enough.

Talk to Potential Customers

To learn more about your target market, go straight to the source. The best way to learn their needs and wants, why they’d buy your product and how they’ll use it, is to ask them via a phone or email survey.

If you’ve yet to make any sales, it’s probably best to post your survey online then promote it on social media by offering a small reward, such as a gift certificate. Just make sure you ask the right questions to get the information you’re looking for.

You can also hold in-person focus groups and offer your goods at a discount for participants.

Create Customer Profiles

Now it’s time to build detailed profiles of your target customers. You may have found that your product will appeal to more than one group of people. These are called customer segments, and all your segments together make up your target market.

Create descriptions of each group with all the information you’re learned. These profiles should include:

Pain points: the problems they have that you’re solving
Benefits your product provides
Their interests: what do they care about?
Buying patterns: where do they shop?
Age, location, income level, other factual information

3. Value Proposition

Now you can use these profiles to craft a value proposition that will serve as the foundation of all your marketing. You may need to devise more than one value proposition to target different segments.

Your value propositions should be no more than two sentences long and answer the following questions:

How is it better than competitors’ products

An example might be “Payroll software that handles all the payroll needs of small business owners, making life easier for less.”

Remember that you need to align your value proposition with the wishes of your target market.

4. Marketing Activities

Now you’ll layout the specific marketing activities that you plan to conduct. Your target market analysis should have told you where you’re most likely to find potential customers, so if you found out that your potential customers use TikTok, you can post and run ads there.

You’ll want to only perform the marketing activities that are most likely to reach your potential customers so that you’re not wasting marketing dollars. If getting found online is important to you, focus on search engine optimization (SEO) and social media ads.

Make the activities as specific as possible, such as “Run a TikTok ad promoting ____ for three months.”

5. Marketing Budget

Now, determine what these activities will cost and set a budget. When you go through this process, you may find that you need to adjust your marketing to stick to the budget you can afford.

Your marketing budget needs to align with your goals. If one of your goals is to obtain 500 new customers, which will generate $10,000 in revenue, you can’t spend more than that on marketing. You have to make sure you’re getting a good return on your investment, or at least breaking even.

Now you’ll determine your key performance indicators (KPIs) to gauge the success of your marketing.

If you sell only online, one of your key marketing metrics might be your visitor conversion rate. You might do an analysis to learn why just one out of ten site visitors makes a purchase.

Perhaps the purchase process is too complicated or your product descriptions are vague. The point is, learning why your conversion rate is low gives you a chance to improve it and boost sales.

Similarly, if you’re not getting enough site visitors, you may need to revisit your SEO strategies.

A business plan outlines the overall mission, objectives, and strategies of a business, encompassing aspects like operations, finances, and organizational structure.

In contrast, a marketing plan focuses specifically on strategies and tactics to promote products or services, detailing target audiences, promotional methods, and market positioning.

While the business plan provides a comprehensive view of the entire business, the marketing plan hones in on attracting and retaining customers.

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What Is the Difference Between a Marketing & Business Plan?

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What Is a Short-Term Marketing Plan?

6 types of business plans, what are the benefits of a business plan.

Checklist for a Business Plan
What Objectives Should Be Used for a Business Proposal?

The business plan and the marketing plan are both essential aspects of successful businesses. These plans not only help businesses organize their operations, but help benchmark their success or failure. Since business industries change with customer demand and the economic environment, the business plan and marketing plan must evolve throughout the lifespan of the business.

The Positive ROI of Business Plans

The business plan provides a wide overview of the business, which includes information on staff, operations, location, marketing and financial aspects, as well as clearly outlined missions and goals. Often used as a financial tool, the business plan provides lenders with necessary details to determine if the business is viable, financially sound and able to repay.

Although business plans are most commonly known for assisting new businesses, they should be used throughout the life of the business. Not only does it help to develop competitive strategies, the business plan can determine if the actual activity of the business matches the forecasted plans. Founders who write business plans are 2.5 times as likely to start businesses than individuals who miss this vital step, reports careers agency TopTal .

Marketing Plan Helps You Strategize

The marketing plan details the specific marketing actions that achieve the company's missions and goals. For instance, this plan identifies the price points for the products you are selling, target markets and competition. It explains how the business generates customers through advertisements, trade show participation and new referrals. By explaining how the business will overcome competitive challenges by other companies, the marketing plan is a key section within the business plan and requires detailed industry research and consideration.

Marketing plans are, by definition, strategic, reports the industry magazine Business 2 Community . They force you think about how you will get your product in front of customers, and gets you used to working with timelines and key performance metrics. Investors want to make sure you have these ducks in a row before you invest.

Business Development Vs Marketing Vs Sales

The business plan and marketing plan are interdependent and must be consistent with one another if you are to generate sales. The business plan identifies the goals and missions of the business, while the marketing plan explains how the business will achieve, if not exceed, those goals and missions. If the plans of the business change, the business's course of action also changes. A good marketing plan should never deviate from the objective of the business plan.

Things to Consider

Both plans should be reviewed periodically. While the business plan can be reviewed once a year, the marketing plan should be reviewed once per quarter at the beginning of the fiscal year. Reviewing periodically ensures that the business is operating according to outlined strategies. Comparing actual versus outlined activities helps measure business success and identify any new or updated strategies that are in-tune with current economic environment.

There are no length requirements for the business plan or the marketing plan. However, both plans should be long enough to provide concise and detailed information. The benefits of marketing and business development are only realized if the information within the plans is well-researched and includes supporting evidence for facts presented. The goals, missions and strategies within these plans should be measurable and attainable, and reviewed and updated as the business evolves.

TopTal: The Undeniable Importance of a Business Plan
Business 2 Community: 6 Reasons Your Marketing Plan is More Important Than the History of Your Business

Difference between business plan & strategic plan, what are the benefits of preparing a business plan, define a business plan, what are four major types of information presented in a business plan, the importance of business plans, examples of liquor store business plans, why create a business plan, a financial plan vs. a pro-forma cash flow budget, business plan vs. business strategy, most popular.

1 Difference Between Business Plan & Strategic Plan
2 What Are the Benefits of Preparing a Business Plan?
3 Define a Business Plan
4 What Are Four Major Types of Information Presented in a Business Plan?

Business Plan vs. Marketing Plan: What’s the Difference?

The main difference between a Business Plan and Marketing Plan is that a Business Plan outlines overall goals and strategies for the entire company, while a Marketing Plan focuses specifically on promoting products or services.

Before we move to more differences, let’s first understand Business Plan and Marketing Plan:

Business Plan : A business plan is like a map that shows how a business will work and grow. It includes goals, how to reach them, and how to handle challenges. It helps people understand what the business does and how it will make money.
Marketing Plan : A marketing plan is a plan that explains how a business will let people know about its products or services. It includes ways to reach customers, like ads or social media. The goal is to make people interested in what the business offers.

Now, let’s get to Business Plan vs Marketing Plan:

Major differences between Business Plan and Marketing Plan

So, these are the main differences between the entities.

Brand Marketing vs. Growth Marketing
B2B Content Marketing vs. B2C Content Marketing
Affiliate Marketing vs. Pyramid Scheme

You can see other “differences between…” posts by clicking here .

If you have a related query, kindly feel free to let me know in the comments below.

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Marketing Plan vs. Business Plan: What’s The Difference?

by Mike Vestil

If you’re starting a new business, you may be wondering about the differences between marketing plans and business plans. While both are crucial to running a successful company, they have important key differences to understand.

Marketing and business plans are two essential tools, but they serve different purposes. A business plan is a more comprehensive, big-picture overview of your company’s mission. In contrast, a marketing plan is a facet of your business plan that will help you advertise and reach your target audience.

Drafting up these plans may seem daunting at first, but once you understand how they operate, you’ll be prepared to take your business to the next level. This article will break down the difference between a marketing plan and a business plan and how both documents in tangent can help you move forward with your company’s development. Let’s dive in!

Business Plans

Image credit: PatriotSoftware.com

One of the most crucial things you can prepare is a business plan when starting or running a company. A business plan is a comprehensive document that outlines the operational and financial goals of a business and its overall strategy for achieving them. A successful business plan includes:

The company’s mission statement.
An analysis of its target market.
A statement of operations.
A detailed explanation of its services or products.

Creating a business plan is crucial because it will help you stay organized and focused on your long-term goals— essentially, it’s a roadmap of how you will achieve success and meet your business’s clearly outlined missions. The plan will aid you in making informed decisions, assessing risks, and measuring progress.

The length and detail of this plan will vary depending on the size and type of business you are running. However, having a solid business plan is essential for any business, especially start-ups. Start-ups often don’t have the resources that more established businesses do, so owners have to work harder to convince investors to fund or loan money to their projects. A business plan can help smaller or newer companies secure loans and other forms of funding.

In the following sections, I’ll outline the various elements you need to create a successful business plan by walking you through all the steps, from writing a summary to creating a budget.

Executive Summary

The executive summary is the first section of your business plan, and it should be approximately one to two pages long, depending on the overall size of your report. It should be well written, concise, and capture the essence of your company, as well as your aims and goals. The executive summary is crucial because it will give potential investors and lenders an in-depth look into your business plans.

This summary will represent the entirety of your plan, so make sure the document includes an overview of the following:

Your services and products: What will you be selling? Is it a physical good or a service? Will you sell a variety of items or focus on a specific product?
Your optimal target market: Who is your ideal customer base? What about their demographics or interests makes them the right fit for your product? How will you advertise to them?
Your competitive advantage: What makes your product stand out from the competition? Is there anything unique or especially compelling about what you have to offer?
Your financial projections: How much do you expect to profit? What financial aspects do you have to consider? How much of your budget are you allocating to various areas (from production to advertising and everything in between)?
Your management plan: Will you hire employees, and if so, what is your management strategy? Will you have an on-site location or sell online?

With these questions in mind, you’ll be able to write a compelling summary that covers your mission and the steps you’ll take towards achieving your goals.

With the executive summary out of the way, I’ll now walk you through the other essential sections of your business plan.

Products And Services

This part of your report should include detailed descriptions of your business’s products and services. You should have information on pricing, how long your products last, and an overview of the production process, including information about how your goods will be manufactured and delivered.

If you run a start-up or new business, this part of your plan is especially crucial because it will give potential investors a snapshot of what your business offers. It would be best to showcase what makes your brand unique and how you plan to compete in the market. What are your selling points? Why should customers choose you over your competitors? Highlight any benefits of your company to address how they will meet customer demand.

If you have any patents or trademarks, you can include that information here so that potential investors know that your intellectual property is legally protected.

Marketing Analysis

This section should outline who your competitors are and their influence in your chosen field. This analysis can include information about the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors and how difficult it may be to take market share from these businesses.

Doing detailed industry research will also help you identify areas where you could improve on what similar companies are doing. Once you know what is already offered in the market, you can develop competitive strategies to help your product stand out.

The marketing analysis can also detail your projections and expected demand for your products based on competing industries and companies. Knowing how receptive your target audience will be can help you determine your strategy, which I will go over in the next section.

Marketing Strategy

Once you’ve completed your analysis, it’s time to develop a strategy. This section should include your overall plan for how you will attract and maintain a customer base, as well as what advertising methods you will use to appeal to the right target markets.

It would help to tailor your strategy to your ideal buyers, and it should be realistic and achievable. You should consider your company’s strengths and how you can use them to your advantage in the market. For example, suppose you have a solid online presence. In that case, you may want to focus on digital marketing strategies. Or, if you have a niche product, you can find specific sites to target potential customers.

Additionally, you should provide information on the distribution channels you will use. This data may include where you are sourcing your products and how you plan to deliver them to your customers.

You can also specify how your company intends to communicate with customers by having a plan for after-sales service and how you will handle customer complaints or queries.

Financial Planning

Financial planning is essential for any business, although the process will look different depending on whether you’re a startup or run an existing company. Regardless of the current state of your business, you should enlist the help of accountants and economists to create a financial plan.

This section should include detailed information on your company's financial status, as well as projections for the future. All of this information will help to give investors a clear picture of your business' financial stability and growth potential.

If you have an existing business, you'll need to include the following documents:

Balance sheet: A balance sheet gives an overview of your assets and liabilities. This document includes information on your fixed and current assets, such as property, equipment, and inventory. You should also list your company's liabilities, such as loans and credit lines.
Cash flow statement: The cash flow statement will show how much money is coming in and out of your business, including information on your sales revenue, expenses, and investments.
Statement of comprehensive income: The statement of comprehensive income will detail your company's profits and losses over a specific period, allowing for a more holistic view of your company’s income.
Report on share capital: This report showcases how much money has been invested in your company in stocks.

If you’re a start-up, you’ll need to provide estimates for the first few years of operation, including information on expected sales, profits, and expenses. You should also outline how much money you’ll need to get your business off the ground and how you plan to obtain these funds through potential investors.

Determine your long-term goals for your business and how you plan to achieve them through measurable steps. This data should include expected sales revenue and profit margins. You should also have a plan for reinvesting profits back into the company and address how you will cover any future costs or losses.

Financial planning is an ongoing process, so you should update your business plan annually, especially if your company’s financial status changes. Keeping these documents in order will help you stay on track and ensure that your company meets its projected financial goals.

Your budget is a critical element of your financial plan and should prove to investors that you have a sense of how much money to allocate to various parts of your business. You can break down your budget into different sections, including personnel, development, production, and advertising costs.

Additionally, you can include a sales forecast that outlines your expected revenue and profit margins. These projections will help you to determine how much money you need to cover your costs and make a profit within your allotted budget.

Marketing Plans

Image credit: MarketingDonut.co

A marketing plan is a document that outlines an organization's advertising goals and strategies. It should cover product promotion, pricing, target markets, and advertising. The focus of marketing plans should be to advertise your product to consumers who are likely to purchase from you.

When creating a marketing strategy, you should consider your target audience, research competition in the market, and develop clear goals and strategies. It would help if you also considered what marketing channels you’ll use, including social media advertising, email marketing, influencer marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, or other methods.

How Marketing Plans Compare To Business Plans

A marketing plan focuses solely on the marketing aspect of your business, so it is more detailed about this specific part of your plan. On the other hand, a business plan is an overarching document that outlines the company’s missions regarding product development and financial objectives and a brief overview of marketing goals and competitive challenges.

A marketing plan, while important, is less comprehensive and doesn’t provide as much general information about the company. Therefore, it’s important to remember that a marketing plan and a business plan should work together—the marketing plan provides the overall marketing strategy while the business plan offers a detailed roadmap for succeeding on multiple levels.

You can think of a marketing plan as a more detailed part of the overall business plan. The business plan is more important to present to potential investors because it provides a general overview of a company’s mission, but including a detailed marketing plan is an asset that will aid your business plan.

While business plans typically don’t have to be updated frequently, you should review marketing plans periodically to adjust to the outcomes of advertising efforts and marketing trends. Therefore, it is a more pliable document and is easier to adapt as your business changes and grows.

I’ll outline what elements you need to build a successful marketing plan in the following section.

Marketing Objectives

Your marketing objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Here are some solid examples of marketing objectives:

Increase conversion rates by 5% in six months by investing in Facebook advertising.
Build brand awareness by partnering with five new influencers this year.
Conduct A/B testing over one month with two different advertisements to determine which version yields more web traffic.

Keep in mind that you should align your objectives with the overall goals of your business. Whether you hope to increase profits or reach more customers, your efforts should reflect those aspirations. For example, suppose you desire to establish a better digital presence. In that case, you can advertise on social media. Or, if you want to improve customer communication, you can launch a live chat on your website.

Market research is the process of analyzing current market trends and adjusting your business strategy to meet the projected direction of the industry. You’ll need to know your current business positioning in the field, which involves taking a close look at target markets.

Your target market should be based on the products or services you offer. If you provide a product that appeals to a wide audience, your target market will be much broader than if you offer a product that only appeals to a niche group.

It’s also essential to understand potential buyers’ interests and where you can advertise to them. Does the majority of your target audience use social media? If so, which platforms? What publications do they read? What TV programs do they watch? You can conduct market research in several ways, including surveys, focus groups, interviews, and observational studies.

Once you have this information, you can begin developing buyer personas. A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your target customer. It includes demographic information like age, gender, income level, and job title, as well as your buyer persona’s interests, values, and needs. This information will help you determine where to focus your marketing efforts.

Competition

It's essential to understand your competition and stand out in the field if you want to succeed in the market. One of the most important things to do is research similar businesses. To learn about them, you can visit their stores or websites. What are they offering? What prices are they charging? How are they promoting their products? What do their customers say about them in reviews?

Once you find out what they offer, how much they charge, and how they’re promoting themselves, you’ll be able to address any flaws your competitors may have and develop schemes that are unique to your business.

You can also use tools like the SWOT analysis to analyze your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. This information can help you decide which strategies to use by addressing both internal and external factors.

Now that you understand how to conduct market research and evaluate competing businesses, let’s look at the various strategies you can implement to ensure that your advertising efforts elevate your business.

Marketing Mix

A marketing mix combines marketing activities that you use to reach your target audience—product, price, place, and promotion.

The product description should include information on what you are selling, how you source it, and the benefits that it will provide to potential buyers. You can include high-quality images or models to showcase these goods.

You’ll also need to include price information, including how much it costs to produce your product and what price you are selling it for, based on your market research on similar items.

The place category will determine where customers can purchase your product. You can outline where your goods will be available, whether on online marketplaces, your website, or in-store.

The promotion section will include information on your advertising campaigns, including email campaigns, social media campaigns, SEO optimization, and more.

Marketing Strategies

Now that you have your objectives and marketing mix in place, it’s time to implement them. Each activity should have a goal associated with it. For example, if one of your goals is to increase website traffic, your next move could be to promote a contest on social media. Or, if you want to raise brand awareness, you can reach out to influencers for a paid partnership.

The more specific information you have about this audience, the better chance of reaching potential customers through advertising campaigns or social media posts that speak directly to their interests and concerns. If done correctly, this could lead to higher conversion rates from potential customers, as well as increased brand awareness among those who may not have been aware of your product before seeing these advertisements.

You should also allocate a budget for each objective and a timeframe for completing your goals. Be realistic about what you can achieve in the given timeframe, and make sure you allow enough time to see the results of your efforts.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are metrics that measure how well you’re achieving your objectives. There are many different KPIs you can use, depending on your goals. Common KPIs include website traffic, conversion rate, leads generated, and customer satisfaction. You can also check out my article about how to use KPIs for email marketing for more ideas about KPIs that you can set in your business.

You should track your KPIs regularly and adjust your marketing activities as needed. If you find that you’re not achieving your goals, it’s time to reevaluate your plan and make changes.

Marketing Budget

Though you will likely already have an overall budget at this point in your business plan, the marketing budget can provide more detail on the distribution of your company’s financial resources towards advertising and promotions.

You should determine what percentage of your funds will go towards advertising efforts— the general advice is between 6-20% of your total budget.

How A Marketing Plan And A Business Plan Work Together

Image credit: MarketingInsiderGroup.com

Companies should have both a business and marketing plan—the business plan outlines the structure and goals of the company. In contrast, the marketing plan explains how you will achieve those goals through marketing activities. If you seek loans or meet with investors, having both of these documents at the ready will benefit your business.

I’ve already established their different purposes, but when used together, there are many benefits to having these documents.

These range from increased sales to more realistic projections. The following section will detail the perks of creating and implementing both plans.

Increased Sales

Business plans define the company’s goals, and the marketing plan provides specific steps to achieve these aims. When you have both plans in place, it’s easier to track your progress and make changes as needed, increasing the chances of achieving your objectives and improving sales.

If the overall goals of the business change, the marketing plan may also need to be altered. For example, if the business decides to focus on international sales, the marketing plan will need to reflect this change. Luckily, marketing plans are easier to update, so you can adjust the details as your business expands and evolves.

The more detail you put into these plans, the more likely you are to reliably and consistently track your progress based on your preset goals. While drafting them may be a lot of work initially, staying organized and adjusting your plans as needed will help increase sales in the long-run.

Realistic Projections

When creating these plans, it’s important to be realistic about what you can achieve by setting achievable goals and estimating the time it will take to complete each activity.

Once you write these plans, you’ll have a better idea of initial projections based on the in-depth market research required to make a budget and set your prices. You’ll also have more information about how to accurately track your marketing efforts using data collection tools and KPIs.

Consistency

If the business plan and marketing plan are consistent, it will be easier to achieve your objectives. The business plan provides a broad overview of the company, while the marketing plan explains how each marketing activity will help achieve the business’s goals.

Having these plans in place makes it easier to keep your business on track and on-brand. You can adjust your marketing plan as you go to keep up with new objectives or projects, keeping your business organized and streamlined.

Surpassing Your Competition

Creating these plans will help you surpass your competitors—when you clearly understand what you’re up against, it’s easier to create a strategy that will help you stand out.

Business plans help you understand your competition, like what strategies work and what aspects you can improve on. This knowledge will allow you to use your funds and resources on marketing channels to bring optimal value and income.

Once you have implemented these plans, it’s essential to monitor their effectiveness. By keeping track of how well your company matches your projections, you can identify patterns and adapt these plans according to your future goals.

Your business plan can be reviewed annually, which will give you an overview of where you are meeting your goals and what areas you may be falling short in. Does your work meet the standards and guidelines you initially planned?

In comparison, you should review marketing methods quarterly to track which ones are working best and which you can adjust to run your operation more successfully.

FAQ—Marketing Plan vs. Business Plan

Are marketing plans the same as business plans.

A marketing plan is a component of a business plan, but it is not the same thing. A business plan provides a structure and goals for the company, while the marketing plan explains how each marketing activity will help achieve those goals.

What Comes First, Business Plans Or Marketing Plans?

Creating a business plan before making a marketing plan is generally recommended. Keep in mind that the two projects should be consistent with each other and work together to present the most comprehensive, detailed overview of your business goals as possible.

What Is The Difference Between Marketing Plans And Business Plans?

Business plans are longer, more comprehensive documents that cover all aspects of your company’s operations and include the following:

An explanation of your company’s mission and an executive summary of your goals.
In-depth details about your products and services, including how they are produced and shipped.
A marketing analysis that provides detailed industry research and a comparison to similar brands.
Financial aspects of your business, including a budget.

Alternatively, marketing plans cover only the marketing aspect of your company and address the following areas:

Marketing objectives.
Marketing strategies.
Key performance indicators (KPIs).
Marketing budget.

While these plans serve different purposes, they can be used together to present an in-depth overview of your company to potential investors and are both valuable assets to track your business goals, successes, and areas to improve on.

Image credit: SimplyBusiness.co.uk

Although a business plan and marketing plan are two different documents, they work together to create a well-rounded view of the company. A good business plan will have realistic goals based on sound market analysis, while a good marketing plan will outline specific objectives to help achieve those projections.

When these two plans are put together, they can increase sales, create realistic projections, and help your business overcome competitive challenges. Therefore, drafting both is essential for having an organized, consistent, and lucrative business.

So, what are you waiting for? Using this guide for reference, start creating your marketing and business plans today!

the difference between business plan and marketing plan

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Planning, Startups, Stories

Tim berry on business planning, starting and growing your business, and having a life in the meantime., marketing plans vs. business plans: what’s the difference, and why do you care.

What’s the difference between a marketing plan and a business plan? Doesn’t a business plan include a marketing plan? Why would anybody do one without the other?

Good questions, and since I get them a lot, I decided to answer them here:

A business plan covers the entire business, including overall strategy, financial plans, target markets, sales, products and services, operations, and how they all relate to each other. A marketing plan, in contrast, focuses on the marketing: marketing strategy, target markets, marketing mix, messaging, programs, etc. Cash flow is vital for a business plan, but not usually included in a marketing plan
Yes, a business plan almost always includes the marketing portion. Emphasis varies, and I’ve seen some plans that focus much more on product or service than on marketing. But those are unusual.
Lots of people do marketing plans rather than business plans because their job or their attention or their focus is on the marketing, not the whole business.

I wrote 5 steps to creating a marketing plan in one of my columns for entrepreneur.com. I’m including a summary here:

Step One: Your identity as a business.

Create separate lists that identify your business’ strengths, weaknesses and goals. Put everything down and create big lists. Don’t edit or reject anything.

Then, find priorities among the bullet points. If you’ve done this right, you’ll have more than you can use, and some more important than others. Kick some of the less important bullets off the list and move the ones that are important to the top.

This sometimes requires input from your managers as well. For example, your management team thinks being conservative on spending is a weakness but you don’t. That might be something to drop off the list.

Step Two: Focus on markets.

The next list you’ll need to make outlines your business’ opportunities and threats. Think of both as external to your business — factors that you can’t control but can try to predict. Opportunities can include new markets, new products and trends that favor your business. Threats include competition and advances in technology that put you at a disadvantage.

Also make a list of invented people or organizations who serve as ideal buyers or your ideal target market. You can consider each one a persona, such as a grandmother discovering email or a college student getting his or her first credit card. These people are iconic and ideal, and stand for the best possible buyer.

Put yourself in the place of each of these ideal buyers and then think about what media he or she uses and what message would communicate your offering most effectively. Keep your identity in the back of your mind as you flesh out your target markets.

Step Three: Focus on strategy.

Now it’s time to pull your lists together. Look for the intersection of your unique identity and your target market. In terms of your business offerings, what could you drop off the list because it’s not strategic? Then think about dropping those who aren’t in your target market.

For example, a restaurant business focused on healthy, organic and fine dining would probably cater to people more in tune with green trends and with higher-than-average disposable income. So, it might rule out people who prefer eating fast-food like hamburgers and pizza, and who look for bargains.

The result of step three is strategy: Narrow your focus to what’s most in alignment with your identity and most attractive to your target market. In other words, focus on the area that is shared by all three lines in the diagram here.

Step Four: Set measurable steps.

Get down to the details that are concrete and measurable. Your marketing strategy should become a plan that includes monthly review, tracking and measurement, sales forecasts, expense budgets and non-monetary metrics for tracking progress. These can include leads, presentations, phone calls, links, blog posts, page views, conversion rates, proposals and trips, among others.

Match important tasks to people on your team and hold them accountable for their successes and failures.

Step Five: Review often and revise.

Just as with your business plan, your marketing plan should continue to evolve along with your business. Your assumptions will change, so adapt to the changing business landscape. Some parts of the plan also will work better than others, so review and revise to accommodate what you learn as you go.

Thanks for sharing your valuable experience Tim. Creating, implementing and reviewing business plans should definitely be an essential part of every company. However, marketing is a core element of a business and should be treated as such. While focusing on the market & customer behavior, a marketing plan misses ‘cash flow’ as a key ingredient. This is why a marketing plan should go hand in hand with the business plan. Personally, I’m a huge fan of doing both 🙂

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What is a Marketing Plan & How to Write One [+Examples]

Published: December 27, 2023

For a while now, you've been spearheading your organization's content marketing efforts, and your team's performance has convinced management to adopt the content marketing strategies you’ve suggested.

Now, your boss wants you to write and present a content marketing plan, but you‘ve never done something like that before. You don't even know where to start.

Fortunately, we've curated the best content marketing plans to help you write a concrete plan that's rooted in data and produces results. But first, we'll discuss what a marketing plan is and how some of the best marketing plans include strategies that serve their respective businesses.

What is a marketing plan?

A marketing plan is a strategic roadmap that businesses use to organize, execute, and track their marketing strategy over a given period. Marketing plans can include different marketing strategies for various marketing teams across the company, all working toward the same business goals.

The purpose of a marketing plan is to write down strategies in an organized manner. This will help keep you on track and measure the success of your campaigns.

Writing a marketing plan will help you think of each campaign‘s mission, buyer personas, budget, tactics, and deliverables. With all this information in one place, you’ll have an easier time staying on track with a campaign. You'll also discover what works and what doesn't. Thus, measuring the success of your strategy.

Featured Resource: Free Marketing Plan Template

Looking to develop a marketing plan for your business? Click here to download HubSpot's free Marketing Plan Template to get started .

To learn more about how to create your marketing plan, keep reading or jump to the section you’re looking for:

How to Write a Marketing Plan

Types of marketing plans, marketing plan examples, marketing plan faqs, sample marketing plan.

If you're pressed for time or resources, you might not be thinking about a marketing plan. However, a marketing plan is an important part of your business plan.

Marketing Plan vs. Business Plan

A marketing plan is a strategic document that outlines marketing objectives, strategies, and tactics.

A business plan is also a strategic document. But this plan covers all aspects of a company's operations, including finance, operations, and more. It can also help your business decide how to distribute resources and make decisions as your business grows.

I like to think of a marketing plan as a subset of a business plan; it shows how marketing strategies and objectives can support overall business goals.

Keep in mind that there's a difference between a marketing plan and a marketing strategy.

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Marketing Strategy vs. Marketing Plan

A marketing strategy describes how a business will accomplish a particular goal or mission. This includes which campaigns, content, channels, and marketing software they'll use to execute that mission and track its success.

For example, while a greater plan or department might handle social media marketing, you might consider your work on Facebook as an individual marketing strategy.

A marketing plan contains one or more marketing strategies. It's the framework from which all of your marketing strategies are created and helps you connect each strategy back to a larger marketing operation and business goal.

For example, suppose your company is launching a new software product, and it wants customers to sign up. The marketing department needs to develop a marketing plan that'll help introduce this product to the industry and drive the desired signups.

The department decides to launch a blog dedicated to this industry, a new YouTube video series to establish expertise, and an account on Twitter to join the conversation around this subject. All this serves to attract an audience and convert this audience into software users.

To summarize, the business's marketing plan is dedicated to introducing a new software product to the marketplace and driving signups for that product. The business will execute that plan with three marketing strategies : a new industry blog, a YouTube video series, and a Twitter account.

Of course, the business might consider these three things as one giant marketing strategy, each with its specific content strategies. How granular you want your marketing plan to get is up to you. Nonetheless, every marketing plan goes through a particular set of steps in its creation.

Learn what they are below.

State your business's mission.
Determine the KPIs for this mission.
Identify your buyer personas.
Describe your content initiatives and strategies.
Clearly define your plan's omissions.
Define your marketing budget.
Identify your competition.
Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

1. State your business's mission.

Your first step in writing a marketing plan is to state your mission. Although this mission is specific to your marketing department, it should serve your business‘s main mission statement.

From my experience, you want to be specific, but not too specific. You have plenty of space left in this marketing plan to elaborate on how you'll acquire new customers and accomplish this mission.

Need help building your mission statement? Download this guide for examples and templates and write the ideal mission statement.

2. Determine the KPIs for this mission.

Every good marketing plan describes how the department will track its mission‘s progress. To do so, you need to decide on your key performance indicators (KPIs) .

KPIs are individual metrics that measure the various elements of a marketing campaign. These units help you establish short-term goals within your mission and communicate your progress to business leaders.

Let's take our example of a marketing mission from the above step. If part of our mission is “to attract an audience of travelers,” we might track website visits using organic page views. In this case, “organic page views” is one KPI, and we can see our number of page views grow over time.

Also, make sure to check whether your current reporting software facilitates the KPIs you need. Some reporting tools can only measure a set of pre-defined metrics, which can cause massive headaches in particular marketing campaigns.

However, other tools, like HubSpot’s analytics software , can offer full flexibility over the KPIs you wish to track. You can generate custom reports that reveal anything from average website engagement rates to page visits via organic, email, social media traffic, and more.

These KPIs will come into the conversation again in step 4.

3. Identify your buyer personas.

A buyer persona is a description of who you want to attract. This can include age, sex, location, family size, and job title. Each buyer persona should directly reflect your business's current and potential customers. So, all business leaders must agree on your buyer personas.

Create your buyer personas with this free guide and set of buyer persona templates.

4. Describe your content initiatives and strategies.

Here's where you'll include the main points of your marketing and content strategy. Because there's a laundry list of content types and channels available to you today, you must choose wisely and explain how you'll use your content and channels in this section of your marketing plan.

When I write this section , I like to stipulate:

Which types of content I'll create. These might include blog posts, YouTube videos, infographics, and ebooks.
How much of it I'll create. I typically describe content volume in daily, weekly, monthly, or even quarterly intervals. It all depends on my workflow and the short-term goals for my content.
The goals (and KPIs) I'll use to track each type. KPIs can include organic traffic, social media traffic, email traffic, and referral traffic. Your goals should also include which pages you want to drive that traffic to, such as product pages, blog pages, or landing pages.
The channels on which I'll distribute my content. Popular channels include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram.
Any paid advertising that will take place on these channels.

Build out your marketing plan with this free template.

Fill out this form to access the template., 5. clearly define your plan's omissions..

A marketing plan explains the marketing team's focus. It also explains what the marketing team will not focus on.

If there are other aspects of your business that you aren't serving in this particular plan, include them in this section. These omissions help to justify your mission, buyer personas, KPIs, and content. You can’t please everyone in a single marketing campaign, and if your team isn't on the hook for something, you need to make it known.

In my experience, this section is particularly important for stakeholders to help them understand why certain decisions were made.

6. Define your marketing budget.

Whether it's freelance fees, sponsorships, or a new full-time marketing hire, use these costs to develop a marketing budget and outline each expense in this section of your marketing plan.

You can establish your marketing budget with this kit of 8 free marketing budget templates .

7. Identify your competition.

Part of marketing is knowing whom you're marketing against. Research the key players in your industry and consider profiling each one.

Keep in mind not every competitor will pose the same challenges to your business. For example, while one competitor might be ranking highly on search engines for keywords you want your website to rank for, another competitor might have a heavy footprint on a social network where you plan to launch an account.

Easily track and analyze your competitors with this collection of ten free competitive analysis templates .

8. Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

With your marketing plan fully fleshed out, it's time to explain who’s doing what. I don't like to delve too deeply into my employees’ day-to-day projects, but I know which teams and team leaders are in charge of specific content types, channels, KPIs, and more.

Now that you know why you need to build an effective marketing plan, it’s time to get to work. Starting a plan from scratch can be overwhelming if you haven't done it before. That’s why there are many helpful resources that can support your first steps. We’ll share some of the best guides and templates that can help you build effective results-driven plans for your marketing strategies.

Ready to make your own marketing plan? Get started using this free template.

Depending on the company you work with, you might want to create various marketing plans. We compiled different samples to suit your needs:

1. Quarterly or Annual Marketing Plans

These plans highlight the strategies or campaigns you'll take on in a certain period.

Forbes published a marketing plan template that has amassed almost 4 million views. To help you sculpt a marketing roadmap with true vision, their template will teach you how to fill out the 15 key sections of a marketing plan, which are:

Executive Summary
Target Customers
Unique Selling Proposition
Pricing & Positioning Strategy
Distribution Plan
Your Offers
Marketing Materials
Promotions Strategy
Online Marketing Strategy
Conversion Strategy
Joint Ventures & Partnerships
Referral Strategy
Strategy for Increasing Transaction Prices
Retention Strategy
Financial Projections

If you're truly lost on where to start with a marketing plan, I highly recommend using this guide to help you define your target audience, figure out how to reach them, and ensure that audience becomes loyal customers.

2. Social Media Marketing Plan

This type of plan highlights the channels, tactics, and campaigns you intend to accomplish specifically on social media. A specific subtype is a paid marketing plan, which highlights paid strategies, such as native advertising, PPC, or paid social media promotions.

Shane Snow's Marketing Plan for His Book Dream Team is a great example of a social media marketing plan:

When Shane Snow started promoting his new book, "Dream Team," he knew he had to leverage a data-driven content strategy framework. So, he chose his favorite one: the content strategy waterfall. The content strategy waterfall is defined by Economic Times as a model used to create a system with a linear and sequential approach.

Snow wrote a blog post about how the waterfall‘s content strategy helped him launch his new book successfully. After reading it, you can use his tactics to inform your own marketing plan. More specifically, you’ll learn how he:

Applied his business objectives to decide which marketing metrics to track.
Used his ultimate business goal of earning $200,000 in sales or 10,000 purchases to estimate the conversion rate of each stage of his funnel.
Created buyer personas to figure out which channels his audience would prefer to consume his content.
Used his average post view on each of his marketing channels to estimate how much content he had to create and how often he had to post on social media.
Calculated how much earned and paid media could cut down the amount of content he had to create and post.
Designed his process and workflow, built his team, and assigned members to tasks.
Analyzed content performance metrics to refine his overall content strategy.

I use Snow's marketing plan to think more creatively about my content promotion and distribution plan. I like that it's linear and builds on the step before it, creating an air-tight strategy that doesn't leave any details out.

3. Content Marketing Plan

This plan could highlight different strategies, tactics, and campaigns in which you'll use content to promote your business or product.

HubSpot's Comprehensive Guide for Content Marketing Strategy is a strong example of a content marketing plan:

marketing plan examples: hubspot content marketing plan

At HubSpot, we‘ve built our marketing team from two business school graduates working from a coffee table to a powerhouse of hundreds of employees. Along the way, we’ve learned countless lessons that shaped our current content marketing strategy. So, we decided to illustrate our insights in a blog post to teach marketers how to develop a successful content marketing strategy, regardless of their team's size.

In this comprehensive guide for modern marketers, you'll learn:

What exactly content marketing is.
Why your business needs a content marketing strategy.
Who should lead your content marketing efforts?
How to structure your content marketing team based on your company's size.
How to hire the right people for each role on your team.
What marketing tools and technology you'll need to succeed.
What type of content your team should create, and which employees should be responsible for creating them.
The importance of distributing your content through search engines, social media, email, and paid ads.
And finally, the recommended metrics each of your teams should measure and report to optimize your content marketing program.

This is a fantastic resource for content teams of any size — whether you're a team of one or 100. It includes how to hire and structure a content marketing team, what marketing tools you'll need, what type of content you should create, and even recommends what metrics to track for analyzing campaigns. If you're aiming to establish or boost your online presence, leveraging tools like HubSpot's drag-and-drop website builder can be extremely beneficial. It helps you create a captivating digital footprint that sets the foundation for your content marketing endeavors.

4. New Product Launch Marketing Plan

This will be a roadmap for the strategies and tactics you‘ll implement to promote a new product. And if you’re searching for an example, look no further than Chief Outsiders' Go-To-Market Plan for a New Product :

marketing plan examples: chief outsiders

After reading this plan, you'll learn how to:

Validate a product
Write strategic objectives
Identify your market
Compile a competitive landscape
Create a value proposition for a new product
Consider sales and service in your marketing plan

If you're looking for a marketing plan for a new product, the Chief Outsiders template is a great place to start. Marketing plans for a new product will be more specific because they target one product versus its entire marketing strategy.

5. Growth Marketing Plan

Growth marketing plans use experimentation and data to drive results, like we see in Venture Harbour’s Growth Marketing Plan Template :

marketing plan examples: venture harbour

Venture Harbour's growth marketing plan is a data-driven and experiment-led alternative to the more traditional marketing plan. Their template has five steps intended for refinement with every test-measure-learn cycle. The five steps are:

Experiments

I recommend this plan if you want to experiment with different platforms and campaigns. Experimentation always feels risky and unfamiliar, but this plan creates a framework for accountability and strategy.

Louisville Tourism
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Visit Oxnard
Safe Haven Family Shelter
Wright County Economic Development
The Cultural Council of Palm Beach County
Cabarrus County Convention and Visitors Bureau
Visit Billings

1. Louisville Tourism

It also divides its target market into growth and seed categories to allow for more focused strategies. For example, the plan recognizes Millennials in Chicago, Atlanta, and Nashville as the core of it's growth market, whereas people in Boston, Austin, and New York represent seed markets where potential growth opportunities exist. Then, the plan outlines objectives and tactics for reaching each market.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

The plan starts with a letter from the President & CEO of the company, who sets the stage for the plan by providing a high-level preview of the incoming developments for Louisville's tourism industry
The focus on Louisville as "Bourbon City" effectively leverages its unique cultural and culinary attributes to present a strong brand
Incorporates a variety of data points from Google Analytics, Arrivalist, and visitor profiles to to define their target audience with a data-informed approach

2. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

For example, students who become prospects as freshman and sophomore will receive emails that focus on getting the most out of high school and college prep classes. Once these students become juniors and seniors — thus entering the consideration stage — the emails will focus more on the college application process and other exploratory content.

The plan incorporates competitive analysis, evaluation surveys, and other research to determine the makeup of its target audience
The plan lists each marketing program (e.g., direct mail, social media, email etc.) and supplements it with examples on the next page
Each marketing program has its own objectives, tactics, and KPIs for measuring success

3. Visit Oxnard

This marketing plan by Visit Oxnard, a convention and visitors bureau, is packed with all the information one needs in a marketing plan: target markets, key performance indicators, selling points, personas, marketing tactics by channel, and much more.

It also articulates the organization’s strategic plans for the upcoming fiscal year, especially as it grapples with the aftereffects of the pandemic. Lastly, it has impeccable visual appeal, with color-coded sections and strong branding elements.

States clear and actionable goals for the coming year
Includes data and other research that shows how their team made their decisions
Outlines how the team will measure the success of their plan

4. Safe Haven Family Shelter

marketing plan examples: safe haven family shelter

This marketing plan by a nonprofit organization is an excellent example to follow if your plan will be presented to internal stakeholders at all levels of your organization. It includes SMART marketing goals , deadlines, action steps, long-term objectives, target audiences, core marketing messages , and metrics.

The plan is detailed, yet scannable. By the end of it, one can walk away with a strong understanding of the organization’s strategic direction for its upcoming marketing efforts.

Confirms ongoing marketing strategies and objectives while introducing new initiatives
Uses colors, fonts, and formatting to emphasize key parts of the plan
Closes with long-term goals, key themes, and other overarching topics to set the stage for the future

5. Wright County Economic Development

Wright County Economic Development’s plan drew our attention because of its simplicity, making it good inspiration for those who’d like to outline their plan in broad strokes without frills or filler.

It includes key information such as marketing partners, goals, initiatives, and costs. The sections are easy to scan and contain plenty of information for those who’d like to dig into the details. Most important, it includes a detailed breakdown of projected costs per marketing initiative — which is critical information to include for upper-level managers and other stakeholders.

Begins with a quick paragraph stating why the recommended changes are important
Uses clear graphics and bullet points to emphasize key points
Includes specific budget data to support decision-making

6. The Cultural Council of Palm Beach County

marketing plan examples: cultural council of palm beach county

This marketing plan presentation by a cultural council is a great example of how to effectively use data in your plan, address audiences who are new to the industry, and offer extensive detail into specific marketing strategies.

For instance, an entire slide is dedicated to the county’s cultural tourism trends, and at the beginning of the presentation, the organization explains what an arts and culture agency is in the first place.

That’s a critical piece of information to include for those who might not know. If you’re addressing audiences outside your industry, consider defining terms at the beginning, like this organization did.

Uses quality design and images to support the goals and priorities in the text
Separate pages for each big idea or new strategy
Includes sections for awards and accomplishments to show how the marketing plan supports wider business goals
Defines strategies and tactics for each channel for easy skimming

7. Cabarrus County Convention & Visitors Bureau

marketing plan examples: carrabus county

Cabarrus County’s convention and visitors bureau takes a slightly different approach with its marketing plan, formatting it like a magazine for stakeholders to flip through. It offers information on the county’s target audience, channels, goals, KPIs, and public relations strategies and initiatives.

We especially love that the plan includes contact information for the bureau’s staff members, so that it’s easy for stakeholders to contact the appropriate person for a specific query.

Uses infographics to expand on specific concepts, like how visitors benefit a community
Highlights the team members responsible for each initiative with a photo to emphasize accountability and community
Closes with an event calendar for transparency into key dates for events

8. Visit Billings

Visit Billing’s comprehensive marketing plan is like Cabarrus County’s in that it follows a magazine format. With sections for each planned strategy, it offers a wealth of information and depth for internal stakeholders and potential investors.

We especially love its content strategy section, where it details the organization’s prior efforts and current objectives for each content platform.

At the end, it includes strategic goals and budgets — a good move to imitate if your primary audience would not need this information highlighted at the forefront.

Includes a section on the buyer journey, which offers clarity on the reasoning for marketing plan decisions
Design includes call-outs for special topics that could impact the marketing audience, such as safety concerns or "staycations"
Clear headings make it easy to scan this comprehensive report and make note of sections a reader may want to return to for more detail

What is a typical marketing plan?

In my experience, most marketing plans outline the following aspects of a business's marketing:

Target audience

Each marketing plan should include one or more goals, the path your team will take to meet those goals, and how you plan to measure success.

For example, if I were a tech startup that's launching a new mobile app, my marketing plan would include:

Target audience or buyer personas for the app
Outline of how app features meet audience needs
Competitive analysis
Goals for conversion funnel and user acquisition
Marketing strategies and tactics for user acquisition

Featured resource : Free Marketing Plan Template

What should a good marketing plan include?

A good marketing plan will create a clear roadmap for your unique marketing team. This means that the best marketing plan for your business will be distinct to your team and business needs.

That said, most marketing plans will include sections for one or more of the following:

Clear analysis of the target market
A detailed description of the product or service
Strategic marketing mix details (such as product, price, place, promotion)
Measurable goals with defined timelines

This can help you build the best marketing plan for your business.

A good marketing plan should also include a product or service's unique value proposition, a comprehensive marketing strategy including online and offline channels, and a defined budget.

Featured resource : Value Proposition Templates

What are the most important parts of a marketing plan?

When you‘re planning a road trip, you need a map to help define your route, step-by-step directions, and an estimate of the time it will take to get to your destination. It’s literally how you get there that matters.

Like a road map, a marketing plan is only useful if it helps you get to where you want to go. So, no one part is more than the other.

That said, you can use the list below to make sure that you've added or at least considered each of the following in your marketing plan:

Marketing goals
Executive summary
Target market analysis
Marketing strategies

What questions should I ask when making a marketing plan?

Questions are a useful tool for when you‘re stuck or want to make sure you’ve included important details.

Try using one or more of these questions as a starting point when you create your marketing plan:

Who is my target audience?
What are their needs, motivations, and pain points?
How does our product or service solve their problems?
How will I reach and engage them?
Who are my competitors? Are they direct or indirect competitors?
What are the unique selling points of my product or service?
What marketing channels are best for the brand?
What is our budget and timeline?
How will I measure the success of marketing efforts?

How much does a marketing plan cost?

Creating a marketing plan is mostly free. But the cost of executing a marketing plan will depend on your specific plan.

Marketing plan costs vary by business, industry, and plan scope. Whether your team handles marketing in-house or hires external consultants can also make a difference. Total costs can range from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands. This is why most marketing plans will include a budget.

Featured resource : Free Marketing Budget Templates

What is a marketing plan template?

A marketing plan template is a pre-designed structure or framework that helps you outline your marketing plan.

It offers a starting point that you can customize for your specific business needs and goals. For example, our template includes easy-to-edit sections for:

Business summary
Business initiatives
Target market
Market strategy
Marketing channels
Marketing technology

Let’s create a sample plan together, step by step.

Follow along with HubSpot's free Marketing Plan Template .

1. Create an overview or primary objective.

Our business mission is to provide [service, product, solution] to help [audience] reach their [financial, educational, business related] goals without compromising their [your audience’s valuable asset: free time, mental health, budget, etc.]. We want to improve our social media presence while nurturing our relationships with collaborators and clients.

For example, if I wanted to focus on social media growth, my KPIs might look like this:

We want to achieve a minimum of [followers] with an engagement rate of [X] on [social media platform].

The goal is to achieve an increase of [Y] on recurring clients and new meaningful connections outside the platform by the end of the year.

Use the following categories to create a target audience for your campaign.

Profession:
Background:
Pain points:
Social media platforms that they use:
Streaming platforms that they prefer:

For more useful strategies, consider creating a buyer persona in our Make My Persona tool .

Our content pillars will be: [X, Y, Z].

Content pillars should be based on topics your audience needs to know. If your ideal clients are female entrepreneurs, then your content pillars can be: marketing, being a woman in business, remote working, and productivity hacks for entrepreneurs.

Then, determine any omissions.

This marketing plan won’t be focusing on the following areas of improvement: [A, B, C].

5. Define your marketing budget.

Our marketing strategy will use a total of [Y] monthly. This will include anything from freelance collaborations to advertising.

6. Identify your competitors.

I like to work through the following questions to clearly indicate who my competitors are:

Which platforms do they use the most?
How does their branding differentiate?
How do they talk to their audiences?
What valuable assets do customers talk about? And if they are receiving any negative feedback, what is it about?

7. Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

Create responsible parties for each portion of the plan.

Marketing will manage the content plan, implementation, and community interaction to reach the KPIs.

Social media manager: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]
Content strategist: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]
Community manager: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

Sales will follow the line of the marketing work while creating and implementing an outreach strategy.

Sales strategists: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]
Sales executives: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

Customer Service will nurture clients’ relationships to ensure that they have what they want. [Hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations].

Project Managers will track the progress and team communication during the project. [Hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations].

Get started on your marketing plan.

These marketing plans serve as initial resources to get your content marketing plan started. But, to truly deliver what your audience wants and needs, you'll likely need to test some different ideas out, measure their success, and then refine your goals as you go.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in April 2019, but was updated for comprehensiveness. This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure t o learn more about how we use AI.

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The Difference Between a Marketing Plan & a Business Plan: How to Distinguish Between the Two (& Use Both to Accelerate Your Success)

Table of contents.

Image of a man standing over a few key marketing concepts.

Planning to succeed

They say that ‘if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.’ This is a major factor in why 9 out of 10 businesses never make it past the 5-year mark. So if planning is on your mind, you are already ahead of the game.

But when you start to look at possible plans for your new enterprise, it gets confusing very quickly. You may have heard people talking about both business plans and marketing plans. Are these the same thing, or are there differences? If so, which should you choose—or do you need both?

In this article, I’ll take a close look at business and marketing plans, discussing how they fit into your overall success strategy. I’ll clarify what each plan is for and explain how to leverage them to your advantage.

Business plan vs. marketing plan

Business plans and marketing plans are distinct and have different purposes. Yet they both play a vital role in ensuring business success. So how are they different?

Business plan

A business plan sets out the overall strategy for your business. It defines the company’s overall aims, and objectives then maps out a course for achieving them.

This plan keeps the executive team focused on the right goals, ensuring that everyone works together to achieve success. It also plays a crucial role in helping the start up and small business raise money. Banks and other investors will expect to see a business plan that clarifies how their money will be used—and how they will achieve a return on investment.

A sound business plan will typically include:

Market research data
Competitive analysis
A mission statement
Financial projections
A sales and marketing strategy
An operating plan

Marketing plan

A marketing plan is much narrower in its focus. As the name suggests, it is only concerned with how you will achieve sales. Of course, every business needs healthy sales to survive, so marketing deserves special attention.

A typical marketing plan might cover:

The target market
The value proposition of the brand
The sales targets for future quarters
Campaigns to be executed
A timeline for completing campaigns
The metrics used to measure success

A marketing plan is essentially a sub-set of a business plan, providing extra detail on one critically-important area of operation.

Creating your business plan

There are many ways to write your business plan, but the two most popular options are:

Traditional business plan format
Lean startup plan format

Let’s examine how you should structure each of these:

Traditional business plan

Conventional business plans are more comprehensive, including a lot of detail. This format is a good choice if you’re aiming to raise money from banks or financial institutions. Your plan is likely to include these elements:

Executive summary: a top-level overview of what the business will do and why it’s likely to be successful
Company description: detail about the problems your business solves and why your company is qualified to provide solutions
Market analysis: insights into the current state of the market, strengths and weaknesses of competitors, and opportunities to innovate
Organizational structure: details concerning the legal structure of the business and the executive team who will lead operations
Products and services: explain the offers you will present to the market and how you will gain a competitive advantage
Marketing and sales: your strategy for reaching potential customers and achieving sales
Operating plan: outline how the business will operate in terms of locations, number of employees, etc.
Funding requirements: detail the financial requirements of the business and how you expect these to be fulfilled
Financial projections: show your forecasts for revenue and expenses in the quarters ahead
Appendix: add any additional supporting documents that strengthen your case

Stay ahead of the game by building your foundational marketing knowledge and finding the best marketing partners.

Lean startup plan

If you’re looking to raise money from venture capital companies or angel investors, the lean startup plan might be the right choice. This format is designed to be a quick read, giving busy investors the critical info they need to make a decision.

Core components of a lean startup plan typically include:

Business overview: provide a clear overview of what your business will do and how it will operate
Key partnerships: list the manufacturers, suppliers, subcontractors, and other strategic partners critical to your success
Key activities: describe how your business will gain an edge over competitors (from innovative technology to a more efficient sales system)
Key resources: explain how intellectual property, staff, capital, or other assets will help you succeed
Value proposition: provide a compelling statement that shows how your company is different and what this means to investors and stakeholders
Customer relationships: show how your business will interact with prospects and clients (define the entire customer experience)
Customer segments: demonstrate a clear understanding of who your most important prospective customers are
Channels: define the key channels you will use to reach people in your target market
Cost structure: explain whether you will prioritize reducing costs or maximizing value to customers
Revenue streams: break down all the income streams your company will use to generate sales and profit

Creating your marketing plan

Once you’ve achieved any funding required and gotten your business off the ground, it’s time to focus on your marketing strategy. You can use the ‘Marketing & Sales’ element in your business plan as your starting point, expanding as necessary to create a comprehensive and detailed marketing plan.

You may include any or all of the following elements:

Business objectives: it’s essential that your marketing plan stays aligned with the overall business targets, so this is an excellent place to start
Marketing goals: define exactly what you want to achieve in terms of increased sales, higher margins, improved average order value, etc.
Market research: provide informed insights into the size and growth of your intended market, together with the opportunities it presents
Target audience: identify the demographics of your intended audience, and describe your ‘perfect customer’ avatar
Messaging: describe the brand messages, unique selling propositions, and competitive advantages you intend to convey
Pricing and positioning: determine whether you will be seeking volume sales with lower prices or higher margins with premium positioning
Budget: outline the spending requirements for your proposed campaigns, ensuring that all likely costs are included
Timing: set out a timeframe for executing the marketing plan, including timescales for all advertising and promotional campaigns
Roles: clarify who will be involved in putting the plan into action, including managers, employees, agencies, and suppliers
Key Performance Indicators: define what success will look like in terms of metrics that move the needle in your business

Get the right plan

Whatever the nature of your business, you should have both a business plan and a marketing plan in place. These will be the guides that keep you firmly on track for success.

But putting these plans together from scratch can be daunting. That’s where I can help. As a marketing broker with over ten years of experience, I’ve helped countless businesses get their startup off the ground.

If you need help turning your new venture into an unstoppable success, be sure to get in touch. We can talk through your business and marketing needs, keeping you on track to grow sales and profits.

With the right plan to follow, there’s no limit to how much you can achieve. Let’s make it happen!

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What’s the Difference between a Business Plan and a Marketing Plan?

Leah Hoppes | Posted on June 8, 2017 |

They both sound profoundly important and you know you need a plan, but planning takes time. So, what is the difference between a business plan and a marketing plan and which one do you really need to run your business?

A business plan is primarily an overview of your business concept and how you aspire to create a viable and sustainable business. It is written with the intent of winning other’s approval of your ideas and methods in order to receive funding. This type of business plan is a way to prove out your business theory, so to speak. It’s the real-world equivalent of showing your work in math class. You may very well have your vision mapped out in your head but if you’re expecting someone else to fund you, you better prove to them you really do understand the market you plan to enter. You’ll need to convince the banker you have a solid business model because a lender’s primary concern is that you can repay the loan.

The business plan is the proving out, on paper at least, the viable path in which to bring a particular product or service to the marketplace in a profitable manner. There are two types of business plans.

The first type of business plan is used solely for funding, ends up in a file cabinet or in the virtual folder never to be referred to again. As crucial as it was to get the business started, it serves no purpose once the doors are open. The second version of a business plan, written for internal decision makers, is too cumbersome for the majority of small business owners and that’s why a marketing plan is the perfect solution.

Whereas a business plan is written for an audience to get them to buy-in to a concept, a marketing plan is written for the staff or team members in order to execute the day-to-day action items which must be met in order to achieve the larger business goals or corporate vision.

Whether you call it a marketing plan, sales, and marketing plan or strategic marketing plan really doesn’t matter, they’re all essentially the same thing – action planning. Making a list of actions and putting them in motion. A marketing plan should include some of the points of a business plan because there are certain key elements which determine the direction of the plan. For example, identifying the vision for the company is essential in a marketing plan because everything in the plan should be driving the company closer to that particular vision, or overall objective. However, the difference between a marketing plan and a business plan is the marketing plan is detailed out in terms of not just conceptual ideas, but a list of actions which will drive results.

In other words, a strategic marketing plan is not only the foundation for your sales and marketing efforts – it is a 12-month plan of action items so that you know what you need to accomplish every single month to move you towards your goal.

If you’re looking for help with your marketing plan, Marketing Chomp is a self-guided step-by-step workbook which will ensure you develop a fully developed marketing plan. If you need outside help to do all the heavy lifting contact us .

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Business Plan vs Marketing Plan: What’s the Difference?

You can’t expect the win the confidence of investors unless you prepare the right documents. Investors are highly selective when choosing businesses in which to invest. If they believe your business is poised to grow and succeed, they may offer to purchase an ownership stake in it. You’ll have an easier time winning investors’ confidence by providing them with a business plan and marketing plan. What’s the difference between these two documents exactly?

What Is a Business Plan?

Many investors will require you to provide a business plan when seeking financing for them. Some banks require a business plan for financing as well. Whether you’re trying to obtain equity financing from an investor or debt financing from a bank, you’ll probably need to prepare a business plan.

What Is a Marketing Plan?

A marketing plan, on the other hand, is a smaller and more specific document that focuses strictly on your business’s marketing activities. Marketing, of course, is the promotion of your business and its goods or services. While different businesses sell different types of goods and services, they all engage in marketing activities to attract customers. In a marketing plan, you can explain how your business intends to attract new customers through marketing activities.

You can include your marketing plan in your business plan. Alternatively, you create a separate marketing plan that’s distinguished from your business plan. Most business plans have a section for marketing. After creating a marketing plan, you can either place it in this section or use it as a separate and independent document.

Differences Between Business Plans and Marketing Plans

Business plans and marketing plans aren’t the same. Business plans consist of multiple parts, each of which covers a specific aspect of your business. Most of them contain an executive summary, business description, goods and services and marketing section. In comparison, marketing plans only cover your business’s marketing activities.

This article was brought to you by� Intrepid Private Capital�Group �� A Global Financial Services Company. For more information on startup and business funding, or to complete a funding application, please visit our� website .

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Understanding The Differences Between A Business Plan and Marketing Strategy

For business owners or other company leaders, understanding the differences between having a business plan and a marketing strategy are two critical elements that should be at the forefront of your business. While these terms may sound synonymous, they are built and reflected differently throughout successful companies.

Several key stakeholders should be aware of the business plan to ensure alignment and effective execution. These include the executive team (CEO, COO, CFO), senior management (department heads, managers, and team leaders), Board of Directors, key employees, and advisors or consultants. Ensuring these stakeholders know and understand the business plan promotes alignment, accountability, and a unified approach to achieving the company’s goals.

What Is A Business Plan?

A business plan serves as the blueprint for your business. It can include your vision and mission statements, services you offer, accountability chart, SOPs, financials, sales, and marketing plans. Consider it the “big picture” or roadmap to success that guides all other aspects of your business.

What Should Be Included In Your Business Plan:

Executive Summary: A succinct overview of the business, its mission, and its unique value proposition.
Market Analysis: A detailed assessment of the industry landscape, target market demographics, and competitors.
Company Description: A narrative describing the nature of the business, its products or services, and organizational structure.
Marketing and Sales Strategy: A strategic approach to promoting and selling products or services to target customers.
Financial Projections: Forecasts of revenue, expenses, and cash flow over a defined period, typically three to five years.

Your business plan will ultimately set your team up for success. When creating this plan, consider your industry and what your clients care most about—ensure all that information lives within it!

How Is A Marketing Strategy Different From Your Business Plan?

On the other hand, your marketing strategy is only a piece of your business plan. It zooms in on the tactics and techniques you will employ to grow your business. It’s a dynamic roadmap delineating how to effectively market your products or services to your target audience, leveraging channels, messaging, and campaigns.

Key Elements of A Marketing Strategy Include:

Target market
The “how” to achieve your marketing goals
Target audience definition
Goals & objectives
Product, price, place, and promotion
Social media, keywords, and advertising
Identifying your ideal audience and where they are
Budget and KPIs

Why Are Both Essential To Your Business?

Your business plan and marketing strategy are intertwined but essential for different reasons. A well-crafted business plan provides the strategic framework and direction for the entire organization. By aligning the marketing strategy with the broader business objectives outlined in the plan, every marketing initiative becomes purposeful and contributes to the overarching goals.

“As a business owner, it is your responsibility to ‘steer the ship.’ Having a well-documented business plan not only makes it easier for your team to understand your vision and expectations but also helps any partner to jump in and help execute. The most successful marketing programs I have participated in are those based on collaboration and trust. When the client sets the goals and vision, our team can create the roadmap for getting there!” – Jenna Sherrick, Senior Marketing Manager

Thinking big picture, a business plan sets up more than just your marketing up for success. Business plans eliminate internal conflict by reducing confusion and getting your team thinking with one goal in mind. Successful teams work together in harmony when they know what they are doing, why they are doing it, and for what purpose or end goal. It can also be a great resource for new leadership employees during the onboarding process.

Employing Marketing Strategy In Real Life

Evolve Systems has managed the marketing strategy and website development for KeyeStrategies and Poised for Exit for over five years. During our time with this client, we have seen their online engagement grow, which is a positive sign that the marketing is “working.”

Our team works directly with the KeyeStrategies project manager on strategy and implementation, with monthly status reports, quarterly planning, and weekly check-ins. All of these initiatives have enabled a small firm to do BIG things! Speaking of big things, our team was recently tasked with merging the Poised for Exit website with the primary website, KeyeStrategies. We created a landing page to connect the two websites seamlessly.

A business plan and a marketing strategy are the building blocks for a strong foundation for your organization. But, business owners must recognize the differences between the two and the role each plays in driving sustainable growth and success. By synergizing these two pillars, businesses can confidently navigate the complexities of the marketplace, ultimately realizing their full potential and achieving enduring prosperity.

Get Started On Your Marketing Strategy

At Evolve, we love working with business owners and other organization members as a key player in your marketing strategy. Our team of experts wants to guide you through all the areas of marketing and website development to reach your full potential. If you are looking for a partner in your marketing strategy, let’s start the conversation today !

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Business Plan vs Marketing Plan – What’s the Difference

By: Author Tony Martins Ajaero

Home » Business Plans

Between a business plan vs a marketing plan, which is more important to your small company? Here is a detail comparison and difference between a business plan and marketing plan. The purpose of every business is to make profit, and for that profit to start rolling in early enough, certain plans and processes have to be put in place. No business succeeds without planning and research, and it is the act of carrying out that research that gave birth to business plans and marketing plans.

Entrepreneurs are advised to create detailed business and marketing plans when starting up a new business in order to help their businesses along the road to sustainability and profitability. Business plan and marketing plan are similar even as they are different, but to enable us explore the similarities and differences of them both, let us first see what they mean.

What is a Business Plan?

A business plan is a formal statement of business goals, reasons the goals are attainable, and plans for reaching the said goals. It summarizes the operational and financial objectives of a business, and it contains detailed plans and budgets showing how those objectives are to be realized.

A complete business plan is bound to have several other components like executive summary, company description, products/services, market analysis, strategy and implementation, organization and management team, financial plan and projections.

A business plan is mostly written when an entrepreneur is seeking financial assistance from lenders or investors, because it is the only document that provides lenders with necessary details to determine if the business is or would be viable, financially sound and able to repay the loan.

Not only does it help to develop competitive strategies, the business plan can determine if the business’ actual activity matches the forecasted plans. In fact, a business plan contains the big picture about your business and it cannot be done without.

What is Marketing Plan?

A marketing plan is a comprehensive document or blueprint that outlines a business’ advertising and marketing efforts. In layman’s lingo, a marketing plan is basically plans you have made on how to sell your product/service. It describes activities that accomplish specific marketing objectives within a set time frame.

According to studies, the typical marketing plan contains four factors which are:

These are known as 4Ps. The Ps help you to describe what your product is, how much would it would be sold, how to make your target customers aware of your product/service, make them like it enough to buy it, and where your product/service would be distributed.

It explains how the business generates customers through advertisements, trade show participation and new referrals. By explaining how a business will overcome competitive challenges from other companies, the marketing plan is regarded as a key section within the business plan and requires detailed industry research and consideration.

A complete marketing plan is a separate, comprehensive document that goes into more details about objectives, goals and tactics. This document guides a company’s marketing, sales and advertising departments on how to implement effective marketing efforts.

Business Plan vs Marketing Plan – What’s the Difference?

Though business plan and marketing plan have certain similarities, they are different in their own right based on the roles they play in the advancement of a business. Business plan and marketing plan differ from each other in the following ways;

1. A business plan is drawn up to enable a business identify its goals and missions, while the marketing plan explains how the business will achieve, if not exceed, those goals and missions.

2. The business plan provides a wide overview of the business which includes information on staff, operations, location, marketing and financial aspects, as well as clearly outlined missions and goals; while the marketing plan identifies the business’ price points, promotional strategies, target markets and competition as well as how to use this to achieve the company’s mission and goals.

3. Cash flow is vital for a business plan, but not usually included in a marketing plan. Marketing plan focuses on getting the cash while business plan focuses on how to utilize the cash to achieve business goals.

4. Business plan is basically written for key executives within the company and external members of the financial community.

It is mostly used to target potential investors, lenders, stockholders and accountants in order to generate the funds that would provide working capital for the business; while the contents of a marketing plan are aimed at consumers and clients and it is usually shared only with those responsible for marketing, sales and advertising efforts.

5. Marketing plan can be used to run a business effectively without a business plan. This is mostly noticed in small businesses that are able to provide their own startup capital. A lot of small businesses carry out marketing plans rather than business plans because their job or their attention or their focus is on getting paying customers, not on the whole business.

6. A business plan is written for an audience to get them to buy into a concept, while a marketing plan is written for the staff or team members in order to execute the day-to-day actions which must be met in order to achieve the larger business goals or corporate vision.

For every business that seeks to be successful, the business plan and marketing plan are both essential aspects. These plans not only help businesses organize their operations, but it also helps them benchmark their success or failure. Without proper marketing efforts, the <a class="wpil_keyword_link" title="Business model" Business model will fail; conversely without a well-researched business plan, no amount of marketing will help the business.

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Marketing Strategy vs. Marketing Plan: What’s the Difference?

Is there really a difference between a marketing strategy and a marketing plan? Are they two sides of the same marketing program coin?

While the terms are commonly used interchangeably, they’re two very different concepts in the real world. It may seem like splitting semantic hairs, but understanding the difference between marketing strategy vs. marketing plan is crucial to the success of your campaigns and your progress toward overarching business goals.

Let’s compare and contrast the concepts in greater depth so you’re prepared when it comes time to take your marketing to the next level .

What Is a Marketing Strategy?

A digital marketing strategy is the “why” behind your marketing. Every piece of marketing collateral you create will be informed by this documentation, which means it works hand-in-hand with your content strategy .

Basically, a marketing strategy is a reflection of your short-term and long-term business approach. This strategy should also be a distillation of your brand values, voice, mission and messaging. For example, if your business aims to scale up quickly, the strategic marketing vision you develop needs to support that objective, perhaps by focusing on consumer acquisition or ramping up your online presence.

A good marketing strategy will encompass your unique selling proposition, all that your business hopes to achieve and its brand identity.

What Is a Marketing Plan?

Your marketing plan is the “how” to your strategy’s “why.” Ideally, a marketing plan should be just that — a plan of action for how you will execute your strategy to accomplish each marketing goal.

The process of creating a tactical marketing plan is about addressing the real-world steps you will take to create, promote, track and measure your campaign, programs and assets. The workflows and procedures you develop will provide a roadmap for making your strategy actionable.

How a Marketing Strategy and Plan Work Together

To use a not-at-all-complicated metaphor, let’s say your business needs a ship to sail through your marketing campaign. That ship needs a direction in which to travel (i.e., a strategy) and the sails to power it (i.e., a plan).

Marketing strategy and plan work hand in hand, with the latter taking cues from the former. Everything laid out by your strategy should be addressed with a plan — one that defines the processes for tactical marketing.

However, the lines can be a bit blurred. Strategic planning is one oft-used phrase that can create confusion. In reality, strategic planning is just high-quality planning informed by a thorough marketing strategy.

Needless to say, a strategy without planning is like a winning idea without a way to realize it; and planning without a strategy will lead to a rudderless ship.

the ship (your business) needs not only a direction (i.e., a strategy) but also the sails to power it (i.e., a plan).

How to Create a Marketing Strategy

Strategy is not an amorphous concept. It takes real work and thinking to establish a good marketing strategy that ultimately facilitates business success.

Here are some basic steps to crafting a comprehensive strategy:

Identify each marketing objective: Strategy begins with your goals, both now and in the future. For example, if your business plan is to expand into new markets, the strategic marketing approach may be to make inroads with new customer segments. Brainstorm how your marketing can reflect other short-term goals and long-term ambitions, like becoming an authority in your industry.
Refine your audience: Defining your audience enables you to resonate with buyers and push customers through the marketing funnel. A strategic marketing priority is to develop buyer personas. These personas will be central to deciding on the angle and value prop of the marketing you create.
Establish your brand guidelines: Your brand needs to be codified in a way that ensures every piece of marketing content will be identifiable and conforms to your standards. This means outlining editorial voice, graphic design preferences and all other critical brand elements. Having a unified presence leads to a better customer experience. Without a single source of truth for how the brand should be represented, your actual marketing may devolve into disparate shots in the dark.
Assess opportunities and threats: Your level of strategy will influence how prepared you are to capitalize on a market research opportunity or manage risks. Research competitors to understand what they’re doing — and, more importantly, what they’re not doing. Know how you’ll leverage your competitive advantage to meet a new market need or shifting consumer preferences.

Importantly, strategy is not static. It needs to be constantly updated and fine-tuned to keep your business on track and achieve changing marketing objectives.

How to Create a Marketing Plan

Returning to the question of “how” shows us the best way to create a marketing plan that works. Ask yourself these questions as you set out to develop your plan of action:

How will we reach consumers? The answer to this question will help define your marketing mix. What types of marketing will you utilize to reach leads, prospects and existing customers? Content marketing, digital marketing, search marketing, social media marketing , event marketing and all other types of marketing are in play here.
How will we create marketing materials? Clearly defined workflows and processes will support the creation of high-quality marketing materials. You need to suss out who owns which project phases, how cross-functional teams will collaborate and what quality controls are in place (like checking for adherence to brand guidelines).
How will we share content and collateral? Not only must you choose your marketing mix, but also your selection of marketing channels. Once again, there are many types to consider: direct mail, social media, email, your website, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, organic search, etc. Each distribution channel will have its place in planning.
How will we track campaigns and measure results? Data is the lifeblood of strategic marketing. You’ll need to create a list of key performance indicators (KPIs) with which to track campaigns. These may include anything from conversion rates to cost per lead.

Marketing Strategy and Marketing Plan Examples in Action

Let’s look at some examples of how the waterfall of business objectives to marketing strategy to marketing plan works in real life:

Business goal: To pivot or reinvent the business, whether due to a merger, new market need or modernization effort.
Marketing strategy: Launch a rebranding campaign; craft new messaging to align marketing with the business’s new direction; create new brand guidelines.
Marketing plan: Pursue a website redevelopment; create a marketing plan template to ensure all new efforts adhere to guidelines; reoptimize website content and copy; coordinate a rollout of new colors, logos and fonts to all social media platforms; hire a marketing agency to consult on best practices.

It’s much easier to see the differences between marketing strategy vs. marketing plan in such a scenario, but also easier to grasp how they work in conjunction. Let’s consider another:

Business goal: To launch a new service or product line.
Marketing strategy: Research competitors and the existing market; develop a new set of buyer personas; outline the marketing funnel and customer journey; generate leads for the proposed expansion.
Marketing plan: Create content around the new product for outreach (e.g., blogs, emails, white paper, one-pagers, etc.); decide which assets to gate in exchange for a name and email address; balance customer acquisition with retention by creating a loyalty program.

Getting the picture?

Business goal: To increase revenue or raise sales by a certain percentage.
Marketing strategy: Support sales enablement with high-quality marketing content and collateral; revitalize or refine the value proposition; reach out to new customer segments.
Marketing plan: Track KPIs related to conversions; focus on high-performing channels; leverage customer data to make upsell or cross-sell recommendations; start a retargeting campaign.

One more for good measure:

Business goal: To become an industry leader.
Marketing strategy: Highlight brand strengths and competitive advantages; present the brand as friendly, knowledgeable and authoritative; raise brand awareness and cultivate brand evangelists.
Marketing plan: Build influencer marketing relationships; publish thought leadership content and/or guest blogs; use social media for customer service and conversations; conduct webinars.

Level Up Your Marketing Campaign

When a marketing strategy and marketing plan are in harmony, what they create is music to your business’ ears. Alignment between the two gives your brand its best chance to impact consumers, raise its profile and succeed in its key business objectives.

Editor’s Note: Updated December 2022.

Dominic Tortorice

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Dom, an English major and journalism enthusiast, was just happy to get a job out of college writing and editing professionally. That it turned out to be in the burgeoning content marketing industry with Brafton was all the better.

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Marketing Strategy vs Marketing Plan: What's the Difference?

Join thousands of successful marketers who get our weekly marketing mixtape email with fresh ideas & hot insider tips.

You’re posting on social media and you have blog posts on your website, but you’re not seeing any results. What’s the deal? The problem likely isn’t where you’re sharing content — it’s why you’re sharing content.

If your marketing efforts aren’t backed up by a strategy, then you probably won’t see results. Although marketers often use “plan” and “strategy” interchangeably, they are actually two different things. Learn more about the components of both so you can start creating your own foolproof marketing machine.

Marketing Plan vs Marketing Strategy- Whats the Difference-02

What Is a Marketing Strategy?

Shaped by your business goals, your marketing strategy is your purpose. It’s what solution you offer, how it aligns with your company’s mission, and why it’s the key to solving your prospect’s challenges.

While many people think about jumping into action when it comes to marketing, having a clearly defined marketing strategy is incredibly important for your business's growth. Once you have your strategy, only then will you be able to develop an effective marketing plan.

What Is a Marketing Plan?

Driven by your strategy, your marketing plan is the execution — the roadmap of tactical marketing efforts that will help you achieve your marketing goals. Your plan is your detailed campaign of what you will do, where you will do it, when you will implement it, and how you will track success.

What’s the Difference Between a Marketing Strategy and a Marketing Plan?

Laura Laire, co-founder of our agency, breaks down the topic in this quick video:

The main difference is that your strategy is the “why” behind your efforts, while your plan is how you’re going to execute the strategy. The chart below details the specific differences.

Marketing Plan vs Marketing Strategy- Whats the Difference

How to Create a Marketing Strategy

While a marketing strategy is a high-level overview, there are still a few key considerations you must understand and document.

Executive Summary

Consider the executive summary an outline or table of contents before you jump into the comprehensive strategy.

The background describes your business goals, marketing goals, and challenges. It can also include your previous marketing activities and initiatives.

Market Analysis

This asset describes the market opportunities, sizing, segments, and potential impacts, such as trends, the economy, and seasonality. A SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis will help you capture this piece of your marketing strategy.

Target Audience

This section of your marketing strategy is the detailed version of your buyer personas and their characteristics, including demographics, goals, pains, and buying patterns. In this section, you’ll also want to include examples of negative buyer personas.

Competitive Analysis

Next, include the different categories of competitors and their characteristics including threats, market share comparison, differentiation, and barriers to entry. This will provide an overall look at what your competitors are doing digitally and how their activities seem to be performing from a keyword, paid advertising, and social perspective.

This includes what product or service you deliver to the market, the features and benefits for each segment, and how you intend on delivering those features and benefits. You’ll also want to document how your product or service is better than competitors’ offerings.

Your message is your opportunity to show prospects that you understand their challenges and that your offering is the key to solving those challenges. It should have variations that speak directly to each of your personas rather than trying to reach everyone with a single message.

Write down the channels you sell through and who is involved in selling through each step of the sales process. This is also a good place to document whether this is an impulse or planned purchase for your audience.

Additionally, describe the steps customers take through each stage of the buyer journey and understand their buying criteria. This will inform the content you can create and use in your marketing materials.

Every customer has unique needs. In some cases, the price may not be an important criterion in the buying process. Is this true for your segment?

What is your pricing model? Is it tiered? Are there discounts? Make sure to include competitive pricing, the perceived value of your product or service compared to the price, services that you include in the price, and how consumer trends could drive the price up or down.

How to Create a Marketing Plan

From your website to social media to all the other channels through which you will engage with potential clients, your marketing plan is a critical component to achieving your business objectives and producing results for your company.

Unlike your marketing strategy, you'll revisit your marketing plan frequently, referring back to it as you implement your tactics and monitor your findings . Here are the various elements you’ll need to create an effective marketing plan.

This is a high-level overview of your marketing goals and how you intend on achieving them.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Your KPIs measure the success of your marketing campaign. Here are some examples:

Sales revenue
Cost per lead
Client value
Inbound marketing ROI
Website traffic-to-lead ratio
Lead-to-client ratio
Landing page conversion rates
Organic traffic

Situation Analysis

Describe your goals, strengths, weaknesses, environmental factors, and market analysis to clearly articulate your challenges and impacts on your business moving forward.

The 4 P's of Marketing

Product: What are you offering in the marketplace and how it is different from competitors?
Price: How is your pricing model different? What is the dollar amount and structure? Why will customers choose your product or service over others?
Place: Today's digital environment demands a shift toward online sales. Is online the first place that your buyers will see your product? What other avenues will you sell your product?
Promotion: Where will you be promoting your product? Through online advertising? Email marketing? Blogging? Ensure that each avenue selected will positively impact your revenue.

What channels will you use to reach your audience? Where are they most active? Where do they seek advice? Ask your personas which channels they are on.

Website and Branding

Does your website messaging resonate with your personas? Is it optimized for lead generation?

Even if a potential buyer isn't ready to purchase your service or product today, it doesn't mean they won't later. Establish yourself as a thought leader, providing helpful content on your website to bring in leads until they are ready to buy from you.

Content Plan

Look at what content already exists on your website and determine whether it makes sense for your marketing campaign. Do you need to update the messaging so it better captivates and engages your audience? Are there additional questions or common objections you can address?

Social Media Plan

How is your business using social media ? Make sure you have a plan for engaging with thought leaders, replying back to happy clients, and how frequently you will post. Also, make sure you’re clear on what KPIs you’re tracking to measure success.

Communication and Promotion

Where and how often will you communicate with customers? What marketing materials can you create to facilitate this communication? Think about how customers might like to hear about you and your products or services, as well as the most relevant and effective channels for communication.

Ensure that you have a timeline for your campaign. Over time, this will help you measure the overall success and effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

What is the amount you will allocate to advertising, digital, website, event marketing, etc.?

Responsibilities

Identify who is responsible for each part of the implementation. Is one person creating all the designs? Do you have a content writer responsible for blogging and posting on social media?

Marketing Strategy vs. Marketing Plan: You Need Both

Your marketing plan acts as your roadmap, clearly identifying the plan of action for your marketing efforts. Your marketing strategy, on the other hand, describes the overarching reason for how your marketing efforts will help you achieve your goals.

And remember, to be successful and generate results, you must ensure that your team is executing a plan that backs up your strategy.

Understanding the current state of your digital presence can identify what you really need from a marketing strategy. Our free 20-minute assessment will show you how you're ranking against your competitors, opportunities for improvement, and more.

B2B Sales and Marketing Leader | CEO at LAIRE, a Digital Growth Agency - Co-Founder, Entrepreneur, Public Speaker, Marketer, Sales Team Builder, and Change Advocate.

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How do you develop a successful marketing plan for a business?

The marketing plan means the most important plan for companies or institutions to achieve their marketing goals, enhance their sales, and grow their business.

The idea of the marketing plan is due to strategic direction to direct efforts and resources in promoting products or services to targeted customers through the company to sell products or offer services more broadly.

A marketing plan can include many different elements and strategies that are implemented to achieve set goals.

A marketing plan is a document that defines the marketing objectives and the practical strategies and plans that a company or organization will follow to achieve these objectives. The marketing plan aims to determine how to communicate with the target audience, promote products or services, increase market share, improve profitability, and build strong customer relationships.

The importance of the marketing plan

Strategic direction: The marketing plan helps define the company's overall marketing vision and goals and determines the strategies that will help achieve them.
Determine the target audience: The marketing plan helps determine who the company's ideal customer is, so efforts and resources are effectively directed towards this specific audience.
Resource planning: The marketing plan enables companies to identify the resources needed to implement marketing strategies, whether financial, human, or technical resources.
Strengthening the organization: The marketing plan contributes to organizing marketing efforts and directing the working teams towards achieving the specified goals.
Performance evaluation: The marketing plan provides a basis for measuring marketing performance and determining whether strategies lead to achieving the desired results or not, and this enables performance to be improved in the future.
Adapt to changes: A marketing plan helps companies adapt to changes in the market, competition, and customer needs.

In short, the marketing plan is a vital strategic tool that enables companies to achieve their marketing goals and improve the performance of their marketing operations in an organized and effective manner.

Before starting to explain more about effective methods for creating a marketing plan, we will present the most important methods and tools available in the modern world of marketing.

كيف تضع الخطة التسويقية الناجحة لعمل؟ STUDYSHOOT

It is a comprehensive plan aimed at developing long-term marketing strategies for the company or institution. This plan aims to achieve the organization's general marketing objectives and identify the main directions that must be followed to achieve competitive differentiation and success in the market. A strategic marketing plan typically includes comprehensive market, competition, and consumer analyzes to identify future opportunities and challenges.

It is a marketing plan that is developed annually for the coming year. This plan focuses on defining the marketing objectives, strategies, and tactics that the company will use throughout the year to achieve its goals and increase sales and marketing success.

The annual marketing plan is an important tool for directing marketing efforts throughout the year, achieving marketing success, and increasing sales and brand awareness for the company.

It is a marketing plan that focuses on using digital media and electronic platforms to achieve marketing goals. This plan aims to focus on the Internet-based audience and achieve success in the digital market.

A digital marketing plan is an important tool for companies and organizations to achieve success in the digital market, increase brand awareness, and interact with the digital audience effectively.

It is a special marketing plan aimed at marketing and promoting a new product launched to the market. This plan is considered one of the main tools for the success of a new product in the market and achieving commercial success.

It is a marketing plan that aims to expand the scope of the company or institution across borders and enter new markets in other countries. This plan aims to define the strategies and plans that the company will use to succeed in global markets and deal with changing international challenges.

It is an important marketing plan for startups and new small businesses that want to enter the market, build brand awareness, attract customers and achieve commercial success. This plan aims to identify strategies and tactics that will help the company grow and excel in the competitive business environment.

A marketing plan for startups helps identify trends and plans for the company's success in marketing to target customers, building a strong customer base, increasing sales and growth in the future.

It is a marketing plan aimed at highlighting social and environmental issues and promoting the social responsibility of companies and institutions. This plan aims to achieve positive social impact and awareness of environmental and sustainability issues through the use of marketing and communications tools.

A social and environmental marketing plan is a powerful tool for companies and organizations to contribute to the improvement of society and the environment and build long-term relationships with customers and the community.

Who are the plan's shareholders and their responsibilities?

In the process of developing a marketing plan, there are a number of stakeholders who participate in its preparation and implementation. Below is a list of the major shareholders and their responsibilities:

CEO or owner: Ultimately responsible for making strategic decisions and overall direction of the company and approves the marketing plan.
Marketing Manager (CMO): Participates in developing the marketing plan and takes responsibility for implementing marketing strategies and tactics.
Marketing Team: It includes employees who work in the marketing department and includes marketing, sales, advertising, social media and other coordinators. They work on implementing marketing tactics and campaigns.
Research and analysis team: Responsible for data analysis and field research to understand the market and customer needs and evaluate the performance of marketing campaigns.
CFO/Finance Team: They contribute to setting the marketing budget and monitoring costs and revenues.
Senior Executive Team: They provide approval of the marketing plan and support implementation and allocation of necessary resources.
Marketing consultants/experts: Experts from outside the company may be involved to provide strategic advice or additional analysis.
Business partners and suppliers: They may have a role in providing the resources and services necessary to implement the marketing plan.

The role of each contributor in the marketing plan depends on the company's size, requirements and business area. There must be good communication and cooperation between stakeholders to ensure that the objectives of the marketing plan are successfully achieved.

Steps to creating a successful marketing plan

Determine marketing objectives
Market and target audience analysis
Setting the marketing strategy
Plan tactics
Defining performance indicators (KPIs)
Digital marketing planning
Create engaging and inspiring content
Improve user and customer experience
Social media marketing
Implementing advertising campaigns
Conducting market research and feasibility studies
Analyze the competition and identify strengths and weaknesses
Improving existing marketing strategies
Organizing events and exhibitions
Develop loyalty and rewards programs
Improving user experience across websites and applications
Implement experiential marketing campaigns and promotions
Invest in email marketing
Monitoring and evaluating the performance of marketing campaigns and continuous improvement.

Developing a successful marketing plan is a crucial process for companies and organizations to achieve success in the market and achieve their business goals. A marketing plan helps define trends, goals, strategies, and tactics that will help build brand awareness, attract customers, increase sales, and grow the business. In this article, we will take a look at how to create a successful marketing plan with its main steps.

Step 1: Define marketing objectives

Setting goals is the first crucial step in developing a successful marketing plan. Goals must be specific, measurable, realistic, and achieved within a certain period of time. Defines goals to be achieved, such as increasing market share, increasing sales, improving brand awareness or launching a new product.

Step 2: Analyze the market and competitors

Analyze your market, have a good understanding of your target customers and identify your competitors in the market. This analysis helps you understand trends, needs and challenges in the market as well as the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors.

There are many professional tools that you can use to analyze competitors in the field of e-marketing. Among these tools are:

SEMrush: for keyword performance analysis and comprehensive analysis of competitors' websites.
Ahrefs: To analyze backlinks and explore keywords and competing content.
SimilarWeb: for traffic estimation and competitor analysis of sites.
SpyFu: To search for keywords used and ads used by competitors.
BuzzSumo: To analyze content performance and discover the most popular and shared content across social media.
Socialbakers: To monitor and analyze competitors' social media performance.
Sprout Social: To manage and monitor social media and analyze audience engagement.
Google Alerts: To track competitor news and content using email alerts.
Owletter: To monitor and analyze competitors' email campaigns.
Moat: To monitor competitors' digital ads and promotions online.
Mention: To monitor and follow the company’s and its competitors’ mentions online.
Fanpage Karma: To analyze the social media performance of companies and competitors.

Step 3: Develop the marketing strategy

Based on your goals and analysis of the market and competitors, determine the marketing strategy you will adopt to achieve your goals. The strategy could be focused on improving the brand's social media presence, providing an exceptional customer experience, or developing a unique product.

Step 4: Plan tactics

Based on the marketing strategy, determine the detailed tactics you will use to implement the strategy. Tactics can include launching advertising campaigns, creating engaging content across digital platforms, organizing marketing events, and improving the user experience across the website.

Step 5: Establish a budget

Determine the budget allocated to implement the marketing plan and determine how to distribute it among different tactics. The budget must be sufficient to achieve the set goals and implement the planned tactics.

There are several tools that help you set a budget accurately and effectively, including:

Spreadsheets: You can use spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets to create detailed tables of all costs and expenses associated with your marketing plan.
Online budget tools: There are many Hebrew tools that help you budget easily, such as BudgetBakers and Mint.
Project management software: Project management software like Trello or Asana helps you track costs related to each task in your marketing plan.
Financial analysis programs: There are financial analysis software that helps you manage budget and expenses effectively, such as QuickBooks and FreshBooks.
Corporate financial planning platforms: Some platforms are specifically designed to help businesses budget and plan costs, such as PlanGuru and LivePlan.
Economic analysis tools: These tools help you estimate future costs, expected revenues, and potential profits, such as ProjectionHub and Profitbase.
Ready-made budget templates: You can use ready-made financial budget and cost planning templates to simplify the drawing up process.
Financial Consultants: You can talk to financial experts and consultants to get help and guidance in setting the right budget.

Using these tools will help you budget accurately and plan costs effectively. The budget should be comprehensive and include all the expected expenses and disbursements you will need to successfully implement your marketing plan.

Step 6: Define performance indicators (KPIs)

Determine the KPIs that will be used to measure the success of the marketing plan and the achievement of set goals. Performance indicators can be number of sales, traffic volume, conversion rates, and social media interactions.

Here are some tools you can use to define performance indicators:

Google Analytics: It provides comprehensive analytics for your website, such as traffic, conversion rate, traffic sources, and other important data to measure your site's performance.
Google Search Console: Track your site's performance in search engines, the keywords it appears in, and its strengths and weaknesses.
Facebook Insights: To measure the performance of the company's Facebook page, including the extent to which followers interact with the content and the growth of the page.
Twitter Analytics: It allows you to monitor the performance of your Twitter account, such as the number of followers, tweets shared, and user interaction.
LinkedIn Analytics: It enables you to monitor the performance of the company's page on LinkedIn, including the interaction rate and audience distribution.
Instagram Insights: It helps you monitor the performance of a company's Instagram account and understand how much followers interact with the content.
Buffer Analytics: Track the performance of different social media accounts in one place, including engagement rate and most popular tweets.
HubSpot: A comprehensive marketing platform that provides a range of performance analysis and reporting tools.
Kissmetrics: It provides detailed analytics about user experiences and behavior analysis across your site.
Mixpanel: It helps you track and analyze users' interaction with your products and apps.
Salesforce: Allows you to track and analyze the performance of your marketing and sales efforts.
hot jar: Provides traffic and interaction analytics on your site such as heat maps and logs.

Using these tools will help you define KPIs, track the performance of your marketing campaigns, and achieve the desired results. You can also combine some of these tools together to get comprehensive and integrated insights into the performance of your marketing strategies.

Step 7: Implementation and follow-up

Implement your marketing plan carefully and update and revise it regularly. Monitor the performance of the marketing campaign and verify the achievement of set goals and performance indicators.

Step 8: Evaluate and improve

Based on the analysis and performance, regularly evaluate, update and improve the marketing plan to achieve the best results.

With these steps, you can develop a successful marketing plan that will help you achieve success in the daily competitive market. The plan must be flexible and adapt to changes and developments in the market to ensure the company's continued success and the achievement of its business objectives.

Marketing plan template

The marketing plan is prepared based on analyzing the market and customers and identifying opportunities and challenges. Here is a general template for a marketing plan:

executive summary:

A brief overview of the company and target product/service.
Determine key marketing objectives.

Market and competition analysis:

Describe your target market and ideal customers.
Analyze competitors and competitive opportunities.

Marketing strategy:

Determine the general marketing strategy that you will follow to achieve the goals.
Describe how to achieve the product/service's unique marketing message.

Marketing tactics:

Detail the tactics you will use to implement the strategy.
Describe the marketing channels used such as social media, email, advertising, etc.
Determine the timing and schedule for implementing each tactic.
Determine the marketing budget and distribute it to different tactics.

Performance indicators (KPIs):

Determine the performance indicators that will be used to measure the success of the marketing plan.

Implementation and follow-up:

Details of the implementation of the marketing plan and who is responsible for each tactic.
A timetable for monitoring and measuring plan performance.

Evaluation and improvement:

Evaluate the results of the marketing plan and analyze the performance of tactics.
Identify future improvements and adjustments needed to improve results.

This is a generic marketing plan template, and you can customize and modify it based on the needs of your company and specific products or services. You may need additional details and more detailed planning depending on the size and requirements of your business.

At the conclusion of this article, it can be said that developing a successful marketing plan is a crucial step to achieve commercial success and achieve the desired goals of the company or product. The process of developing a marketing plan requires careful analysis of the market and customers and identifying the opportunities and challenges that the company faces.

By following specific steps and using the appropriate tools, you can develop an integrated marketing plan that focuses on achieving added value for customers, enhances brand awareness, and improves the company’s performance in the competitive market.

When your marketing plan is flexible and adaptable to changes in the market and customer needs, you can achieve success and achieve your business goals with confidence.

Do not forget that good implementation and careful follow-up are the key to true success. Continue to measure performance, analyze results, and use the information to improve your marketing strategies and achieve desired goals.

In the end, always remember that a marketing plan is not a fixed document but a guiding framework upon which your marketing activities are based. Be prepared to adapt, continually improve and exploit growth and development opportunities in a changing market. With a strong will and thoughtful strategic execution, you will exceed your expectations and achieve outstanding success in the daily competitive market.

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Home » Marketing Strategy vs. Marketing Plan? (The Difference)

Marketing Strategy vs. Marketing Plan? (The Difference)

A company’s success relies heavily on the right marketing strategy supported by a robust marketing plan.

That said, beginning marketers often confuse these two concepts and consider them to mean the same thing.

But they are very different. Here’s how:

A marketing strategy answers the “why”.
A marketing plan answers the “how”.

What Is the Difference Between a Marketing Strategy and a Marketing Plan?

A good exercise to think clearly about the differences between a marketing strategy and a marketing plan is to compare a SWOT analysis against the Marketing Mix . A SWOT analysis is a structured review of the organization while the marketing mix plans the activities to bring your product or service to market.

A marketing strategy and a marketing plan are different in three distinctive ways:

by definition,
purpose, and

A business strategy informs what goes into a marketing strategy.

A marketing strategy explains why you intend to perform specific marketing actions.

For example, if your startup wishes to scale up, the marketing strategy you develop will help you reach this goal, perhaps by building a customer base or through social media marketing.

On the other hand, a marketing plan describes how you intend to implement the actions laid out in the marketing strategy.

It provides the specifics regarding branding, scheduling the communication channels you intend to use.

A marketing plan comes after a marketing strategy.

Moreover, one of the main focal points of any good marketing plan is monitoring the success of your marketing actions using key performance indicators (KPIs) .

These KPIs are crucial not only for measuring progress but also in ensuring the marketing plan lines up with the marketing strategy. A regular SWOT analysis is also a helpful activity to help you with your marketing strategy.

How Do You Develop a Marketing Strategy?

A marketing strategy consists of the following practical steps.

1. Develop a marketing plan

Building a robust marketing plan will include the following components:

Branding . How you sell the company matters. You need to determine the brand voice and incorporate this element in marketing campaigns.
Timeline and budget . These two components are essential, particularly for small businesses that have limited funds.
Roles . The success of a marketing plan requires that those involved in the execution understand and perform their functions.
Content strategy . This strategy describes the schedule for dispensing the content, the communication channels, and the type of incentives you intend to use.

2. Identify buyer personas

A buyer persona is a company’s depiction of an ideal customer. When developing this persona, an organization must consider several aspects, including:

Demographics like age, income, and gender
Psychographic factors such as interests and lifestyle

For instance, Netflix and other streaming services use behavioral segmentation. Here, the company knows which content to recommend based on watch history. Another example would be to look at fashion brands’ buyer persona. Zara’s buyer persona is a fashion-forward customer with mid-range income who lives in an urban area.

3. Determine marketing goals

As mentioned earlier, you should typically model your marketing strategy after your overall business goals. Plus, such a strategy will remain consistent. And will only change if your team meets its marketing goals.

Moreover, you may also need to revise these goals if there are any significant market changes, for instance, new technological trends or if you launch new products/services. Standard marketing goals include:

Market development
Increased brand awareness
Wider customer base
Increased sales

4. Understand the market

Market research is one of the essential elements of a marketing strategy. It helps you build the right buyer persona, stay updated on market changes and boost your business performance. Like other steps mentioned earlier, it would be wise to set clear goals for market research. Doing so reduces the scope making it easier to get accurate and relevant results.

Market research involves gathering information such as the market size, demographics, trends, and growth. Pay attention to specific matters like data availability and credibility when undertaking this process.

5. Competitive analysis

The competitive analysis provides valuable information about your competitors, including their pricing, advertisement strategies, plus strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, this process lets you in on your unique value proposition.

To understand your competitor’s strategies, ask yourself the following questions. Are your competitors:

Attempting to create new markets?
Trying to expand their market share?
Bringing in technologically advanced products?

Once you’ve made a competitor profile, here’s how to go about the analysis.

Examine the competition’s offerings. Start by examining your competitors’ products and their unique properties.
Establish your competitor’s market share. A comprehensive market share can influence consumer perception and benchmarks for the product/service.
Identify your company’s competitive position and develop appropriate strategies. Some potential ones include lowering prices, ramping up advertisements, or buying out the competition.

Examples of Successful Marketing Strategies

Here are two notable successful marketing strategies.

Spotify, a music streaming service, found a way to provide its listeners with a unique user experience, setting it apart from other providers. Besides the standard genre filters, Spotify offers users a chance to select music based on their current mood.

Sephora introduced a “Beauty Insider” loyalty program that rewards shoppers based on their spending levels.

Beauty Insider (no minimum costs)
VIB (at least $350 spent)
VIB Rouge ($1000 minimum purchases)

Effective Marketing Strategies and Plans Equal Successful Business Strategy Goals

The success of an organization’s marketing actions requires a great marketing strategy and a good marketing plan. While different, a marketing strategy and plan mesh together to improve brand awareness, facilitate customer acquisition, provide a competitive edge, boost sales performance and ultimately gain a customer and keep a customer.

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COMMENTS

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Business Plan vs. Marketing Plan: What is the Difference?
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A business plan covers the entire business, from strategy and mission to financial plans, and operational strategy. A marketing plan contains specific strategies for getting the product to market.
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The main difference between a Business Plan and Marketing Plan is that a Business Plan outlines overall goals and strategies for the entire company, while a Marketing Plan focuses specifically on promoting products or services.
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Marketing plan vs business plan: What’s the difference?

The bottom line

Business Plan vs. Marketing Plan

1. Executive Summary

2. Company Description/Overview

3. Products or Services Offered

4. Market Analysis

Industry analysis

Competitor analysis

Target market analysis

SWOT analysis

5. Marketing and Sales Strategies

Marketing and advertising plan

Sales strategy and tactics

Pricing strategy

6. Operations and Management

Operational plan

Technology plan

Management and organizational structure

Personnel plan

7. Financial Plan

Startup Costs

Financial projections

Break-even analysis

Funding requirements and sources

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

8. Appendices

1. Marketing Objectives

2. Target Market

What Problem Are You Solving?

Research Your Market and Competition

Talk to Potential Customers

Create Customer Profiles

3. Value Proposition

4. Marketing Activities

5. Marketing Budget

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