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How to Write a Business Plan: Step-by-Step Guide + Examples

Noah Parsons

24 min. read

Updated May 7, 2024

Writing a business plan doesn’t have to be complicated. 

In this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to write a business plan that’s detailed enough to impress bankers and potential investors, while giving you the tools to start, run, and grow a successful business.

• The basics of business planning

If you’re reading this guide, then you already know why you need a business plan . 

You understand that planning helps you: 

• Raise money
• Grow strategically
• Keep your business on the right track 

As you start to write your plan, it’s useful to zoom out and remember what a business plan is .

At its core, a business plan is an overview of the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy: how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

Most business plans also include financial forecasts for the future. These set sales goals, budget for expenses, and predict profits and cash flow. 

A good business plan is much more than just a document that you write once and forget about. It’s also a guide that helps you outline and achieve your goals. 

After completing your plan, you can use it as a management tool to track your progress toward your goals. Updating and adjusting your forecasts and budgets as you go is one of the most important steps you can take to run a healthier, smarter business. 

We’ll dive into how to use your plan later in this article.

There are many different types of plans , but we’ll go over the most common type here, which includes everything you need for an investor-ready plan. However, if you’re just starting out and are looking for something simpler—I recommend starting with a one-page business plan . It’s faster and easier to create. 

It’s also the perfect place to start if you’re just figuring out your idea, or need a simple strategic plan to use inside your business.

Dig deeper : How to write a one-page business plan

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• What to include in your business plan

Executive summary

The executive summary is an overview of your business and your plans. It comes first in your plan and is ideally just one to two pages. Most people write it last because it’s a summary of the complete business plan.

Ideally, the executive summary can act as a stand-alone document that covers the highlights of your detailed plan. 

In fact, it’s common for investors to ask only for the executive summary when evaluating your business. If they like what they see in the executive summary, they’ll often follow up with a request for a complete plan, a pitch presentation , or more in-depth financial forecasts .

Your executive summary should include:

• A summary of the problem you are solving
• A description of your product or service
• An overview of your target market
• A brief description of your team
• A summary of your financials
• Your funding requirements (if you are raising money)

Dig Deeper: How to write an effective executive summary

Products and services description

This is where you describe exactly what you’re selling, and how it solves a problem for your target market. The best way to organize this part of your plan is to start by describing the problem that exists for your customers. After that, you can describe how you plan to solve that problem with your product or service. 

This is usually called a problem and solution statement .

To truly showcase the value of your products and services, you need to craft a compelling narrative around your offerings. How will your product or service transform your customers’ lives or jobs? A strong narrative will draw in your readers.

This is also the part of the business plan to discuss any competitive advantages you may have, like specific intellectual property or patents that protect your product. If you have any initial sales, contracts, or other evidence that your product or service is likely to sell, include that information as well. It will show that your idea has traction , which can help convince readers that your plan has a high chance of success.

Market analysis

Your target market is a description of the type of people that you plan to sell to. You might even have multiple target markets, depending on your business. 

A market analysis is the part of your plan where you bring together all of the information you know about your target market. Basically, it’s a thorough description of who your customers are and why they need what you’re selling. You’ll also include information about the growth of your market and your industry .

Try to be as specific as possible when you describe your market. 

Include information such as age, income level, and location—these are what’s called “demographics.” If you can, also describe your market’s interests and habits as they relate to your business—these are “psychographics.” 

Related: Target market examples

Essentially, you want to include any knowledge you have about your customers that is relevant to how your product or service is right for them. With a solid target market, it will be easier to create a sales and marketing plan that will reach your customers. That’s because you know who they are, what they like to do, and the best ways to reach them.

Next, provide any additional information you have about your market. 

What is the size of your market ? Is the market growing or shrinking? Ideally, you’ll want to demonstrate that your market is growing over time, and also explain how your business is positioned to take advantage of any expected changes in your industry.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write a market analysis

Competitive analysis

Part of defining your business opportunity is determining what your competitive advantage is. To do this effectively, you need to know as much about your competitors as your target customers. 

Every business has some form of competition. If you don’t think you have competitors, then explore what alternatives there are in the market for your product or service. 

For example: In the early years of cars, their main competition was horses. For social media, the early competition was reading books, watching TV, and talking on the phone.

A good competitive analysis fully lays out the competitive landscape and then explains how your business is different. Maybe your products are better made, or cheaper, or your customer service is superior. Maybe your competitive advantage is your location – a wide variety of factors can ultimately give you an advantage.

Dig Deeper: How to write a competitive analysis for your business plan

Marketing and sales plan

The marketing and sales plan covers how you will position your product or service in the market, the marketing channels and messaging you will use, and your sales tactics. 

The best place to start with a marketing plan is with a positioning statement . 

This explains how your business fits into the overall market, and how you will explain the advantages of your product or service to customers. You’ll use the information from your competitive analysis to help you with your positioning. 

For example: You might position your company as the premium, most expensive but the highest quality option in the market. Or your positioning might focus on being locally owned and that shoppers support the local economy by buying your products.

Once you understand your positioning, you’ll bring this together with the information about your target market to create your marketing strategy . 

This is how you plan to communicate your message to potential customers. Depending on who your customers are and how they purchase products like yours, you might use many different strategies, from social media advertising to creating a podcast. Your marketing plan is all about how your customers discover who you are and why they should consider your products and services. 

While your marketing plan is about reaching your customers—your sales plan will describe the actual sales process once a customer has decided that they’re interested in what you have to offer. 

If your business requires salespeople and a long sales process, describe that in this section. If your customers can “self-serve” and just make purchases quickly on your website, describe that process. 

A good sales plan picks up where your marketing plan leaves off. The marketing plan brings customers in the door and the sales plan is how you close the deal.

Together, these specific plans paint a picture of how you will connect with your target audience, and how you will turn them into paying customers.

Dig deeper: What to include in your sales and marketing plan

Business operations

The operations section describes the necessary requirements for your business to run smoothly. It’s where you talk about how your business works and what day-to-day operations look like. 

Depending on how your business is structured, your operations plan may include elements of the business like:

• Supply chain management
• Manufacturing processes
• Equipment and technology
• Distribution

Some businesses distribute their products and reach their customers through large retailers like Amazon.com, Walmart, Target, and grocery store chains. 

These businesses should review how this part of their business works. The plan should discuss the logistics and costs of getting products onto store shelves and any potential hurdles the business may have to overcome.

If your business is much simpler than this, that’s OK. This section of your business plan can be either extremely short or more detailed, depending on the type of business you are building.

For businesses selling services, such as physical therapy or online software, you can use this section to describe the technology you’ll leverage, what goes into your service, and who you will partner with to deliver your services.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write the operations chapter of your plan

Key milestones and metrics

Although it’s not required to complete your business plan, mapping out key business milestones and the metrics can be incredibly useful for measuring your success.

Good milestones clearly lay out the parameters of the task and set expectations for their execution. You’ll want to include:

• A description of each task
• The proposed due date
• Who is responsible for each task

If you have a budget, you can include projected costs to hit each milestone. You don’t need extensive project planning in this section—just list key milestones you want to hit and when you plan to hit them. This is your overall business roadmap. 

Possible milestones might be:

• Website launch date
• Store or office opening date
• First significant sales
• Break even date
• Business licenses and approvals

You should also discuss the key numbers you will track to determine your success. Some common metrics worth tracking include:

• Conversion rates
• Customer acquisition costs
• Profit per customer
• Repeat purchases

It’s perfectly fine to start with just a few metrics and grow the number you are tracking over time. You also may find that some metrics simply aren’t relevant to your business and can narrow down what you’re tracking.

Dig Deeper: How to use milestones in your business plan

Organization and management team

Investors don’t just look for great ideas—they want to find great teams. Use this chapter to describe your current team and who you need to hire . You should also provide a quick overview of your location and history if you’re already up and running.

Briefly highlight the relevant experiences of each key team member in the company. It’s important to make the case for why yours is the right team to turn an idea into a reality. 

Do they have the right industry experience and background? Have members of the team had entrepreneurial successes before? 

If you still need to hire key team members, that’s OK. Just note those gaps in this section.

Your company overview should also include a summary of your company’s current business structure . The most common business structures include:

• Sole proprietor
• Partnership

Be sure to provide an overview of how the business is owned as well. Does each business partner own an equal portion of the business? How is ownership divided? 

Potential lenders and investors will want to know the structure of the business before they will consider a loan or investment.

Dig Deeper: How to write about your company structure and team

Financial plan

Last, but certainly not least, is your financial plan chapter. 

Entrepreneurs often find this section the most daunting. But, business financials for most startups are less complicated than you think, and a business degree is certainly not required to build a solid financial forecast. 

A typical financial forecast in a business plan includes the following:

• Sales forecast : An estimate of the sales expected over a given period. You’ll break down your forecast into the key revenue streams that you expect to have.
• Expense budget : Your planned spending such as personnel costs , marketing expenses, and taxes.
• Profit & Loss : Brings together your sales and expenses and helps you calculate planned profits.
• Cash Flow : Shows how cash moves into and out of your business. It can predict how much cash you’ll have on hand at any given point in the future.
• Balance Sheet : A list of the assets, liabilities, and equity in your company. In short, it provides an overview of the financial health of your business. 

A strong business plan will include a description of assumptions about the future, and potential risks that could impact the financial plan. Including those will be especially important if you’re writing a business plan to pursue a loan or other investment.

Dig Deeper: How to create financial forecasts and budgets

This is the place for additional data, charts, or other information that supports your plan.

Including an appendix can significantly enhance the credibility of your plan by showing readers that you’ve thoroughly considered the details of your business idea, and are backing your ideas up with solid data.

Just remember that the information in the appendix is meant to be supplementary. Your business plan should stand on its own, even if the reader skips this section.

Dig Deeper : What to include in your business plan appendix

Optional: Business plan cover page

Adding a business plan cover page can make your plan, and by extension your business, seem more professional in the eyes of potential investors, lenders, and partners. It serves as the introduction to your document and provides necessary contact information for stakeholders to reference.

Your cover page should be simple and include:

• Company logo
• Business name
• Value proposition (optional)
• Business plan title
• Completion and/or update date
• Address and contact information
• Confidentiality statement

Just remember, the cover page is optional. If you decide to include it, keep it very simple and only spend a short amount of time putting it together.

Dig Deeper: How to create a business plan cover page

How to use AI to help write your business plan

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT can speed up the business plan writing process and help you think through concepts like market segmentation and competition. These tools are especially useful for taking ideas that you provide and converting them into polished text for your business plan.

The best way to use AI for your business plan is to leverage it as a collaborator , not a replacement for human creative thinking and ingenuity. 

AI can come up with lots of ideas and act as a brainstorming partner. It’s up to you to filter through those ideas and figure out which ones are realistic enough to resonate with your customers. 

There are pros and cons of using AI to help with your business plan . So, spend some time understanding how it can be most helpful before just outsourcing the job to AI.

Learn more: 10 AI prompts you need to write a business plan

• Writing tips and strategies

To help streamline the business plan writing process, here are a few tips and key questions to answer to make sure you get the most out of your plan and avoid common mistakes .  

Determine why you are writing a business plan

Knowing why you are writing a business plan will determine your approach to your planning project. 

For example: If you are writing a business plan for yourself, or just to use inside your own business , you can probably skip the section about your team and organizational structure. 

If you’re raising money, you’ll want to spend more time explaining why you’re looking to raise the funds and exactly how you will use them.

Regardless of how you intend to use your business plan , think about why you are writing and what you’re trying to get out of the process before you begin.

Keep things concise

Probably the most important tip is to keep your business plan short and simple. There are no prizes for long business plans . The longer your plan is, the less likely people are to read it. 

So focus on trimming things down to the essentials your readers need to know. Skip the extended, wordy descriptions and instead focus on creating a plan that is easy to read —using bullets and short sentences whenever possible.

Have someone review your business plan

Writing a business plan in a vacuum is never a good idea. Sometimes it’s helpful to zoom out and check if your plan makes sense to someone else. You also want to make sure that it’s easy to read and understand.

Don’t wait until your plan is “done” to get a second look. Start sharing your plan early, and find out from readers what questions your plan leaves unanswered. This early review cycle will help you spot shortcomings in your plan and address them quickly, rather than finding out about them right before you present your plan to a lender or investor.

If you need a more detailed review, you may want to explore hiring a professional plan writer to thoroughly examine it.

Use a free business plan template and business plan examples to get started

Knowing what information to include in a business plan is sometimes not quite enough. If you’re struggling to get started or need additional guidance, it may be worth using a business plan template. 

There are plenty of great options available (we’ve rounded up our 8 favorites to streamline your search).

But, if you’re looking for a free downloadable business plan template , you can get one right now; download the template used by more than 1 million businesses. 

Or, if you just want to see what a completed business plan looks like, check out our library of over 550 free business plan examples . 

We even have a growing list of industry business planning guides with tips for what to focus on depending on your business type.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

It’s easy to make mistakes when you’re writing your business plan. Some entrepreneurs get sucked into the writing and research process, and don’t focus enough on actually getting their business started. 

Here are a few common mistakes and how to avoid them:

Not talking to your customers : This is one of the most common mistakes. It’s easy to assume that your product or service is something that people want. Before you invest too much in your business and too much in the planning process, make sure you talk to your prospective customers and have a good understanding of their needs.

• Overly optimistic sales and profit forecasts: By nature, entrepreneurs are optimistic about the future. But it’s good to temper that optimism a little when you’re planning, and make sure your forecasts are grounded in reality. 
• Spending too much time planning: Yes, planning is crucial. But you also need to get out and talk to customers, build prototypes of your product and figure out if there’s a market for your idea. Make sure to balance planning with building.
• Not revising the plan: Planning is useful, but nothing ever goes exactly as planned. As you learn more about what’s working and what’s not—revise your plan, your budgets, and your revenue forecast. Doing so will provide a more realistic picture of where your business is going, and what your financial needs will be moving forward.
• Not using the plan to manage your business: A good business plan is a management tool. Don’t just write it and put it on the shelf to collect dust – use it to track your progress and help you reach your goals.
• Presenting your business plan

The planning process forces you to think through every aspect of your business and answer questions that you may not have thought of. That’s the real benefit of writing a business plan – the knowledge you gain about your business that you may not have been able to discover otherwise.

With all of this knowledge, you’re well prepared to convert your business plan into a pitch presentation to present your ideas. 

A pitch presentation is a summary of your plan, just hitting the highlights and key points. It’s the best way to present your business plan to investors and team members.

Dig Deeper: Learn what key slides should be included in your pitch deck

Use your business plan to manage your business

One of the biggest benefits of planning is that it gives you a tool to manage your business better. With a revenue forecast, expense budget, and projected cash flow, you know your targets and where you are headed.

And yet, nothing ever goes exactly as planned – it’s the nature of business.

That’s where using your plan as a management tool comes in. The key to leveraging it for your business is to review it periodically and compare your forecasts and projections to your actual results.

Start by setting up a regular time to review the plan – a monthly review is a good starting point. During this review, answer questions like:

• Did you meet your sales goals?
• Is spending following your budget?
• Has anything gone differently than what you expected?

Now that you see whether you’re meeting your goals or are off track, you can make adjustments and set new targets. 

Maybe you’re exceeding your sales goals and should set new, more aggressive goals. In that case, maybe you should also explore more spending or hiring more employees. 

Or maybe expenses are rising faster than you projected. If that’s the case, you would need to look at where you can cut costs.

A plan, and a method for comparing your plan to your actual results , is the tool you need to steer your business toward success.

Learn More: How to run a regular plan review

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How to write a business plan FAQ

What is a business plan?

A document that describes your business , the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy, how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

What are the benefits of a business plan?

A business plan helps you understand where you want to go with your business and what it will take to get there. It reduces your overall risk, helps you uncover your business’s potential, attracts investors, and identifies areas for growth.

Having a business plan ultimately makes you more confident as a business owner and more likely to succeed for a longer period of time.

What are the 7 steps of a business plan?

The seven steps to writing a business plan include:

• Write a brief executive summary
• Describe your products and services.
• Conduct market research and compile data into a cohesive market analysis.
• Describe your marketing and sales strategy.
• Outline your organizational structure and management team.
• Develop financial projections for sales, revenue, and cash flow.
• Add any additional documents to your appendix.

What are the 5 most common business plan mistakes?

There are plenty of mistakes that can be made when writing a business plan. However, these are the 5 most common that you should do your best to avoid:

• 1. Not taking the planning process seriously.
• Having unrealistic financial projections or incomplete financial information.
• Inconsistent information or simple mistakes.
• Failing to establish a sound business model.
• Not having a defined purpose for your business plan.

What questions should be answered in a business plan?

Writing a business plan is all about asking yourself questions about your business and being able to answer them through the planning process. You’ll likely be asking dozens and dozens of questions for each section of your plan.

However, these are the key questions you should ask and answer with your business plan:

• How will your business make money?
• Is there a need for your product or service?
• Who are your customers?
• How are you different from the competition?
• How will you reach your customers?
• How will you measure success?

How long should a business plan be?

The length of your business plan fully depends on what you intend to do with it. From the SBA and traditional lender point of view, a business plan needs to be whatever length necessary to fully explain your business. This means that you prove the viability of your business, show that you understand the market, and have a detailed strategy in place.

If you intend to use your business plan for internal management purposes, you don’t necessarily need a full 25-50 page business plan. Instead, you can start with a one-page plan to get all of the necessary information in place.

What are the different types of business plans?

While all business plans cover similar categories, the style and function fully depend on how you intend to use your plan. Here are a few common business plan types worth considering.

Traditional business plan: The tried-and-true traditional business plan is a formal document meant to be used when applying for funding or pitching to investors. This type of business plan follows the outline above and can be anywhere from 10-50 pages depending on the amount of detail included, the complexity of your business, and what you include in your appendix.

Business model canvas: The business model canvas is a one-page template designed to demystify the business planning process. It removes the need for a traditional, copy-heavy business plan, in favor of a single-page outline that can help you and outside parties better explore your business idea.

One-page business plan: This format is a simplified version of the traditional plan that focuses on the core aspects of your business. You’ll typically stick with bullet points and single sentences. It’s most useful for those exploring ideas, needing to validate their business model, or who need an internal plan to help them run and manage their business.

Lean Plan: The Lean Plan is less of a specific document type and more of a methodology. It takes the simplicity and styling of the one-page business plan and turns it into a process for you to continuously plan, test, review, refine, and take action based on performance. It’s faster, keeps your plan concise, and ensures that your plan is always up-to-date.

What’s the difference between a business plan and a strategic plan?

A business plan covers the “who” and “what” of your business. It explains what your business is doing right now and how it functions. The strategic plan explores long-term goals and explains “how” the business will get there. It encourages you to look more intently toward the future and how you will achieve your vision.

However, when approached correctly, your business plan can actually function as a strategic plan as well. If kept lean, you can define your business, outline strategic steps, and track ongoing operations all with a single plan.

See why 1.2 million entrepreneurs have written their business plans with LivePlan

Noah is the COO at Palo Alto Software, makers of the online business plan app LivePlan. He started his career at Yahoo! and then helped start the user review site Epinions.com. From there he started a software distribution business in the UK before coming to Palo Alto Software to run the marketing and product teams.

Table of Contents

• Use AI to help write your plan
• Common planning mistakes
• Manage with your business plan
• Templates and examples

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Business Plan Mind Map Template

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• Business Plan

Use our business mind map template to craft comprehensive business plans. This mind map offers a solid structure for any business plan, which is an essential component when outlining a business format. Thorough business plans are also useful for companies in the long term, as investment firms are always drawn to them.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a strategic document that showcases the roadmap of a business. It is also a vital component for new companies preparing for launch, as it communicates their identity, their mission, essential goals, as well as the strategy needed to reach them.

When do you need a business plan?

A solid business plan helps you grow your business and keeps you focused on the goals you have set up. Depending on the growth phase your business is in, other circumstances might require you to have a business plan at hand. Here are a few of them:

• Searching for investment rounds or loans
• Planning to hire and retain new valuable talent
• Looking for new business partners

What are the elements of a good business plan?

Our mind map template includes seven essential steps any business plan should cover. Once you have filled in the gaps, you can focus on achieving your goals. Here are some key elements you need to consider:

1. Executive summary

This part should be short and concise. Ensure that it contains a clear snapshot of your business and includes strategic points such as the business concept, mission statement, financial information, milestones or achievements, legal and administrative business information.

2. Business description

Start by offering information related to the industry the business is in - other markets or new emerging technologies that may impact your business is an excellent place to start.

Include information about the ownership structure of the company - are you the sole founder, or do multiple partners own the company? If you depend on partnerships or key resources, this is a good place to mention them. You can offer more details in the upcoming sections.

Financial projections, as well as the expected revenue, must also be included in this part, along with the sales, distribution, and promotion strategies you have devised. How do these connect to your business’ success?

3. Products and services

Describe the services or products you want to sell. Offer more details on what makes your business stand out and how you can stay ahead of the competition. What are the most significant opportunities for your product? What are the greatest threats you may be facing in the future?

4. Market strategies

Perform in-depth market research to become familiar with your competitors and uncover your target audience. Based on competition, you will be able to establish distribution, pricing tiers, as well as promotional strategies. Once you have managed to determine these elements, performing a market share projection becomes mandatory.

5. Development and operations

This category integrates three main concepts: product development, personnel, and budget. Setting up goals for product development should focus on two areas: technical and marketing. Specialized expertise is a requirement, which is why hiring personnel needs to become a priority. As budget ties into every aspect of a business, it needs to be meticulously planned and managed.

6. Management summary

This part is located at the end of the business plan and incorporates the founders’ story, along with the company’s organizational structure. State the key roles of your organization, as well as the persons who will fill them.

7. Financial information

Financial information refers to cash flow statements and balance sheets. Both highlight your business’ financial mechanism. Add a balance sheet and provide an extensive overview of assets, liability and equity.

Using the business plan mind map template in Moqups

Transparency is critical when it comes to disclosing business-related facts to potential investors. Moqups offers a wide variety of chart templates you can use for data visualization to ensure that the information you share is easily understood and can be analyzed immediately.

Mind mapping your business plan in Moqups provides you with the possibility of using a wide variety of features that go beyond the creation of your document.

With Moqups, you can map out processes that are vital to the success of your business. Our app lets you collaborate with business partners in real-time, and, based on mutual feedback, you will be able to adjust and improve your business plan so that it meets everyone’s expectations.

Teams that created Business Plan also worked on...

Begin anywhere with Moqups.

Your diagrams and flowcharts don’t have to remain in a silo. You can quickly link them to other visual assets like wireframes, mockups, charts, and graphs – all within the same Moqups project!

Moqups lets your team create their own workflow – and go where the project takes them – by removing the blocks, barriers, and obstacles of single-purpose apps.

• Ecommerce Website
• Landing Page Wireframe
• Admin Dashboard Wireframe
• Low Fidelity Wireframe
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• Blog Page Wireframe
• Mobile App Wireframe
• Pricing Page Wireframe
• Mobile App Landing Page Wireframe
• Generic Mind Map
• Product-Launch Checklist Mind Map
• Visual-Thinking Mind Map
• Generic Site Map
• CRM Site Map
• Ecommerce Shop Site Map
• Employee Onboarding Process Map
• Procedure Review Process Map
• Client Dispute Process Map
• Holiday Request Process Map
• Use Case Diagram
• Sequence Diagram
• Class Diagram
• Database Diagram
• Ecommerce Database Diagram
• Employee Management System ERD
• Network Diagram
• Organizational Chart
• Timeline Diagram
• Concept Map
• Simple Line Graph
• Sales Line Graph
• Revenue Line Graph
• Line Chart for Sessions vs Users
• Simple Bar Graph
• Simple Stacked Bar Chart
• Sales Grouped Bar Chart
• Market Share Stacked Bar Chart
• Simple Pie Chart
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• Spending Plan Pie Chart
• Sales Pie Chart
• Simple Stacked Column Chart
• Simple Column Chart
• Grouped Column Chart for Channel Acquisition
• Stacked Column Chart for Web Traffic
• Simple Area Chart
• Simple Stacked Area Chart
• Area Chart for Revenue vs Expenses
• Stacked Area Chart for Gross Revenue
• Sales Funnel Chart
• Online Funnel Chart
• Recruitment Funnel Chart
• Gantt Chart
• Business Model Canvas
• Customer Journey Map
• SWOT Analysis
• Release Roadmap
• User Persona
• Eisenhower Matrix
• Empathy Map
• User Story Mapping
• Kanban Board
• Cause and Effect Diagram
• Affinity Diagram
• Wireframe Tool
• Flowchart Maker
• Graph Maker

Business Plan Mind Map Template

Organize your strategy for success with the business plan mind map template.

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About the Business Plan Mind Map Template

The Business Plan Mind Map Template is valuable for simplifying and creating a comprehensive business strategy. This template organizes thoughts, ideas, and data in a visual format, which makes it easier to understand the various components of a solid business plan. It acts as a roadmap to guide you in developing a business strategy systematically.

The template itself is structured to cover all critical areas of a business plan. It includes sections such as Executive Summary, Market Analysis, Marketing Plan, Operations Plan, Financial Plan, and more. Each section is represented as a branch of the mind map, allowing users to expand and explore individual topics in depth. By breaking down the complex business planning process into manageable segments, the template makes it easier to focus on specific aspects, ensuring no critical element is overlooked.

How to use the Business Plan Mind Map Template in Miro

Utilizing the Business Plan Mind Map Template is straightforward and user-friendly. Here's how to get started:

Begin by editing the central node to reflect the main focus of the business plan.

Expand each branch to delve into specific areas of the plan. This can be done with just a few clicks, making adding, removing, or rearranging elements effortless.

Leverage the automated mind mapping features to effortlessly add more branches and sub-branches, ensuring a comprehensive exploration of each section.

Enhance the mind map by adding artifacts like images, documents, and links directly onto the board, providing additional context and information.

Miro's intuitive approach to mind mapping simplifies creating a detailed and compelling business plan.

Why should you use a Business Plan Mind Map Template?

There are several key benefits to using a Business Plan Mind Map Template:

Enhanced Clarity : It visually organizes complex information, making it easier to understand and communicate the business strategy.

Efficiency : Saves time by providing a structured approach to planning, reducing the likelihood of overlooking essential elements.

Flexibility : Easily adaptable to different business models and strategies.

Collaboration : Facilitates teamwork by allowing multiple users to contribute and view the plan in real time.

Creativity : Encourages innovative thinking by visually linking related ideas and concepts.

If you want to learn more and improve your mindmapping skills, take a look at our guide to mind mapping . If you'd prefer to start from scratch, Miro's mind map maker is the perfect tool to help you get started, with its easy drag-and-drop nodes functionality to help you structure your ideas.

Can the template be customized to fit specific business needs?

Yes, the template is highly customizable. Users can add, delete, or change sections tailored to their business requirements.

Get started with this template right now.

Force Field Analysis Template

Works best for:.

Diagramming, Strategic Planning

A Force Field Analysis Template is a powerful tool that helps teams identify and analyze the forces supporting or hindering progress toward a specific change or goal. This template provides a visual space where you can brainstorm and plot out 'driving forces' that push objectives forward and 'restraining forces' that prevent advancement, all on a single, intuitive board. One of the primary benefits of utilizing the Force Field Analysis template is that it fosters a shared understanding among team members. By visually mapping out and discussing each force, teams can prioritize efforts, build consensus on the central issues to tackle, and collaboratively devise strategic plans to strengthen positive influences while reducing negative ones.

CI/CD Pipeline Diagram Template

Diagramming, Development

The CI/CD template is a well-designed roadmap for software deployment that enables a smooth and automated flow from development to production. This strategic layout includes critical elements such as source code management, automation servers, container orchestration, staging environments, and the final deployment to production. One of the key benefits of using such a template is that it builds a robust deployment pipeline, which significantly reduces manual intervention and human error. By visualizing each step and integrating automation throughout, teams can achieve faster deployment cycles, ensuring that new features, updates, and fixes are delivered to users promptly and reliably. This enhanced pace does not compromise quality, as the template inherently supports continuous testing and quality assurance, ensuring that each update is quick but also secure and stable before it is delivered to the end user.

Precedence Diagram

Diagramming, Mapping

The Precedence Diagram Template offers a visual tool that maps out project activities and their interrelated sequences. This diagram empowers teams to recognize and anticipate workflow structures by illustrating the connections and dependencies among tasks.

Stage-Gate Process Flowchart Template

Diagramming, Project Management

The Stage-Gate Process Flowchart Template structures a project into distinct stages separated by decision-making gates, enhancing the quality of decisions and leading to more successful project outcomes.

Tree Diagram Template

Diagramming

The tree diagram template helps you organize and present complex information. One of its key benefits is its ability to provide unparalleled visual clarity. It enables you to simplify complicated ideas into a structured, hierarchical format, making it easier to understand and communicate. This template enhances brainstorming sessions, project planning, and decision-making processes by mapping out relationships and dependencies clearly and effortlessly. You can now say goodbye to information overload and immerse yourself in a visual journey that simplifies complexity with the tree diagram template.

Double Bubble Map Template

Diagramming, Mapping, Brainstorming

Double Bubble Map Template serves as a powerful tool to facilitate teamwork and streamline idea exploration. This adaptable template empowers teams to brainstorm, analyze, and compare concepts with ease, making it an invaluable asset for enhancing creativity and fostering clarity among team members.

Business Plan Mind Map Template

About the Business Plan Mind Map Template

What is a business plan, why should you use a business plan, for business growth, achieve business’ milestones, help in getting funding, for future improvements, no wrong way of writing a business plan, what are the key components of a business plan, how to create your own business plan the best practices, why edrawmind, related templates.

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Business Roadmap Template

Establish a clear vision, goals and plans, develop strategies to achieve the key goals of the organization and devise actionable plans to help your team achieve them..

• Multiple pre-made templates
• Collaborate with multiple stakeholders
• Export in multiple formats for presentations, publishing, and printing

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Create actionable business plans with Kanban boards, and advanced formatting options

Start creating your business roadmap with your team to get a clear overview of your tasks and milestones. Use Kanban boards, tables, and shapes to start from scratch, or select a pre-made template for a quick start. Customize text, color, and style to visualize better.

Brainstorm and plan with teams by collaborating and syncing up

Get together with your team to discuss and analyze long-term strategies and approaches. Use whiteboarding capabilities and intergrations to have dynamic discussions. Share the workspace for editing and reviewing with real-time cursors for any number of participants.

Stay on top of business plans by going from planning to execution with task tracking

Go beyond planning to execute business plans with task tracking and smart notifications, all in the same workspace. Assign tasks to team members, set due dates, track progress, and link information.

What is a Business Roadmap?

The business roadmap is a visual representation of your organization’s primary goals, objectives, and strategies. It provides a high-level overview of the big picture without going into finer details while highlighting the tasks, roles and responsibilities, and deadlines. A roadmap is essentially a timeline; you can outline what activities will take place each week, month, quarter, or year.

Another way to look at a business roadmap is as a long-term strategic document that summarizes where the company is heading and the steps needed to get there. One important thing to remember is that business roadmaps provide a certain degree of flexibility. It can be detailed or brief. Activities outlined in the business roadmap can also be changed to reflect current circumstances and the environment better.

Why Do You Need a Business Roadmap?

You may ask why you need a business roadmap when you already have a business plan. The answer is simple. While the business plan is a long and detailed document requiring in-depth reading, the business roadmap summarizes the most critical information needed to understand at a glance. The roadmap gives a general idea about what you should be doing next without any frills attached. Some advantages of using a business roadmap are,

Shows how the company or business will grow

Provides a visual timeline and an illustrative guide on tasks to make progress tracking easy

Acts as a guiding document, helping teams to understand the reasoning behind their work

Helps to keep team members and stakeholders aligned with the company’s vision and objectives

Allows to visualize tasks and deadlines that are relevant to different departments

Helps to analyze the performance of a company for future potential

How Can Teams Benefit from Using Business Roadmaps?

Roadmaps can provide a shared understanding of the project’s or organization’s direction, timeline and priorities. Below are a few ways that a team can use business roadmaps to collaborate.

• Aligns the team around a set of common goals and objectives

A roadmap helps a team to visualize the high-level direction of the project or organization. It can help team members to better understand their roles and responsibilities in achieving the objectives.

• Encourages collaboration

Roadmaps provide a shared understanding regarding the direction of the project/organization and the timeline. To make sure that everyone is on the same page, involve the team members in the roadmap planning process. Working together, the team can develop a shared vision and a sense of ownership.

• Helps to identify dependencies and risks

As the team lays out each and every step, roadmaps can help to identify potential dependencies and risks that can affect the project’s or organization’s success. The roadmap can highlight potential roadblocks and the team can work together to find solutions and mitigate risks.

• Helps to plan, prioritize and track progress of tasks

When strategizing, use a roadmap to plan, breaking down the overall vision into smaller and more manageable tasks and to prioritize what needs to be done. This will also ensure that everyone understands their role in the bigger picture, are on the same page, and will work towards the same objectives.

• Communicates progress effectively

A roadmap is a useful tool to communicate progress to stakeholders and team members. Communication is key to keeping everyone on the same loop about the project’s status and to give a head’s up if any work needs adjustments to meet the upcoming deadlines and goals. Make sure to update the roadmap regularly to include completed tasks and upcoming milestones.

Business Roadmap Examples to Get You Started

Most times, business roadmaps take on a timeline or swimlane view.

1. Timeline view : In a timeline view, the roadmap provides an overview of significant milestones/projects and deadlines by the team. Through a timeline view, you can accurately see each team’s resource and time allocations and how they contribute to the business’s overall growth. Each team will clearly understand how they must structure their work to meet the milestones and deadlines.

2. Swimlane view : The swimlane view is ideal for businesses that don’t want to allocate specific timelines to every task. You can arrange the swimlane view to show projects that are in progress, scheduled, or proposed to see how the business is developing. You can have swimlanes assigned to each department or team while organizing items by timeframes, giving a quick view of the main projects a team is working on at a given period.

There are several different types of roadmaps that you can use depending on your requirement and business function. It is important that you understand which business roadmap is suitable for your business. Some business roadmap examples include,

Business roadmap: The most frequently used roadmap that layout the business’s overall goals, projects, strategies, and deadlines. Most useful for company heads and managers who want to understand how the various departments and allocated resources work together.

Business development roadmap: This roadmap helps to visualize tasks so that you can look at the bigger picture; which tasks contribute to and enhance the business’s growth, productivity and revenue?

Business intelligence (BI) roadmap: Mostly used by business intelligence leaders or managers to visualize BI-related business areas. It maps out the connections between staff, operations, and other internal processes to see what needs to be optimized to grow the business.

Marketing strategy roadmap: Used by marketing teams, the roadmap helps to visualize the connection between marketing initiatives and the organization’s goals/projects.

Project roadmap: Dedicated to projects, this roadmap will focus on one team or a small group of people relevant only to one project. It visualizes the tasks and deliverables with clear timeframes. Useful for project managers.

Department roadmap: This roadmap focuses on a particular department and its goals. Using a department roadmap can help ensure everyone on the team is on the same page and working towards the departmental goals.

IT infrastructure roadmap: Helps to visualize the technology architecture of a business. This is useful for IT teams and professionals to better handle issues and future releases.

How to Create a Business Roadmap Template?

• Start by defining the overall vision and strategy for the business

Define where the business should go. Understand how you plan to build value for your target customer.

Use Creately’s whiteboarding capabilities and intergrations to brainstorm with your team and have dynamic discussions.

• Identify the goals, objectives, and KPIs

Keep your customers in mind when identifying goals, objectives, and KPIs. Use sticky notes and cards to note down important information.

• Prioritize and set strategies and milestones

Devise strategies outlining how you will attain the defined goals. Prioritize according to the importance and include activities and milestones to track progress and success. Strategies can be broken down into different sections as carried out by separate teams.

The team involved in the planning process can come together to dot vote to prioritize on the same canvas. Put together the roadmap template from scratch using tables or Kanban boards or use a premade template. Customize with color themes and styles for better visualization.

• Develop activities and assign tasks, responsibilities, and time frames

Develop your tactics to carry out the strategies by clearly outlining the actions of each department/team. At the same time, generate methods to measure success. Include these activities in the roadmap.

Use the task panel to assign tasks to each department and team member. Set deadlines and include additional information for each activity or milestone using the notes panel. Import documents and images if required.

• Share with others for feedback

Now you can share the workspace with others to review and finalize. Invite your team to contribute. Use in-line commenting to have discussions and follow-ups on the same canvas.

Once completed, share your business roadmap with the rest of your organization. Download it in PNG, SVG, or PDF image formats for publishing.

• Now you can streamline your tasks and track progress

Start tracking the progress and the growth of your business. Use smart notifications to inform about upcoming deadlines and when tasks are completed.

FAQs About the Business Roadmap Template

Yes, there are several differences. Though a product roadmap is sometimes defined as a type of business roadmap, there are some crucial differences between the two. They are,

Business roadmaps are usually developed annually, while product roadmaps are built to accommodate product releases, which could be weekly or monthly

A business roadmap has broader goals, while a product roadmap has goals that are specific and measurable and related to a product and users

Business roadmaps look at work at a higher level with broader milestones and deliverables, while product roadmaps layout day to day work that needs to be completed for each release

To learn more about creating a product roadmap, check out ‘The Quick Guide to Creating a Proper Product Roadmap.’

Make sure that your business roadmap is simple and easy to understand

Include the end goal, short- and long-term goals, milestones, risk factors, timelines, and all steps required to achieve the goal

The roadmap should not be too detailed but should include enough details to understand the direction

Update regularly to reflect the changing goals and environments

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BUSINESS PLAN MIND MAP​

Creating a business plan is the first step towards developing your business strategy.

However, planning always involves investing a lot of time and effort.

Wouldn’t it be great if you had the structure, so you could just add your ideas?

This map template is exactly what you need.

The outline is provided and you just need to develop your plan.

The mind map of a business plan increases its visibility and clarity, and helps you to organize your ideas and make decisions.

Download this template and create your business plan effortlessly.

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Nine business roadmap examples for scaling your organization

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Business roadmaps can take on countless forms—depending on the business function the roadmapper is in charge of.

To help narrow the scope for any business planning its own growth, we’ve outlined 9 business roadmap examples below that are aimed at organizations looking to scale. ( Btw, all of these roadmaps are available in our roadmap template library, which you can check out here! )

We’ll also be offering examples of each type of business roadmap that fall under two general formats: timeline roadmaps (roadmaps planned with specific dates in mind) and swimlane roadmaps .

Timeline-view roadmaps are, as the name suggests, roadmaps that lay out a specific timeline for a plan or strategy. These roadmaps usually highlight time-based elements per each initiative on the roadmap (like milestones, key dates, and dependencies). Swimlane-view roadmaps, on the other hand, offer fuzzier “buckets” of time for initiatives on the roadmap like backlog / in progress / completed.

Searching for the right tool for your roadmapping needs? Let our roadmap tool guide help you.

1. business roadmap.

For a company that needs a flexible document that effectively presents key business goals, dates, and plans of action relevant to all stakeholders.

What’s a business roadmap?

A business roadmap is a visualization of your company’s major objectives and strategies. Stakeholders use business roadmaps to illustrate initiatives and deadlines happening in different departments.

Like a business plan, a roadmap gives the long view of where your organization is going and how it will get there. For businesses to succeed, stakeholders need a shared understanding of the big picture. Business roadmaps knock down silos between teams and provide a clear vision of the future.

For a more detailed breakdown of what a business roadmap is and isn’t, check out our guide: What’s a Business Roadmap?

Business roadmap examples

This view also lets teams see how their work is contributing to efforts to grow the business, which in turn can help businesses see and squash any silos between departments and stakeholders.

For businesses that aren’t ready to allocate specific timeframes to every single initiative on their roadmap, that’s where a swimlane-view works really well. By showing each department’s individual projects and strategies, you can have swimlanes dedicated to each team and then organize items by any timeframe.

Think of this type of roadmap as a snapshot of each team’s primary objectives for certain periods of time. Someone should be able to look at this roadmap and quickly understand what each team is trying to achieve in each timeframe.

Align all your stakeholders around the business goals that matter using our business roadmap template .

2. Strategic roadmap

For companies with a strong vision that need a visual blueprint to stay on top of the goals that matter the most to the business.

What is a strategic roadmap?

Simply put, a strategic roadmap communicates your business’ vision. Outlining the steps to achieve your mission, a business roadmap hinges on long-term objectives and deadlines. The keyword here is long-term. That means it doesn’t include product features and short-term wins; this roadmap is reserved for overarching goals like fundraising rounds and MRR targets.

Generally owned by senior-level stakeholders, this roadmap should be accessible to every employee (not to edit per se, but to view). By granting this access, you align your individual departments on your plans to grow the business and you encourage teams to develop projects that contribute directly to said growth.

Strategic roadmap examples

For organizations planning their business growth strategy over the next few months, quarters, or years, a timeline-view of the strategic roadmap works really well. Businesses can use this time-based view of a business roadmap to track key initiatives and milestones that each of your departments will undertake to contribute to the overall mission.

A swimlane-view of the roadmap is perfect for businesses that are less strict about the “when” of their strategic planning. This roadmap assigns each team an individual swimlane and organizes their respective strategic initiatives by status. This way, any stakeholder can quickly glance and know what strategic project is upcoming, in progress, or completed.

Plan to achieve your big vision with our ready-to-use strategic roadmap template .

3. Startup roadmap

For early-stage companies that need a way to communicate and align on what to build first, in what order, and how to deliver it.

What’s a startup roadmap?

While a business roadmap can be adapted for any size organization, the common roadmap template might not be as applicable if you don't have many teams or resources. That’s why we suggest a startup roadmap for businesses still finding their footing.

A startup roadmap helps smaller businesses plan how they’ll hit the ground running and then scale to a much larger size. Because starting your own business is very much a roller coaster of an experience, a startup roadmap helps bring some clarity to the messy and experimental process.

Startups tend not to be heavily process-oriented. As a result, startup roadmaps lean more on the high-level and flexible side, so as to adapt quickly to the often chaotic startup environment. The roadmap is a small business’ way of zooming in on its end goal (hint: business growth) and mapping out a feasible plan to achieve said goal.

Startup roadmap examples

The truth is, as a startup, you’re probably not too strict about timelines. So, that’s where a swimlane-view of the startup roadmap is most useful. For startups that just aren’t as confident (or trusting) of their timelines, apply a Swimlane View for your business where the focus is on the status of the project, not when it’s getting pushed out.

Startups, we got you. Chart your growth with our customizable startup roadmap template .

4. Business development roadmap

For companies that need a way to organize teams around a market-share growth plan.

What’s a business development roadmap?

For super-speedy businesses barreling towards major growth by the end of the year, a business development roadmap is an ideal asset for your toolkit. This roadmap highlights the essential tasks that contribute to rapid revenue and market-share growth, often in a one-year timeframe.

Sales, marketing, and product teams champion this roadmap, as they use this tool to plan and communicate their business development projects that play a hand in aggressive business growth. For example, sales can use this roadmap to visualize their “land and expand” strategies, while product can outline initiatives like a referral program or live chat that will capture more customers—and ultimately rake in $$.

Business development roadmap examples

Milestones can clearly highlight the KPIs the business wants to hit during this growth period, thereby giving your teams specific goals (and deadlines) to strive towards. On top of that, you can also explicitly communicate external factors, like changes to privacy laws or updates to a certain OS, that could muddy the “biz dev” waters.

For the less deadline-oriented businesses, a swimlane-view lets you bucket your business development tasks into loose buckets such as quarters. It’s a sweet and simple way to manage all the teams’ expectations on when certain things must get done.

Reach your biz dev goals (even) faster with our business development roadmap template .

5. Business intelligence roadmap

For managers and their teams that need a tool for keeping track of and visualizing the different areas of BI everyone is working on.

What’s a business intelligence roadmap?

For business intelligence (BI) teams that want to maximize their effect on organizational decisions and growth, enlist a business intelligence roadmap. Owned and operated by BI managers and their teams, this type of roadmap visualizes and communicates all aspects of BI, from data mining and analysis to querying and reporting.

BI managers can use this roadmap to plan how their team can optimize internal business processes to be more efficient, which leads to better-informed decisions by the business. An added benefit of this roadmap is that it helps BI managers inform the rest of the organization and C-level executives about what BI is doing and how they plan on being a part of the business’ bigger picture.

Business intelligence roadmap examples

The swimlane-view of the BI roadmap hones in on the BI team’s higher-level goals versus the dates that they’re hitting. Assigning BI tasks to different business verticals like data governance, process improvement or architecture & infrastructure, this roadmap then organizes tasks based on BI goals like strategy, growth and efficiency.

Build your own business intelligence roadmap with our ready-to-use template (just like above ☝️).

6. Data strategy roadmap

For teams that need to communicate how a company’s data operations will evolve over time, as well as what resources will be required to achieve them.

What’s a data strategy roadmap?

A data strategy roadmap tells the rest of your organization how you’ll improve your business’ data operations—such as data collection, storage, management, and application. Well-planned and properly stored data = better business decisions = better organizational growth.

This roadmap tends to fall into the hands of your CIOs, CTOs, and data teams. These data-leaning individuals use this roadmap to ensure their business’ data strategy fits nicely with not only their business processes, but security and information management best practices.

Think of this roadmap as a way to answer any pressing questions—internally and externally—regarding how your business handles data. Are you legally (and ethically) collecting the right data from your users when they visit your website? Are you storing any “unclean” data that should be expunged from your records? What security protocols are in place in case of a data breach?

Data strategy roadmap examples

For more flexibility with your data strategy, apply a swimlane-view . Rather than mapping data initiatives across an extensive timeline, the team’s activities and tasks are sorted into smaller time frames like months or quarters. This way, the team (and organization) can see which types of data security initiatives are getting priority and when.

Get your data strategy in order with our data strategy roadmap template .

7. Enterprise architecture roadmap

For enterprise businesses that need a way to communicate—and align stakeholders on—a plan for evolving the organization’s infrastructure.

What’s an enterprise architecture roadmap?

Enterprises need a roadmap to bring clarity to the chaos. Designed for your big corporations and complex, towering businesses, an enterprise architecture roadmap presents how an enterprise will evolve its own infrastructure in the coming years.

Focusing on organizational agility, efficiency, and stability, this business roadmap illustrates the steps that will be taken to evolve the enterprise’s architecture from status quo to end goal. Mapping and planning this evolution communicates to the rest of the organization how the enterprise will stay competitive and brace itself for changes in the market.

Enterprise architecture roadmap examples

For enterprises that want to provide a quick summary of their business growth, a swimlane-view may be more your speed. Charting enterprise architecture projects across flexible timeframes like months or quarters, this roadmap provides an overtly transparent depiction of which project will be completed when.

Start planning how your organization's infrastructure will evolve using our enterprise architecture roadmap template

8. eCommerce roadmap

For eCommerce businesses that need a way to visually map and communicate future growth, customer acquisition strategies, and optimization efforts.

What’s an eCommerce roadmap?

An eCommerce roadmap aligns the various marketing, design, merchandising, and development initiatives involved in sustaining and growing an ecommerce platform. Milestones come in handy by marking common deadlines, such as collection launches and important seasonal retail dates.

This type of roadmap can help an organization plan the development of an online business, coordinate cross-departmental efforts, and better identify business opportunities.

eCommerce roadmap examples

And with the swimlane-view , you can get a high-level, less time-sensitive version of your ecommerce strategy.

Keep your stakeholders aligned on how you plan to grow your eCommerce business using our enterprise architecture roadmap

9. Capability roadmap

For teams that need a way to visualize the plan around resources for big, future projects.

What’s a capability roadmap?

You know those big projects you’ve always envisioned, but they’re so grand they take years to implement? A capability roadmap helps you plan how to execute these projects.

Plotting the large-scale goals a business wants to tackle in the next few quarters or years, a capability roadmap revolves around potential rather than your present projects. It plans the super-ambitious, game-changing goals beyond features and releases. Think launching five product lines in three years, or opening up a global office in Europe, or owning 25 percent of the market share in two years.

Capability roadmap examples

If a timeline is too detailed for your capability plans, a swimlane-view might be more up your alley. Organizing your plans into loose and/or fuzzy time buckets like years or “Future,” this roadmap view offers a digestible snapshot of how and when each team plans on tackling capability initiatives.

Try this template for free + check out the other 35+ roadmap templates in our library and find the perfect roadmap for your organizational needs.

Continue exploring this guide

What is a business roadmap, business roadmap templates to grow your non-product teams, you might also like these, try roadmunk for free.

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Free Process Map Templates

By Joe Weller | January 13, 2020

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Quickly diagram your company’s processes and determine how to improve them with one of these free process map templates and Gantt charts, available in Excel, Word, PDF, and Google Docs formats.

Included on this page, you’ll find many helpful process mapping templates, including a detailed process mapping template , a business process mapping template , a Six Sigma process mapping template , and Gantt chart options for process maps .

Process Map Templates

Whether you’re in sales, IT, or product or project management, a template gives you the ability to map a process with easy-to-arrange symbolic shapes — indicating a various stage, junction, or action in the process  — so that you can see all steps visually. This way, all stakeholders can analyze the effectiveness of proposed (or currently implemented) processes.

Simple Process Map Template

This template’s simple process document tab allows you to enter project-specific details, while the process flowchart tab lets you arrange flowchart symbols to define your process — add arrow connectors, steps, decisions, input/output, and decision details into a basic but comprehensive process map. Download this customizable Excel template for a one-off, unique process, or save it as a template to diagram your other processes. 

‌ Download Simple Process Document Template - Excel

Detailed Process Mapping Template

Use this template to capture processes in great detail. This process map gives you the flexibility to capture each stage of a particular process’s development — from planning to execution to maintenance — and all the steps in between, providing insight into how to further streamline a detail-rich process. 

Download Detailed Process Mapping Template - Excel

Supply Chain Process Map Template

Use this supply chain process map template to visually document your manufacturing process in order to optimize the entire operation. Specify key details related to the supply chain, such as suppliers, raw materials, manufacturing steps, the QA process, packaging, and storage and shipping logistics. Gain quick insights into your current practices and identify areas for improvement with this customizable process map template available in Excel, Word, and PDF formats. 

To learn more about this process and to find additional resources, read “ Supply Chain Management 101: Principles, Examples, and Templates .” 

Download Supply Chain Process Map Template

Excel | Word | PDF

Sales Process Map Template

Use this template to capture and visualize your sales process requirements from initial marketing campaigns to lead follow-up. Lead generation starts with gaining insight into current sales cycle practices and identifying improvements that will yield increased revenue. Use this fully customizable process map template to solidify your sales plan, and to ensure that all stages of your sales cycle translate to revenue-earning opportunities.

Download Sales Process Map Template

Business Process Mapping Template

This business process mapping template is ideal for companies that want to gain insight into their current business process and learn how to optimize it. Simply enter all the details related to your company’s particular business process, including who is responsible for which steps and stages. From there, you can analyze and determine how to improve your current process, easily cut and paste symbols related to each step, and share the document to keep everyone up to date.   

To learn more about this process and to find additional resources, read “ Essential Guide to Business Process Mapping .”

Download Business Process Mapping Template - Excel

New Employee Training Process Map Template

Onboard your company’s new employees with this customizable new-hire process map template. Reduce frequent turnover and retain top talent by mapping out a clear new employee process that helps managers, HR, trainers, and team members gain a visual grasp on the employee onboarding journey. 

To learn more about helping a new-hire become a high-performance employee and to find additional resources, read “ Complete Guide to Employee Onboarding from HR Experts .” 

Download New Employee Training Process Map Template

ISO 9001 Process Map Template

ISO 9001 certification can increase both your company’s efficiency and your customers’ satisfaction. ISO 9001 specifies the criteria for quality management systems and is the only certifiable ISO 9000-level standard. Ensure quality management systems at your company by using this free International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001 Process Map Template.

To learn more about the benefits of ISO 9001 and to find additional resources, read “ The Ultimate Guide to ISO 9000 .” 

Download ISO 9001 Process Map Template

Six Sigma Process Mapping Template

Whether you’re a Six Sigma Black Belt, or newly interested in the technique, this easy-to-use template allows you to create a process flow diagram with flowchart symbols to reflect on each step in a Six Sigma process. Use this template to analyze and revise your processes, or as a communication tool for stakeholders.

To find additional Six Sigma resources and templates, read “ Free Lean Six Sigma Templates .” 

‌ Download Six Sigma Process Map Template - Excel

Gantt Chart Options for Process Maps

Managers in practically every industry use Gantt charts to manage work and understand how to improve their company’s processes. In some cases, you can even use a Gantt chart as a process map to oversee all project elements, including task dependencies, at once.

To learn more about how Gantt charts help keep processes on track and additional resources, read our Guide to Gantt Charts .

ITIL Process Map Template

If you work in information technology (IT), you need the right process map template for your information technology infrastructure library (ITIL). By mapping the process of an IT request from start to finish (including which internal customer and department are involved, details and logistics, and assigning the request or issue to an analyst or technician), this Gantt chart process map template enables you to map IT-specific processes, so that it’s clear to everyone how IT requests are prioritized and resolved. 

To learn more about this process and to find additional resources, read a “ Beginner’s Guide to ITIL ,” which answers questions that you may encounter as you map your IT processes.

Download ITIL Process Map Template — Excel

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• Initiate with Your Business Concept: Lay the Groundwork: Start by introducing your business idea into Plannit AI's Business Plan Generator. This first step is crucial, as it sets the tone for a tailored, insightful business plan that truly resonates with your vision. Capture the Essence: Our platform is designed to grasp the nuances of your concept, ensuring that the generated plan accurately reflects the core and potential of your business.
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Home / Creating the Perfect Marketing Plan

Creating the Perfect Marketing Plan: Strategies, Templates, and In-Depth Guide

Learn how to create the perfect marketing plan with our guide packed with easy-to-follow templates and real-world examples.

Creating a marketing plan can be a baffling, confusing, and downright terrifying affair.

There you are, staring at a blank document or spreadsheet, wondering where to even begin.

That’s where marketing templates come in handy: they disperse the mist, help you organize your thoughts and goals, and give you a set of instructions to follow along the way.

In this article, we’re looking at how, more exactly, you can use marketing plan templates to build a solid strategy that’s

• Suitable for your business,
• Fully customized for your market, needs, and audience, and
• And carefully calculated to match your goals.

Keep reading to find out more!

What’s on this page

The importance of a marketing plan

• How to create a marketing plan tutorial

General marketing plan

Social media marketing plan.

• Content marketing plan template
• Competitor analysis template
• How to use templates for digital marketing

Innovative marketing plan ideas

Executing and monitoring your marketing plan.

• Maintain brand consistency
• Final words

Short answer

What is a marketing plan?

A marketing plan is a comprehensive document that details a company’s marketing strategy. It outlines the steps necessary to achieve specific business objectives, including targeting the right audience, choosing effective marketing channels, and allocating resources efficiently. This plan serves as a roadmap for implementing marketing activities that align with the company’s broader goals.

Doing marketing without a marketing plan is like walking blindly, on the edge of a cliff. Having a marketing plan, on the other hand, provides you a roadmap for your business reach and growth. It outlines your goals, target audience, and the strategies you will use to reach them.

Having a well-developed marketing plan is essential for any business, big or small. It not only helps you stay organized and on track with your marketing efforts but also allows you to measure your success and make adjustments as needed.

A properly made marketing plan will help you connect the dots between various marketing channels, ensuring your overall marketing strategy is cohesive, consistent, and effective. It also helps you allocate resources appropriately, making the most out of your budget and efforts.

Goal setting and strategic direction in marketing

Setting clear goals is foundational to any marketing plan, providing clear direction for your marketing efforts and benchmarks for success. A marketing plan defines these goals in the context of your business’s overall objectives, ensuring that each marketing activity is aligned with where you want your business to go.

Your marketing plan outline also guides you in selecting the right strategies and tactics, ensuring that your marketing efforts drive toward your business goals efficiently. This strategic alignment is crucial for maximizing return on investment and achieving sustainable growth.

Budgeting and resource allocation

A comprehensive marketing plan plays a pivotal role in budgeting and resource allocation by providing a structured overview of all planned marketing activities and their corresponding costs.

By clearly outlining expected expenses to goals, businesses can prioritize spending, allocate resources more efficiently, and avoid overspending. This strategic approach helps you make sure every dollar spent contributes directly to achieving targeted outcomes, enhancing overall financial management and marketing effectiveness.

Marketing plan structure: Key components and steps to building one

There are as many variations of a marketing strategy template as businesses out there. However, most of them have common key components that make up a complete marketing plan:

1. Business summary and executive summary

The business summary section of a marketing plan provides a brief overview of the business, including its mission statement, core values, and overarching goals. Meanwhile, the Executive Summary offers a concise summary of the entire marketing plan, highlighting its main points and overall strategy.

2. Market research

Market research in a marketing plan underpins strategic decision-making by offering critical insights into industry trends, target audience behaviors, and competitive landscapes. It provides businesses with the data they need to tailor their marketing strategies effectively, ensuring they resonate with the intended audience and stand out in the market.

3. Competitive research

Competitive research involves analyzing and understanding your competitors’ strategies, strengths, and weaknesses. It enables a business to identify market gaps and opportunities for differentiation, ensuring a competitive edge in its marketing efforts.

4. Target audience and buyer personas

Identifying and understanding your target audience is essential for crafting effective marketing strategies. It involves analyzing demographics, interests, and behaviors to create tailored messages that resonate deeply with potential customers.

On the other hand, buyer personas are a powerful tool for understanding your target audience and guiding your marketing efforts in the right direction. They represent a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer, incorporating real data and market research to create a detailed profile. This exercise helps you better understand their needs, motivations, and pain points, providing crucial insights for crafting relevant marketing messages.

You can collect all the information for your target audience documentation from various sources, like:

Google Analytics

Google Analytics provides invaluable insights into user behavior, including visitor demographics, how users find and interact with your site, and which content keeps them engaged.

Social media analytics

Social media analytics offer detailed data on audience engagement, preferences, and demographics, helping you understand who interacts with your brand and how they do so.

Customer feedback and surveys

Customer feedback and surveys are direct sources of insights into what your target audience thinks and feels about your brand, providing key data on customer satisfaction, preferences, and areas for improvement.

CRM and sales data

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and sales data provide extensive information on customer interactions, purchase history, and support queries, allowing for a detailed analysis of customer behavior and preferences.

5. Industry reports and market analyses

Industry reports and market analyses provide comprehensive insights into market trends, consumer preferences, and emerging opportunities, enabling businesses to strategically position their offerings to meet the demands of their target audience.

6. Competitor customer reviews and feedback forums

Competitor customer reviews sites and feedback forums offer critical insights into what consumers appreciate or dislike about rival offerings, guiding businesses to fine-tune their strategies for competitive advantage.

5. Unique selling proposition

Your unique selling proposition (USP) distills what makes your business stand out from competitors into a clear, compelling message. It’s the core of your brand identity, emphasizing the specific benefits your products or services offer to your target audience.

When writing your unique selling proposition, remember to:

• Highlight what makes you different from competitors
• Focus on the benefits your product or service provides to customers
• Be concise and memorable

6 . Business goals and market analysis

The business goals section lays out specific objectives the company aims to achieve through its marketing efforts, aligning with the company’s broader strategic goals. The market analysis, on the other hand, decomposes the industry landscape, identifying target markets and analyzing competitors to inform strategic direction.

To make sure your business goals and market analysis are correctly set, consider the following as well:

Conducting a SWOT analysis

Conducting a SWOT analysis helps businesses identify their Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, providing crucial insights for defining precise business goals and thorough market analysis.

Competitive and target market analysis

Assessing your competitive landscape and understanding your target market allows you to better understand your business’ context, accurately define your business goals, and tailor your market analysis for strategic advantage.

7. Marketing initiatives

At this stage, you should decide on the specific marketing initiatives and activities you want to rely on. If your budget and manpower allow for it, you can focus on multiple main areas. Alternatively, you can focus on a single marketing tactic that aligns with your overall goals and budget.

Here are some examples of marketing initiatives you might want to concentrate on:

Promotions are targeted strategies designed to boost customer engagement, drive sales, and increase brand awareness through special offers, discounts, and events.

Partnerships and joint ventures

Forming strategic partnerships and engaging in joint ventures can significantly amplify a business’s market reach and resource base. These collaborations enable businesses to leverage complementary strengths, share risks, and capitalize on shared opportunities for growth and innovation.

Referral strategy

A referral strategy is designed to incentivize existing customers to recommend your products or services to new potential customers, effectively leveraging word-of-mouth. This approach not only expands your customer base, but also strengthens trust and loyalty among existing clients by rewarding them for their referrals.

8. Marketing plan channels

Choosing the right marketing channels is crucial for delivering your message to your target audience in the most effective way. These channels, whether digital (like social media, email, and search engines) or traditional (such as television, print ads, and direct mail), should align with where your audience spends their time and consumes information.

To make sure you choose the right channels for your business, we recommend that you:

• Analyze your target audience’s preferred communication methods.
• Understand which platforms and channels your competitors are utilizing.
• Determine the most cost-effective channels for reaching your target audience.
• Consider the effectiveness and reach of each channel in relation to your business goals.
• Evaluate the scalability of selected channels to grow with your business over time.
• Test and measure the performance of each channel to refine your marketing mix.
• Look into emerging channels and technologies to stay ahead of the curve.
• Ensure alignment between channel selection and your overall brand messaging for consistency.

9. Measurement and KPIs to intreduce in your marketing plan

Setting clear measurement practices and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is fundamental to tracking the effectiveness of your marketing strategies. These metrics enable businesses to quantify their success, adjust strategies as needed, and ensure alignment with overarching business goals.

Here are essential tips to keep in mind when setting your marketing metrics:

• Focus on measurable outcomes, such as conversions, leads, and revenue.
• Align your KPIs with your specific business goals.
• Choose a mix of leading (predictive) and lagging (historical) indicators for a comprehensive view of performance.
• Regularly review and adjust your metrics to reflect changes in the market or business environment.

10. Retention strategy

Including a retention (or repeat customer) strategy in your marketing plan is important for two main reasons. First of all, there’s only so many “new customers” you can acquire (so if your entire business strategy is based on acquisition and zero retention, you will grind your business to a halt, eventually).

Secondly, repeat customers tend to spend more than new ones, making them a valuable source of revenue for sustainable growth. They also tend to be more likely to recommend you to their peers. A retention strategy includes tactics for keeping existing customers engaged and loyal, such as loyalty programs or personalized communication.

11. Budget & expected ROI

The budget section outlines the financial resources allocated to implement the marketing plan, ensuring that all strategies and actions align with fiscal constraints. It is paired with an expected ROI (Return on Investment) analysis, which projects the financial benefits of the marketing activities in relation to their costs, guiding decision-makers in optimizing marketing investments for maximum profitability.

How to Create a Marketing Plan | Step-by-Step Guide

If you’re looking to ramp up your brand’s marketing strategy and start reaching a wider audience, you need to know how to create a marketing plan. visme.com made it easy for you with this step-by-step guide.

Marketing plan templates and examples

As a general rule, you want to build and/or adapt your marketing plan to your own business. However, if you are looking for some of the best marketing strategy templates to get inspired from, the following are more than worth your time:

This template provides a structured approach to crafting a comprehensive marketing plan, incorporating the key components as outlined in the article. Each section is designed to guide you through defining, planning, executing, and measuring the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

Executive summary

• Brief overview of the marketing plan objectives and strategies.

Business overview

• Description of the business, including mission statement and core values.

Situational analysis

• SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats).
• Competitive and target market analysis.

Marketing goals and objectives

• Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound (SMART) goals.
• Objectives aligned with business strategy and market opportunities.

Target audience

• Detailed profile of the target market segments.
• Insights into their behaviors, preferences, and needs.

Marketing strategies

• Overview of the chosen marketing initiatives (promotions, partnerships, referral strategy).
• Justification for strategy selection based on Situation Analysis.

Marketing channels

• Identification of primary marketing channels (digital and traditional).
• Rationale for channel selection tailored to target audience and marketing strategies.

Action plan

• Detailed plan for executing marketing initiatives, including timelines and responsible parties.
• Breakdown of activities by marketing channel.

Budget and expected ROI

• Comprehensive budget detailing costs associated with each marketing activity.
• Expected Return on Investment for each initiative and overall marketing plan.

Measurement and KPIs

• Key Performance Indicators for monitoring performance.
• Plan for regular review and adjustment based on KPI results.

Retention strategy

• Tactics for maintaining customer engagement and loyalty (e.g., loyalty points, email newsletter, exclusive offers, etc.)
• Plan for personalized communication and loyalty programs.
• Any additional information, such as market research data, historical performance metrics, etc.

Revision history

• Record of updates and changes made to the marketing plan.

This social media marketing plan is designed to outline your social media marketing goals , the tactics you will use to achieve them, and the metrics you will track to gauge your progress. It acts as a detailed roadmap for managing and optimizing your social media strategy to connect with your audience and enhance your brand’s online presence.

• Brief introduction to the social media marketing plan goals and expected outcomes.
• Clear, measurable objectives for what the social media efforts aim to achieve (e.g., increase brand awareness, improve engagement, drive website traffic).
• Detailed analysis of the target audience specific to social media platforms, including demographics, interests, and online behavior.

Competitive analysis

• Overview of competitors’ presence and performance on social media, identifying gaps and opportunities.

Channel strategy

• Selection of social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn) based on the target audience and content strategy.
• Rationale for each platform chosen.

Content strategy

• Outline of the types of content to be shared (e.g., blog posts, videos, infographics), reflecting brand identity and audience interests.
• Content calendar with publishing schedule.

Engagement strategy

• Plan for active engagement with the community, including response to comments, messages, and user-generated content.

Influencer collaboration

• Strategy for partnering with influencers to expand reach and credibility.

Paid promotion

• Approach for utilizing paid social media advertising and sponsored content, including budget and targeting criteria.
• Key Performance Indicators to track the success of social media efforts (e.g., engagement rate, follower growth, website traffic from social media).

Tools and resources

• List of tools for scheduling posts, analytics, graphic design, and community management.

Risk management

• Plan to address potential challenges and reputation management on social media.
• Detailed budget allocation for each platform, including content creation, paid promotions, and influencer collaborations.
• Record of updates and changes made to the social media marketing plan.

Content marketing plan

This content marketing plan will strategically outline the creation, publication, and distribution of content to target audiences, aiming to attract, engage, and retain customers.

• Overview of goals and strategies for the content marketing efforts, emphasizing the plan’s alignment with overall marketing and business objectives.
• Define clear, measurable goals for the content marketing strategy, such as increasing organic traffic, enhancing brand awareness, and generating leads.
• In-depth analysis of the ideal customer profiles, including demographic information, interests, and pain points, to inform content creation.

Audit and analysis

• Assessment of current content assets and performance to identify strengths, gaps, and opportunities for improvement.

Content pillars and themes

• Establishment of core content pillars that reflect the brand’s authority within its industry, around which a variety of themes and topics will be developed.

Content formats

• Enumeration of content formats to be used, including blog posts, videos, infographics, e-books, and whitepapers, tailored to audience preferences and stages of the buyer’s journey.

Editorial calendar

• A detailed publishing schedule that outlines what content will be produced, when it will be published, and where it will be distributed.

Content creation process

• Description of the workflow for content production, from idea generation and research to writing, editing, and approval.

Distribution channels

• Strategically selected channels for content promotion, such as the company’s website, social media platforms, email newsletters, and third-party publications.

SEO strategy

• Integration of keyword research and SEO best practices into content creation to improve search engine rankings and visibility.
• Key performance indicators for evaluating the success of content marketing efforts, including traffic metrics, engagement rates, lead generation, and conversion rates.
• A comprehensive breakdown of the budget allocated for content creation, distribution, and promotion activities.
• Identification of potential risks and challenges in content marketing, with preemptive strategies for mitigation.
• Listing of tools and software that will support the content marketing strategy, from content management systems to analytics and SEO tools.
• Record updates and changes made to the content marketing plan, ensuring continuous improvement and adaptation to market changes.

Competitor analysis marketing plan template

This competitor analysis template will enable a systematic evaluation of your competitors’ strategies, strengths, weaknesses, and market positioning to identify opportunities for differentiation and growth.

• Brief overview of the competitive landscape and the purpose of the analysis.

Identifying competitors

• List of primary and secondary competitors in the market.
• Criteria for selection of these competitors (market share, product offerings, geographic presence).

Competitor company overview

• Basic information about each competitor (company size, location, history).
• Summary of the competitor’s mission, values, and market positioning.

Product/service analysis

• Detailed comparison of products/services offered by the company and its competitors.
• Analysis of features, quality, pricing, and warranties/guarantees.

Market share and growth

• Overview of each competitor’s market share and historical growth.
• Analysis of market trends and how competitors are positioned to take advantage of these trends.
• Evaluation of competitors’ marketing strategies, including online presence, advertising campaigns, social media strategy, and public relations efforts.
• SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis for each major competitor.

Customer analysis

• Overview of competitors’ target customer segments and customer service strategies.
• Analysis of customer reviews and feedback for insights into strengths and weaknesses.

Sales channels and distribution

• Description of competitors’ distribution channels and sales strategies.
• Comparison with the company’s channels and potential areas for improvement or differentiation.

Financial overview

• Overview of competitors’ financial health, if available (revenue trends, profitability, investment in R&D).

Strategic moves

• Examination of recent strategic moves by competitors (partnerships, acquisitions, product launches).

Summary and recommendations

• Summary of key findings from the competitor analysis.
• Recommended strategies for competitive differentiation and opportunities for growth.
• Record of updates and changes made to the competitor analysis template.

How to use marketing plan templates for digital marketing

Creating a marketing plan is about a lot more than just filling out empty cells in a document. Here are some guidelines that will help you make the most of any marketing template:

• Start by personalizing the template to fit your specific business needs and goals.
• Clearly define your target audience before selecting strategies and channels included in the template (see our section about this, above).
• Regularly update and adjust your plan based on market changes, new initiatives, or unexpected results.
• Use the template as a guide, but don’t be afraid to think outside the box and add your own unique strategies and ideas.
• Continuously track and measure performance against KPIs set in the template, adjusting tactics as needed for optimal results.

You are free to go as in-depth as you want with your marketing plan. However, there are a couple of “golden rules” that will help you stay on top of everything (and communicate your plan with clarity):

• Maintain simplicity in your messaging and design to ensure ease of understanding for your target audience.
• Ensure brand consistency across all marketing channels to reinforce brand recognition and loyalty.
• Implement quality control measures for all marketing materials and content to maintain high standards.
• Integrate data across platforms for a unified view of customer interactions and marketing effectiveness.

Leveraging data in marketing strategy

Your marketing strategy should be data-driven and incorporate the use of analytics tools to track and measure success. These insights allow for ongoing optimization and informed decision-making in real time. Some of the key data points to track include:

Website traffic and conversion rates

Understanding your website’s traffic patterns and conversion rates is crucial for evaluating the effectiveness of your online presence and marketing efforts.

Social media engagement and reach

Analyzing social media engagement and reach is essential for assessing how well your content resonates with your audience and spreads across platforms.

Email open and click-through rates

Monitoring email open and click-through rates are critical for determining the impact and effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.

Advertising campaign performance

Evaluating the performance of advertising campaigns is key to understanding the return on investment and the overall success of the marketing strategies implemented.

Customer retention metrics

Tracking customer retention metrics, such as churn rate and customer lifetime value (CLV), is vital for assessing how effectively your business maintains customer relationships and maximizes revenue from existing clients.

Creating a marketing plan is one thing.

Presenting it to a board or investor is another.

When you build a marketing plan, you want to focus on getting things correctly: your data, your vision, the information you base your assumptions on, and so on. In short, you’re focusing on the “meat,” the core of your marketing strategy.

When you have to present your strategy, however, it all comes down to:

• Making sure everything is crystal clear, and
• Ensuring your message delivery is flawless from every perspective (including the aesthetic one).

To get there, you might want to consider creative ways of making your marketing plan stand out. For instance, here are some of the more innovative methods of presenting a marketing plan:

Tailor it to your audience

It’s one thing to present your marketing plan to your team and it’s an entirely different thing to present it to a board of investors or at a trade event. Each of these situations requires a different approach. Personalizing your marketing plan to fit the audience can help capture their attention and make the information more relevant and memorable for them.

Use multimedia

You shouldn’t be afraid to use multimedia elements in your marketing plan presentation to make it more engaging and memorable. This could include videos, animations, infographics, and interactive elements.

Create an interactive presentation

Creating an interactive presentation involves integrating elements that allow the audience to engage directly with the content, making the marketing plan more dynamic and engaging. Here are some examples if interactive bits you could include in your marketing plan:

• Quizzes or polls that allow the audience to provide feedback and gauge their own understanding of the material
• Interactive charts and graphs that can be manipulated in real-time
• Virtual reality experiences to showcase products or services in a unique way.

Incorporate storytelling

Storytelling is a powerful tool that can help engage audiences and make your marketing plan more memorable. Consider incorporating storytelling elements such as customer success stories, brand origin, or employee anecdotes to add a personal touch and emotional connection to your plan.

The possibilities are endless when it comes to making your marketing plan presentation creative and engaging. Just remember to:

• Stay clear (never sacrifice clear for clever)
• Keep it relevant to your audience
• Use high-quality visuals and multimedia elements
• Rely on solid, healthy data and assumptions
• Incorporate interactive experiences

Building a marketing plan is a more or less temporary task that takes weeks or months to complete. Executing a marketing plan, however, is an ongoing process of implementing and adjusting tactics to achieve desired results.

Here are some key steps for executing and monitoring your marketing plan:

Implement with precision

Once you have finalized your marketing plan, it’s time to put it into action. Make sure to adhere to the timelines and budgets outlined in your plan, and communicate any changes or delays with your team.

Monitor ongoing performance

Monitoring your marketing performance is crucial for understanding the effectiveness of your tactics and making informed decisions for future campaigns. Use the data points mentioned earlier to track progress and adjust strategies as needed.

Regularly reassess and update

A successful marketing plan is not set in stone. As your business and the market evolves, it’s important to regularly reassess and update your plan to stay relevant and competitive. Continuously monitor industry trends, customer feedback, and competitor strategies to inform updates to your marketing plan.

Make use of technology and automation

In today’s digital age, there are numerous tools and technologies available to help streamline and automate various aspects of your marketing efforts. Utilize these resources to save time and effectively track and analyze data for more informed decision-making.

Stay data driven

The reason data driven marketing is so popular is because you need at least some sort of goalpost, or north star metric, to follow. Stay informed by continuously collecting and analyzing data relevant to your marketing strategies, and use this information to make informed decisions for ongoing optimization and success.

Seek feedback and adapt

It’s important to regularly seek feedback from customers, team members, and stakeholders to understand how your marketing efforts are being received and if any adjustments need to be made. Adaptability is key in executing a successful marketing plan.

It is important to remember no one will ever build a flawless marketing plan from the get go. Even if they do, it won’t be perfect for long. Sooner or later, fine-tuning must be made. 

Whether it’s business strategy changes, market changes, or inefficiencies you’ve spotted along the way, revisiting and adjusting your marketing plan is essential for long-term success. Keep an open mind, embrace change, and utilize the above strategies to continuously improve and execute a successful marketing plan.

Maintain brand consistency when creating a marketing plan

One element that frequently tends to slip away in marketing plan implementations is brand consistency . It’s easy to see why it happens: when your marketing plan is thick and demanding, and your team is lean and busy, some elements may be overlooked or unintentionally altered. Yet, maintaining brand consistency is crucial in maintaining a strong and recognizable brand identity that resonates with customers.

Thankfully, there are small things you can do to make things easier (for yourself and for the rest of the organization.) For instance, implementing a WiseStamp email signature can help ensure that all team members have a consistent, professional email signature that includes your company’s branding and messaging.

Marketing plans, no easy way

Many will promise marketing miracles encapsulated in a template. But few will actually tell you the truth that marketing plans are hard work – from collecting data, building a plan based on that data, refining your plan, and executing on that plan.

It’s also essential work. And brilliant work. And incredibly rewarding work. Which is why it’s vital for the success of your marketing efforts, combined.

Marketing plan templates can help you find your focus in what might seem like an ocean of questions, doubts, and potentialities. They won’t fix your marketing efforts, but they will help you get organized and stay on track.

By following the steps described in this article (and the tips we’ve sprinkled along the way), you’ll be able to define your marketing objectives, identify and understand your target audience, conduct thorough market research, outline your tactics and strategies, and execute and monitor your plan for ongoing success.

Remember to continuously adapt, seek feedback, and maintain brand consistency to stay ahead of the competition. With a well-crafted marketing plan in hand, you’re on your way to achieving your business

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500+ business plans and financial models

Real Estate Agency Business Plan PDF Example

• May 7, 2024
• Business Plan

Creating a comprehensive business plan is crucial for launching and running a successful real estate agency. This plan serves as your roadmap, detailing your vision, operational strategies, and financial plan. It helps establish your real estate agency’s identity, navigate the competitive market, and secure funding for growth.

This article not only breaks down the critical components of a real estate agency business plan, but also provides an example of a business plan to help you craft your own.

Whether you’re an experienced entrepreneur or new to the real estate industry, this guide, complete with a business plan example, lays the groundwork for turning your real estate agency concept into reality. Let’s dive in!

Our real estate agency business plan covers all essential aspects necessary for a comprehensive strategy. It details operations, marketing strategy , market environment, competitors, management team, and financial forecasts.

• Executive Summary : Provides an overview of the real estate agency’s business concept, market analysis , management, and financial strategy.
• Real Estate Brokerage Services & Fees: Describes the brokerage services including property sales and acquisitions, along with a fee structure.
• Property Management Services & Fees: Outlines property management services offered and their respective fees.
• Key Stats : Offers data on industry size , growth trends, and market positioning.
• Key Trends: Highlights significant trends impacting the industry, such as digital transformation and changing buyer preferences.
• Key Competitors : Analyzes primary competitors and differentiates the agency from these competitors.
• SWOT : Analyzes strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
• Marketing Plan : Outlines tactics for attracting new clients and maintaining relationships.
• Timeline : Sets out key milestones from inception through the first year of operations.
• Management: Information on the management team and their roles within the agency.
• Financial Plan: Projects the agency’s financial performance over the next five years, detailing revenue, profits, and anticipated expenses.

Real Estate Agency Business Plan

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Executive Summary

The Executive Summary introduces your real estate agency’s business plan, offering a concise overview of your agency and its services. This section outlines your market positioning, the variety of real estate services offered—including property sales, rentals, and property management—its location, size, and a description of day-to-day operations.

This section should also discuss how your real estate agency will integrate into the local market, including the number of direct competitors within the area, identifying who they are, along with your agency’s unique selling points that differentiate it from these competitors.

Additionally, you should include information about the management and co-founding team, detailing their roles and contributions to the agency’s success. Furthermore, a summary of your financial projections, including revenue and profits over the next five years, should be presented here to provide a clear picture of your agency’s financial plan.

Make sure to cover here _ Business Overview _ Market Overview _ Management Team _ Financial Plan

Dive deeper into Executive Summary

Business Overview

For a Real Estate Agency, the Business Overview section can be concisely divided into 2 main slides:

Real Estate Brokerage Services & Fees

Briefly describe the agency’s professional and welcoming office environment and its conveniently located premises near major residential and commercial areas, which enhances accessibility and client traffic. Detail the range of real estate brokerage services including buying, selling, and leasing properties, and discuss the agency’s fee structure, which is typically based on a percentage of the property sale or lease price, reflecting the high quality of service and market alignment.

Property Management Services & Fees

Describe the comprehensive property management services offered that cover tenant screening, rent collection, maintenance, and financial reporting. The pricing for these services is usually based on a percentage of monthly rental income or a flat monthly fee, with potential additional charges for special services like emergency maintenance or tenant placement, ensuring landlords a hassle-free ownership experience.

Make sure to cover here _ Real Estate Brokerage Services & Fees _ Property Management Services & Fees

Market Overview

Industry size & growth.

In the Market Overview of your real estate agency business plan, start by examining the size of the real estate industry and its growth potential. This analysis is crucial for understanding the market’s scope and identifying expansion opportunities.

Key Market Trends

Proceed to discuss recent market trends , such as the increasing consumer interest in sustainable and eco-friendly properties, the growing demand for smart homes equipped with the latest technology, and the rising popularity of urban living spaces among millennials and young professionals. For example, highlight the demand for properties that cater to specific lifestyle needs, alongside the rising preference for locations with comprehensive amenities and green spaces.

Key Competitors

Then, consider the competitive landscape, which includes a range of agencies from large national firms to local boutiques, as well as online real estate platforms. For example, emphasize what makes your agency distinctive, whether it’s through exceptional customer service, a unique range of property management services, or specialization in certain types of properties such as luxury homes or commercial real estate. This section will help articulate the demand for real estate services, the competitive environment, and how your agency is positioned to thrive within this dynamic market.

Make sure to cover here _ Industry size & growth _ Key competitors _ Key market trends

Dive deeper into Key competitors

First, conduct a SWOT analysis for the real estate agency , highlighting Strengths (such as experienced realtors and a diverse property portfolio), Weaknesses (including high agent turnover or reliance on local market conditions), Opportunities (for example, the growing demand for rental properties or the potential for tapping into luxury real estate markets), and Threats (such as fluctuations in real estate prices or new housing regulations that may impact operations).

Marketing Plan

Next, develop a marketing strategy that outlines how to attract and retain clients through targeted advertising, promotional events like open houses, an engaging online presence, and community involvement. This strategy should also incorporate using social media platforms to showcase properties and share customer testimonials, enhancing the agency’s visibility and client engagement.

Finally, create a detailed timeline that outlines critical milestones for the real estate agency’s launch, marketing initiatives, client acquisition, and expansion goals. This timeline should ensure that the business moves forward with clear direction and purpose, setting specific objectives for brand establishment, market penetration, and long-term growth.

Make sure to cover here _ SWOT _ Marketing Plan _ Timeline

Dive deeper into SWOT

Dive deeper into Marketing Plan

The Management section focuses on the real estate agency’s management and their direct roles in daily operations and strategic direction. This part is crucial for understanding who is responsible for making key decisions and driving the real estate agency toward its financial and operational goals.

For your real estate agency business plan, list the core team members, their specific responsibilities, and how their expertise supports the business.

Financial Plan

The Financial Plan section is a comprehensive analysis of your financial projections for revenue, expenses, and profitability. It lays out your real estate agency’s approach to securing funding, managing cash flow, and achieving breakeven.

This section typically includes detailed forecasts for the first 5 years of operation, highlighting expected revenue, operating costs and capital expenditures.

For your real estate agency business plan, provide a snapshot of your financial statement (profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow statement), as well as your key assumptions (e.g. number of customers and prices, expenses, etc.).

Make sure to cover here _ Profit and Loss _ Cash Flow Statement _ Balance Sheet _ Use of Funds

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