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Blog Marketing What is a Marketing Plan & How to Create One [with Examples]

What is a Marketing Plan & How to Create One [with Examples]

Written by: Sara McGuire Oct 26, 2023

A marketing plan is a blueprint that outlines your strategies to attract and convert your ideal customers as a part of your customer acquisition strategy . It’s a comprehensive document that details your:

• Target audience:  Who you’re trying to reach
• Marketing goals:  What you want to achieve
• Strategies and tactics:  How you’ll reach your goals
• Budget:  Resources you’ll allocate
• Metrics:  How you’ll measure success

In this article, I’ll explain everything you need to know about creating a marketing plan . If you need a little extra help, there are professionally designed marketing plan templates that’ll make the process much easier. So, let’s ditch the confusion and get started!

Click to jump ahead:

What is a marketing plan?

How to write a marketing plan .

• Marketing plan v.s. business plan
• Types of marketing plans

9 marketing plan examples to inspire your growth strategy

Marketing plan faqs.

A marketing plan is a report that outlines your marketing strategy for your products or services, which could be applicable for the coming year, quarter or month.  

Watch this quick, 13-minute video for more details on what a marketing plan is and how to make one yourself:

Typically, a marketing plan includes:

• An overview of your business’s marketing and advertising goals
• A description of your business’s current marketing position
• A timeline of when tasks within your strategy will be completed
• Key performance indicators (KPIs) you will be tracking
• A description of your business’s target market and customer needs
• A description of how you will measure the performance of the strategy

For example, this marketing plan template provides a high-level overview of the business and competitors before diving deep into specific goals, KPIs and tactics:

Learning how to write a marketing plan forces you to think through the important steps that lead to an effective marketing strategy . And a well-defined plan will help you stay focused on your high-level marketing goals.

With Venngage’s extensive catalog of marketing plan templates , creating your marketing plan isn’t going to be hard or tedious. In fact, Venngage has plenty of helpful communications and design resources for marketers. If you’re ready to get started, sign up for  Venngage for Marketers   now. It’s free to register and start designing.

Whether you’re a team trying to set smarter marketing goals, a consultant trying to set your client in the right direction, or a one-person team hustling it out, Venngage for Marketers helps you get things done.

As mentioned above, the scope of your marketing plan varies depending on its purpose or the type of organization it’s for.

For example, you could create a marketing plan that provides an overview of a company’s entire marketing strategy or simply focus on a specific channel like SEO, social media marketing, content marketing and more, like in this example:

A typical outline of a marketing plan includes:

• Executive summary
• Goals and objectives
• User personas
• Competitor analysis/SWOT analysis
• Baseline metrics
• Marketing strategy
• Tracking guidelines

Below you will see in details how to write each section as well as some examples of how you can design each section in a marketing plan.

Let’s look at how to create a successful marketing plan (click to jump ahead):

• Write a simple executive summary
• Set metric-driven marketing goals
• Outline your user personas
• Research all of your competitors
• Set accurate key baselines & metrics
• Create an actionable marketing strategy
• Set tracking or reporting guidelines

1. Write a simple executive summary

Starting your marketing plan off on the right foot is important. You want to pull people into your amazing plan for marketing domination. Not bore them to tears.

One of the best ways to get people excited to read your marketing plan is with a well-written executive summary. An executive summary introduces readers to your company goals, marketing triumphs, future plans, and other important contextual facts.

Basically, you can use the Executive Summary as a primer for the rest of your marketing plan.

Include things like:

• Simple marketing goals
• High-level metrics
• Important company milestones
• Facts about your brand
• Employee anecdotes
• Future goals & plans

Try to keep your executive summary rather brief and to the point. You aren’t writing a novel, so try to keep it under three to four paragraphs.

Take a look at the executive summary in the marketing plan example below:

The executive summary is only two paragraphs long — short but effective.

The executive summary tells readers about the company’s growth, and how they are about to overtake one of their competitors. But there’s no mention of specific metrics or figures. That will be highlighted in the next section of the marketing plan.

An effective executive summary should have enough information to pique the reader’s interest, but not bog them down with specifics yet. That’s what the rest of your marketing plan is for!

The executive summary also sets the tone for your marketing plan. Think about what tone will fit your brand ? Friendly and humorous? Professional and reliable? Inspiring and visionary?

2. Set metric-driven marketing goals

After you perfect your executive summary, it’s time to outline your marketing goals.

(If you’ve never set data-driven goals like this before, it would be worth reading this growth strategy guide ).

This is one of the most important parts of the entire marketing plan, so be sure to take your time and be as clear as possible. Moreover, optimizing your marketing funnel is key. Employing effective funnel software can simplify operations and provide valuable customer insights. It facilitates lead tracking, conversion rate analysis, and efficient marketing optimization .

As a rule of thumb, be as specific as possible. The folks over at  VoyMedia  advise that you should set goals that impact website traffic, conversions, and customer success — and to use real numbers.

Avoid outlining vague goals like:

• Get more Twitter followers
• Write more articles
• Create more YouTube videos (like educational or Explainer videos )
• Increase retention rate
• Decrease bounce rate

Instead, identify  key performance metrics  (KPI) you want to impact and the percentage you want to increase them by.

Take a look at the goals page in the marketing plan example below:

They not only identify a specific metric in each of their goals, but they also set a timeline for when they will be increased.

The same vague goals listed earlier become much clearer when specific numbers and timelines are applied to them:

• Get 100 new Twitter followers per month
• Write 5 more articles per week
• Create 10 YouTube videos each year
• Increase retention rate by 15% by 2020
• Decrease bounce rate by 5% by Q1
• Create an online course  and get 1,000 new leads
• Focus more on local SEO strategies
• Conduct a monthly social media report to track progress

You can dive even deeper into your marketing goals if you want (generally, the more specific, the better). Here’s a marketing plan example that shows how to outline your growth goals:

3. Outline your user personas

Now, this may not seem like the most important part of your marketing plan, but I think it holds a ton of value.

Outlining your user personas is an important part of a marketing plan that should not be overlooked.

You should be asking not just how you can get the most visitors to your business, but how you can get the right visitors.

Who are your ideal customers? What are their goals? What are their biggest problems? How does your business solve customer problems?

Answering these questions will take lots of research, but it’s essential information to get.

Some ways to conduct user research are:

• Interviewing your users (either in person or on the phone)
• Conducting focus groups
• Researching other businesses in the same industry
• Surveying your audience

Then, you will need to compile your user data into a user persona  guide.

Take a look at how detailed this user persona template is below:

Taking the time to identify specific demographic traits, habits and goals will make it easier for you to cater your marketing plan to them.

Here’s how you can create a user persona guide:

The first thing you should add is a profile picture or icon for each user persona. It can help to put a face to your personas, so they seem more real.

Next, list demographic information like:

• Identifiers
• Activities/Hobbies

The user persona example above uses sliding scales to identify personality traits like introversion vs. extroversion and thinking vs. feeling. Identifying what type of personality your target users tend to have an influence on the messaging you use in your marketing content.

Meanwhile, this user persona guide identifies specific challenges the user faces each day:

But if you don’t want to go into such precise detail, you can stick to basic information, like in this marketing plan example:

Most businesses will have a few different types of target users. That’s why it’s pertinent to identify and create several different user personas . That way, you can better segment your marketing campaigns and set separate goals, if necessary.

Here’s a marketing plan example with a segmented user persona guide:

The important thing is for your team or client to have a clear picture of who their target user is and how they can appeal to their specific problems.

Start creating robust user personas using Venngage’s user persona guide .

4. Conduct an extensive competitor analysis

Next, on the marketing plan checklist, we have the competitor research section. This section will help you identify who your competitors are, what they’re doing, and how you could carve yourself a place alongside them in your niche — and ideally, surpass them. It’s something you can learn to do with rank tracking software .

Competitor research is also incredibly important if you are starting a blog .

Typically, your competitor research should include:

• Who their marketing team is
• Who their leadership team is
• What their marketing strategy and strategic marketing plan are (this will probably revolve some reverse-engineering)
• What their sales strategy is (same deal)
• Social Media strategy (are they using discounting strategies such as coupon marketing to get conversions)
• Their market cap/financials
• Their yearly growth (you will probably need to use a marketing tool like Ahrefs to do this)
• The number of customers they have & their user personas

Also, take as deep a dive as you can into the strategies they use across their:

• Blog/Content marketing
• Social media marketing
• SEO Marketing
• Video marketing
• And any other marketing tactics they use

Research their strengths and weaknesses in all parts of their company, and you will find some great opportunities. Bookmark has a great guide to different marketing strategies for small businesses  if you need some more information there.

You can use this simple SWOT analysis worksheet to quickly work through all parts of their strategy as well:

Click the template above to create a SWOT chart . Customize the template to your liking — no design know-how needed.

Since you have already done all the research beforehand, adding this information to your marketing plan shouldn’t be that hard.

In this marketing plan example, some high-level research is outlined for 3 competing brands:

But you could take a deeper dive into different facets of your competitors’ strategies. This marketing plan example analyses a competitor’s content marketing strategy:

It can also be helpful to divide your competitors into Primary and Secondary groups. For example, Apple’s primary competitor may be Dell for computers, but its secondary competitor could be a company that makes tablets.

Your most dangerous competitors may not even be in the same industry as you. Like the CEO of Netflix said, “Sleep is our competition.”

5. Set accurate key baselines & metrics

It’s pretty hard to plan for the future if you don’t know where your business stands right now.

Before we do anything at Venngage, we find the baselines so we can compare future results to something. We do it so much it’s almost like second nature now!

Setting baselines will allow you to more accurately track your progress. You will also be able to better analyze what worked and what didn’t work, so you can build a stronger strategy. It will definitely help them clearly understand your goals and strategy as well.

Here’s a marketing plan example where the baselines are visualized:

Another way to include baselines in your plan is with a simple chart, like in the marketing plan example below:

Because data can be intimidating to a lot of people, visualizing your data using charts and infographics will help demystify the information.

6. Create an actionable marketing strategy

After pulling all the contextual information and relevant metrics into your marketing plan, it’s time to break down your marketing strategy.

Once again, it’s easier to communicate your information to your team or clients using visuals .

Mind maps are an effective way to show how a strategy with many moving parts ties together. For example, this mind map shows how the four main components of a marketing strategy interact together:

You can also use a flow chart to map out your strategy by objectives:

However you choose to visualize your strategy, your team should know exactly what they need to do. This is not the time to keep your cards close to your chest.

Your strategy section may need to take up a few pages to explain, like in the marketing plan example below:

With all of this information, even someone from the development team will understand what the marketing team is working on.

This minimalistic marketing plan example uses color blocks to make the different parts of the strategy easy to scan:

Breaking your strategy down into tasks will make it easier to tackle.

Another important way to visualize your marketing strategy is to create a project roadmap. A project roadmap visualizes the timeline of your product with individual tasks. Our roadmap maker can help you with this.

For example, this project roadmap shows how tasks on both the marketing and web design side run parallel to each other:

A simple timeline can also be used in your marketing plan:

Or a mind map, if you want to include a ton of information in a more organized way:

Even a simple “Next, Now, Later” chart can help visualize your strategy:

7. Set tracking or reporting guidelines

Close your marketing plan with a brief explanation of how you plan to track or measure your results. This will save you a lot of frustration down the line by standardizing how you track results across your team.

Like the other sections of your marketing plan, you can choose how in-depth you want to go. But there need to be some clear guidelines on how to measure the progress and results of your marketing plan.

At the bare minimum, your results tracking guidelines should specify:

• What you plan to track
• How you plan to track results
• How often you plan to measure

But you can more add tracking guidelines to your marketing plan if you see the need to. You may also want to include a template that your team or client can follow,  for  client reporting ,  ensure that the right metrics are being tracked.

The marketing plan example below dedicates a whole page to tracking criteria:

Use a task tracker to track tasks and marketing results, and a checklist maker to note down tasks, important life events, or tracking your daily life.

Similarly, the marketing plan example below talks about tracking content marketing instead:

Marketing plan vs. marketing strategy

Although often used interchangeably, the terms “marketing plan” and “marketing strategy” do have some differences.

Simply speaking, a marketing strategy presents what the business will do in order to reach a certain goal. A marketing plan outlines the specific daily, weekly, monthly or yearly activities that the marketing strategy calls for. As a business, you can create a marketing proposal for the marketing strategies defined in your company’s marketing plan. There are various marketing proposal examples that you can look at to help with this.

A company’s extended marketing strategy can be like this:

Notice how it’s more general and doesn’t include the actual activities required to complete each strategy or the timeframe those marketing activities will take place. That kind of information is included in a marketing plan, like this marketing plan template which talks about the content strategy in detail:

Marketing plan v.s business plan

While both marketing plans and business plans are crucial documents for businesses, they serve distinct purposes and have different scopes. Here’s a breakdown of the key differences:

Business plan is a comprehensive document that outlines all aspects of your business, including:

• Mission and vision
• Products or services
• Target market
• Competition
• Management team
• Financial projections
• Marketing strategy (including a marketing plan)
• Operations plan

Marketing plan on the other hand, dives deep into the specific strategies and tactics related to your marketing efforts. It expands on the marketing section of a business plan by detailing:

• Specific marketing goals (e.g., brand awareness, lead generation, sales)
• Target audience analysis (detailed understanding of their needs and behaviors)
• Product:  Features, benefits, positioning
• Price:  Pricing strategy, discounts
• Place:  Distribution channels (online, offline)
• Promotion:  Advertising, social media, content marketing, public relations
• Budget allocation for different marketing activities
• Metrics and measurement to track progress and success

In short, business plans paint the entire business picture, while marketing plans zoom in on the specific strategies used to reach your target audience and achieve marketing goals.

Types of marketing plans that can transform your business strategy

Let’s take a look at several types of marketing plans you can create, along with specific examples for each.

1. General marketing strategic plan / Annual marketing plan

This is a good example of a marketing plan that covers the overarching annual marketing strategy for a company:

Another good example would be this Starbucks marketing plan:

This one-page marketing plan example from coffee chain Starbucks has everything at a glance. The bold headers and subheadings make it easier to segment the sections so readers can focus on the area most relevant to them.

What we like about this example is how much it covers. From the ideal buyer persona to actional activities, as well as positioning and metrics, this marketing plan has it all.

Another marketing plan example that caught our eye is this one from Cengage. Although a bit text-heavy and traditional, it explains the various sections well. The clean layout makes this plan easy to read and absorb.

The last marketing plan example we would like to feature in this section is this one from Lush cosmetics.

It is a long one but it’s also very detailed. The plan outlines numerous areas, including the company mission, SWOT analysis , brand positioning, packaging, geographical criteria, and much more.

2. Content marketing plan

A content marketing plan highlights different strategies , campaigns or tactics you can use for your content to help your business reach its goals.

This one-page marketing plan example from Contently outlines a content strategy and workflow using simple colors and blocks. The bullet points detail more information but this plan can easily be understood at a glance, which makes it so effective.

For a more detailed content marketing plan example, take a look at this template which features an editorial calendar you can share with the whole team:

3. SEO marketing plan

Your SEO marketing plan highlights what you plan to do for your SEO marketing strategy . This could include tactics for website on-page optimization , off-page optimization using AI SEO , and link building using an SEO PowerSuite backlink API for quick backlink profile checks.

This SEO marketing plan example discusses in detail the target audience of the business and the SEO plan laid out in different stages:

4. Social media marketing plan

Your social media marketing plan presents what you’ll do to reach your marketing goal through social media. This could include tactics specific to each social media channel that you own, recommendations on developing a new channel, specific campaigns you want to run, and so on, like how B2B channels use Linkedin to generate leads with automation tools and expand their customer base; or like making use of Twitter walls that could display live Twitter feeds from Twitter in real-time on digital screens.

For B2C brands, you can target Facebook and Instagram. Gain Instagram likes to build trust for your brand’s profile and post engaging content on both platforms

Edit this social media marketing plan example easily with Venngage’s drag-and-drop editor:

5. Demand generation marketing plan

This could cover your paid marketing strategy (which can include search ads, paid social media ads, traditional advertisements, etc.), email marketing strategy and more. Here’s an example:

1. Free marketing plan template

Here’s a free nonprofit marketing plan example that is ideal for organizations with a comprehensive vision to share. It’s a simple plan that is incredibly effective. Not only does the plan outline the core values of the company, it also shares the ideal buyer persona.

Note how the branding is consistent throughout this example so there is no doubt which company is presenting this plan. The content plan is an added incentive for anyone viewing the document to go ahead and give the team the green light.

2. Pastel social media marketing campaign template

Two-page marketing plan samples aren’t very common, but this free template proves how effective they are. There’s a dedicated section for business goals as well as for project planning .

The milestones for the marketing campaign are clearly laid out, which is a great way to show how organized this business strategy is.

3. Small business marketing strategy template

This marketing plan template is perfect for small businesses who set out to develop an overarching marketing strategy for the whole year:

Notice how this aligns pretty well with the marketing plan outline we discussed in previous sections.

In terms of specific tactics for the company’s marketing strategy, the template only discusses SEO strategy, but you can certainly expand on that section to discuss any other strategies — such as link building , that you would like to build out a complete marketing plan for.

4. Orange simple marketing proposal template

Marketing plans, like the sample below, are a great way to highlight what your business strategy and the proposal you wan to put forward to win potential customers.

5. One-page marketing fact sheet template

This one-page marketing plan example is great for showcasing marketing efforts in a persuasive presentation or to print out for an in-person meeting.

Note how the fact sheet breaks down the marketing budget as well as the key metrics for the organization. You can win over clients and partners with a plan like this.

6. Light company business fact sheet template

This one-page sample marketing plan clearly outlines the marketing objectives for the organization. It’s a simple but effective way to share a large amount of information in a short amount of time.

What really works with this example is that includes a mission statement, key contact information alongside all the key metrics.

7. Marketing media press kit template

This press kit marketing plan template is bright and unmistakable as belonging to the Cloud Nine marketing agency . The way the brand colors are used also helps diversify the layouts for each page, making the plan easier to read.

We like the way the marketing department has outlined the important facts about the organization. The bold and large numbers draw the eye and look impressive.

8. Professional marketing proposal template

Start your marketing campaign on a promising note with this marketing plan template. It’s short, sharp and to the point. The table of contents sets out the agenda, and there’s a page for the company overview and mission statement.

9. Social media marketing proposal template

A complete marketing plan example, like the one below, not only breaks down the business goals to be achieved but a whole lot more. Note how the terms and conditions and payment schedule are included, which makes this one of the most comprehensive marketing plans on our list.

What should marketing plans include?

Marketing plans should include:

• A detailed analysis of the target market and customer segments.
• Clear and achievable marketing objectives and goals.
• Strategies and tactics for product promotion and distribution.
• Budget allocation for various marketing activities.
• Timelines and milestones for the implementation of marketing strategies.
• Evaluation metrics and methods for tracking the success of the marketing plan.

What is an executive summary in a marketing plan and what is its main goal?

An executive summary in a marketing plan is a brief overview of the entire document, summarizing the key points, goals, and strategies. Its main goal is to provide readers with a quick understanding of the plan’s purpose and to entice them to read further.

What are the results when a marketing plan is effective?

When a marketing plan is effective, businesses can experience increased brand visibility, higher customer engagement, improved sales and revenue, and strengthened customer loyalty.

What is the first section of a marketing plan?

The first section of a marketing plan is typically the “Executive Summary,” which provides a concise overview of the entire plan, including the business’s goals and the strategies to achieve them.

Now that you have the basics for designing your own marketing plan, it’s time to get started:

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Featured Reads

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• How to create a winning marketing plan, ...

How to create a winning marketing plan, with 3 examples from world-class teams

A marketing plan helps leaders clearly visualize marketing strategies across channels, so they can ensure every campaign drives pipeline and revenue. In this article you’ll learn eight steps to create a winning marketing plan that brings business-critical goals to life, with examples from word-class teams.

To be successful as a marketer, you have to deliver the pipeline and the revenue.”

In other words—they need a well-crafted marketing plan.

Level up your marketing plan to drive revenue in 2024

Learn how to create the right marketing plan to hit your revenue targets in 2024. Hear best practices from marketing experts, including how to confidently set and hit business goals, socialize marketing plans, and move faster with clearer resourcing.

7 steps to build a comprehensive marketing plan

How do you build the right marketing plan to hit your revenue goals? Follow these eight steps for success:

1. Define your plan

First you need to define each specific component of your plan to ensure stakeholders are aligned on goals, deliverables, resources, and more. Ironing out these details early on ensures your plan supports the right business objectives, and that you have sufficient resources and time to get the job done. 

Get started by asking yourself the following questions: 

What resources do I need? 

What is the vision?

What is the value?

What is the goal?

Who is my audience?

What are my channels?

What is the timeline?

For example, imagine you’re creating an annual marketing plan to improve customer adoption and retention in the next fiscal year. Here’s how you could go through the questions above to ensure you’re ready to move forward with your plan: 

I will need support from the content team, web team, and email team to create targeted content for existing customers. One person on each team will need to be dedicated full-time to this initiative. To achieve this, the marketing team will need an additional $100K in budget and one new headcount. 

What is the vision?  

To create a positive experience for existing customers, address new customer needs, and encourage them to upgrade. We’ll do this by serving them how-to content, new feature updates, information about deals and pricing, and troubleshooting guides. 

According to the Sales Benchmark Index (SBI) , CEOs and go-to-market leaders report that more than 60% of their net-new revenue will come from existing customers in 2023. By retaining and building on the customers we have, we can maintain revenue growth over time. 

To decrease the customer churn rate from 30% to 10%, and increase upgrades from 20% to 30% in the next fiscal year. 

All existing customers. 

The main channel will be email. Supporting marketing channels include the website, blog, YouTube, and social media. 

The first half of the next fiscal year. 

One of the most important things to do as you create your marketing strategy is to identify your target audience . As with all marketing, you need to know who you’re marketing to. If you’re having a hard time determining who exactly your target audience is, try the bullseye targeting framework . The bullseye makes it easy for you to determine who your target audience is by industry, geography, company size, psychographics, demographics, and more.

2. Identify key metrics for success 

Now it’s time to define what key marketing metrics you’ll use to measure success. Your key metrics will help you measure and track the performance of your marketing activities. They’ll also help you understand how your efforts tie back to larger business goals. 

Once you establish key metrics, use a goal-setting framework—like objectives and key results (OKRs) or SMART goals —to fully flush out your marketing objectives. This ensures your targets are as specific as possible, with no ambiguity about what should be accomplished by when. 

Example: If a goal of your marketing plan is to increase email subscriptions and you follow the SMART goal framework (ensuring your objective is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound) your goal might look like this: Increase email subscription rate from 10% to 20% in H1 . 

3. Research your competition 

It’s easy to get caught up in your company’s world, but there’s a lot of value in understanding your competitors . Knowing how they market themselves will help you find opportunities to make your company stand out and capture more market share.

Make sure you’re not duplicating your competitors’ efforts. If you discover a competitor has already executed your idea, then it might be time to go back to the drawing board and brainstorm new ways to differentiate yourself.  By looking at your competitors, you might be surprised at the type of inspiration and opportunities you’ll find.

To stay ahead of market trends, conduct a SWOT analysis for your marketing plan. A SWOT analysis helps you improve your plan by identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. 

Example: If your competitor launches a social media campaign identical to what you had planned, go back to the drawing board and see how you can build off their campaign. Ask yourself: How can we differentiate our campaign while still getting our message across? What are the weaknesses of their campaign that we can capitalize on? What angles did they not approach?

4. Integrate your marketing efforts

Here’s where the fun comes in. Let’s dive into the different components that go into building a successful marketing plan. You’ll want to make sure your marketing plan includes multiple supporting activities that all add up into a powerful marketing machine. Some marketing plan components include: 

Lead generation

Social media

Product marketing

Public relations

Analyst relations

Customer marketing

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Conversational marketing

Knowing where your consumer base spends the most time is significant for nailing this step. You need to have a solid understanding of your target audience before integrating your marketing efforts. 

Example: If your target audience is executives that spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, focus your social media strategy around placing branded content on LinkedIn. 

5. Differentiate with creative content

Forty-nine percent of marketers say visual images are hugely important to their content strategy. In other words, a clear brand and creative strategy is an essential component to every marketing plan. As you craft your own creative strategy, here are some tips to keep in mind: 

Speak to your audience: When defining your creative strategy, think about your audience—what you want them to feel, think, and do when they see your marketing. Will your audience find your creative work relevant? If your audience can’t relate to your creative work, they won’t feel connected to the story you’re trying to tell. 

Think outside the box: Find innovative ways to engage your audience, whether through video, animations, or interactive graphics. Know what screens your creative work will live on, whether desktop, mobile, or tablet, and make sure they display beautifully and load quickly across every type of device. 

Tie everything back to CTAs: It’s easy to get caught up in the creative process, so it’s important to never lose sight of your ultimate goal: Get your audience to take action. Always find the best way to display strong Calls to Action (CTAs) in your creative work. We live in a visual world—make sure your creative content counts.

Streamline creative production:   Once you’ve established a strong creative strategy, the next step is to bring your strategy to life in the production stage. It’s vital to set up a strong framework for your creative production process to eliminate any unnecessary back and forth and potential bottlenecks. Consider establishing creative request forms , streamlining feedback and approval processes, and taking advantage of integrations that might make your designers’ lives easier.

Example: If your brand is fun and approachable, make sure that shows in your creative efforts. Create designs and CTAs that spark joy, offer entertainment, and alleviate the pressure in choosing a partner.

6. Operationalize your marketing plan

Turn your plan into action by making goals, deliverables, and timelines clear for every stakeholder—so teams stay accountable for getting work done. The best way to do this is by centralizing all the details of your marketing plan in one platform , so teams can access the information they need and connect campaign work back to company goals.  

With the right work management tool , you can: 

Set goals for every marketing activity, and connect campaign work to overarching marketing and business objectives so teams focus on revenue-driving projects. 

Centralize deliverables for your entire marketing plan in one project or portfolio .

Mark major milestones and visualize your plan as a timeline, Gantt chart, calendar, list, or Kanban board—without doing any extra work. 

Quickly loop in stakeholders with status updates so they’re always up to date on progress. This is extremely important if you have a global team to ensure efforts aren’t being duplicated. 

Use automations to seamlessly hand off work between teams, streamlining processes like content creation and reviews. 

Create dashboards to report on work and make sure projects are properly staffed , so campaigns stay on track. 

With everything housed in one spot, you can easily visualize the status of your entire marketing plan and keep work on track. Building an effective marketing plan is one thing, but how you operationalize it can be your secret to standout marketing.

Example: If your strategy focuses on increasing page views, connect all campaign work to an overarching OKR—like “we will double page views as measured by the amount of organic traffic on our blog.” By making that goal visible to all stakeholders, you help teams prioritize the right work. 

See marketing planning in action

With Asana, marketing teams can connect work, standardize processes, and automate workflows—all in one place.

7. Measure performance

Nearly three in four CMOs use revenue growth to measure success, so it’s no surprise that measuring performance is necessary. You established your key metrics in step two, and now it’s time to track and report on them in step eight.

Periodically measure your marketing efforts to find areas of improvement so you can optimize in real-time. There are always lessons to be learned when looking at data. You can discover trends, detect which marketing initiatives performed well, and course-correct what isn’t performing well. And when your plan is complete, you can apply these learnings to your next initiative for improved results. 

Example: Say you discover that long-form content is consistently bringing in 400% more page views than short-form content. As a result, you’ll want to focus on producing more long-form content in your next marketing plan.

Marketing plan examples from world-class teams

The best brands in the world bring their marketing plans to life every day. If you’re looking for inspiration, check out these examples from successful marketing teams.

Autodesk grows site traffic 30% three years in a row

When the Autodesk team launched Redshift, it was initially a small business blog. The editorial team executed a successful marketing plan to expand it into a premier owned-media site, making it a destination for stories and videos about the future of making. 

The team scaled content production to support seven additional languages. By standardizing their content production workflow and centralizing all content conversations in one place, the editorial team now publishes 2X more content monthly. Read the case study to learn more about how Autodesk runs a well-oiled content machine.

Sony Music boosts creative production capacity by 4X

In recent years the music industry has gone through a pivotal transition—shifting from album sales to a streaming business model. For marketing and creative teams at Sony Music, that meant adopting an “always on” campaign plan. 

The team successfully executed this campaign plan by centralizing creative production and approvals in one project. By standardizing processes, the team reduced campaign production time by 75%. Read the case study to learn more about how Sony Music successfully scaled their creative production process.

Trinny London perfects new customer acquisition 

In consumer industries, social media is crucial for building a community of people who feel an affinity with the brand—and Trinny London is no exception. As such, it was imperative that Trinny London’s ad spend was targeted to the correct audience. Using a work management tool, Trinny London was able to nail the process of creating, testing, and implementing ads on multiple social channels.

With the help of a centralized tool, Trinny London improved its ad spend and drove more likes and subscriptions on its YouTube page. Read the case study to learn more about how Trinny London capitalized on paid advertising and social media. 

Turn your marketing plan into marketing success 

A great marketing plan promotes clarity and accountability across teams—so every stakeholder knows what they’re responsible for, by when. Reading this article is the first step to achieving better team alignment, so you can ensure every marketing campaign contributes to your company’s bottom line. 

Use a free marketing plan template to get started

Once you’ve created your marketing strategy and are ready to operationalize your marketing plan, get started with one of our marketing templates . 

Our marketing templates can help you manage and track every aspect of your marketing plan, from creative requests to approval workflows. Centralize your entire marketing plan in one place, customize the roadmap, assign tasks, and build a timeline or calendar. 

Once you’ve operationalized your entire marketing plan with one of our templates, share it with your stakeholders so everyone can work together in the same tool. Your entire team will feel connected to the marketing plan, know what to prioritize, and see how their work contributes to your project objectives . Choose the best marketing template for your team:

Marketing project plan template

Marketing campaign plan template

Product marketing launch template

Editorial calendar template

Agency collaboration template

Creative requests template

Event planning template

GTM strategy template

Still have questions? We have answers. 

What is a marketing plan.

A marketing plan is a detailed roadmap that outlines the different strategies your team will use to achieve organizational objectives. Rather than focusing solely on the end goal, a marketing plan maps every step you need to reach your destination—whether that’s driving pipeline for sales, nurturing your existing customer base, or something in-between. 

As a marketing leader, you know there’s never a shortage of great campaign and project ideas. A marketing plan gives you a framework to effectively prioritize work that aligns to overarching business goals—and then get that work done. Some elements of marketing plans include:

Current business plan

Mission statement  

Business goals

Target customers  

Competitive analysis 

Current marketing mix

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

Marketing budget  

What is the purpose of a marketing plan?

The purpose of a marketing plan is to grow your company’s consumer base and strengthen your brand, while aligning with your organization’s mission and vision . The plan should analyze the competitive landscape and industry trends, offer actionable insights to help you gain a competitive advantage, and document each step of your strategy—so you can see how your campaigns work together to drive overarching business goals. 

What is the difference between a marketing plan and a marketing strategy? 

A marketing plan contains many marketing strategies across different channels. In that way, marketing strategies contribute to your overall marketing plan, working together to reach your company’s overarching business goals.

For example, imagine you’re about to launch a new software product and the goal of your marketing plan is to drive downloads. Your marketing plan could include marketing strategies like creating top-of-funnel blog content and launching a social media campaign. 

What are different types of marketing plans? 

Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, what your timeline is, or which facet of marketing you’re driving, you’ll need to create a different type of marketing plan. Some different types of marketing plans include, but aren’t limited to:

General marketing plan: A general marketing plan is typically an annual or quarterly marketing plan that details the overarching marketing strategies for the period. This type of marketing plan outlines marketing goals, the company’s mission, buyer personas, unique selling propositions, and more. A general marketing plan lays the foundation for other, more specific marketing plans that an organization may employ. 

Product launch marketing plan: A product launch marketing plan is a step-by-step plan for marketing a new product or expanding into a new market. It helps you build awareness and interest by targeting the right audience, with the right messaging, in the right timeframe—so potential customers are ready to buy your new offering right away. Nailing your product launch marketing plan can reinforce your overall brand and fast-track sales. For a step-by-step framework to organize all the moving pieces of a launch, check out our product marketing launch template .

Paid marketing plan: This plan includes all the paid strategies in your marketing plan, like pay-per-click, paid social media advertising, native advertising, and display advertising. It’s especially important to do audience research prior to launching your paid marketing plan to ensure you’re maximizing ROI. Consult with content strategists to ensure your ads align with your buyer personas so you know you’re showing ads to the right people. 

Content marketing plan: A content marketing plan outlines the different content strategies and campaigns you’ll use to promote your product or service. When putting together a content marketing plan, start by identifying your audience. Then use market research tools to get the best insights into what topics your target audience is most interested in.

SEO marketing plan: Your SEO marketing plan should work directly alongside your content marketing plan as you chart content that’s designed to rank in search results. While your content marketing plan should include all types of content, your SEO marketing plan will cover the top-of-funnel content that drives new users to your site. Planning search engine-friendly content is only one step in your SEO marketing plan. You’ll also need to include link-building and technical aspects in order to ensure your site and content are as optimized as possible.

Social media marketing plan: This plan will highlight the marketing strategies you plan to accomplish on social media. Like in any general or digital marketing plan , your social media strategy should identify your ideal customer base and determine how they engage on different social media platforms. From there, you can cater your social media content to your target audience.  

Related resources

Smooth product launches are simpler than you think

How Asana uses work management for smoother creative production

Build a marketing operations strategy in 4 steps

How Asana uses work management for more impactful campaigns

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How To Create an Effective Marketing Plan for Your Business

Behind every successful company is a well-designed marketing plan.

What is a marketing plan?

A marketing plan is a strategy a business develops and implements to sell products or services. The marketing plan defines the target audience and how to reach it best, sets goals, establishes the price for products and services, outlines tactics, and shows how the company will measure its marketing efforts.

Even though marketing plans don’t always produce immediate results, they are still a crucial component of a business plan and are worth considering.

A well-designed and effective marketing plan can reveal opportunities for a business. This can be through creating new audience segments, a change in pricing strategy, or differentiation from the competition .

The right marketing plan can help your business reach new heights.

A typical marketing plan includes:

• A summary of your advertising and marketing goals
• The current state of your business’s marketing
• A timeline for completing the tasks within your strategy
• KPIs (key performance indicators) you will track
• An overview of your target market and customers’ needs
• The methodology you’re using to evaluate the strategy’s performance

Why does your business need a marketing plan?

Often, a marketing plan is a missing link between business strategy  and marketing execution.

If you feel that you are trying many different things on an ad hoc basis without knowing which ones are working, then it is clear that you need a plan.

Here are some of the benefits of creating a marketing plan for your small business:

• Understanding:  A thorough analysis of current market conditions and  where your company stands can help you identify your company’s strengths and weaknesses and potential new markets.
• Focus and Alignment:  It is easy to lose your sense of direction without a plan. A marketing plan ensures your marketing goals are aligned with your business’s mission, vision, and goals . A marketing plan keeps you motivated and on track so you don’t get sidetracked.
• Coordination:  A working document of your marketing strategy facilitates collaboration between management, the marketing team, and the entire company. You can facilitate team collaboration with a tool like Canva Docs .
• Informed decisions: Planning can prevent you from making rash decisions if difficult circumstances arise.
• Max Value:  A cohesive marketing plan amplifies the value of every campaign.

How to create a marketing plan

Detailed marketing plans outline the  strategies  and specific actions your marketing team will take to reach your marketing goals.

If you created a business plan , you probably already have a section on marketing in that plan. But that section will be a high-level summary. You’ll need to expand it to create an effective marketing plan.

The following tips are starting points and best practices that will guide you in creating a comprehensive and effective marketing plan for your small business:

1. Start with an executive summary

The executive summary usually appears at the beginning of your marketing plan. It summarizes your business and the key takeaways from your marketing strategy. It should also outline your marketing objectives and demonstrate how campaigns are tied together.

An executive summary should also provide a quick overview of your company. Here, readers are introduced to the company’s objectives, marketing successes, and plans for the future.

A typical executive summary would include the following:

• Simplified marketing goals
• Milestones/achievements of the company
• Future projects or plans
• Relevant facts about your brand

Executive summaries are meant to pique interest in your marketing plan and excite people to read it.

Lastly, your summary helps set the tone for your marketing plan. Think carefully and select the tone that best reflects your brand.

2. State your mission, vision, and values

Reviewing your company’s values, vision, and mission before starting marketing is a good idea. Your marketing plan becomes more meaningful when you put all the information in perspective.

In short, this section should answer why you do what you do.

This section aims to inform anyone who reads your marketing plan about your company’s overall goal. This will enable them to understand your marketing goals, activities, and future objectives.

3. Identify your target market

To write an effective marketing plan, you must first identify and understand your niche. Make sure you know the specific demographic you are aiming to reach.

This will help you pinpoint and nail your marketing from the get-go if you know your best customers. You will waste a lot less time and money and convert more leads by targeting your advertising campaigns and using the right messaging ,

A buyer  persona  represents your ideal customer .

Including information about your buyer personas, such as age, gender, and income, is helpful. Don’t forget to include behavioral and psychographic data, such as pain points and goals.

Ultimately, you’re trying to answer the following questions: What motivates  your audience? What problems do they have that your product or service can solve?

If your company already has buyer personas, this step might mean you need to refine them.

Some businesses might have several types of target customers. As such, it is typical to create more than one buyer persona.

Ultimately, when you outline your buyer personas, you can segment your marketing campaigns properly and create marketing materials that are more likely to influence and resonate with them.

All this knowledge will help you create a compelling positioning statement , a unique selling proposition , and a  strong brand .

You can outline the traits of your ideal customer by including the following:

The more you know about your customer, the more capable you are of giving them the best experience.

4. Research your competitors

Whatever your product or service, there is always competition for your target market.

It is rare for small business owners to  study their competitors  in depth or to identify companies outside their industry that have just as much ability to attract customers.

You can devise strategies by understanding your competitors’ competitive advantages and how they might respond to your offerings.

By identifying competitors, you can differentiate your business by providing consumers with what your competitors may lack.

As part of your market research, you can also conduct a SWOT analysis of your competitors . Learn what they are doing, what works for them, and how you can improve.

Consider looking into the following aspects when researching your competitors:

• Leaders and marketers at their company
• Financials and growth of the company
• Products or services they are best known for
• Social media marketing strategy
• Check their top-performing blog posts

5. Establish accurate benchmarks and metrics

You can’t plan for your business’s future if you don’t know where it stands today. Increasing R.O.I. (return on investment) is impossible unless you know your goal.

Having baselines will allow you to monitor your progress. This will also allow you to analyze what worked and what didn’t to build a more robust strategy.

Determine which key performance indicators (KPIs) you will use to track and measure each marketing campaign element.

The indicators will assist you in communicating your progress to your business partners or investors. They will also aid you in determining whether or not your marketing efforts are yielding the desired results.

6. Determine your marketing goals

Marketing goals drive your marketing plan. They are the highest level of your strategic thinking . Ideally, you establish these goals after identifying problems and opportunities.

In general, these objectives will have a financial or communication focus and may include the following:

• Maximizing sales revenue or volume
• Lead generation
• Improving customer satisfaction
• Raising  brand awareness
• Transforming customer perceptions
• Increasing  customer retention

Clearly defining your goals will help you measure them effectively. That said, all of your marketing objectives should meet the following SMART criteria:

Be clear about what you want to accomplish. It is essential to clearly define the goal to ensure everyone is on the same page.

A quantifiable objective makes it easy for you to measure your progress. Decide what data will be used to measure the goal and how it will be collected.

It is essential to keep your goals realistic to remain motivated to achieve them. Setting lofty goals is fine, but you should break them down into smaller chunks to make them more manageable.

Goals must be aligned with the company’s mission—set goals for a purpose, not just to accomplish something. When determining whether a goal is relevant, deciding on the critical benefit to the organization is crucial.

Each goal should have a deadline. There isn’t much point in setting a goal without a deadline. How can you assess whether something was a success or failure? This is why S.M.A.R.T. goals include a due date. Although this doesn’t mean all the work is done, you can evaluate the endeavor and set new goals.

7. Identify your marketing channels and choose your marketing tactics

With more  marketing channels , selecting the best one for your business can be challenging.

Study all of your marketing options, including traditional and digital methods . The more you know about these tactics, the easier it will be to choose the ones most suitable for your business and to build effective marketing funnels .

Among the most popular digital marketing channels are:

Search engines

Nearly half of all online shoppers begin their research with a search engine. Including link-building outreach and optimizing for local SEO   in your marketing plan will enable you to reach people when they’re actively searching for your products and services.

Social media

90% of social media users have communicated with a brand due to their social media presence, and 53.6% of the population uses social media. Every type of consumer is on some  social media platform, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, so social media is essential to a business’s marketing strategy.

It may seem overwhelming to consider all the possibilities but take the time to concentrate on the sites that will generate the most significant benefit for your business.

Email marketing remains an effective and popular choice for small businesses. Companies can use email marketing techniques in many ways, including newsletters, promotional campaigns, and transactional emails.

Consumer behavior has changed due to the popularity of smartphones and tablets. Because people carry these devices with them almost wherever they go, companies seek to implement marketing strategies to reach their customers through their mobile devices .

Many businesses are trying to figure out how to make contextually relevant ads appear when people watch or read content on their devices. Contextual targeting helps companies make ads more relevant, increasing response rates and ad recall.

Having a well-rounded marketing mix is essential, giving yourself plenty of time for these channels to pay off and reach critical mass and leaving room for trial and error.

Algorithms primarily power digital marketing. Algorithms may help businesses provide personalized experiences to users, but any algorithm changes can quickly render marketing plans useless.

An eCommerce business must have a diverse media strategy to survive in this highly dynamic market. By driving traffic through SEO , email, and media coverage, we’re less vulnerable to a single tech platform unfavorably changing its algorithm.

Some of these channels and tactics will be challenging for you to execute without some expert help. For example, suppose you’re starting a business in the United Kingdom. In that case, you might look at United Kingdom marketing agencies that can help you define proper tactics for channels where you have little or no experience. Similarly, you’ll want to identify agencies in the U.S. (including those that specialize in the channels you care most about) if you’re building a marketing plan for the U.S. market.

8. Set your budget

A marketing budget describes how much money the business has allotted to the marketing team to pursue the initiatives and goals they have listed and identified.

When you draft the plan and evaluate your course of action, note the estimated cost, assets, and time required to achieve the stated goals; this will help when it comes time to set the actual budget.

Additionally, setting a marketing budget will ensure you don’t lose sight of the financial aspect of things during execution and implementation.

Even if your marketing team uses many free channels and platforms, preparing for “hidden” costs is best.

Depending on how many individual expenses you have, it might make sense to itemize this budget based on the specific things you intend to pay for.

Here are some examples of marketing expenses:

• Outsourcing  marketing costs to a marketing agency or other provider
• Application software for marketing
• Paid promotions
• Events (the ones that you will host and attend)

9. Establish guidelines for tracking and reporting

It would be best to conclude your marketing plan by explaining how you plan to track or measure your results. Standardizing tracking results across your team will save you time and frustration in the long run.

In this section, you can go as in-depth as you like. However, here is a minimum set of guidelines for tracking results you can start working with:

• What you are tracking
• How you are tracking
• How often you are tracking

Marketing plans require a lot of effort. To create an effective strategy, you must dig deep into your target market’s competitive research, audience data, and research channels.

Remembering that marketing plans are not set in stone is also important. As your business grows and evolves, so should your marketing plan.

But if you have the fundamentals down, you are more likely to achieve your business goals if you create an effective marketing plan.

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Marketing Strategy Business Plan

Start your own marketing strategy business plan

Cambridge Strategy Group

Executive summary executive summary is a brief introduction to your business plan. it describes your business, the problem that it solves, your target market, and financial highlights.">, opportunity.

The start up businesses in Cambridge are in need of a consulting firm that helps them decide how to market themselves and build themselves to a successful business. Research shows that many of these businesses fail since they don’t have the resources to make the right choices. Helping them keeps people employed and the economy going strong. 

The Cambridge Strategy Group (CSG), L.L.C. is dedicated to providing marketing and management consulting services to small and emerging businesses looking for opportunities to increase their potential for success. 

The target market is defined by the customer needs that create the market, the structural forces that govern operation within the market, and the attractiveness of the market based on strategic value, market size, market growth, and potential for profit.

Competition

There are many rivals in the Cambridge area that fall into 4 categories: segment rivals, market rivals, generic rivals, structural rivals.

The Cambridge Strategy Group is focused specifically on helping small and emerging businesses maximize their potential for success. 

Expectations

The market for Cambridge Strategy Group’s services is enormous. Initially, the three founding members intend to work part-time on this venture while maintaining full-time positions with other corporations. As we determine how best to enlarge our operations, we will consider expanding the business as defined in our strategy.

Financial Highlights by Year

Financing needed.

The three managing directors will contribute $115,000.  John Gordon is contributing $40,000, Todd Kuczaj will be contributing $40,000 and Ben Cordell will be contributing $35,000. 

Problem & Solution

Problem worth solving.

The new businesses in the area  were started by an entrepreneur with a solid idea, but little experience in creating the formal business strategies or marketing deliverables necessary to turn their idea into a successful business. With recent IPOs giving back much of their initial valuations, companies are now being forced to demonstrate profitable business models in order to maintain strong valuations. Venture capitalists need to focus on making their existing companies successful instead of simply prospecting for the next great idea. To accomplish this, founders need to effectively define and communicate their value propositions. Since this is not a core competency for many entrepreneurs, there is an opportunity to provide this skill set through outsourcing arrangements. Additionally, founders need experience in sales and marketing to exploit market opportunities and create early revenue wins. Finally, no business currently exists with dominant mind-share as a "small business consulting" firm.

Our Solution

The Cambridge Strategy Group is focused specifically on helping small and emerging businesses maximize their potential for success. We differentiate ourselves in the following ways:

• Focus on small business:   Our mission is to help small businesses of today become the leading corporations of tomorrow. Cambridge Strategy Group will attempt to own the words "small business" in the minds of our potential clients.
• Cost-effective personal interaction with local consultant presence: We will target new regions with local consultants, allowing us to personally interact with small businesses without needing to bring consultants to the region.
• A diverse network of consultants and alliance partners:   By relying on a nationally distributed talent base coordinated to work together remotely, we will be able to bring together a variety of skills to meet the needs of our clients.

Target Market

Market size & segments.

Market Segmentation

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS The following factors define the environment in which CSG hopes to succeed.

• Physical:  New businesses are being formed across the United States every day. Providing consulting services to these businesses will require local presence. North Carolina’s Triangle Area has recently been rated as one of the top three metropolitan areas for small businesses by Dun and Bradstreet’s  Entrepreneur  magazine.
• Legal:  The creation of the Limited Liability Company has made it very simple for new businesses to organize as formal business entities. Limited Liability Companies are ideal for small businesses as they avoid the double taxation characteristic of C Corporations, while providing limited liability for the company members.
• Economic:  Current economic conditions are continuing to challenge investors’ views regarding the potential for return. The market is no longer rewarding entrepreneurs solely on the strength of their ideas. Instead, business owners and Venture Capitalists are expected to show profitability before they will be allowed to reap the rewards of their hard work. While small business owners bring innovative ideas and possibly leadership qualities to their organization, they will need to rely upon skills from other disciplines, including marketing, to succeed.
• Social:  According to a Small Business Administration report, U.S. small business is at an all-time high  (The Facts About Small Business, 1999) "interest in owning or starting a small business has broken new records [between 1993 and 1998]." While recent stock market corrections may have frightened a segment of potential entrepreneurs, the opportunity for financial reward keeps many small business owners diligently chasing their dreams.
• Technological:  Recent advances in technology have greatly enhanced the ability for distributed teams to work together on common projects. The proliferation of the Internet facilitates data sharing and communication. Voice-over-IP technology reduces the cost of conversation between CSG members working across the country.

With these conditions in mind, CSG will concentrate on initially building clients in the North Carolina area before expanding into other areas. We will be concentrating on all businesses that employ less than 100 individuals. CSG will not segment its market to any greater degree since the company wants to build clients as quickly as possible. Therefore our market analysis chart below reflects this initial strategy.

Target Market 

The target market is defined by the customer needs that create the market, the structural forces that govern operation within the market, and the attractiveness of the market based on strategic value, market size, market growth, and potential for profit. Each of these areas is described below.

STRUCTURAL FACTORS Particular market forces affect the ability of the Cambridge Strategy Group to succeed. These forces are identified below:

• Buyer Power:  With almost 900,000 new businesses starting each year, there is ample demand for consulting services. If any particular business chooses to work with another consulting firm, there are still a large number of firms that can be targeted by CSG. Buyers have power in this market, but the size of the market makes it unlikely that buyer power will have any significant negative impact on the consulting firm.
• Threat of Conventional Competitors:  No other conventional competitor owns the idea of "small business consulting" in the minds of today’s business owners. A number of high-profile management and marketing consulting firms exist, yet most of these firms have a reputation for being expensive and much too theoretical for small business owners who have practical, short-term concerns. Still, there is potential for these firms to open distinct teams of consultants focused on this market place. These teams would have particular strength in an area where the competitors already have an established consulting presence, such as the major U.S. cities. By beginning our efforts in the Triangle Area of North Carolina, Cambridge Strategy Group will exploit an area that has a very strong market of small businesses, yet does not have many high-profile competitor offices outside of tax specialists. No smaller competitor has emerged in this area.

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• Supplier Power:  Suppliers have minimal power over a consulting firm. The www.cambridgestrategy.net website URL as well as all of the Cambridge Strategy Group email addresses are owned by CSG. Our Web-hosting provider can be changed quickly in the event of any disruption of service. CSG intends to work with third party alliance partners to fulfill client projects. For example, CSG is in the process of entering into an agreement with a Web development firm. This supplier will provide website development for the www.cambridgestrategy.net website in exchange for first right of refusal for future client projects. Contractual stipulations have given the Group legal remedies to terminate the contract due to cost, quality, or time issues with the supplier. By crafting supplier contracts in a careful manner, we hope to limit our exposure to risk due to suppliers’ power.
• Threat of Substitutes:  Potential substitutes are a very real threat. Venture Capitalists could add more consulting services to their portfolio in order to have more points of contact with the new business. Additionally, non-profit groups such as the Council for Entrepreneurial Development offer basic business plan services, primarily focusing on pre-Angel businesses. Cambridge Strategy Group intends to form relationships with each of these potential substitutes. By working with Venture Capitalists, CSG is able to provide a set of core competencies in marketing and business strategy that complements the VCs funding and business model assessment competencies. Also, by becoming more involved with the Council for Entrepreneurial Development and other non-profit organizations, CSG will gain access to a number of firms who will be potential prospects for marketing consulting once they receive their initial funding.
• Threat of New Entrants:  This threat is significant as there are very few barriers to entry in a consulting market. Consulting firms do not normally have significant intellectual property that can be patented, and the requirements for creating these firms are minimal. Fortunately, the size of the new business market should sustain a number of firms in this area. The Cambridge Strategy Group will focus on gaining ownership of the idea "small business consulting" in the mind of the market. By owning that idea, CSG will minimize its exposure to new consulting firms with similar targets. Owning this idea is an expensive task that will have to start locally and move from one city to another as the company expands.

Current Alternatives

Competitors to the Cambridge Strategy Group fall into four categories:

• Segment Rivals:  Segment Rivals offer the exact same services as the Cambridge Strategy Group. These firms must focus exclusively on small businesses and offer marketing and/or management strategy services.
• Market Rivals:  There are a number of available Market Rivals who compete with the Cambridge Strategy Group while having slightly different business focuses. Examples of market rivals include start-up focused branches of Big Five Consulting Firms, Management Consulting Firms, and Venture Capitalists who also provide business services.
• Generic Rivals:  Generic Rivals represent alternative solutions. The main alternative to outsourcing work to a consulting firm is performing the work in-house.
• Structural Rivals:  Structural Rivals are the forces inherent in the market through which the firm must operate. These forces were described in the previous section entitled Target Market Analysis.

Our Advantages

Key Success Factors:   After exploring the opportunities and threats that permeate this market, the following Key Success Factors emerge as the requirements to be successful at providing marketing and management consulting services to small businesses.

• Local presence in a strong small business market;
• Affordable pricing structure/minimal costs;
• Clear value proposition, communicated into target market;
• Core competencies in marketing and strategy;
• Recognition as leading "small business consultants" or, no other firm claiming that title;
• Venture Capitalist relationships.

Keys to Success

UNIQUENESS OF SERVICES The Cambridge Strategy Group is focused specifically on helping small and emerging businesses maximize their potential for success. We combine Blue Chip training with small business experience and local presence. We differentiate ourselves in the following ways:

• Focus on small business.  We place our best people on small business customers. Our mission is to help small businesses of today become the leading corporations of tomorrow. Cambridge Strategy Group will attempt to own the words "small business" in the minds of our potential clients.
• Cost-effective personal interaction with local consultant presence. Personal interaction provides small businesses with a level of comfort not available with remote consultants. There may be many occasions where the small business founders may ask the consultant to simply "stop by," to react to a new development, or to answer a question. While this local presence and personal interaction is highly valued, business owners are often unable to afford the cost associated with bringing consultants to them from other areas.
• A diverse network of consultants and alliance partners.  Solving the unique problems that face small businesses today demands a wide range of skills and experiences. By relying on a nationally distributed talent base coordinated to work together remotely, Cambridge Strategy Group will be able to bring together the skills required by a particular client without incurring the expense of physically bringing all of the individuals together. In the book,  22 Immutable Laws of Marketing , authors Al Ries and Jack Trout note that being first in the customer’s mind is more important than being the overall leader. In the world of small business, this is particularly true. With 898,000 small businesses starting each year, there is a significant opportunity for a consulting firm such as Cambridge Strategy Group to become the "first" consulting firm dedicated exclusively to small businesses in the minds of a number of these potential clients.

Marketing & Sales

Marketing plan.

We have a number of ways to promote We will use a number of relationships to promote the Cambridge Strategy Group.

Through participation in the North Carolina Chapter of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development, we will make contacts with key Venture Capitalists, small business founders, and small businesses resources in the area. Once we have helped our first few clients, we will then explore relationships with local newspapers. Participating in local chambers of commerce will also help us to get increased exposure. In every method of communication, we will constantly reinforce our differential advantage:

• Focus on helping small businesses start moving in the right direction;
• Practical, actionable, short-term marketing and business strategy help;
• Local presence for availability and minimization of costs;
• Broad skill base combining Fortune 500 training with small business experience.

The 20 projects averaging 200 hours each listed represents approximately two person-years of work. However, additional time must be included for finding new clients and building Venture Capitalist relationships. For this forecast to become a reality, it will require either: (a) additional consultants to join the firm or (b) some members of CSG to work full-time on group activities. Note that "projects" are not synonymous with "clients." Any given client may require multiple projects from CSG.

The Cambridge Strategy Group understands the importance of implementing the technological components of a small business as soon as possible in order to facilitate communication between the company and its clients, employees, and partners. Therefore, we offer assistance in email enablement as well as phone and fax set-up. CSG also offers expertise in constructing an Internet presence through Web development and Web hosting.

Milestones & Metrics

Milestones table, key metrics.

Our Key Metrics are: 

• Total clients per month 
• Average billing per engagement. 
• Repeat business vs. new business. 
• Facebook likes, Twitter follows. 

Ownership & Structure

The company is organized as a manager-managed Limited Liability Company. Initially, we will have three members with equal equity stakes in the company making all voting decisions. An executive director who is one of the managers will be identified to run meetings and provide some form of order to ongoing discussions. Additionally, we will hire consultants as needed to help our clients. Consultants will be paid on a per-deliverable basis.

Management Team

The CSG management team brings a broad range of industry experience and training from both energetic small firms and experienced industry leaders.

John B. Gordon, Executive Director: John has worked in marketing, business development, and corporate strategy for a number of small and large firms, including EMC Corporation, IBM Corporation, and Larscom, Incorporated. John’s participation on the North Carolina Council for Entrepreneurial Development, plus his experience providing consulting services to small businesses, catalyzed the formation of the Cambridge Strategy Group.

Todd D. Kuczaj, Managing Director: Todd has worked in Internet consulting, Web design/development, financial services, and media publications for a variety of companies, including a Big Five consulting firm, Integrated Information Systems Inc., SunAmerica Securities Inc., and the Foothills Sentinel. Todd currently functions as an experienced analyst for a Big Five consulting firm, working with Fortune 100 and Fortune e-50 firms to solve their business and technology issues.

Ben S. Cordell, Managing Director: Ben has worked in business development, account management, systems engineering, marketing, and product development positions at LifeServ and ONE Co. (formerly DC Systems). Ben currently functions as a corporate strategy specialist at LifeServ, discovering and developing merger, acquisition and strategic partnership opportunities.

The Cambridge Strategy Group will create an advisory board to bring insight into new areas including consulting management, finance and accounting, venture capital, and local media. The Founders of CSG have a number of contacts that could certainly provide useful guidance in our future operations. We will determine the value and compensation for the advisory board in future discussions.

Personnel Table

Financial plan investor-ready personnel plan .">, key assumptions.

Below is a list of assumptions that define the short-term business model:

• Year 1 will  be spent preparing and learning how best to approach clients and building relationships with VCs;
• All managers will hold full-time positions with other companies;
• We will focus on business opportunities in NC until we create sufficient revenue to open foreign LLC’s in other states;
• year 1  financial model represents only three managers;
• All revenue is realized when a project is finished

Revenue by Month

Expenses by month, net profit (or loss) by year, use of funds.

Our Startup Expenses are: 

Start-up Expenses

Stationery etc.$100

Brochures$150

Insurance$200

Other$4,000

TOTAL START-UP EXPENSES$4,650

Sources of Funds

Our 3 owners will contribute to our startup: John Gordon is contributing 40,000, Todd Kuczaj is contributing 40,000, Ben Cordell contributed 35,000. The total from the owner investment is 115000

Projected Profit & Loss

Projected balance sheet, projected cash flow statement.

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Your Guide to Creating a Small Business Marketing Plan

Table of Contents

To have a successful business, you need a well-thought-out marketing plan to promote your products or services. Although making a few social media posts or blasting a few promotional emails may seem simple enough, disjointed marketing efforts not only confuse your target audience, but can ultimately harm your business. 

What is a marketing plan?

A marketing plan is a strategic road map for how you communicate (online and offline) with your target audience to successfully promote your products or services. Depending on your goal, marketing plans can be extremely basic or highly detailed.

According to Molly Maple Bryant, vice president of marketing at Vibrent Health, a marketing plan is not simply a list of things you want to accomplish. Instead, it should list the outcomes you seek — measurable and contextual, like the pipeline you’re developing, or leads you’re generating — and it should explain the high-level strategies you will use to achieve those outcomes. Developing strategies can be complicated, but they make a major difference in keeping you on track and avoiding diversions, also called scope creep .

“Once you have an agreed-upon plan, you are able to compare any incoming requests against your strategies to determine ‘Yes, this adheres to my strategy so we can add it,’ or ‘No, this sounds good in theory, but it doesn’t adhere to our agreed-upon strategy, so we won’t adjust resources,'” Bryant told us.

Types of marketing plans

There are several different types of marketing plans you can use based on certain strategies that make sense for your organization. Your business will likely need a combination of the following marketing plans to create an effective, comprehensive marketing strategy:

• Advertising plan
• Branding plan
• Content marketing plan
• Customer acquisition plan
• Direct marketing plan
• Email marketing plan
• Public relation plan
• Print marketing plan
• Reputation management plan
• Retention plan
• Search engine optimization plan
• Social media marketing plan

Why is it important to have a marketing plan for your business?

A marketing plan is a crucial resource for any small business because it helps you identify the market needs your product or service meets, how your product is different from competitors, and who your product or service is for. Marketing plans also serve as a road map for your sales strategy, branding direction and building your overall business. This is important for successfully conveying your brand messaging to your target audience .

Another significant benefit of a marketing plan for your company is that rather than simply guessing metrics, it forces you to sit down and do the math about your business goals and how to realistically fulfill them. When you look at your growth outcomes, you can delve further to determine what it will take to get to those numbers.

Bryant offered the following example: “Need $100,000 in revenue? How many sales is that? If 10, what’s your close rate? Let’s say 10 percent from lead to closed deal. Now you have a metric to start with — to get to 10 sales, we need 100 leads. Where will they come from, and what strategies will you use? The plan helps you put it all on paper so you can map out resources and tactics later with a lot of preparation and realism,” said Bryant.

When analyzing outcomes and resources, you can save time and avoid scope creep by focusing only on strategies that are relevant to your marketing plan. A marketing plan helps you think realistically about your strategies, gets your stakeholders on the same page, and holds your marketing team accountable for their decisions.

“When everyone’s tasks and goals are laid out for the stakeholders and company partners to see, it is much easier for the entire team to feel at ease about reaching sales goals and allowing the marketing team the space and freedom needed to execute work without constant supervision,” said Cassady Dill, digital marketing consultant and owner of Ethos Agency.

Additionally, Dill said a marketing plan should be easily understood by your entire team, executives and outside departments. Your plan should also serve as an easy guide for future marketing managers and team members to understand and implement.

What are the key elements of an effective business marketing plan?

A marketing plan should be customized to fit your business; however, Dill said, all marketing plans contain five essential functions:

• Your business goals
• Key metrics (how you quantify and measure success)
• Strategies (an overview of implementation and how that will achieve goals)
• A plan (the details of execution and the human resources, departments and software that will be involved)
• Reporting (what reports of progress will include and/or look like)

We broke down those five functions into 10 actionable categories to help you create a marketing plan that is unique and effective for your business.

1. Executive summary

The executive summary is a great place to give the reader of your plan an overview of your business’s mission or goals, as well as the marketing strategy you’re looking to employ. An executive summary is often written after you’ve completed the rest of the marketing plan, to ensure it covers all the important elements of your plan. If the executive summary is the only part of your marketing plan that someone reads (which is highly possible), you want to be sure they understand the most crucial details.

2. Mission statement

The mission statement , not to be confused with a vision statement, is a statement that encompasses your company’s values and how they relate to your overall goals as an organization. Here are some good questions to get you thinking:

• What does your company do today?
• What’s important to your company?
• What would your company like to do in the future?
• What is your brand identity?
• What’s your culture like ?
• How does your company benefit customers, employees and stakeholders?

3. Target markets

Identifying your target market is one of the most important parts of your marketing plan. Without a defined target audience, your marketing expenses will be wasted. Think of it like this: Some people need your service or product but don’t know it exists yet. Who are those people?

Here are some other questions to help you brainstorm your target market :

• What is the demographic of your customers (gender, age, income, education, etc.)?
• What are their needs and interests?
• What’s their psychographic profile (attitudes, philosophies, values, lifestyle, etc.)?
• How do they behave?
• What are some existing products they use?

4. Products and services

In this section, don’t just list what your product or service is. Think critically about what you have to offer your customers and what that value proposition means to them.

• What do you make or provide for customers?
• What are your customers’ needs?
• How does your product or service fulfill customers’ needs?
• What value do you add to your customers’ lives?
• What type of product or service are you offering?

5. Distribution channels

At this point in your report, you should transition your thinking into actual marketing theory and practices. Distribution channels are the avenues you’ll use to reach a prospective customer or business . Think of all current and potential sales channels on which your specific target audience is active. One distribution channel that works great for one organization may be useless to another. For example, one company may host their website for free on a site like HubSpot and solely rely on that as their sales channel, while another company may have a whole team of people using Pinterest to drive sales. [Learn how CRM systems can help track your marketing leads based on various distribution channels.]

Examples of sales channels include the following:

• Mobile text message marketing
• Social media
• Print (newspapers, magazines, brochures, catalogs, direct mail)
• Broadcast (TV, radio)
• Press releases
• Trade shows, product demonstrations, event marketing

6. Competitive profile

One of the major aspects of your marketing plan is developing your unique selling proposition (USP). A USP is a feature or stance that separates your product or service from competitors. Finding your USP is all about differentiation and distinguishing your company as a sole proprietor of one type of good or service. Conduct a competitive analysis to identify your competitive profile and how you stack up against the competition. It is important to remain unbiased when conducting this analysis.

Here are some ideas to consider:

• What’s your USP?
• Who are your competitors? What do they offer?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of your competition?
• What needs of the market (or customer) are not being served? What can you do to meet those needs?

7. A pricing strategy

Consider pricing when drafting your marketing plan. Developing the right pricing strategy helps you better market your product. Think about your current and projected finances when developing a long-term marketing strategy that is realistic and beneficial for your business. Here are some key questions to ask yourself about your pricing:

• What are reasonable margins to make a profit and cover production costs?
• Is there a market for products or services at your projected price point?
• Are you willing to sacrifice profit margins in return for a greater market share?
• What are your marketing and distribution costs?

8. Objectives

Consider your objectives when developing a marketing plan. This aspect of your plan should involve specific goals related to market penetration and revenue targets. Be sure to keep your marketing objectives on-brand with your business. Here are some things to consider:

• Sales quotas
• Number of new customers gained
• Customer retention percentages
• Revenue targets
• Market penetration
• Brand awareness
• Website traffic

9. Action plans

With all of the above items outlined, determine what steps need to be taken to enact your marketing plan. This includes determining the proper steps, setting goals, breaking down responsibilities, and establishing an overall timeline.

It’s also important to brainstorm potential roadblocks your business could face and some solutions to overcome them. Your research is useless if you don’t have an actionable plan that can be realistically implemented to carry out your ideas.

10. Financial projections

This last step allows you to establish a realistic marketing budget and better understand your marketing plan from a cost perspective. In addition to setting a budget, consider the overall return on investment as well. Here are some other financial projections to consider:

• Cost of implementation
• Cost to produce product or service
• Existing and projected cash flow
• Projected sales
• Desired profit margin on projected sales

What is a template for creating a successful marketing plan?

The internet is full of useful tools, including paid and free marketing plan templates, to help you build a successful marketing plan .

Whether you are looking for a free template generator to build a new marketing plan or a benchmarking tool to evaluate your current strategies, several great resources are available. Keep in mind that the best marketing plan for your business will be a customized one.

“Ultimately, you should design a marketing plan that best serves the needs of your team as you see fit,” said Dill. “Don’t force yourself into a plan that doesn’t fit your team. Use templates to shorten the workload time, but then adjust it for a more custom plan.”

Here are some tools and templates to get you started:

• Free marketing plan template : business.com has developed a free template that is fully customizable based on the needs of your business. Each section provides in-depth explanations, examples and resources to help you create an impressive marketing plan.
• Smart Insights: In addition to offering marketing plan templates, some companies, like Smart Insights, offer marketing benchmarking templates to help you evaluate your strategy performance. These are accessible with a free Smart Insights membership.
• GERU: Similarly, GERU offers a funnel-planning, profit-prediction and simulation tool to help you assess mock business ideas and simulations. This can help you identify weak points in your marketing strategy that need improvement. Although GERU requires users to sign up for a paid account, you can access a free trial to test it out.

What mistakes should you avoid when creating your marketing plan?

When creating an effective marketing plan, you need to avoid falling for common missteps and mistakes. For starters, failing to identify any of the 10 actionable categories above is an obvious mistake.

Here are some other key mistakes to avoid:

• Setting unrealistic budgets: Underestimating the costs of marketing activities or setting an unrealistic budget can limit your ability to execute your plan effectively. Marketing can be expensive, so it’s important to fully understand the estimated cost and budget before building a marketing strategy that you can’t afford.
• Focusing on quantity over quality: “More” doesn’t always mean “better” if you are posting on irrelevant marketing channels or your efforts are bringing in unqualified leads. Prioritizing the quantity of marketing activities over their quality can lead to superficial engagement and a lack of meaningful results.
• Not testing campaigns: Launching large campaigns without testing can lead to wasted resources if the messaging or tactics don’t resonate as expected. Test out your new campaigns to ensure they achieve your intended goal.
• Ignoring customer feedback: You may be tempted to ignore negative feedback, but disregarding customer comments and failing to address their concerns can lead to negative perceptions of your brand. Instead, use customer feedback to your advantage to improve your product and marketing efforts.
• Overpromising and underdelivering: Setting unrealistic expectations in your marketing messages that your products or services can’t fulfill can damage your brand’s reputation.
• Ignoring seasonality and trends: Failing to account for seasonal trends and market changes can result in missed opportunities for timely marketing efforts.
• Not reviewing and updating your plan: A rigid marketing plan that doesn’t allow for adjustments in response to market feedback and changing conditions can hinder your success. A marketing plan should be a living document that is regularly reviewed and updated to reflect changes in the market and your business’s goals.

Avoiding these mistakes and missteps can help you create a more effective and successful marketing plan that drives results for your business.

How can you take action with your new marketing plan?

Before you dive into marketing plan templates, it’s important to understand how to think about a marketing plan.

A good marketing plan targets who your buyers are, establishes the service or product you are offering, and determines your unique selling proposition. From here, you will tackle the marketing planning process and develop the best way to get your product in front of buyers who want your product or service.

Dill created a simple four-step process for how small businesses can take action with creating a marketing plan.

• The first step is to hold a marketing meeting with all the marketing team and executives or stakeholders. This gives them time to offer questions, concerns and criticisms you haven’t thought of so you can go back to the board room and revise your strategy or plan.
• Next, add a timeline to all your tasks and assign team members and all the help you’ll need to execute that plan.
• Once your plan is in action, hold weekly check-ins in person or by email to keep everyone on track.
• Share a weekly progress report with all parties involved and execs to ensure you are moving in the right direction.

In addition to drafting your own plan, you can work with a digital marketing agency or use internet marketing and pay-per-click management services to leverage your online presence.

Once you’ve established a general road map, update it annually. Developing an evolving marketing plan sets your business up for continued success because it allows you to prepare for the unexpected and establish a connection between your brand and your audience.

Matt D’Angelo contributed to this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.

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What Is a Marketing Plan?

Understanding marketing plans, how to write a marketing plan, marketing plan vs. business plan.

• Marketing Plan FAQs

The Bottom Line

• Marketing Essentials

What Is a Marketing Plan? Types and How to Write One

James Chen, CMT is an expert trader, investment adviser, and global market strategist.

Pete Rathburn is a copy editor and fact-checker with expertise in economics and personal finance and over twenty years of experience in the classroom.

Investopedia / Zoe Hansen

A marketing plan is an operational document that outlines an advertising strategy that an organization will implement to generate leads and reach its target market . A marketing plan details the outreach and PR campaigns to be undertaken over a period, including how the company will measure the effect of these initiatives. The functions and components of a marketing plan include the following:

• Market research to support pricing decisions and new market entries
• Tailored messaging that targets certain demographics and geographic areas
• Platform selection for product and service promotion: digital, radio, Internet, trade magazines, and the mix of those platforms for each campaign
• Metrics that measure the results of marketing efforts and their reporting timelines

A marketing plan is based on a company’s overall marketing strategy.

Key Takeaways

• The marketing plan details the strategy that a company will use to market its products to customers.
• The plan identifies the target market, the value proposition of the brand or the product, the campaigns to be initiated, and the metrics to be used to assess the effectiveness of marketing initiatives.
• The marketing plan should be adjusted on an ongoing basis based on the findings from the metrics that show which efforts are having an impact and which are not.
• Digital marketing shows results in near real-time, whereas TV ads require rotation to realize any level of market penetration.
• A marketing plan is part of a business plan, which describes all of the important aspects of a business, such as its goals, values, mission statement, budget, and strategies.

The terms marketing plan and marketing strategy are often used interchangeably because a marketing plan is developed based on an overarching strategic framework. In some cases, the strategy and the plan may be incorporated into one document, particularly for smaller companies that may only run one or two major campaigns in a year. The plan outlines marketing activities on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis while the marketing strategy outlines the overall value proposition.

Types of Marketing Plans

There are a variety of different marketing plans that suit different businesses and different business needs.

New Product Launch: This is a marketing plan that outlines how a new product will enter the market, who it will target, and in what way advertising will be done.

Social Media: A social media marketing plan focuses on the advertising strategies on different social media platforms and how to engage with the users on these platforms.

Time-Based: Time-based marketing plans, such as those that are executed quarterly or annually, focus on the time of the year, the current condition of the business, and the best strategies in that period.

Mission and Value Proposition

A marketing plan considers the value proposition of a business. The value proposition is the overall promise of value to be delivered to the customer and is a statement that appears front and center of the company website or any branding materials.

The value proposition should state how a product or brand solves the customer's problem, the benefits of the product or brand, and why the customer should buy from this company and not another. The marketing plan is based on this value proposition to the customer.

Establishing your key performance indicators (KPIs) will allow you to measure the success of your marketing plan in relation to your company's value proposition. For example, if your goal is to engage with a certain demographic in a certain region, you can track social media and website visits.

The most effective digital marketing techniques in 2020 according to marketers are content marketing and marketing automation.

Identify Your Target Market

The marketing plan identifies the target market for a product or brand. Market research is often the basis for a target market and marketing channel decisions. For example, whether the company will advertise on the radio, on social media, through online ads, or on regional TV. 

Knowing who you want to sell to and why is an extremely critical component of any business plan. It allows you to focus your business and measure its success. Different demographics have different tastes and needs, knowing what your target market is will help you market to them.

Strategy and Execution

The marketing plan includes the rationale for these decisions. The plan should focus on the creation, timing, scheduling, and placement of specific campaigns. The plan will include the metrics that will measure the outcomes of your marketing efforts. For example, will you advertise on the radio or on social media? What time will you air advertisements if they are on the radio or TV? The strategy may include flighting scheduling , which includes the times when you can make the most of your advertising dollars.

Set Your Budget

A marketing plan costs money. Knowing your budget for a marketing plan will allow you to create a suitable plan within that context, stick to it, and prevent runaway costs. It will also help you allocate to different areas of your marketing plan.

Adjust Your Plan

A marketing plan can be adjusted at any point based on the results from the metrics. If digital ads are performing better than expected, for example, the budget for a campaign can be adjusted to fund a higher-performing platform or the company can initiate a new budget. The challenge for marketing leaders is to ensure that every platform has sufficient time to show results.

Without the correct metrics to assess the impact of outreach and marketing efforts, an organization will not know which campaigns to repeat and which ones to drop; maintaining ineffective initiatives will unnecessarily increase marketing costs.

Digital marketing shows results in near real-time, whereas TV ads require rotation to realize any level of market penetration. In the traditional marketing mix model, a marketing plan would fall under the category of "promotion," which is one of the four Ps , a term coined by Neil Borden to describe the marketing mix of product, price, promotion, and place.

A business plan details how a business will operate and function in its entirety. A business plan is a roadmap for a business. It will cover the goals, missions , values, financials, and strategies that the business will use in day-to-day operations and in the achievement of its objectives.

A business plan will include an executive summary, the products and services sold, a marketing analysis, a marketing strategy, financial planning, and a budget , to name but a few items.

As mentioned, a business plan will include a marketing plan, which focuses on creating a marketing strategy on how to bring awareness to the public of the company's product or service, how to reach the target market, and generate sales.

Example of a Marketing Plan

John came up with a new business idea that he believes is a niche offering in the market. He decides to start a business and his first step is creating a business plan that outlines all of the objectives, goals, values, pitfalls, and finances of his company.

John is able to raise enough capital from friends and family to get started, hires a few employees, and eventually creates his product. He now has to start selling his product and generate sales to keep his business operating.

To achieve this, John, with the help of a marketing company, creates a marketing plan. The marketing plan consists of market research that details the target market for John's product, which is recently retired men.

The marketing plan then comes up with the best methods of reaching this target market. The marketing plan stresses radio and television as opposed to social media as older, retired men use social media less than traditional forms of media, according to the market research that was conducted.

The ads are tailored to the target market, showing how John's product will benefit their lives, particularly when compared to market alternatives. Once the marketing plan has been executed, the marketing team analyzes how the efforts translate into sales.

What Is a Marketing Plan Template?

A marketing plan template is a document that an individual can use to create a marketing plan. The marketing plan template will contain all the important elements and the various needed language with blank sections. A user can insert their own information related to their business in the blank sections to ultimately create their own marketing plan.

What Is an Executive Summary in a Marketing Plan?

The executive summary of a marketing plan provides a brief overview of the entire marketing plan. The executive summary will contain the key findings of the market research, the company's objectives, marketing goals, an overview of the marketing trends, the description of the product or service being marketed, information on the target market, and how to financially plan for the marketing plan.

What Is a Top-Down Marketing Strategy?

A top-down marketing strategy is a traditional marketing strategy. This is where a business determines who it should sell to and how, and the customer base is largely passive and spurred to take action once they hear the advertisement. For example, a top-down marketing strategy would include ads on radio or television. Top-down marketing strategies are usually determined by the executives of a firm. It usually consists of what a firm desires to do and then determining a way to do it.

What Is a Bottom-Up Marketing Strategy?

A bottom-up marketing strategy focuses on discovering a workable strategy and then building on that strategy to create an impactful advertising campaign. Today's consumer wants to relate to a product or service in a meaningful way and a bottom-up marketing strategy is better suited to this. A bottom-up marketing strategy should focus on the target market and how better to create value for them.

How Much Does a Marketing Plan Cost?

The cost of a marketing plan will vary based on the company, the complexity, and the length of the overall strategy. The cost can range anywhere from $10,000 to $40,000.

A marketing plan is the advertising strategy that a business will implement to sell its product or service. The marketing plan will help determine who the target market is, how best to reach them, at what price point the product or service should be sold, and how the company will measure its efforts.

Constantly monitoring and adjusting a market plan is an important part of running a business as it shows what are the best and worst ways to generate sales. Without a successful marketing plan, a business may not be able to continue operating for very long.

Statista. " Most Effective Digital Marketing Techniques According to Marketers Worldwide in 2020 ."

Laire. " How Much Does a Marketing Plan Cost? "

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• Marketing Strategy: What It Is, How It Works, and How to Create One 3 of 25
• Marketing in Business: Strategies and Types Explained 4 of 25
• What Is a Marketing Plan? Types and How to Write One 5 of 25
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Home > Business Plan > Marketing Strategy in a Business Plan

Marketing Strategy in a Business Plan

… we will get this market share by …

• Product USP : Why buy our product? What characteristics does the product have to meet customer needs?
• Promotion : What marketing activities will be undertaken? What means of communication will the business use to persuade customers of the benefits of the product? Will it use above the line promotion or below the line promotion?
• Place : What are the distribution channels? How is the business going to reach customers with its product?
• Price : What price will the business charge for the product, and what goal is it pursuing with the pricing strategy? Will the business use premium, penetration, economy or skimming pricing strategies.

Marketing Strategy Presentation

The marketing strategy section of the business plan can be presented in four sections relating to each of the four P’s product, promotion, place, and price as shown in the example layout below.

The marketing strategy is a key section of the business plan, at this stage you are not trying to present a complete marketing plan, but simply trying to show the investor that each major section of the marketing strategy has been thought about and that you have a good marketing mix.

All of the four sections should be consistent with and support each other, for example, if you are planning to adopt a high price strategy, then the product would be aimed at an upmarket target customer, distributed at high end stores, and make use of one to one personal selling.

This is part of the financial projections and Contents of a Business Plan Guide , a series of posts on what each section of a simple business plan should include. The next post in this series sets out the business model which the business intends to use to generate revenue.

About the Author

Chartered accountant Michael Brown is the founder and CEO of Plan Projections. He has worked as an accountant and consultant for more than 25 years and has built financial models for all types of industries. He has been the CFO or controller of both small and medium sized companies and has run small businesses of his own. He has been a manager and an auditor with Deloitte, a big 4 accountancy firm, and holds a degree from Loughborough University.

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How to Create a Digital Marketing Plan: 4 Steps

• 08 Feb 2024

Digital marketing is essential; it helps you connect with customers via online channels and enhance brand awareness. To ensure your campaigns succeed, you need an effective digital marketing plan and strategy.

Not all businesses understand strategic planning's importance. According to a Smart Insights report , only 17 percent clearly define their digital marketing strategies.

If you want to create a digital marketing plan, here’s an overview of what it needs and four steps to take.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is a Digital Marketing Plan & Why Is It Important?

Technology has revolutionized business, but that doesn’t mean traditional marketing tactics are obsolete.

“There are certain aspects of marketing that remain true no matter how technology changes,” says Harvard Business School Professor Sunil Gupta, who teaches the course Digital Marketing Strategy . “One of these aspects is the importance of developing a plan to effectively use your marketing resources.”

A digital marketing plan is a comprehensive strategy outlining how your company will use digital channels to promote its products and services. Unlike traditional marketing tactics, it focuses on identifying your target audience and connecting with consumers via online platforms and channels.

Your plan’s significance can’t be overstated. It provides a strategic focus while optimizing your marketing efforts and budget. More importantly, it ensures your company remains agile and responsive to market dynamics and maintains a competitive edge.

Adaptability is particularly crucial in times of uncertainty. According to HubSpot , 20 percent of marketers pivoted their established marketing plans last year due to the potential for a recession.

To help craft your digital marketing plan, here are four steps to ensuring it’s comprehensive and can weather market challenges.

4 Steps to Creating a Digital Marketing Plan

1. set goals & objectives.

The first step to creating your digital marketing plan is understanding what goals and objectives are essential to succeed.

“Companies often have multiple objectives, and you’ll need to prioritize and balance these goals,” Gupta says in Digital Marketing Strategy . “Often these goals are tied to the overall strategy of the company.”

For example, if you don’t work at a big-name company, you may want to focus on brand awareness. If you’re a market leader, you may want to expand your target audience by highlighting a new or revised product or service.

The best way to determine your company’s objectives is by identifying its challenges and opportunities throughout the customer journey , which has three stages:

• Awareness: Introducing customers to your brand or product to address a problem they have
• Consideration: Making customers aware of your brand or product while they evaluate alternatives
• Decision: Using information gathered during the previous stages to influence consumers’ purchasing decisions

“Which stage of the funnel you focus on and how you allocate your budget across different stages depends on the specific context of your brand and where you feel is the greatest barrier for your growth,” Gupta says in Digital Marketing Strategy .

Your company's strategic decisions hinge on which customer journey stage they pertain to. For example, to increase conversion rates at the consideration stage, you could allocate more resources to producing targeted, personalized content.

2. Identify Your Target Audience

Your digital marketing strategy is only effective if you know who you’re trying to attract. That’s why identifying your target audience —the consumers most likely interested in your products or services—is the next step to crafting your digital marketing plan.

To determine your target audience, collect data related to:

• Demographics: General information like age, gender, and occupation that help you make implicit assumptions about customers
• Customer behavior: Behavior patterns related to your products or services, such as purchasing history and website interactions
• Consumer motivations: Primary motivations when making purchases, such as convenience, value, or status

You can use your insights to employ tactics like segmentation —organizing your customers into groups.

“While you can try and market a product to everyone, consumers have different needs and preferences,” Gupta says in Digital Marketing Strategy . “What appeals to one group of consumers may not appeal to another.”

By segmenting your customers, you can provide personalized experiences—even when their needs or market conditions shift.

Related: 3 Most Common Types of Customer Needs to Be Aware Of

3. Define Your Value Proposition

Once you know who to target, you can communicate your value proposition .

“If you want to convince consumers to buy your product, you need to give them a compelling reason to purchase your brand instead of a competing brand,” Gupta says in Digital Marketing Strategy .

To start, you need to know your:

• Target audience
• Unique value
• Competitive set
• Justifications for brand value

You can then combine these components into a value positioning statement:

For [target market] , [Brand X] is the only brand that offers [unique value claim] among all [competitive set] because [reason to believe] .

According to Digital Marketing Strategy , you can analyze your value claim’s validity and potency using the three C’s of brand positioning:

• Consumer analysis: Understanding your target audience’s behaviors, needs, preferences, and motivations.
• Competitor analysis: Evaluating your competitors' strengths, weaknesses, and market position to enhance your strategy.
• Company analysis: Assessing your value proposition, capabilities, resources, and performance to identify areas for strategic improvement.

Effective brand positioning requires being faithful to your value claim and ensuring it’s feasible and favorable.

“As you work to create a value proposition, remember: A brand’s position is not just defined by the brand itself,” Gupta says in the course. “A brand co-creates its position with its consumers as they interact with each other and react to emerging cultural trends.”

4. Establish Metrics

Metrics are critical to your marketing plan. Without key performance indicators (KPIs) , it can be difficult to tell whether it’s effective.

Common marketing KPIs include:

• Impressions
• Click through rate
• Conversion rate

“At the simplest level, you need to measure what you set out to achieve with your marketing objectives,” Gupta says in Digital Marketing Strategy . “And certain metrics will be more relevant for specific stages of the funnel.”

For example, you can focus on metrics like impressions —the number of times your brand-specific content was displayed—to determine your strategy’s effectiveness at the awareness stage.

With a well-crafted digital marketing plan, you can use metrics to optimize your strategy as priorities shift throughout the customer journey.

Create Your Own Digital Marketing Plan

If you want to be a more strategic marketer, you need a digital marketing plan. With one, you can solidify your company’s position, enhance your digital marketing skills , and satisfy customers.

“Determining your marketing goals, who you’re reaching, understanding the uniqueness of what you have to offer them, and how you’ll measure the value of your marketing efforts isn’t always easy,” Gupta says in Digital Marketing Strategy . “However, as you clarify these components and create your plan, you’ll have a much clearer path ahead toward identifying, acquiring, and retaining customers.”

One of the most effective ways to learn how to craft a plan is by enrolling in an online marketing course, such as Digital Marketing Strategy . Through real-world case studies and interactive exercises, you can understand how to position your brand for success.

Do you want to create a digital marketing plan? Explore Digital Marketing Strategy to discover how. If you’re interested in exploring online education but aren’t sure where to start, download our free guide to online learning success .

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How to create a marketing plan [free template].

What is a Marketing Plan?

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As the famous Benjamin Franklin quote says, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” This rings especially true in highly competitive industries, and even more so with the rise of social media and the vast array of options for selling products and services.

It can be easy to get lost among all the options available, which means you need a framework for quickly and successfully launching and supporting your brand, product, or service in the market.

This is where a marketing plan comes in.

A marketing plan outlines a company’s overall marketing strategy, including the research and data that support it. Key information that comprise a marketing plan include:

• Company information : highlighting its relevance to the strategy in place
• Company, market, and competitor research: isolating and informing high-value marketing opportunities
• Concrete marketing plans: outlining goals, activities, and resources for enabling success

Marketing plans are typically laid out over a year but can change depending on the team’s objectives—the more frequently you need to create one, the more valuable it becomes to do it efficiently. This is where a marketing plan template comes in handy.

A marketing plan template is a tool used to build a comprehensive marketing strategy. It mainly eliminates the manual work of identifying and structuring the key information we outlined above. This allows you to focus on the actual task of building your marketing strategy, from setting goals and conducting research to identifying activities and resources essential to your campaigns. Our template is designed to cover these essentials while also leaving room for you to tailor content and sections to your specific needs.

Why Are These Important?

Alignment and efficiency are the overarching themes when creating a marketing plan and building an easy marketing plan template. For starters, a marketing plan helps establish a clear set of goals and objectives, which allows teams to optimize their efforts toward the same outcome. It also qualifies as an effective risk management tool when done right by clearly outlining stakeholders and their responsibilities for minimal overlap, as well as budget allocations and projections to ensure that planned activities are equipped to succeed.

When you create a marketing template, you achieve even more efficiency. This allows for more seamless creation of new marketing plans to fit new requirements and continuous learning from using and evaluating an established format.

The difference between a marketing plan and an effective one is subtle yet critical to your success. A basic marketing plan template should be:

•   Simple: by following a straightforward approach, using terms and a structure that’s easy to digest, both for the one creating it as well as those reading it,
• Interesting: with expertly designed layouts or formats that synergize well with the outline/structure and
• Versatile: allowing you to freely and easily add, remove, or rearrange sections and information to make sense of your strategy.

Below, we’ve created two free marketing plan templates that are designed around the above principles.

The Google Slides template is designed for more flexible layouts and more images.

The Google Docs template offers a more straightforward approach.

To begin using either template, click the matching link above and select File > Make a copy.

While you’re free to start populating the template however you like, there are ways to optimize this activity further. Below, we’ve reorganized the various sections in our template so you can populate them in an order that makes sense; these are grouped into five phases: Introduction, Research, two Strategy phases, and Polish. By following this section like a step-by-step guide, you would prioritize sections that inform other parts of the document so that you can complete each part almost in one go.

Introduction

First, fill in your Title Page before navigating to the Company Overview. This is like the ‘About Us’ section of a website and will help stakeholders learn about your business by filling in the following:

• Your Company Name
• Where your company is located (Headquarters)
• Your market category and a summary of the products or services you provide (Category, Products & Services)
• Your Mission Statement

It’s important to create a mission statement if you don’t have one yet—this gives both you and your audience a vivid impression of what your company is about and what it’s trying to achieve, which would be an important piece to understanding why your whole marketing plan can be expected to work. Your goal here is to write a mission statement that is clear and easy to understand.

An option to include information about your team or other specific individuals within the company is included. This would make sense if a specific group of individuals in your company is involved; the alternative implies that the plan may involve efforts from across the entire organization.

After wrapping up your introductory sections, it’s time to collect data to inform your marketing strategy. In this phase, we’ll be looking at your company, your customers, and your competitors and using that to identify your ideal client.

Start with the SWOT Analysis. This stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Here is a quick rundown and some guide questions for identifying each section:

• Strengths refer to internal advantages that your company might have over your competition. For example, do you have a strong brand reputation? Do you have a tried-and-tested pipeline and track record for launching successful marketing campaigns? Do you have a sizable budget? How about highly skilled employees?
• Weaknesses outline the opposite—these are factors that might put you at a disadvantage against competitors. These are often related to either a limited budget or a lack of skills or experience.
• Opportunities serve to highlight external factors that you might be able to use to your advantage. Consider this: are there relevant changes to market trends or consumer behavior? Have new market segments emerged? Are there new business models you can utilize in your strategy?
• Threats, on the other hand, are external factors that could negatively affect your business. Look into the following: Have new competitors emerged, or have existing competitors experienced substantial growth or change? Has the economy taken a turn for the worse? Are your customers’ preferences seemingly changing? Are there notable changes in technology or the environment to worry about?

Next, move to Customer Analysis. This is the process of evaluating and understanding different aspects of your consumer base, including their preferences and habits. This is fundamental to your overall strategy, as customer satisfaction almost always directly correlates to greater returns. A customer analysis is mainly broken down into demographics, which relate to their biological, educational, professional, and marital information, and psychographics, which relate to their behaviors, thought processes, and preferences. This also includes exploring various external factors that might influence their purchasing decisions, such as events and the offerings of competitors.

Once that’s finished, navigate to your Competitor Analysis section. This is the process of analyzing competitors who offer similar products or services or operate within the same industry or market as your company. This includes inspecting their overall strategy, including branding, operations, and promotion, identifying strengths and what resonates with their market or yours, and looking into areas where they might be lacking. This helps inform opportunities for your plan to stand out and succeed.

Finally, you can jump back to the Buyer Persona. A buyer persona is a detailed description of your target audience or customer built on the market research you conducted above; this includes existing data on your customers—this would include demographic information, motivations, and behavior, among other details. This helps businesses build a deeper understanding of their audience and is used to anchor marketing, sales, communication, and product development strategies to satisfy a given persona’s needs and preferences. Creating an effective buyer persona now will help build strategy for meaningful engagement.

Strategy-Building (Part 1)

Completing the previous sections should result in a clear picture of your position in the market. You can now use that to build the marketing plan's meat thoroughly. For starters, you will want to find the Goals section—our guide on SMART goals has everything we believe you will need to fill in this part of the plan.

Next, we will be tackling the Marketing Mix in two parts.

Product. In this section, discuss the products and/or services you intend to release or market as part of this strategy. This means outlining various features, design elements, or variants that will be available to customers.

Pricing. This is where you’ll be outlining amounts—how much will each of the products you included previously cost? When determining these, it’s critical that you consider your buyer persona, as well as competitor pricing and any promotions or discounts that might be part of your strategy. This will further increase your products’ perceived value among customers, especially your target market. Tables are a great formatting tool here; you can also link to an external spreadsheet, where you have more room to create a detailed pricing scheme.

Place. This section discusses how you would make products or services available to customers. It includes the method by which sales are generated (e.g., retail, online, direct), as well as strategies for storing, housing, and distributing inventory. Your main consideration here is making sure that your products and services are as convenient and efficient to access as possible in order to sufficiently meet customer demand.

The second part of the marketing mix covers both the Promotion and Marketing Channels sections. This is done so you can cross-reference between the two sections, ensuring that they are updated to synergize with one another.

The Promotion section primarily focuses on how you will help customers understand the value of your products and services, including tools and techniques for providing support across the customer journey (before, during, and after a sale.) A critical consideration here is ensuring the methods align with your goals while respecting your brand identity.

Marketing Channels then focus on the what or where of your promotion plan, which is typically broken down into traditional, digital, retail, and event marketing channels. Building this section relies heaviest on your buyer persona and the specific products and services you’re looking to promote—understanding where you can best reach your existing market or attract new eyes is important here.

Working on these sections first allows you to transition seamlessly to your Unique Value Proposition. Use this section to talk about how or why your products/services are a better choice than the competition. Your customer and competitor analysis would feed a lot of information here.

Strategy-Building (Part 2)

The second phase of your strategy will move between the template's Performance Management and Budget sections.

Under Performance Management , it’s time to identify your Key Metrics. Also known as key performance indicators (KPI) are quantifiable measures that determine your campaign or strategy’s progress or success. To assist with this, look back at your Goals section to see what factors can be represented by numbers and data—for some of these, you may need to derive them from computations of other factors. Common key metrics include total conversions, conversion rate, click-through rate, and social media engagements.

At this point, you can freely work on two sections simultaneously: Monitoring & Evaluation Methods and  Projected Expenses.

Monitoring & Evaluation Methods answers the question of how you will collect the metrics listed. Include relevant tools and data collection methods to be used here.

Projected Expenses refer to an itemized list of unique costs required to execute the strategy. This includes hardware and software needs, resources needed to run online or in-person events and promotions, travel and other logistics, and even compensation for in-house or outsourced manpower. A table is a great way to format information here.

Once all of that is ready, you can begin working on Projected Returns . In this section, you want to outline how this strategy is expected to generate value beyond just the immediate sale of whatever products or services are being offered and how much each of these sources is expected to contribute. From here, you can define your expected return on investment (ROI) by subtracting the total earnings from the costs in your Projected Expenses section.

You will notice that only one section remains—jump back to the early part of the template to work on your Executive Summary. This section combines all of the sections into a big-picture pitch. Your highest priorities here are summarizing your Goals, Marketing Mix, Unique Value Proposition, and Projected Returns sections.

Now that you’ve filled in all template sections double-check everything for errors or omissions.

A marketing plan serves as the blueprint for your success over time. A marketing plan template ensures that you can quickly and expertly craft a strategy while allowing for continuous improvement.

With Workamajig, the premier agency management software , you have an all-in-one solution for planning, organizing, and delegating these efforts and easily transitioning between the phases of every project. Easily adjust your schedule or modify task requirements and assignees to ensure efficiency, and use native reporting tools to measure your progress and identify and address roadblocks along the way.

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5 Steps to Create an Outstanding Marketing Plan [Free Templates]

Published: January 04, 2024

Do you take a good, hard look at your team's marketing strategy every year?

You should. Without an annual marketing plan, things can get messy — and it's nearly impossible to put a number on your budget for the projects, hiring, and outsourcing over the course of a year if you don't have a plan.

To make your plan's creation easier, we've put together a list of what to include in your plan and a few different planning templates where you can easily fill in the blanks.

To start, let's dive into how to create a marketing plan and then take a look at what a high-level marketing plan has inside.

In this article, we're going to discuss:

• What a High-Level Marketing Plan Includes

How to Create a Marketing Plan

• Marketing Plan Templates You Can Use
• Simplified Marketing Plan Template
• Plus — Social Media Plan Templates

Free Marketing Plan Template

Outline your company's marketing strategy in one simple, coherent plan.

• Pre-Sectioned Template
• Completely Customizable
• Example Prompts
• Professionally Designed

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Fill out this form to access a free marketing plan template.

Marketing plan outline.

Download This Marketing Plan Outline for Free

The above marketing plan outline will help you create an effective plan that easily generates buy-in from stakeholders and effectively guides your marketing efforts.

Marketing plans can get quite granular to reflect the industry you're in, whether you're selling to consumers (B2C) or other businesses (B2B), and how big your digital presence is. Nonetheless, here are the elements every effective marketing plan includes:

1. Business Summary

In a marketing plan, your business summary is exactly what it sounds like: a summary of the organization. It's essential to include this information so that all stakeholders, including your direct reports, learn about your company in detail before delving into the more strategic components of your plan.

Even if you’re presenting this plan to people who’ve been in the company for a while, it doesn’t hurt to get everyone on the same page.

Most business summaries include:

The company name

Where it's headquartered

Its mission statement

Our marketing plan outline also includes information on marketing leadership, which is especially helpful for companies with large marketing teams.

2. SWOT Analysis

Your marketing plan's business summary also includes a SWOT analysis , which covers your business's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It’s essential to include this information so you can create targeted strategies that help you capitalize on your strengths and improve upon your weaknesses.

In my experience, you need a lot of patience when doing a SWOT analysis; it requires market research and competitive analysis to become truly accurate. I tend to revisit this section periodically, adjusting it as I discover more information about my own business and competition.

3. Business Initiatives

The business initiatives element of a marketing plan helps you segment the various goals of your department. Be careful not to include big-picture company initiatives, which you'd normally find in a business plan. This section should outline the projects that are specific to marketing. You'll also describe the goals of those projects and how those goals will be measured.

Every initiative should follow the SMART method for goal-making . They should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, a broad goal might be something like, "Increase my Facebook following." But a SMART-ified version of this goal could be, "Increase my Facebook following by 30% by June." See the difference?

4. Customer Analysis

In this part of the marketing plan outline, you get plenty of space to share all the data you collected during your market research . If your company has already done a thorough market research study, this section of your marketing plan might be easier to put together. Either way, try to do your research before synthesizing it in a shareable document like this one.

Ultimately, this element of your marketing plan will help you describe the industry you're selling to and your buyer persona . A buyer persona is a semi-fictional description of your ideal customer, focusing on traits like:

Personal challenges

Triggering event

5. Competitor Analysis

Positioning

Market share

Our marketing plan template includes space to list out the specific products you compete with, as well as other facets of the other company’s strategy, such as their blogging efforts or customer service reputation. Keep this part of your plan simple — your full competitive analysis should be done separately. Here are a few competitive analysis templates to get started.

6. Market Strategy

Your market strategy uses the information included in the above sections to describe how your company should approach the market. 

For instance, when I'm filling out this section, I always pull insights from my SWOT analysis, my competitive analysis, and my general market research. This helps me write targeted, effective descriptions of my strategies.

Here's an example: if you found that one of your competitors employs stronger social media marketing strategies , you might add "We'll post 3 times per week on our social media profiles" under "Promotion."

In our full-length marketing plan outline, the market strategy section contains the "seven Ps of marketing" (or the “ extended marketing mix ”):

Physical Evidence

(You'll learn more about these seven sub-components inside our free marketing plan template, which you can download below.)

When I created my first marketing plan, I made the mistake of confusing the marketing budget section of my plan with my product's price and other financials.

Here's a better way to think of this section: it should describe how much money the business has allotted the marketing team to pursue the initiatives and goals outlined in the elements above.

Depending on how many individual expenses you have, you should consider itemizing this budget by what specifically you'll spend your budget on. Example marketing expenses include:

Outsourcing costs to a marketing agency and/or other providers

Marketing software

Paid promotions

Events (those you'll host and/or attend)

Knowing the budget and doing analysis on the marketing channels you want to invest in, you should be able to come up with a plan for how much budget to invest in which tactics based on expected ROI. From there, you'll be able to come up with financial projections for the year. These won't be 100% accurate but can help with executive planning.

Remember: Your marketing plan only includes a summary of the costs. We recommend keeping a separate document or Excel sheet to help you calculate your budget much more effectively. Here’s a marketing budget template to get started .

8. Marketing Channels

Your marketing plan should also include a list of your marketing channels. While your company might promote the product itself using certain ad space, your marketing channels are where you'll publish the content that educates your buyers, generates leads, and spreads awareness of your brand.

If you publish (or intend to publish) on social media, this is the place to talk about it. Use the Marketing Channels section of your marketing plan to map out which social networks you want to launch a business page on, what you'll use this social network for, and how you'll measure your success on this network.

Part of this section's purpose is to prove to your superiors, both inside and outside the marketing department, that these channels will serve to grow the business.

Businesses with extensive social media presences might even consider elaborating on their social strategy in a separate social media plan template.

9. Marketing Technology

Last, but certainly not least, your marketing plan should include an overview of the tools you'll include in your marketing technology (MarTech) stack . These are the tools that will help you achieve the goals you outlined in the previous sections. Since all types of marketing software usually need a generous investment from your company’s leadership, it’s essential to connect them to a potential ROI for your business.

For each tool, describe what exactly you’ll use it for, and be sure that it’s a strategy that you’ve mentioned elsewhere. For instance, we wouldn't recommend listing an advertising management tool if you didn’t list “ PPC Advertising ” under “Marketing Channels.”

• Conduct a situation analysis.
• Define your target audience.
• Write SMART goals.
• Analyze your tactics.
• Set your budget.

1. Conduct a situation analysis.

The first step I take when creating a marketing plan is conducting a SWOT analysis. It helps me uncover the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing my business.

Additionally, I need a good picture of the current market. How do I compare to my competitors? Doing a competitor analysis can help.

In doing so, I can identify the gaps (and opportunities) in a competitor's approach. What are they missing? What can I offer that'll give me a competitive advantage?

Answering questions like this should help you figure out what your customer wants, which brings us to step number two.

2. Define your target audience.

If your company already has buyer personas , this step might just mean you have to refine your current personas.

But if you don't have a buyer persona, you should create one. To do this, you might have to conduct market research.

Your buyer persona should include demographic information such as age, gender, and income. However, it will also include psychographic information such as pain points and goals. What drives your audience? What problems do they have that your product or service can fix?

Once you have this information written out, it'll help you define your goals, which brings us to step number three.

3. Write SMART goals.

My mother always used to tell me, "You can't go somewhere unless you have a road map." Now, for me, someone who's geographically challenged, that was literal advice.

However, it can also be applied metaphorically to marketing. You can't improve your ROI unless you know what your goals are.

After you've figured out your current situation and know your audience, you can begin to define your SMART goals .

SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. This means that all your goals should be specific and include a time frame for which you want to complete them.

For example, your goal could be to increase your Instagram followers by 15% in three months. Depending on your overall marketing goals, this should be relevant and attainable. Additionally, this goal is specific, measurable, and time-bound.

Before you start any tactic, you should write out your goals. Then, you can begin to analyze which tactics will help you achieve that goal. That brings us to step number four.

4. Analyze your tactics.

At this point, you've written down your goals based on your target audience and current situation.

Now, you have to figure out what tactics will help you achieve your goals. Plus, what are the right channels and action items to focus on?

For example, if your goal is to increase your Instagram followers by 15% in three months, your tactics might include hosting a giveaway, responding to every comment, and posting three times on Instagram per week.

Once you know your goals, brainstorming several tactics to achieve them should be easy. That said, you may not be able to pursue every tactic on your list (unless you have an unlimited budget, which, if so, jealous ) — which brings us to step number five.

5. Set your budget.

Before you can begin implementing any of the ideas that you've come up with in the steps above, you have to know your budget.

For example, your tactics might include social media advertising. However, if you don't have the budget for that, then you might not be able to achieve your goals.

While you're writing out your tactics, be sure to note an estimated budget. You can include the time it'll take to complete each tactic in addition to the assets you might need to purchase, such as ad space.

Now that you know how to create your marketing plan, let's dive into creating a marketing campaign outline that will help you reach the goals outlined plan.

Marketing Plan Timeline

Rolling out a new marketing plan is a big lift. To make sure things are running smoothly with all of your projects, you'll want to create a timeline that maps out when each project is happening.

A marketing plan timeline allows your team to view all projects, campaigns, events, and other related tasks in one place — along with their deadlines. This ensures everyone on your team knows what’s due, when it’s due, and what’s up next in the pipeline. Typically these plans cover marketing efforts for the entire year, but some companies may operate on a bi-annual or quarterly basis.

Once you’ve completed your analysis, research, and set goals, it’s time to set deadlines for your assignments. From new blog posts and content initiatives to product launches, everything will need a deadline. Take into account any holidays or events taking place over the course of the year.

While setting deadlines for the entire year may seem daunting, start by estimating how long you think each task will take and set a deadline accordingly. Track the time it actually takes for you to complete similar types of projects. Once you’ve completed a few of them, you’ll have a better idea of how long each takes and will be able to set more accurate deadlines.

For each project, you’ll want to build in time for:

• Brainstorming : This is the first phase where your idea comes to life in a project outline. Decide what you want to achieve and which stakeholders need to be involved to meet your goal. Set a due date and set up any necessary meetings.
• Planning : This can include determining the project’s scope, figuring out how much budget will be allocated for it, finalizing deadlines and who is working on each task. Map out any campaigns needed for each project (social media, PR, sales promotions, landing pages, events, etc.).
• Execution : This third phase is all about your project launch. Decide on a date to launch and monitor the progress of the project. Set up a system for tracking metrics and KPIs.
• Analysis : In this final phase you will analyze all of your performance data to see whether or not your marketing efforts paid off. Did you meet your goals? Did you complete your projects on time and within budget?

All projects and their deadlines should be in a central location where your team can access them whether that’s a calendar like HubSpot's tool , shared document, or project management tool.

One-Page Marketing Plan Template

As demonstrated above, a marketing plan can be a long document. When you want to share information with stakeholders or simply want an overview of your plan for quick reference, having a shorter version on hand can be helpful. A one-page marketing plan can be the solution, and we’ll discuss its elements below.

Include your company name, list the names of individuals responsible for enacting the different stages of your plan, and a brief mission statement.

2. Business Initiatives

3. Target Market

Outline your target audience(s) that your efforts will reach. You can include a brief overview of your industry and buyer personas.

This is an overview of the money you’ll spend to help you meet your marketing goals. Create a good estimate of how much you'll spend on each facet of your marketing program.

5. Marketing Channels

List the channels you’ll use to achieve your marketing goals. Describe why you're using each channel and what you want to accomplish so everyone is on the same page.

Free Marketing Plan Template [Word]

Now that you know what to include in your marketing plan, it's time to grab your marketing plan template and see how best to organize the six elements explained above. The following marketing plan template opens directly in Microsoft Word, so you can edit each section as you see fit:

Download your marketing plan template here .

Marketing campaign template.

Your marketing plan is a high-level view of the different marketing strategies you’ll use to meet your business objectives. A marketing campaign template is a focused plan that will help achieve those marketing goals.

A marketing campaign template should include the following key components:

• Goals and KPIs: Identify the end goal for each of the individual campaigns you’ll run and the metrics you will use to measure the results of your campaign when it ends. For example, conversion rates, sales, sign-ups, etc.
• Channels: Identify the different channels you’ll use to enact your marketing campaign to reach your audience. Maybe you run a social media campaign on Twitter to raise brand awareness or a direct mail campaign to notify your audience of upcoming sales.
• Budget : Identify the budget you’ll need to run your campaign and how it will be distributed, like the amount you’ll spend on creating content or ad placements in different areas. Having these numbers also helps you later on when you quantify the success of your campaign, like ROI.
• Content: Identify the type of content you’ll create and distribute during your campaigns—for example, blog posts , video ads, email newsletters, etc.
• Teams and DRIs: Identify the teams and people that will be part of enacting your marketing plan from start to finish, like those responsible for creating your marketing assets, budgets, or analyzing metrics once campaigns are complete.
• Design: Identify what your marketing campaigns will look like and how you’ll use design elements to attract your audience. It’s important to note that your design should directly relate to the purpose of your campaign.

Digital Marketing Plan Template

A digital marketing plan is similar to a marketing campaign plan, but, as the name suggests, it’s tailored to the campaigns that you run online. Let’s go over the key components of a digital marketing plan template to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

• Objectives: The goals for your digital marketing and what you’re hoping to accomplish, like driving more traffic to your website . Maybe you want to drive more traffic to your website, or
• Budget : Identify how much it will cost to run your digital marketing campaign and how the money will be distributed. For example, ad placement on different social media sites costs money, and so does creating your assets.
• Target audience: Which segments of your audience are you hoping to reach with this campaign? It’s essential to identify the audiences you want to reach with your digital marketing, as different channels house different audience segments.
• Channels: Identifies the channels that are central to your digital marketing campaign.
• Timeline: Explains the length of time your digital campaigns will run, from how long it should take to create your assets to the final day of the campaign.

Many people use social media in their digital campaigns, and below we’ll discuss some ideas you can use for inspiration.

Social Media Marketing Plan Templates

As your marketing department grows, so will your presence on social media. And as your social media presence grows, so will your need to measure, plan, and re-plan what types of content you want to publish across each network.

If you're looking for a way to deepen your social media marketing strategy — even further than the marketing plan template above — the following collection of social media marketing plan templates is perfect for you:

Download 10 social media reporting templates here .

In the above collection of marketing plan templates, you'll get to fill in the following contents (and more) to suit your company:

• Annual social media budget tracking
• Weekly social media themes
• Required social media image dimension key
• Pie chart on social media traffic sorted by platform
• Social media post calendar and publish time

Below, let's review the social media reporting templates, and what you'll find in each one.

1. Social Media Questions

This template lists out questions to help you decide which social media management platform you should use.

What We Like

Once you know what social media tactics you're going to implement in your marketing plan, it's time to figure out what channels are right for you. This template will help you do that.

2. Facebook Live Schedule

If Facebook Live is one of the marketing tactics in your plan, this template will help you design an editorial calendar. With this template, you can organize what Facebook live's you want to do and when.

Once you've decided on dates, you can color-code your FB calendar and coordinate with your editorial calendar so everyone can see what lives are running in relation to other campaigns.

3. Instagram Post Log

Are you going to begin using Instagram regularly? Do you want to increase your following? With this template, you can organize your Instagram posts, so everyone on your team knows what posts are going live and when.

This is more than just a content calendar. You can use this doc to collaborate with your team on messaging, landing pages linked in your bio, and campaign rollouts.

4. Paid Social Media Template

With this template, you can organize your annual and monthly budget for your paid social media calendar.

With this spreadsheet, all you need to do is plug in your numbers and the formulas will do the works for you. I recommend using this in conjunction with your marketing plan budget to make sure you are not overspending and funds are allocated appropriately.

5. Social Media Audit

Conducting a social media audit? You can use this template to help you gather the right analytics. Tracking the results of your marketing efforts is key to determining ROI.

Use this template to track each of your campaigns to determine what worked and what didn't. From there, you can allocate funds for the strategies that deliver the results you want.

6. Social Media Editorial Calendar

With this template, you can organize your social media editorial calendar. For example, you can include social media posts for each platform, so your team knows what's going live on any given day.

This calendar makes it easy to track activity across every social media platform, since each platform is assigned a specific color. 

7. Social Media Image Sizes

With this template, your team can have the latest social media image sizes handy. This template includes image sizes for all major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Having a resource like this readily available for your team ensures that everyone is on the same page regarding image sizes and prevents delays.

8. Social Media Marketing Proposal

With this template, you can create an entire social media marketing proposal. This will outline the social media goals, the scope of the work, and the tactics that you plan to implement.

This proposal functions as more of a deep dive into the marketing channel section of your marketing plan. It's relatively straightforward and contains all the essential sections of a proposal.

9. Social Media Reporting Template

With this template, you'll gain access to a slide deck that includes templates for social media reporting.

If you plan to implement social media in your marketing plan, these reporting templates can help you track your progress. If using the social media audit above, you can add all of your data here once it's been collected.

10. Hashtag Holidays

If you're going to lean into social media in your marketing plan, you can use hashtag holidays to generate ideas.

These holidays are a great way to fill out your social media publishing schedule. With this template, you'll get a list of all the hashtag holidays for the year. Once you've come up with content ideas, you can add them to your social media calendar.

Simple Marketing Plan Template

Of course, this type of planning takes a lot of time and effort. So if you're strapped for time before the holidays, give our new Marketing Plan Generator a try.

This tool simplifies yearly planning by asking prompted questions to help guide your process. You’ll be asked to input information about:

Try our free Marketing Plan Generator here .

• Your annual marketing mission statement, which is what your marketing is focused on for the year.
• The strategy that you’ll take with your marketing throughout the year to accomplish your marketing goals.
• Three main marketing initiatives that you’ll focus on during the year (i.e., brand awareness or building a high-quality pipeline) metrics you’ll use to measure your success.
• Your target goals for those marketing initiatives like generating 100 leads per week.
• Marketing initiatives that are not aligned with your current strategy to stay focused on your goals and activities that will help you be successful.

Once you input all information, the tool will spit out a table (as shown in the image below) that you can use to guide your processes.

Pro Tip: If the tool doesn't work, clear your browser's cache or access it in incognito mode.

Start the Marketing Planning Process Today

The best way to set up your marketing plan for the year is to start with quick wins first, that way you can ramp up fast and set yourself (and your team) up to hit more challenging goals and take on more sophisticated projects by Q4. So, what do you say? Are you ready to give it a spin?

Editor's note: This post was originally published in December 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Crafting an Effective Marketing Plan: Steps, Examples, and Templates

Sudarshan Somanathan

Head of Content

May 14, 2024

You’d have heard people say, “our product speaks for itself, we don’t need marketing.” Boy, are they mistaken!

The reason is simple: Marketing directly and indirectly brings sales. It is a powerful growth engine. 

For this very reason, business leaders spend significant time and energy creating and implementing marketing strategies and plans. In this blog post, we get into the weeds of it.

What is a Marketing Plan?

1. content marketing plan, 2. social media marketing plan, 3. new product launch marketing plan, 4. digital marketing plan, 5. growth marketing plan, barriers to successful marketing plan implementation, step 1: use your market research, step 2: see what your competitors are doing, step 3: set your marketing goals and targets, step 4: design your marketing campaigns/projects, step 5: set up your marketing project, step 6: collaborate in real-time, step 7: implement and monitor with analytics, 1. what are the 7 parts of a marketing plan, 2. what are the 7 steps of marketing plan, 3. what are the 10 essential elements in a marketing plan.

A marketing plan is the collection of activities that an organization intends to undertake during a specific period to achieve its objectives. Some of the defining characteristics of a marketing plan are:

• Derived from your company’s marketing strategy : Plan is the actionable part of the strategy
• Goal-oriented : Marketing plans are designed to achieve goals such as lead generation, customer acquisition, brand awareness, etc.
• Medium to long term : A marketing plan is generally made for a period of 12-18 months
• Comprehensive : A marketing plan includes goals, budgets, channels, activities, campaigns, resources, and more

More importantly, a marketing plan acts as a roadmap for creating, executing, monitoring, and evaluating tactics and activities. 

Types of Marketing Plans

Marketing plans can be of various types. You can make marketing plans for a brand, a product, a channel, a specific campaign, or an offer. Some of the most common types of marketing plans are as follows.

A content marketing plan is the blueprint that guides the creation, publication, and management of content to attract and engage the right audience. A good content marketing plan is:

Creative : Collaborating with designers, videographers, animators, subject matter experts, etc., to create differentiating content.

Multimedia : Combining text with images, infographics, videos, podcasts, and more!

Scheduled : On a content calendar to make sure that you publish and distribute content regularly.

Distribution-driven : With details on the platform, frequency, style, and schedule on which the content will be distributed.

Content marketing metrics

Some of the commonly used metrics are:

• Readership: No. of visitors to the content piece
• Engagement: Time spent reading an article or watching a video
• Advocacy: No. of shares or comments
• Conversion: No. of signups or subscriptions after reading content

Unlike content, which is an asset, social media is a collection of channels, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok. A good social media marketing plan is:

Channel-specific : Designing content in a way that suits the platform. For instance, pithy text for Twitter and short vertical videos for TikTok.

Customer-centricity : Choosing the right channels based on the target customer.

Engagement tactics : Defining the expected action from the customer such as likes/comments/link clicks.

Social media marketing metrics

Commonly used metrics are:

• Responses or replies to posts
• Inquiries in form fills or direct private messages
• Likes and shares  
• Followers and network reach

A product launch can be a game-changer for business. To make it happen, a product launch marketing plan needs to be extraordinary. Here’s what that might entail.

What’s new : Outlining the new product, its positioning, and differentiation

Why buy : Including a strong reason why they should buy your product now

How : Tactics, such as press releases, newspaper ads, email campaigns, social media blitz, etc. 

Marketing efforts : Assets, channels, marketing budget, and resources you’re using for the activity

Commonly used product launch marketing metrics are:

• Reach: No. of live streams or total number of impressions
• Buzz: No. of shares, comments, re-tweets, and other social messages about the launch
• Sentiment analysis: Ratio of positive messages to negative/neutral

A comprehensive digital marketing plan consists of activities for:

• Search engine optimization
• Search engine advertising
• Content marketing
• Social media marketing
• Email marketing
• Virtual events and sponsorships

A digital marketing plan serves as a guideline for the team to expand their activities across channels. In addition, it also outlines:

Targeting : Specific groups of people based on demographics, interests, and behaviors

Personalization : Messages designed to be most relevant to the target audience

Remarketing : Customize and retarget customers effectively

Interactivity : Interactive quizzes, games, puzzles, etc., to engage the customer

Adaptability : Adapting to market trends, consumer feedback, or the evolving digital landscape, publishing your new campaigns in an agile and incremental manner

Digital marketing metrics

Some of the most commonly used metrics are:

• Revenue generated from digital channels
• Leads generated from digital channels
• Offline leads accelerated by digital channels
• Market reach in the form of social media reach, search impressions, or website visits

In the world of SaaS, growth marketing is a full-funnel approach where teams take responsibility for the customer journey from acquisition to retention, using data-driven and experimental approaches to optimize performance and scalability.

A good growth marketing plan is characterized by the following.

• Data-driven approach
• Continuous experimentation
• Focus on the entire lifecycle
• Community building
• Nifty use of resources

As beneficial as it is, a marketing plan is not easy to create or implement. If you’re in a marketing team, here are the barriers you might encounter.

While creating or implementing a marketing plan, a million things could go wrong. In the interest of time, we outline a handful here.

Firstly, let’s explore external factors that are barriers to successful marketing plan implementation.

The market has changed : Markets go through ups and downs every few years. Recently, markets are slowing down and customers are choosing to spend only on necessities. Even what one defines as a necessity might change, if the economy doesn’t improve. 

A marketing plan that does not address these changes is bound to fail. For instance, if you’re positioning a luxury handbag as a fashion statement, you might not get much traction. However, if you position it as an investment, you will likely attract more attention.

Customers have changed : This can be a number of situations. Your customers have grown older and no longer wear Crocs. They’ve become more aware and no longer prefer sugar-filled aerated drinks. They’ve paid off their student debt and can afford more expensive products. No marketing plan can make them buy stuff they’ve grown out of.

Technology has become advanced : Technology is evolving rapidly, with new products being launched every day. If your marketing plan depends on an older technology, it is bound to be ineffective. 

Regulation is evolving : In the interest of the public, regulators continue to tighten compliance. For instance, in the tobacco industry, advertising regulations get stricter constantly. If you are an e-cigarette company with a detailed plan to market to teenagers, a change in regulation is going to put an end to that!

Not all your barriers are external. In fact, an organization’s ability to implement a successful campaign can be hindered by its own shortcomings as well. Here are some examples.

Your organization is resistant to change : Traditional mindsets and resistance to change limit the flexibility and responsiveness needed for successful implementation. This is especially true for experimental marketing tactics like TikTok.

Team dynamics : A successful marketing plan needs various teams to work together. For instance, a campaign that spans search, email marketing, and social media needs these teams to interact and build on each other in real time. Without that, you might be running into a failed marketing plan.

Resource limitations : Not having the resources you need can affect marketing outcomes. This could be the shortage of a campaign manager, social media budget, or the right analytics tool. 

So, how to overcome these challenges and create an effective marketing plan? Let’s find out.

How to Create an Effective Marketing Plan

An effective marketing plan depends on a number of factors, like research, budgets, channels, and more. To take care of all of them effectively, you need a robust marketing planning process and a powerful project management tool like ClickUp for marketing teams .

Once you have the basics ready, here’s how you can go about creating an effective marketing plan.

By the time you get to the marketing plan stage, your organization and product teams are likely to have already conducted a lot of research about the product, target market, pricing, etc. Understand the insights and use them in your plan.

Use the demographics, interests, and behavioral data about prospects for targeted messaging. 

Example 

Let’s say you’re selling low-fat ice cream. Your target market is likely to be:

Demographics : 25-40 year old, urban, middle/upper class. Use this as the primary segmentation in your Facebook/Instagram ad campaigns.

Interest : Health and fitness-related influencers, athleisure brands, other low-fat food and beverages brands, etc. Narrow your targeting to those who have these interests.

Behavioral data : Likely to post pictures of food and exercise, participate in marathons, or belong to cycling/trekking groups. Focus on these behaviors to target further. If you are competing on price as your differentiation, A/B test offers and discounts.

ClickUp Docs is a great collaborative tool to document key insights from market research that would be meaningful to your marketing plan. You can also use ClickUp AI to summarize insights and make them easier to access/use.

ClickUp templates

Set yourself up for success with ClickUp’s Marketing Action Plan template . Use this marketing plan template to design your campaigns, track your progress, meet your deadlines, collaborate with your team, and achieve your goals all in one place.

If you’re thinking long-term, try ClickUp’s Marketing Roadmap templates , a set of ready-to-use toolkits for defining and integrating your goals with tasks. 

If that’s too comprehensive for you, here are several other marketing plan templates for you to choose from.

While you obviously won’t copy their campaigns, you need to keep an eye out if you want to be differentiated. Analyze competitor campaigns as a team, and debate what’s great and what’s not. 

It is at this stage that you brainstorm various marketing strategies and choose the one that’s right for you.

As a low-fat ice cream maker, your primary competition might be other low-fat ice cream makers. However, it’ll be prudent to think about the problem you’re solving and other solutions that customers are using. For instance, this could be anything from fruit salad to green tea. 

Begin by making a list of everyone who might be a competitor. Use ClickUp Whiteboards to debate and brainstorm with remote teams. Conduct SWOT analysis, trace customer journeys, organize ideas and more.

Then, narrow down to your direct and indirect competitors. Study their marketing efforts to identify the market gaps.

For thorough research, try ClickUp’s market analysis template to carefully evaluate five types of competitors.

• Direct: They have the same products as you
• Indirect: Their products are different from what you offer but target the same market
• Potential: They aren’t in the market right now but may be in the future
• Future: They are like potential competitors but are likely to enter the market in the immediate future
• Replacement: They offer an alternative to your product

If you need something simpler, try the ClickUp campaign manager’s SWOT analysis template . Use this for your primary competitor’s campaigns to get a clear picture of where the gaps are.

At this stage, ClickUp’s go-to-market templates will be exceptionally useful. 

ClickUp GTM strategy template : For task lists in various GTM stages, such as discovery, analysis, research, planning, implementation, and reporting. 

ClickUp GTM strategy whiteboard template : For a visual and interactive way to brainstorm and plan marketing activities

Before you make any plans, crystallize your marketing objectives. 

• Make them SMART goals
• Ensure your goals are published in an easily accessible place
• Track progress toward your goals

ClickUp Goals is designed to help you with all this and more. With ClickUp, you can consolidate all your goals, break them down into targets, set timelines, automatically track progress, and keep your teams motivated.

We’ve discussed some possible goals in the types of marketing plans section above. Apply that to your efforts. As a low-cost ice cream vendor, your marketing goals might be:

• Increase store foot-falls by 20 month-on-month
• Increase online orders by 40% month-on-month
• Generate $10,000 in sales from Labor Day social media campaign (measured as the number of coupons encashed)
• Increase returning customer order value by 25%

Whether you’re a solo marketer or part of a larger team, ClickUp’s Marketers Goal Setting template will help you stay on track and crush your marketing goals.

This is the most important step in your marketing plan, where you put all the ideas to paper (or ClickUp, of course). 

A typical marketing plan will have the following.

Brand message : Your equivalent of ‘Just Do It’ or ‘The Happiest Place On Earth’

Campaign breakdown : The messaging and offers you’re going to advertise throughout the year. For low-fat icecream, this could be Sunday deals, 4th of July discounts, Christmas Specials, etc.

Channel breakdown : First identify all the channels you want to target, and then clarify which campaign goes to which channel. 

For instance, you might launch a campaign on Instagram asking customers to gift 10% off by posting their customized referral code on Stories, which anyone can use for 24 hours. This won’t work for Twitter, so you need another plan.

Budgets : Allocate budgets for each campaign and channel. Focus on your best converting channels. Optimize regularly.

Of all the marketing plan templates, ClickUp Content Management template remains popular. Plan and create content across multiple channels—website, blog, social, and email. 

Streamline the end-to-end workflow from request intake, to planning with docs, to maintaining an editorial calendar, to delivery of content.

Looking for something specific for each channel, no sweat. ClickUp’s free content calendar templates have everything you need.

A successful marketing plan needs a robust way to execute it. ClickUp’s project management for marketing teams has everything you need.

Use ClickUp tasks , sub-tasks, and folders to organize your activities. Assign users for each task contextually. For instance, assign your social media tasks to the copywriter, designer, and channel manager.

Use the Workload view and aggregate planning strategies for better resource management. See if you’re designer is overloaded with work and reallocate some of their load. 

Use ClickUp Forms to capture information from internal or external stakeholders. For example, if your Times Square store has a unique idea, encourage them to fill a form and get their work done.

Connect tasks to goals and targets to automatically track progress. Use the ClickUp Calendar view to schedule marketing activities effectively. Turn on the timeline view to see if you have overlaps or dependencies.

A marketing plan has hundreds of activities going on at the same time. Managing this can become too chaotic too quickly. Prevent that with ClickUp’s real-time collaboration capabilities. 

Chat with colleagues, exchange feedback on creatives, and ping team mates in real-time to get marketing done like clockwork.

You can collaborate with a number of users for a range of activities, such as:

• Placing orders with vendors for marketing assets, ads, etc.
• Discussing feedback and improvements on advertisement designs
• Interacting with social media influencers, responding to their comments/questions

For marketing output, such as design, copy, or campaigns to be effective, you need a clear brief. Yet, not everyone can write a good brief. So, we’ve brought help.

ClickUp’s creative brief templates allow you to write briefs in minutes for a number of use cases, including product briefs, SEO content briefs, design briefs, campaign briefs, and more. Each of the above is a free marketing plan template for you to download, customize, and implement to your needs.

You can’t call a campaign successful if you don’t track performance. Use ClickUp to track performance. 

Set up KPIs : Key performance indicators (KPIs) like conversion rates, website traffic, customer engagement, and sales figures are essential in measuring the success of a marketing plan. Choose the ones that are relevant to you.

Listen to feedback : Collect and analyze customer feedback on your marketing campaigns. This can be through active ways such as surveys or focus groups or passive methods like social media listening.

Experiment : Data-driven marketing depends on experimenting with various permutations and combinations of messaging, design, channel, etc. So keep trying multiple versions of the same thing.

If you’re experimenting with your campaigns, ClickUp’s got the right foundation for you.

Whether your experiments are as simple as red CTA vs. blue CTA or something more targeted like offering discounts in price vs. freebies, monitor and track them with ClickUp’s A/B testing template .

Plan Like a Pro With ClickUp

The importance of a good marketing plan cannot be overstated. It impacts revenue, profitability, expenses, customer experience, market capitalization, shareholder value, and more. 

To ensure that your marketing plan is effective, you need a versatile project management tool like ClickUp. 

With ClickUp, you can break down your projects into manageable tasks/subtasks, create checklists to maintain quality standards, set goals and track progress, customize views, and plan with drag-and-drop capabilities.

Integrate effortlessly with your marketing tool stack or use ClickUp as the native CRM with powerful features. 

Bolster your marketing strategy. Try ClickUp for free today.

FAQs About Marketing Plans

The four Ps marketing mix has been extended to accommodate more complex activities of the digital world. The 7Ps of marketing are product, price, place, promotion, people, packaging, and process.

• Product is what you offer (including services)
• Price is the perceived value of a product, the dollars your customers are willing to pay
• Place is the point of distribution
• Promotion is the messaging about your product
• People are all the entities your customers meet in their journey, including salespeople, vendors, partners, resellers, etc.
• Packaging refers to the brand design on the product
• Process refers to the workflows that contribute to the customer experience 

The seven steps of the marketing plan are:

• Using your market research
• Conducting competition research
• Goal setting
• Designing marketing activities
• Setting up marketing projects
• Enabling collaboration
• Monitoring performance

To be comprehensive and effective, a marketing plan needs a few essential elements. Here are the top ten.

• Goals : What targets are you working towards?
• Target audience : What is the demographic, interest, and preference profile of your prospective customers?
• Messaging : What is the unified message you’re giving your customer?
• Channels : Where are you distributing your marketing messages?
• Assets : What assets like content, design, landing pages, etc. are you using?
• Budget : How much are you spending on marketing and how do you break that down?
• Timelines : How are your marketing campaigns scheduled to optimize outcomes?
• Teams : Who is responsible for what?
• Tools : What tools are you using, including the marketing planning software ?
• Reviews : How often do you review the performance of your marketing efforts?

Questions? Comments? Visit our Help Center for support.

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More From Forbes

Marketing for financial advisors: how to develop a plan.

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Trey Robinson, Founder of Story Amplify .

When meeting with a prospect for the first time, you probably don’t automatically offer your products or services. Instead, you build a foundation by talking with them to learn where they are now and where they hope to be. Only then do you offer a plan and products to help them reach their goals.

Creating an effective marketing plan requires the same process. First, you must build the foundation, and then you can lay out the strategy. Here's the approach my agency uses to create successful marketing plans for our financial advisor clients.

The Foundation

Part 1: know your audience.

The foundation of financial advisor marketing is the same as that of your first client meeting. You must understand your audience and its pain points. This knowledge helps you craft the right message to solve their problems. For example, an older audience’s pain point might be having financial resources post-retirement, whereas younger families have different worries, such as reducing debt and having enough money to send their kids to college.

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Michael cohen testifies: ex-trump fixer confirms he called trump ‘cheeto-dusted cartoon villain’ in fiery cross-examination, ios 17 5 apple issues update now warning to all iphone users, part 2: solidify your brand.

A great deal of complex information is out there about the importance of “brands” and “branding.” Boiling it down, your brand is your identity. It’s what comes to your audience’s mind when they hear or think about your name.

To introduce and solidify your brand, you should communicate:

• Your products, services and their benefits.

• What drives you (i.e., why you’re in this business and industry).

• How you differ from the competition.

For example, many financial advisors offer 529 programs to parents and grandparents. Tell those parents and grandparents why your products—and services—are better than others. Maybe you offer workshops in addition to account management, or you might offer budgeting advice as a freebie.

The Strategy

With a solid foundation, developing a marketing strategy is your next step. Digital marketing for financial advisors involves content creation, distribution and lead capturing.

Content Creation

Content includes the text, images and video you use to message your audience. Available content formats include:

• E-books and white papers

• Social media posts

• Newsletters

• Educational videos

• Display ads

• Website copy

Remember your audience. Determine how they consume content. Young families might respond more positively to social media and video, while older adults might prefer written content, such as white papers, blogs and e-books.

The content format you use will also depend on your content distribution strategy.

Content Distribution

There are two types of content distribution: organic channels and paid channels.

Organic Channels

Organic channels mean you don’t pay to build search engine rankings or engage with your audience.

Let’s say a prospect types “financial advisor” into a search engine. A successful organic channel strategy puts your name near or at the top of the resulting search engine results page (SERP). The best way to boost your organic search ranking is to consistently create unique, relevant and valuable content that addresses your audience’s problems.

You can also boost your ranking through the following:

• Google reviews: Positive reviews on Google are great—they position you as a trustworthy source. As a trusted business, search engines could reward you with a higher SERP rank.

• Local business listings: Digital listings on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp and the Better Business Bureau's website help leads and prospects locate you. They should include your name, address, phone number, website URL and business description to improve your online presence, potentially leading to a higher SERP ranking.

• Social media: Social media is a terrific outlet for your content. Posting regularly on social media provides you with more backlinks to your website (especially if your content is shared). This increases awareness of your brand—and potentially your SERP ranking.

Another way to boost your visibility in the search results is by earning a free Google Screened badge . Once you've been screened and verified, you receive a green checkmark next to your business's name in your Google Local Services listing, which indicates your trustworthiness to prospective clients.

Paid Channels

To improve traffic flow to your website, you can pay for a more visible presence through paid channels including search engines, other websites or social media. Many paid channels are pay-per-click.

Here are some paid channels to consider using:

• Paid search advertising: A paid search ad guarantees a higher position for your business on a SERP. If a prospect searches for “financial advisors and retirement,” your paid search ad will appear close to the top of that search page.

• Social media: You can post content for free on social media, but paying can help you stand out. When determining your ad’s best social media outlet, consider LinkedIn’s business orientation, Facebook’s friend-to-friend interface and Instagram’s visual requirements.

• Retargeting ads: When prospects visit your website but don’t act, retargeting ads step in. These small display ads “follow” prospects as they visit other sites or social media accounts, encouraging them to leave their contact information or set up an appointment with you.

Lead Capturing

Lead capturing converts your website visitors and prospects to leads so you can follow up.

One way to capture leads is to offer something that entices your audience to return for more. An older audience might appreciate a complimentary dinner and retirement information. Younger families could value a well-written white paper or video about 529 investing.

Appointment setting is another way to capture leads. Encourage prospects to schedule a no-obligation meeting where they can have a no-pressure discussion with you.

How Much Should You Spend?

Even if you decide not to pursue paid channels, you still need resources to support your marketing efforts. How much is enough?

A study by Broadridge found that the average advisor spent $17,400 on marketing in 2022. You can calculate a break-even point by determining your anticipated marketing costs and the revenue necessary to cover that expense.

Final Takeaways

You have a strategy in place when you first meet with clients. You need a similar approach when marketing to and communicating with prospects.

Marketing requires planning and audience knowledge. Take the time to understand your audience’s pain points. Then, develop and distribute content to meet their needs.

Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?

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How To Write a Lawn Care Business Plan 

Are you considering opening a lawn care business? With low startup costs and ongoing demand, this home care niche has the potential to generate healthy profits quickly. 

However, there are a lot of elements you need to nail down before getting started. That’s where your lawn care business plan comes in. A good plan will help you avoid common business startup mistakes like overspending or failing to understand the market.  

Planning also helps you clarify exactly what you need to build a successful lawn care company. 

If you’re not sure how to write a business plan for a lawn care business, read on. This article covers all the information you’ll need to include. You’ll also get some valuable tips to help you prepare to write one.  

First, it helps to understand why you need a business plan. A solid idea of its purpose will get you in the right frame of mind for drafting yours. 

The Purpose of a Lawn Care Business Plan  

A business plan outlines the foundational aspects of starting and running a successful lawn care company. From figuring out your services to creating growth strategies, it’s your roadmap that takes you from the idea stage to profitability. 

With a well-structured business plan, you can count on: 

• Faster growth:  Your plan outlines your ideal customers and how you’ll promote your services to them so you can start bringing in business and building your reputation from day one. 
• Better cash flow management: Approximately one in four businesses fail in their first year. The number one reason? Cash-flow problems . Your business plan will help you better manage your cash flow. 
• Progress tracking: You can use the goals you identify in your plan to track progress. Knowing your goals each quarter or other timeframe helps you stay focused. 
• A stronger brand: As you establish your mission, vision, and values, you define the “why” behind your lawn care business. This helps to carve out a clear brand identity that resonates with your market. 
• Access to financing: If you apply for a small business loan, the bank will review your business plan to understand your earning potential. A thorough, well-researched plan can increase your chances of getting a loan. 

Ultimately, your business plan isn’t just a nice-to-have document. It’s something you’ll need to start a lawn care company. 

RELATED ARTICLE: How to Start a Lawn Care Business  

Initial Steps To Starting a Lawn Care Business Plan  

Ready to get started? The first steps involve information gathering. It’s time to research, ideate, and make decisions. 

Decide on Your Type of Lawn Care Business.  

Who will you provide lawn services for? Residential or commercial customers? Will you provide specialized services, such as sustainable lawn care or lawn pest management? 

Professional lawn care services can include the basics like weed control and grass cutting. You can also offer a full suite of services, from fertilization and edging to seeding and leaf removal. 

Figure out what you want to offer. This will determine the size of your team, the equipment you’ll need to buy or lease, and your income potential. 

Scope Out the Competition.  

Who are your main competitors? What services do they offer? Note things like their pricing, branding, and online reviews. Then, do an analysis to determine what works and what doesn’t in your market.  

Research Your Market.  

How many potential customers are there in your service area? What are their pain points—cost, convenience, a need for specific services? 

Identify demographic information such as age group, income bracket, and location. You’ll use this information to develop your ideal customers. It can also inform major decisions like your pricing strategy and marketing channels. 

Look for Differentiation Opportunities.  

Use the information from your competitor and customer analysis to identify gaps in your market. Are there problems customers complain about in reviews? Is there a shortage of a specific type of lawn care? 

What angle can your business use to out-compete other companies in your region? Here are some ideas: 

• Exceptional customer service 
• Professional branding 
• Lower prices 
• Add-on services, such as landscaping design, mosquito control, or tree removal 

Differentiation will help your lawn care company stand out. That can lead to more business and a more recognizable brand. 

FROM ONE OF OUR PARTNERS: 13 Lawn Care and Landscaping Industry Trends  

Lawn Care Business Plan Development  

The next stage of writing a plan is establishing the nuts and bolts of your business. These are covered by the standard sections of a business plan, which are: 

• Executive summary 
• Mission and vision statements 
• Business structure 
• Service overview 
• Pricing strategy 

You’ll also add your marketing strategies and financial information before presenting your plan to lending institutions. Let’s dive into what you need to flesh out each section. 

Craft a Compelling Executive Summary.  

The executive summary details the following: 

• Company history:  What’s the background of you or anyone else involved in starting your lawn care company? Share any related experience and the reason you decided to start the company. 
• Values:  Is your business trustworthy? Highly skilled? Family-owned? Prompt and courteous? Choose three or four core values. 
• Mission and vision:  Write a statement detailing your mission, i.e., your objectives and how you hope to achieve those objectives. Include your vision, which details your long-term aspirations. 

Give an Overview of Your Business.  

Write out your business name, what you offer, and your market.  

Here’s an example: Ted’s Lawn and Plant Care offers residential lawn care and landscaping services to the town of Middlebury. We’re a small team of lawn care experts who are passionate about helping our customers achieve healthy, beautiful lawns. 

Also, list your ownership structure. Do you have a sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC, or corporation?  

Detail your existing assets as they apply to starting your business. These include lawn care equipment, vehicles, office equipment, and software. 

Detail Your Services.  

List your specific services. Here are some of the most popular lawn care services: 

• Grass cutting 
• Edging 
• Fertilization, seeding, and weed control 
• Mulching and aeration 
• Leaf removal and yard cleanup 
• Irrigation 
• Mosquito control 
• Tree and ornamental plant care 

Determine Your Pricing Strategy.  

Once you’ve listed your service menu, decide how much you’ll charge for each service. Review your competitors’ prices to better understand what competitive pricing will be in your market.  

Will you charge lower prices to attract new customers? Or will you offer more value and charge a premium? 

For example, if your lawn care business offers more expertise, factor that skill and experience into your pricing. 

Profitability also matters when figuring out your pricing strategy. What price do you need to make a profit from your services?  

Calculate labor, materials, and other expenses to find out how much each service costs your business. Then, determine a reasonable price to ensure you’re generating enough revenue. This is your expected profit margin . 

Financial Planning for a Lawn Care Business Plan  

One of the most important parts of your business plan is your financial plan. This section is where you explain how you’ll make money and avoid financial pitfalls. Lenders will want to see that you’ve run the numbers and have a solid base to build your business on.  

Many startups benefit from working with a CPA on this section to ensure accuracy. However, it does help to have the following information ready for their review.  

Project Revenue Growth.  

Using your pricing strategy and sales goals, determine how much revenue you’ll make in the first quarter, six months, and year. Your projected revenue is crucial for determining your budget. 

Budget for Equipment and Staff.  

Establish how much you need to pay staff and invest in your initial equipment. Consider different ways to save money, such as leasing equipment instead of buying and starting with a small team. You need a good budget to avoid running into cash flow issues. 

Insure Your Business.  

Risk is a part of doing business. You can reduce risk with business insurance. Look into what types of insurance you need, such as general liability and auto insurance for your company vehicles. You may need a separate commercial policy even if you plan to use your personal car or truck, you may need a separate commercial policy . 

Having the right insurance doesn’t just save your business from financial catastrophe. It also shows your customers your company is professional. 

Consider Diversifying Your Income Streams.  

Lawn care businesses can earn income in different ways. You can provide lawn care services. But you can also use your assets to make money in other ways.  

For example, if you invest in high-quality equipment, you can lease that equipment to other small businesses. You can offer landscape design consulting or installation services if you have landscaping expertise. 

Diversifying will help your business bring in revenue even when one side of your business slows down. 

FROM ONE OF OUR PARTNERS: 5 Spring Season Landscape Maintenance Services to Offer  

Lawn Care Business Plan Marketing and Growth Strategies  

A well-structured business plan also includes sections on marketing and sales. How will your business promote your services? What sales tactics will you use to grow? Investors want to see that you have a strategic plan to promote yourself as part of long-term success. 

Here are the steps to complete this section of your lawn care business plan: 

Use Digital Marketing Channels To Engage Your Audience.  

Set up a website to establish your position online. It should be uncluttered and easy to navigate since most of your other channels will point back here. 

You should also build a presence on the social media channels your target audience uses. Content and frequent interaction will be driving factors for social success. 

For example, you might create a Facebook page for your business. If you have the budget, you could create how-to content on YouTube to drive traffic to your site and engage your audience. 

Decide How To Promote Your Business Locally.  

If you have service vans or trucks, you can promote your business by having a professional paint your logo and phone number on the vehicles. You may also want to consider vehicle wraps . They turn your transportation into a rolling billboard.  

Consider mailing out promotional flyers to your target audience. You can also place your business card in local establishments with a board or table to promote local businesses, such as libraries, cafes, and bookstores. 

Prioritize Customer Satisfaction To Drive Repeat Business.  

Decide how you’ll train your team to deliver top-notch customer service. Develop processes around cleaning up after services, communicating with customers, and getting feedback from them. 

The goal is to ensure your business offers exceptional service to encourage repeat business and referrals. 

Develop a System for Encouraging Online Reviews.  

In the lawn care industry, online reviews are one of your most powerful marketing tools. A recent survey found that 91% of consumers say online reviews impact their perception of local brands. 

Build a system for managing reviews. This can include sending an email or SMS after services requesting a review.  

However, if you’re going to ask for them, you must monitor them. Thank people for the positive ones and address any negatives to find a suitable solution. 

FROM ONE OF OUR PARTNERS: 6 Tips and Tricks to Effectively Manage a Landscaping Business  

Top Tips for Writing a Lawn Care Business Plan  

An effective business plan is jam-packed with detail, analysis, and research. That’s why writing a lawn care business plan can feel a little daunting. 

But if you break down the different sections into the individual steps outlined above, you’ll create a well-structured document that supports your success. Here are three tips that can help you get the ball rolling: 

• Find lawn care businesses you admire. Use these companies for inspiration. Check out their branding. See what they’re up to on social media. And read their reviews. You’ll learn a lot of information to help you craft your mission, vision, and values. 
• Evaluate your current assets. Take stock of what you have. Lawn mowers. Hedge trimmers. Leaf blowers. Make a list of everything so you know what you’re working with. 
• Decide what software you’ll use. Scheduling tools, accounting software, invoicing— the right software can help you save money from the start. Figure out what you’ll need and start comparing options. 

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Free Google Slides Business Model Canvas Templates

By Courtney Patterson | May 8, 2024

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These customizable Google Slides business model canvas templates are tailored for entrepreneurs, startup enthusiasts, and strategic planners. Download any template to help you develop and refine your business model, establishing a solid base for growth and innovation. This collection includes a  Lean business model canvas template , a  social enterprise business model canvas template , a  tech startup business model canvas template , and more.

Google Slides Simple Business Model Canvas Template

Download the Simple Business Model Canvas Template for Google Slides 

When to Use This Template:  Use this streamlined business model canvas template during dynamic strategy meetings or brainstorming sessions. It's particularly useful for entrepreneurs, startups, and educators looking for a fast way to kick-start planning, facilitate workshops, or clarify ongoing business strategies. 

Notable Template Features:  This template efficiently outlines key aspects of a business model, such as value propositions, target customer segments, and critical operations. The user-friendly layout ensures swift updates and engaging team discussions, making it an essential resource for visualizing and refining strategic plans. 

Access this complimentary collection of  free business model canvas templates to effectively visualize your business's fundamental elements. 

Google Slides Lean Business Model Canvas Template

Download the Sample Lean Business Model Canvas Template for Google Slides 

Download the Blank Lean Business Model Canvas Template for Google Slides

When to Use This Template:  Ideal for high-velocity environments, this Lean business model canvas template with or without sample data allows forward-thinking innovators to expedite the testing and validation of their business concepts. It focuses on refining the pivotal aspects of a business strategy to adjust based on real-time market responses. 

Notable Template Features:  This template highlights critical Lean startup principles, including the alignment of solutions with customer problems, compelling value propositions, and key performance indicators (KPIs). Its interactive and flexible design makes it a vital resource for teams striving for continual progress. Download the sample version for a pre-filled template, or try the blank version to fill in the sections with your own data.

Google Slides Business Capability Model Template

Download the Business Capability Model Template for Google Slides  

When to Use This Template:  Use this template to streamline your strategic planning. It is designed to help organizations assess and outline their core business functions and capabilities so that they can synchronize business strategies with operational strengths and identify areas for investment. 

Notable Template Features:  Across multiple dynamic slides, this template facilitates a thorough analysis of business capabilities, from day-to-day operations to customer interaction tactics. Its organized layout allows for a methodical review of your company's strengths, weaknesses, and growth opportunities, improving communication and strategic alignment across teams and sectors. 

Google Slides Social Enterprise Business Model Canvas Template

Download the Social Enterprise Business Model Canvas Template for Google Slides

When to Use This Template:  This Google Slides template is ideal for social enterprises and mission-driven organizations that need to strategize how to balance social impact with financial viability. Use this template in brainstorming sessions or strategic planning meetings to navigate the challenges of creating social value and financial stability. 

Notable Template Features:  This template emphasizes integrating social objectives with core business functions. It includes dedicated sections for outlining social missions, evaluating impact, and building community relationships. Its comprehensive design enables you to map out both the social and economic facets of your business. 

Google Slides Customer-Focused Business Model Canvas Template

Download the Sample Customer-Focused Business Model Canvas Template for Google Slides  

Download the Blank Customer-Focused Business Model Canvas Template for Google Slides  

When to Use This Template:  Use this customer-focused template with or without sample data when you're fine-tuning or developing a business strategy with a strong emphasis on customer insights. The template is particularly effective at turning customer needs into unique market positions and customized experiences.

Notable Template Features:  Specially crafted to highlight the role of customer perspectives in strategic planning, this template features dedicated areas for detailing customer journeys, preferences, and the feedback process. It offers a comprehensive examination of how your business model caters to customer demands, prioritizing customer satisfaction and active engagement in every strategic move.

Google Slides E-Commerce Business Model Canvas Template

Download the E-Commerce Business Model Canvas Template for Google Slides  

When to Use This Template:  Try this e-commerce template when you need to elevate your presence in the digital retail space. Ideal for strategizing the launch of a new online store or refining the operations of an existing one, this template facilitates a detailed examination and improvement of an online shopping journey, from the first interaction to follow-up after sales. 

Notable Template Features:  Tailor-made for the nuances of e-commerce, this template provides a guide for strategizing around online consumer behaviors, digital marketing tactics, and logistical operations. It covers crucial strategic e-commerce activities, such as enhancing the customer experience, streamlining payment systems, and ensuring effective customer support. 

Google Slides Tech Startup Business Model Canvas Template

Download the Tech Startup Business Model Canvas Template for Google Slides

When to Use This Template:  Use this tech startup template during critical phases of brainstorming and entering the market or as you adjust your tech enterprise to meet the changing needs of the industry. It's designed to help you better understand the relationship between your technological innovations and market requirements.

Notable Template Features:  Adapted for the unique challenges and opportunities of the tech sector, this template emphasizes research and development, intellectual property management, and strategies for gaining users. It offers a comprehensive layout for mapping out how your tech solutions align with market expectations, with a focus on ensuring scalability, security measures, and innovation.

Related Templates

Explore these complimentary Google Slides templates rooted in business model canvas methodologies. Tailored to boost your strategic business planning, these resources emphasize strategic planning, market analysis, value proposition clarification, and customer journey mapping. 

Free SWOT Analysis Templates for Google Slides

Make use of these  free SWOT analysis templates for Google Slides to better understand your organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, allowing for new strategic initiatives and insightful decision-making. 

Free Google Slides Project Management Templates

These  free Google Slides project management templates offer users an intuitive way to organize, track, and present project details, timelines, and milestones, enhancing project visibility and team collaboration. 

Free Brand Presentation Templates

See this collection of  free brand presentation templates for resources to help you seamlessly integrate and showcase your brand's identity in your business model canvas, enhancing how you communicate your value proposition and market positioning. 

Free Marketing Report Templates

Take a look at these  free marketing report templates for help analyzing and presenting your marketing efforts and ensuring that they align with the strategies outlined in your business model canvas. 

Free Change Management Strategy Templates

Check out these  free change management strategy templates to help you effectively plan and execute organizational changes, ensuring they align with your strategic objectives. 

Free Go-to-Market Strategy Templates

Explore these  free go-to-market strategy templates when you need a targeted strategic approach for launching a product or service. 

Free Project Timeline Templates

Dive into these  free project timeline templates to help you map out the key milestones and timelines for your strategic initiatives, aligning them with the broader goals outlined in your business model canvas. 

Free Annual Plan Templates and Yearly Planning Templates

Discover these  free annual plan templates and yearly planning templates to assist you in setting annual goals and strategies that are in harmony with your long-term objectives. 

Free Google Timeline Templates

Check out these  free Google timeline templates to help you effectively visualize and plan the chronological development and execution of the strategies outlined in your business model canvas. 

Refine Your Business Models with Real-Time Work Management in Smartsheet

Discover a better way to connect your people, processes, and tools with one simple, easy-to-use platform that empowers your team to get more done, faster.

With Smartsheet, you can align your team on strategic initiatives, improve collaboration efforts, and automate repetitive processes, giving you the ability to make better business decisions and boost effectiveness as you scale. 

When you wear a lot of hats, you need a tool that empowers you to get more done in less time. Smartsheet helps you achieve that. Try free for 30 days, today .

Connect your people, processes, and tools with one simple, easy-to-use platform.