Marketing Plan or Marketing Strategy

Despite what you might think, the two terms are not interchangeable, but they are often confused. We’re focusing on the Marketing Plan, which is the Blueprint in any business. Ok, we’ll touch briefly on Marketing Strategy.

Whether you’re a small scale business or one of the bigger players, a Marketing Plan is essential and to your business and paired with your Marketing Strategy, is the key to success, no matter how brief.

‘A marketing plan is a written document detailing the current situation with respect to customers, competitors and the external environment, and providing guidelines for objectives, marketing actions and resource allocations over the planning period for either an existing or a proposed product or service’

If it’s history and performance you’re tracking for your product or service, your marketing plan is your go-to. Larger organisations are dependent on marketing plans in order to measure the performance of their managers.

Usually a marketing plan within an organisation is developed annually, but this can vary from business to business. The marketing manager will review the business’ current situation and assess their customers, both existing and potential, whilst also carrying out a SWOT analysis, identifying Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats. In addition, they will review competitors in the market, as well as throwing environmental factors that may impact on their product or service into the mix.

Then comes your strategy where you’ll determine actions related to the 4P’s; Product, Price, Promotion and Placement. The manager will review past performance, market share for their product or service and work out what their competitors have been up to, so they can plan and make decisions accordingly.

Often there are changes within the market, so it’s good business sense to have a contingency plan in place to cater for these and modify the plan as challenges present themselves.

Above all, it’s an important first step into setting and meeting objectives for any business and overall success & competitive advantage.

Until next time, TSP x