STUDENT GUIDE FOR WRITING A MARKETING PLAN

STUDENT GUIDE FOR WRITING A MARKETING PLAN
1. Executive Summary
The Executive Summary “sells” the marketing plan to readers through its clarity and brevity. The summary should present a description of the product/service, its target market, and its need within the market. The summary should also provide an overview of the main points of the plan and should emphasize an action orientation.
IMPORTANT: Write this last after all the other sections have been completed.
2. Company Description
The company description should highlight the recent history and successes of the organization.
3. Strategic Focus and Plan
While not included in all marketing plans, the Strategic Focus and Plan sets the strategic direction for the entire organization.
One approach is to use the strategic marketing process and/or diversification and synergy analyses (see Chapters 2 and 22).
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a. Mission/Vision
The Mission/Vision statement is a qualitative statement that specifies the markets and product lines in which a business will compete. A mission statement can dramatically affect the range of a firm’s marketing activities by narrowing or broadening the competitive playing field. An effective mission statement must be clear and direct (see Chapter 2).
b. Objectives (SMART)
The Goals section of a marketing plan sets both financial and non-financial targets. Goals should be in quantitative terms, where possible, to facilitate measuring the company’s future performance (see Chapter 2).
· An example of a non-financial goal: “Philip Morris will diversify its product lines to achieve 50 percent of sales revenue in non-tobacco products in the next five years.”
· An example of a financial goal (note it is specific and measurable): “XYZ Inc. will increase sales from $10 million in 2012 to $15 million in 2016.”
c. Strategy
· Explain the marketing strategy that will be used and why it was chosen. (Ex: A market penetration strategy will be used in order to increase market share from XX to XX.)
4. Situation Analysis
The essence of the situation analysis is taking stock of where the firm or product has been recently, where it is now, and where it is headed. The situation analysis is the first of three steps in the planning stage (see Chapters 2 and 22).
a. SWOT Analysis
· The SWOT analysis is an effective shorthand summary of the situation analysis.
The acronym is used to describe an organization’s internal Strengths and Weaknesses and its external Opportunities and Threats.
This analysis provides a solid foundation to identify subsequent actions in the marketing plan.
· The SWOT analysis can be effectively presented in a tabular format (see Appendix A), followed by a text discussion that elaborates on the information in the table.
· An analysis to identify internal strengths and weaknesses usually includes the following areas in an organization:
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