Things that stop my marketing plan from working
It’s often said, “If you don’t know where you are getting going, you are probably already there”. So, if you haven’t got a clear direction of what you were trying to plan, what outcomes you were trying to achieve, then your plan may very well never evolve.
The key steps to successfully writing a marketing plan
1. You must lay down a mission statement, your ethos, a vision statement, a purpose statement, an intent or identity statement and values statements.
2. You must also understand the situation that the organisation is in, not only things you control but also those outside your control …
a. your PESTLEED (political, economic, sociocultural, technological, legal and compliance, environmental, ethical, demographic circumstances)
b. your SWATT (strengths, weaknesses, adaptabilities, trends, and threats).
i. your industry existing and potential competitors
ii. your industry lifecycle
iii. your market segments
3. Once you have a MEVPIV, and you know your situation, then you can set your OSATTA (objectives, strategy, actions, tactics, tasks, and assessment/feedback).
This tells you where you want to be and how you’re going to get there. It also tells you how you going to make sure you stay on track.
If you want the benefit of experience and knowledge, from someone who
has written MANY marketing plans, ask for help here.
The Secret to Writing a, Implementable Marketing Plan that People Follow and Stakeholders Endorse
To prepare a comprehensive, professional marketing plan that will impress even the most demanding critic, you need to:
- identifies the real issues,
- Explore all the smart opportunities,
- Isolate the best strategies,
… in order to ensures you draft the best marketing plan your boss has ever seen.
A Great Marketing plan helps marketing management achieve marketing objectives
The G.R.A.I.S.E. test for Marketing Planning
Remember, a Marketing Plan is NOT a report… it is a map of how to achieve EXACTLY what you set out to achieve! In order to prepare a concise and implementable marketing plan it is often helpful to think of it in terms of the following points…
- Grip: It is soaked in reality (not some fluffy piece of verbose jargon) and is achievable, executable and implementable.
- Relevance: It means something to every participant. It helps them understand their function and do it to the best of their ability
- Action Steps: Al the tactics you will use to implement the strategy (how are we going to achieve the objective) is broken down to an Action Plan, with indivisible, individual tasks delegated to specific people, whose job it is to see their tasks are done to a quantifiable measure including a time-constraint.
- Interdependence: Every participating department can identify how each relies on each other for the organisation to achieve the objectives.
- Simplicity: It can be read and understood by every person it involves
- Exposure: those who are responsible for the tasks within the plane become visible across the organisation and recognised for their ability by which the way they achieved those tasks.
REQUEST MARKETING PLANNING HELP
If you want to delegate the Marketing Planning for your organisation to someone who has specialised expertise in writing marketing plans, ask for help here.
Some Key Problems Executives Experience when Asked to Write a Marketing Plan
Here are some of the common mistakes business executives make when completing business marketing plans:
Marketing Planning Mistake 1: Incomplete financials
Where is the break-even? Where do sales deliver budget? What is the sensitivity of variations in results? What are the contingent outcomes?
Marketing Planning Mistake 2: Over ambitious or ambiguous projections
Projections not based on objective data and fact. Determine the most truthful and realistic path to profitability, predicting actual revenues and profits inferred from known marketing statistics and reliable research.
Marketing Planning Mistake 3: Elements of the Marketing Mix Left Out
Every marketing plan should address certain topics. Lenders and professional readers generally look these as an indication of the accuracy of your plan. You need to ensure you have these elements covered in your marketing plan.
Marketing Planning Mistake 4: Impractical length or elementary depth
Your readers do not expect a 1000-page novel, nor a 1-page overview. Getting the length wrong will erode your readers’ confidence in the plan.
Marketing Planning Mistake 5: Poor understanding of Market Segments
Communicating your products to your prospects is a critical success factor for every business owner. You need to show you understand your target customers, what their needs are, why they will buy from you, and how you will communicate with them, distribute to them, and stimulate brand confidence in them.
Marketing Planning Mistake 6: Ambivalence Towards Your Plan
Having a consultant prepare your plan may save you a headache, but it is you who needs to explain to your board, lender or investors every question they have about your plan. You need to understand everything that is written in your plan.
The biggest mistake Planners make when drafting a Marketing Plan
The biggest mistake Planners make when drafting a Marketing Plan is not being PEERSMART. In the words of Richard Branson, “Its all about people” so when you use the PEERSMART model to develop your tactics, you ensure employee engagement and commitment to making your plans “work”.
Tools to Help You Write a GREAT Marketing Plan
Keen to write your OWN Marketing Plan?
Combining the experience of leading-edge marketing planners, along with the skills that MBA academics and teachings from leading business schools around the world, an array of useful marketing planning tools have been compiled in the firm of a comprehensive marketing plan workbook.
Collated into an Excel workbook, it works like a “how-to” or “do-it-yourself manual” to guide anyone in writing a relevant and appropriate marketing plan.
Far better than a marketing planning template, and worth thousands (due to its real, commercial value) you can grab it for free when you commission a market research project through Leadership Empowerment.
This is far more than another Marketing Planning template… when you use it, you’ll agree this is POWERFUL planning assistant!
One senior marketing executive with a leading Asian Telco, said, “This is so good, I’m introducing is as compulsory in our whole corporation!”
This Marketing Planning Workbook has been used by government, large national and international companies, and down to small FMCG manufacturers, banks, and even SME’s.
If you’re relatively new to Marketing Planning, if you’ve been thrown in the deep-end and have to produce a professional marketing plan like you have done 1000 of them and getting our team to work with you is not an option, then this is key to your success.
This marketing plan workbook, in Excel format, with 32 key worksheets you need to draft a powerful and comprehensive marketing plan, identifies key issues in writing winning marketing plans, and helps increase the competence of any marketing planners’ marketing planning for the rest of their careers.
So, if you’re a marketing professional, of any description, needing a very useful marketing planning tool for the next marketing plan you write, this will be a perfect option in helping you write a great marketing plan. Market Research Strategic Guidance
Want to know more about how we can help you write the best possible Marketing Plan?
Write a Marketing Plan with the assistance of a Marketing Planning Coach. Options include:
- A peer review to catch any inconsistencies or minor shortcomings in the Marketing Plan you have been asked to write
- Training workshop so your team can upgrade their abilities in writing a Marketing Plan
- Fill out the form below with your specific Marketing Planning needs if you would prefer:
