How to Create a Successful Marketing Plan

1. What is marketing planning?
2. Why do you need marketing planning?
3. The advantages of marketing planning
4. What is a marketing plan?
5. What belongs in the marketing plan?
6. In 5 steps to perfect marketing planning
7. Software and tools for marketing planning
8. Conclusion: It's worth the effort

Finding your way through today's marketing jungle is not so easy. There are already countless ways to run a marketing campaign. How are you supposed to keep track? The answer is: marketing planning.

With the help of a marketing plan, you always have everything under control and monitor the success of your marketing strategies in real time. We show you why your company can benefit from marketing planning and how to create the perfect marketing plan.

What is marketing planning?

As an entrepreneur, today you have countless options for marketing. If these options are not skillfully combined and structured in a building manner, this quickly leads to chaos and you lose track. Marketing planning is supposed to prevent exactly that. Instead of launching different marketing campaigns without a plan, you define clear marketing goals and set specific marketing strategies. In addition, you measure the success of your campaigns and document any failures in writing.

Based on your marketing planning, you make further decisions for your company. Marketing planning serves as the basis for all further marketing activities and is thus the supreme discipline in the marketing management sector.

A marketing plan is, therefore, a guide for all further marketing actions. It should clearly answer questions such as “What?”, “How?”, “When?”, “Where?”, and “Why?”. This way, all parties involved know about your marketing concept at all times and can act based on it.

With the help of a well-thought-out and coherent marketing planning, nothing stands in the way of your company's marketing success. So, what are you waiting for?

Why do you need marketing planning?

Marketing planning is part of business planning. With the help of marketing planning, you do not conduct marketing at random, but steer each marketing activity specifically. You skillfully use the marketing plan as a strategy to increase sales and attract customers.

A marketing plan serves as a guide for the entire company. All those involved can orientate themselves by it. As part of the marketing planning, you analyze the market and market needs, recognize options for action and identify possible risks. In addition, a goal-oriented marketing plan grants you a structured approach. You no longer leave the success of your marketing campaigns to chance.

The investment in the form of time and money (through possible external consultants) definitely pays off. Because after all, you avoid expensive individual marketing campaigns through marketing planning and use your time and that of your employees more efficiently.

The advantages of marketing planning

Marketing planning has many advantages:

• Marketing planning forms the basis for every successful company.
• Using marketing planning, you take the sales and success of your company into your own hands.
• You have an overview of all your marketing activities and always know what the next step is.
• Marketing planning supports you in the implementation of your marketing strategies.
• Through relevant campaigns, you speak to the right customers.
• It helps you save time and costs.

What is a marketing plan?

A marketing plan is a document that includes a company's marketing strategies, goals, and measures. For this, the responsible parties collect relevant data and information and document it in writing within the marketing plan. The marketing plan can be created and stored both digitally and physically.

Essential aspects of a marketing plan are the determination of the current marketing situation and the company goals and requirements. The research on the current situation is based on the company's own data stock, market analyses, and business information. In addition, studies and surveys can be used for the research.

The marketing goals of a company are based on the internal requirements of the company. Using marketing planning, target group, positioning, and marketing strategies are identified first. Following this, realistic goals can be defined for a certain period.

Once all relevant information is available and the marketing goals have been formulated, the marketing plan can be created. It serves as a guide and always provides an overview of all marketing activities.

What belongs in the marketing plan?

A marketing plan should be adapted individually to your company. Standard templates from the internet are often too general and not tailored to your company. So, see the Internet templates at most as a source of ideas and rather create your own marketing plan. On OMR Reviews, our users have tested and rated the best tools for creating a marketing plan.

With our checklist, you can successfully create a marketing plan yourself. It should include the following points:

• Summary/Management Summary: On a maximum of two pages, the most important content of your marketing plan should be summarized. If things need to go quickly, you can get an overview at any time with the help of the management summary.
• Analysis of the marketing situation: A detailed analysis of the current marketing situation should not be missing. Think about your target group, the developments of the target market, the description of the service offers, the distribution, and the competition situation. To get a detailed overview of other competitors, you can also carry out a competitive analysis. The best competitive analysis tools can be found on OMR Reviews.
• SWOT analysis: With the help of the SWOT analysis, you can record the strengths and weaknesses of your company and your range of services. In addition, chances and risks for the future of your company should be documented, and possible problems and solutions should be recorded.

A table of a SWOT analysis for creating a marketing plan (Source: Comcave)

• Company and marketing goals: The goals of your company are also part of the marketing plan. Think about sales, market share, and profit. You can also add specific plans for achieving the goals here.
• Marketing strategy: Which strategy fits your company based on the marketing goals? Here you can insert the most important steps of the strategy and think about the right channels. The marketing strategy always depends on the target group.
• Unique Selling Proposition (USP): The performance characteristics of your products are also included in the marketing plan. What sets your products or services apart, and how can these characteristics be emphasized in marketing? A list of individual unique selling points should not be missing here.
• Catalog of measures: The catalog of measures provides an overview of all marketing measures. It should be clear who has to do what, when, and with what budget. Advertising, sales channels, and promotions also belong in the catalog of measures.
• Marketing budget: The amount of the marketing budget is also recorded in the marketing plan. Bear in mind all the measures previously set in the marketing plan.
• Controlling and result forecast: With controlling, you can measure and monitor the progress of your marketing plans. Results, sales, and relevant numbers related to this also belong in this part of the marketing planning. The most popular controlling software can assist you with this and many other points of marketing planning.
• Appendix: The appendix is optional. Here you can attach further relevant information or documents.

You should also update your marketing plan at least once a year. This way, you are always up to date and can revise further steps of your marketing action plan. Depending on the defined period, however, the update period may vary. Especially if several people are responsible for the marketing of your company, your marketing plan should always be up to date.

In 5 steps to perfect marketing planning

You already know what must not be missing in your marketing plan. To define sustainable marketing strategies and ensure the success of your marketing plan, we have created the ultimate step-by-step guide for a perfect marketing plan for you. So, nothing stands in the way of your marketing planning. So, let's get started!

Step 1 of marketing planning: Define concrete marketing goals

First, you should define your marketing goals. Before you get to the concrete goal setting, however, you should think about the period. For what period do you want to define goals? Depending on the size of the company, 12 weeks, 6 months, or 1 year are suitable. The shorter the period, the more manageable the marketing planning remains.

Once you have decided on a period, you can define the marketing goals. You can proceed using the SMART method.

Creating a marketing plan using the SMART method (Source: Comcave)

• Specific: The formulation of the goals is as specific and concrete as possible.
• Measurable: The marketing goals include qualitative and quantitative measurement parameters.
• Attractive: The goals are appealing and attractive to all those involved.
• Realistic: The goals can be achieved with the available resources and within the planned time.
• Terminated: The timeline for the goals is feasible and the goals are time-bound.

The marketing goals should always be chosen within the framework of the financial means. At this point, you should also think about the resources you have available. Once you have formulated and documented all your marketing goals, you can move on to step 2.

Step 2 of marketing planning: Define a marketing strategy

The marketing strategy represents the theoretical base for your practical marketing plan. Without a marketing strategy, your marketing plan does not work. So, take enough time for this first step.

First, you should answer the following questions:

• What do you offer?
• Who is your target group?
• What is the benefit?
• What goal are you pursuing?
• Through which channels do you engage in marketing?
• What does your timeline look like?

In addition, you should already conduct a competitor analysis in the context of the first step of marketing planning. The better you know the current market, the better you can promote your products and/or services. You should also work on your Unique Selling Proposition (USP), i.e., your unique selling points, at this stage. You should be able to answer the following questions:

• Who are your competitors?
• What distinguishes you from other companies?
• Why should customers buy from you?

Only after you have answered these questions and set a marketing strategy should you move on to step 3. It is not worth rushing this. The development of a marketing strategy can take a lot of time and nerves. So, also plan a rest break.

Step 3 of marketing planning: Planning marketing measures

Now you're getting down to business: planning marketing measures. All your marketing activities should form a strong marketing concept together.

You can combine individual measures to create a holistic marketing experience for your customers. In addition, you should think about which channel you best reach your target group. You have the following options:

• Social Media
• Lead Generation
• SEO
• Advertisements
• Events
• Product marketing
• Video
• Website
• Landing pages
• Email
• Etc.

So, during the creation of your marketing plan, you should already select the right channels. To make the right choice, you can put on the so-called customer glasses and consider:

• Where does your target group hang out?
• What interests your target group?
• What does your target group do?
• How can you best address your target group?

Based on the answers to these questions, you select the suitable channels. It is important that your marketing measures across the channels are interwoven with each other. A measure thus extends across several channels, so that a uniform marketing concept is recognizable. With marketing planning, you create a real marketing experience for your customers.

Step 4 of marketing planning: Determine the processes of the marketing measures

After you have planned your marketing measures and decided on channels, you get to plan the process. Specifically, you should think about when and where you want to run which marketing campaign. The point here is to determine the completion, realization, and responsibility of the respective marketing actions. The following questions can be helpful:

• When should the marketing actions take place?
• How long does it take you to prepare and implement the action?
• Who is responsible for the marketing action?

In the marketing plan, you can precisely document when which action should take place and who is responsible for it. This may seem time-consuming at first, but the effort is worth it. In addition, all project participants will be happy about the clear distribution of work.

Step 5 of marketing planning: Measure the success of the marketing plan

Through success control, you can rate your marketing measures and update your marketing planning based on this. As early as step 2, you defined both quantitative and qualitative measurement parameters. Now it's time to refer back to these sizes and evaluate your previous marketing planning.

Especially trends and the success of individual marketing measures can be easily identified. So, you can optimize your marketing measures in real time and identify improvement potential for the future. Based on the success control, you can also update your marketing plan.

Software and tools for marketing planning

Marketing planning can be quite demanding. Still, the invested time pays off and you can save costs in the long run. In addition, you always have a guide at hand that gives you an overview of the most important marketing aspects. If you ever get stuck, your marketing plan serves as a little cheat sheet. The primary creation of such a marketing plan can, however, be time-consuming and nerve-wracking. The following software and tools can assist you:

• Canto
• Bynder
• wedia
• Papirfly
• MARMIND®
• ReportGarden
• BrandMaker

On OMR Reviews, you can find user experiences and reviews of this and many other software and tools for marketing planning. Have a look!

Conclusion: It's worth the effort

Whether it's a guideline, cheat sheet or overall concept, a well-structured marketing plan is the be-all and end-all of every marketing department. Marketing planning not only makes it easier for you to plan and implement marketing strategies but also enables you to conduct targeted success control. This way, you save time and costs in the long run. Your employees will also appreciate a good marketing plan.

Even though the effort may seem high at the beginning, you shouldn't stick your head in the sand right away. With the help of various software and tools, a marketing plan almost creates itself. And as soon as this one stands, you only need to update it regularly. This way, everyone involved always knows about current marketing campaigns and can contribute specifically to the success of your company.