A description of what the marketing plan is, and how to best implement it in your business.

1. The Marketing Plan
And How to Implement it to Your Advantage

2. What Is A Marketing Plan?
 A marketing plan is a written document composed of:
 An analysis of the current marketing situation
 Opportunities and threats for the firm
 Marketing objectives and strategy specified in terms of the
marketing mix
 Marketing mix is composed of the 4 P’s: product, price, place, and promotion
 Action Programs
 Projected income or other financial statements

3. Why a Marketing Plan?
 Marketing plans are a useful/profitable tool as they:
 Make sure everyone in the firm is on the same page as to what the
firm’s goals are
 Gives the employees and owner’s of the firm a better understanding
of the strengths/weaknesses of the firm, as well as potential
opportunities and threats
 Helps the firm understand what market segments to advertise to, in
order to best maximize profits
 Allows firms to create value for their products, as well as
communicate to potential customers that value
 Helps the firm understand what they did right and what they did
wrong in their marketing process, allowing for the proper
adjustments to be made

4. Marketing
Plan
Overview

5. Planning Phase Step 1
 Define the business mission
 The mission statement is a broad description of the firm’s goals and
scope of activities it will undertake
 Should answer 2 questions:
 What type of business are we?
 What do we need to accomplish our goals?
 Having a solid mission statement keeps the company consistent with
it’s goals and beliefs
 Ex. Nike’s mission statement “Our mission is what drives us to do
everything possible to expand human potential. We do that by
creating groundbreaking sport innovations, by making our products
more sustainably, by building a creative and diverse global team and
by making a positive impact in communities where we live and work”

6. Planning Phase step 2
 Conduct a situation analysis using SWOT
 SWOT stands for
 Strengths
 Weaknesses
 Opportunities
 Threats
 For both the strengths and weaknesses portions, employees
must look inside the firm and be honest with themselves about
what they excel in, and were they could stand to improve
 For both the opportunities and threats portions, a firm must
look to their outside environment to make note of and respond
to potential opportunities to expand and further their business,
and potential threats, such as the ventures of other companies.
 Conducting a SWOT analysis will help a firm anticipate change,
allowing them to appropriately allocate resources.

7. Implementation Phase Step 1
 Identify and evaluate opportunities for increasing profits using STP
 STP stands for:
 Segmentation
 Targeting
 Positioning
 Segmentation involves the firm choosing which market segments to advertise to.
Demographics such as age, race, and gender are often used
 Targeting involves evaluating the segments chosen during segmentation, and
choosing which to pursue based on which has the best opportunity i.e. Ford
realizes the primary appeal for their SUV crossovers is on-the-go families, so they
will focus their efforts towards that group
 Positioning involves defining the marketing mix variables in order to give the
firms potential customers a clear understanding of what the product does,
primarily to make them desire it and convince them it is better than other
competing products

8. Implementation Phase Step 2
 Implementing the marketing mix and allocating resources
 The marketing mix is composed of the 4 P’s:
 Product
 Price
 Place
 Promotion
 During the product element, the creation of value is essential. Marketers need to create
products customers perceive as valuable enough to buy.
 During the price element, marketers must employ value-based marketing, which entails
convincing a customer that they’re receiving a good value in buying your product.
 During the product element, marketers must make sure the product is readily available
when and where the customer wants it, whether that be online or at their store of choice.
 During the promotion element, marketers must communicate to the customer through
various forms of ads, personal selling, or public relations. The most important part is
value proposition, which is the unique value of the product and how it is better than
competitor’s products.

9. Control Phase
 Evaluating performance using marketing metrics
 Metrics are a measuring system that quantifies a trend, dynamic, or characteristic
 Uses of metrics:
 They make it possible to compare results across regions, product lines, and
time periods
 Firms use them to determine why or why not they didn’t meet their goals
 Helps firms to understand the causes of their performance, whether that
performance was successful or not
 After evaluating their performance, firms can use the information gathered to
make appropriate adjustments

10. Marketing Plan Outcomes
 The positive outcomes that will result from implementing marketing plan
include:
 Cohesiveness in the firm regarding what goals need to be accomplished
 A better understanding of the firm’s position in the market, as well as it’s
strengths and weaknesses
 A solid plan of what groups to market to in order to maximize profits
 The ability to create perceived value in the firm’s product or service, as
well as showing that the firm’s product/service is better than competitors
 Makes the firm’s product/service readily available and allows for steady
communication with the consumer
 Evaluation of the performance allows for betterment in the company
when needed