When you’ve got a million and one things to do, sometimes stopping to make a marketing plan feels counterproductive.
Especially when you could be using that time to actually get work done, right?
But creating a marketing plan is important to the growth and development of your company.
It allows marketing managers to take stock of their resources and make sure that all marketing activity contributes towards the company’s goals.
So how do you create a marketing plan?
Good question. And you’ve come to the right place for answers.
In this article, we’re going to take a look at what a marketing plan is, how to create a good marketing plan, and how using work management software makes the process much easier to manage.
First things first, let’s take a look at what a marketing plan actually is.
What is a marketing plan?
A marketing plan allows you to organize, monitor, and execute your company’s marketing strategy.
Generally speaking, a marketing plan includes the following information:
- Marketing tactics
- Your buyer persona
- Marketing budget and resources
- Pricing strategy for your product or service
- Competitive analysis
- Marketing campaign plans
- Your deliverables
- Your success measures
With all this information in one place, marketing teams can stay on top of progress, identify areas of improvement, and measure the success of their marketing effort.
Marketing plans also align marketing activity with the goals and objectives of the company.
And, even if your marketing plan includes a variety of strategies for different teams across the business, they all should work towards the same goal.
Do you need a marketing plan?
The short answer is yes, you do need a marketing plan.
Now here comes the long answer to tell you why.
There are multiple reasons your business needs a marketing plan. Let’s take a look at some of the big hitters.
1. Identify potential risks.
The marketing planning process is the perfect way to identify potential problems in your marketing strategy.
You can spot any gaps in your marketing approach and address any issues that might arise in the future. As a result, you can mitigate risks before they even happen.
2. Manage resources.
Planning your marketing activity allows you to effectively allocate your resources. With a plan in place, you can apportion your budget, review capacity, and generally have a better understanding of the resources you need to reach your marketing goal.
3. Align your marketing team.
With a strategic marketing plan in place, everyone in your team is working towards the same marketing objective. This aligns your team with the overall business goal and company strategy.
These are just a few of the reasons a marketing plan is useful for your business.
Ultimately, if you don’t have a marketing plan in place, your marketing activity will lack the direction it needs to feed into the overall growth and development of the company.
How to create an effective marketing plan in 5 steps
Now the moment you’ve been waiting for: how to create your very own marketing plan.
In this section we’ve outlined 5 of the key steps you need to follow to create your own successful marketing plan.
Although we should add that every marketing plan is different. This means there’s no set formula to create the perfect plan.
However, there are some best practices you can follow. Let’s take a look.
1. Start with SWOT analysis.
First things first, you’ll need to conduct a SWOT analysis. SWOT is an acronym of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
SWOT analysis identifies how to best use your business’s strengths, the opportunities you have as a business, as well as pinpointing drawbacks and potential risks.
This gives you the perfect starting point for your marketing plan.
You’ll have a well-rounded understanding of where your business currently sits in the marketplace, where you want to be, and the best way to get there.
Without a SWOT analysis, you might overlook crucial information that could be pivotal in the success of your strategy. So it’s safe to say it’s an important part of the process.
2. Identify your target audience.
Once you’ve conducted your SWOT analysis, you need to identify your target market.
The most efficient way to do this is to conduct market research, which involves the following:
- Review your current demographic
- Review your competitors’ target customer
- Collect feedback from your customer base
- Collect feedback from alternative demographics
Once you’ve collected this information, you can review the thoughts and perceptions of those who provided their feedback to identify your ideal customer.
This also allows you to figure out if there’s a potential customer base you want to target and what consumers think of your brand.
You can then use this information to guide your marketing plan.
3. Set your goals, and keep it SMART.
Goal-setting is an incredibly important part of the marketing planning progress.
After all, without any goals in place, how will you know if your marketing activity has been successful?
In short, you won’t.
That’s why you need goals and success measures in place. And more specifically, SMART goals. SMART is an acronym for the following:
SMART goals are clear, trackable, and measurable goals. They outline what you want to achieve, how you plan to do it, and the timeframe you have to complete it.
In other words, SMART goals create clear milestones and success measures in your marketing plan.
As a result, you can see if your plan is on track and easily review its success upon completion.
4. Track your progress.
Your plan is up and running. Time to sit back, relax, and watch everything unfold before your very eyes, right?
Unfortunately, no.
Even when your marketing plan is in action, it still requires your attention. You need to continually check that everything is going to plan. And when it’s not, it’s up to you to make changes and get things back on track.Fortunately, there is a way to make this process easier and much less time-consuming…
A work management platform.
With the right software in place, all it takes is one glance for you to see how your project is progressing in real-time.
Take monday.com, for example.
With our platform, you can use our progress tracker to see how each task is progressing against key performance indicators. All it takes is one look, and you’ll know if things are progressing on track or if anything’s falling behind.
5. Measure your success.
Finally, it’s time to measure the success of your marketing plan.
Using the SMART goals you set in the early phase of planning, you can identify if your strategy was successful. You should also review what went well along the way and what didn’t quite go as you’d hoped.
With this information, you can inform your digital marketing activity going forward to ensure the same mistakes aren’t made again.
In other words, you can learn from your mistakes to make smart decisions in the future.
At this stage, using marketing software comes in very handy.
Take monday.com, for example.
Our platform is intuitive and easy-to-use, a perfect combination for anyone who dreads reviewing pages of Excel data. And our basic and advanced reporting features allow you to review the success of your marketing projects with ease.
Create your next marketing plan with monday.com
monday.com is a Work OS that helps teams run projects, plans, and workflows with ease.
Our platform is designed for businesses that want to streamline their workflow and maximize their resources. Sounds perfect for creating a marketing plan, don’t you think?
Let’s take a look at some of the practical features that make us the perfect marketing platform.
1. Customize your marketing plan
We know how important it is for marketing teams to create a workflow that’s streamlined, efficient, and transparent.
And that’s why our platform is super customizable.
With monday.com, you can customize your entire marketing strategy from start to finish. Whether that’s adding new columns or changing the layout, monday.com’s got your back.
2. Automate your marketing activity
Save yourself the time and hassle of doing mundane, repetitive tasks with our automations.
We have a selection of pre-made automations for you to choose from, or you can build your own.
Ranging from sending notifications to scheduling marketing emails — whatever you need, we’ve got it covered.
3. Integrate with third-party platforms
Already using external platforms to manage some of your marketing?
Well you’re in luck.
At monday.com, you can integrate tools you already use.
Whether that’s your CRM or an external content marketing tool, monday.com allows you to seamlessly integrate third-party platforms and apps into your digital workspace.
As a result, your entire marketing strategy can be controlled from one location. Result.
Get started with your next marketing plan
If you’re thinking about creating your next marketing plan, why not give monday.com a go?
Our Work OS makes executing your marketing strategies simple, data-driven, and collaborative. We’ve designed our whole platform to be simple, easy-to-use and customizable for your business and your objectives.
Why not get started with our marketing plan template?
Get started