A marketing plan is a strategic roadmap that businesses use to organize, execute and track their marketing efforts. Think of it as a GPS that directs you towards reaching your customers and growing your brand. Writing a marketing plan helps to keep all information for each campaign like budget, tactics, target audience, mission and success all in one place.
How to Write Your Marketing Plan
A typical marketing outline includes:
- Summary
- Goals and Objectives
- User personas
- Competitor Analysis
- Metrics
- Marketing Strategy
- Tracking Guidelines
Let’s look at what to include in each section.
Write a Simple Summary
Keep your summary simple, short and to the point. Most marketing plan summaries are 2-3 paragraphs long. Short yet effective. An effective summary should include simple marketing goals, high-level metrics, facts about your brand and future plans. It should include enough information to pique the reader’s interest but not go into so much detail. The summary also sets the tone for the marketing plan in its entirety, so think about what tone fits your brand and implement it into your summary.
Set Your Goals
This is one of the most important parts of your marketing plan, so be sure to be as clear and specific as possible. You’ll want to identify key performance metrics and the percentage you want to increase them by. For example, avoid outlining vague goals like gaining more Instagram followers, making more TikTok videos and decreasing bounce rate. Instead add a timeline and percentage to make them clearer: gain 100 Instagram followers by the end of the month, make 4-5 more TikTok videos per week and decrease bounce rate by 5% by the end of Q2.
Outline User Personas
Who are your ideal customers? What is their biggest problem? How can your business solve their problems? Answering these questions will take a lot of research, but it’s essential information to get to identify user personas. Start by giving your persona(s) a name and a face. This helps them seem more realistic. Next, list demographic information. It’s important to determine the details of your business’s user personas so that you can better segment your marketing campaigns.
Competitor Analysis
This section helps you identify who your competitors are, what they’re doing and how you can do it better. You’ll want to take a deep dive into their strategies for sales, marketing, social media, etc. Use a SWOT analysis to determine their strengths and weaknesses, and you will find great opportunities where you can thrive.
Report Accurate Metrics Data
It’s hard to know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’re at right now. Start by setting a baseline of key metric data for followers, engagement rate, clicks, shares, open rates, etc. This will help to accurately track your progress. You’ll also be able to better analyze what worked and what didn’t. Since data can be kind of intimidating, try putting a visual element behind your findings. This can help elevate your business. Check out our recent blog post for other ways graphic design can help elevate your business.
Create an Actionable Marketing Strategy
One of the best ways to communicate information is through visuals. When writing your marketing plan, try to use mind maps, flow charts, roadmaps and cohesive colors to make the information more easily digestible. You should also break down your strategy into tasks. This will show your team and others exactly what you’re doing.
Track Guidelines
Close your marketing plan off with a summary of exactly how you plan to track or measure your results. At a minimum, include what you plan to track, how you plan to track it and how often.
There you have it! Now that you have the basics, you can get started writing your own marketing plan for any area in your business. And if you need a helping hand, JSK Marketing is here to help you with crafting a winning marketing plan tailored to your business needs. Contact us today to get started!
