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Creating a marketing plan
Read time: 8 mins Added date: 05/10/2023
An effective marketing plan is a key tool for a successful business. Writing it is a valuable discipline in getting to know and better understanding your business and your marketplace. This guide can help you identify where your business is today, set your objectives, fix the budget and get your plan off the ground.
No marketing plan is perfect and a good plan will change and evolve. It’s great to produce a thorough plan but the most important thing is to get started:
- Set aside time to write your plan – or the chances are you’ll put it off.
- Write your opening statement last – you’ll have a better overview once you’ve done most of your planning.
- Develop a list of the key elements of your plan so you know exactly what your plan will contain.
- Start with the easy bits – it’s much easier to keep going once you’ve got something on paper.
- Include strict deadlines for each of your targets within the plan and set an overall deadline for completing the marketing plan itself.
Your ‘business name’ is the name you choose to trade under.
- For a company or a limited liability partnership, it can be a name other than its registered name.
- For a sole trader, it can be a name other than a surname with or without forenames or initials.
- For a partnership, it can be a name other than the partners' names.
There’s no need to register your business name, but it must comply with Business Names legislation. In contrast, you must register your company name (i.e. registered name) at Companies House and comply with the Companies Act legislation. For more guidance on names visit Companies House.
To move your business forward, you need to understand where you’re starting from. Examine all elements of your business using a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats), including:
- Your financial situation.
- Your existing customer base.
- Your product range.
- Your potential to develop.
- Available technology.
- People and skills.
- Where you stand in relation to your major competitors.
- Your pricing policies.
Look at external influences on your business using a SLEPT analysis to identify the major opportunities and threats in your marketplace:
- Social factors – including demographic changes, cultural attitudes and changing lifestyles which influence how your customers will buy your product.
- Legal factors – regulations and legislation affecting your business.
- Economic factors – the economic climate, interest rates, exchange rates (if trading overseas) and banking policies that influence your activities.
- Political factors – political stability and government policies that are relevant to your business.
- Technological factors – research and development of new technology, technological change and advances, and the emergence of new materials.
Marketing objectives are often sales focused and should always be SMART:
- Specific – for example, to attract 30 new customers.
- Measurable – you need to know if you’ve reached each objective (or not) when you review your plan.
- Achievable – you must have the people, technology, time and money required to reach any objective you set.
- Realistic – make sure you set targets that are within reach, over ambitious targets can be counter-productive.
- Timely – set a specific timescale for any objective such as a target of five customers each month for six months.
Some social media platforms will be better suited to your business than others. You just need to find where your customers are and which works best for your product/service. Popular platforms include: Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok.
Once you’ve selected where you want your brand to live digitally you should consider:
Developing a strategy:
- Develop a tone that's appropriate for social media – adapt your brand’s tone of voice to be conversational on social media platforms. You still need to be recognisably you, but avoid being directly promotional or formal. Focus on being approachable and engaging.
- Think about what you want to say – make sure every post has a reason behind it, so your customers will come to trust your content. You can also plan your posting schedule to make sure your content is timely and relevant. It’s about quality rather than quantity.
- Determine how quickly you'll respond to complaints/queries - acceptable response times vary depending on the platform, but it's good practice to acknowledge a customer comment within 24 hours.
Be careful to keep your marketing costs under control:
- Decide what you can afford at the start and stick to your budget.
- Evaluate your marketing spend based on the amount of business each initiative might generate.
- Monitor each initiative regularly and assess the results.
- Keep what works and bin the rest.
Your marketing plan will form the basis of your future business activity. It should be more than just a wish list of what you would like to happen, and give details of every step of the marketing process including:
- Deadlines and key dates.
- Key personnel and responsibilities for each task.
- Budgets for each relevant step.
- Resources needed at every stage.
- Control measures including responsibilities, review dates and analysis procedures.
- Contingency plans – not everything you propose will work, so try to anticipate alternatives.
Finally, once your marketing plan is complete, don’t forget about it. Schedule regular meetings to review your progress and be ready to change your plan if you find something isn't working.