Writing a research- and data-based marketing plan is important for any business in conditions of globalization, changing consumer needs, rapid technological advancements, and other changes. It can help better understand the target market needs and cultural peculiarities. The company can stay within budge through proper planning. This marketing plan example presents a comprehensive blueprint for business success and simple steps how to write it.

Table of Contents

• Executive Summary as Part of the Marketing Plan Example
• Situation Analysis or Sensing
• Target Market
• Marketing Objectives
• Marketing Strategies or Seizing
• Implementation
• Evaluation and Reconfiguration
• Takeaways

1. Executive Summary as Part of the marketing plan example

Although this part stands first in the marketing plan example, write it at the end. It presents a summary of the main points of the marketing plan with strategies and recommendations. It is good to provide them in the form of bullet points.

The key elements are as follows:

• Background information on the company and its present situation (market analysis)
• The purpose of the marketing plan
• Description of the product that should be marketed
• Target market characteristics: demographic, cultural, behavioral, etc.
• Short description of competitors and weaknesses and strengths of the company in comparison to competitors
• Strategic objectives of marketing, including in the short and long term
• Recommendations that enumerate strategies and steps of the marketing campaign

Overall, executive summary should be around 250 words and should proceed Table of Contents.

Example of Executive Summary:

Company A is the leading developer of artificial intelligence (AI) products in the U.S. market (BACKGROUND). The purpose of the marketing plan is to analyze the target market and choose the most appropriate strategies to increase the customer base by 50% within 6 months (PURPOSE). Company A’s AI product called AIpicture targets a segment of tech-savvy clients from 25 to 50 years interested in creating images with AI (PRODUCT AND MARKET). The main competitors are Companies B, C, and D, which offer easy-to-use and affordable product options for middle-income users (COMPETITORS). In comparison to them, Company A fails to deliver personalized marketing messages and has poor email marketing campaigns (COMPETITIVE POSITION). Strategic objectives for Company A are to increase its market share and product value (STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES). To achieve them, Company A should implement the following strategies:
1. Introduce account-based marketing with personalized messages.
2. Strengthen email marketing campaigns to generate leads.
3. Organize industry events (RECOMMENDATIONS).

2. Situation analysis or Sensing

Theoharakis et al. (2024) have proposed an interesting framework for a marketing plan focusing on creating dynamic strategic planning trough the following steps:

• Sensing
• Seizing
• Re-configuring

Sensing is the first step that actually involves situation analysis, helping to sense or understand the company situation, the market, and the product.

Company and Product Description

Start with providing general information about the company like its size, vision, mission, etc.

Then proceed with the description of its product, unique features, and product value.

Create a positioning statement that describes how the company positions itself in comparison to competitors:

• The product from the category of products offers the target customer a solution that will improve their life or bring value.
• Add comparison to competitors if you want to emphasize comparative advantages of the product: The product differs from that provided by competitors in that it …

SWOT Analysis

Conduct SWOT analysis to reflect on the company’s internal situation, that is STRENGTHS and WEAKNESSES, and external factors (OPPORTUNITIES and THREATS).

Create a SWOT matrix that looks as follows.

Then discuss each factor in the text with support from the sources where you have found related facts.

The Use of Other tools for the environmental scan, Market Trends, and Competitor Analysis

You can use other tools for analyzing the company like PESTEL. In this case, social and cultural factors can help shed light on needs of the target market. Analyzing political factors can be especially important in case the company plans a marketing campaign in a new market in other country.

In this case, evaluating economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal impacts is significant.

Conduct analysis to identify market trends, namely, market size, changes and growth patterns in the market.

Analyze competitors:

• What value do competitors offer?
• What is their market share?
• What customers do they target?

Example of situational analysis

Company A is a developing company headquartered in Location B with 450 employees. Its vision is an AI-supported future with technology helping humans perform daily tasks. Its mission is to develop AI products for integration into daily life. The AIpicture product is a unique solution easing the creative process and helping bloggers create images for their blog posts in a second. For bloggers and tech-savvy people, AIpicture as an innovative solution in the technology industry offers a unique tool to create images for different purposes, saving time and money. Unlike tools offered by competitors, it presents an easy-to-use option that can be integrated into daily tasks.

As for Company A’s strengths, it boasts of a well-established brand and an innovative research and development department. Its weaknesses are a limited international market share. It can benefit from opportunities like the growing use of AI tool, but the major competitors present a threat, as shown in Table 1 below.

Table 1

SWOT Matrix for Company A

3. Target Market

Research potential buyers and create a buyer persona description, presenting an ideal buyer for the company based on demographic, behavioral, and psychographic characteristics.

Example of a Buyer Persona for Company A:

• Demographic characteristics: Age – 30; Gender – Female; Education – Higher; Job – Blogger; Location – Urban Dweller; Medium Income;
• Behavioral characteristics: buys online weekly; makes decisions under the influence of social media; loyal buyer;
• Psychographic characteristics: Lifestyle and values – interested in creative solutions, values time and money-saving methods, health, and new technological tools;
• Pain points: lacks time for creating visuals for her blog;
• Channels: Instagram; email; educational courses.

4. Marketing Objectives

Set specific objectives using the SMART framework, which means that they should be specific and realized by the set time.

Example for Company A:

• The objective for Company A is to increase leads by 50% in 6 months through email marketing.
• Another objective is to increase sales and profit by 50% within 6 months.

5. Marketing Strategies or Seizing

The next part in this marketing plan example is seizing opportunities in the market, as defined by Theoharakis et al. (2024).

It is good to start writing down marketing strategies with first presenting the 7Ps:

• Product
• Price
• Place
• Promotion
• People
• Processes
• Physical evidence (or physical qualities of the product with the mode its delivery, setting, and other characteristics that can make it familiar to the buyer).

Create specific strategies that can help the company achieve the set marketing objectives.

Example of Marketing Strategies for Company A:

• Company A should differentiate its AIpicture product from those offered by competitors through price differentiation (to achieve the objective of increasing sales)
• Company A should use account-based and email marketing to create personalize messages to target the target customer (based on the buyer persona representation with the purpose to achieve the objective of increasing leads and customer base).

6. Implementation

In this section, discuss specific steps that the company needs to take to implement the strategies above with the breakdown of the budget for each step. Present the table and discuss. Include the timeline for your steps.

Example of Implementation for Company A:

Company A should create 1 email message per day with personalized offers. It should add 5 visuals per each email. Company A should pay for ads on Instagram, focusing on its price differentiation (see Table 2).

Table 2

Action Plan and Budget

7. Evaluation and Reconfiguration

Evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing strategies and implementation steps based on setting specific key performance indicators (KPIs) and measuring success based on them.

They connect the Marketing Objective with an Expected Outcome.

Example of KPIs for Company A (See Table 3):

Table 3

Metrics for Company A

Set the timeline for the evaluation of the marketing metrics:

• How do customers respond to ads and email marketing?
• What are risks connected with the marketing strategies (any changes in Cost-per-Click for ads)?
• Are buyers engaged in email messages?

Make your plan dynamic. In other words, let it reflect changes and reconfigure it based on making adjustments regularly.

Timeline

You can ends the marketing plan with the timeline as a separate heading or include it in the table in the part with an action plan, as shown in Table 2 above.

Takeaways

Use the following checklist to check whether you have included necessary parts based on the marketing plan example above:

• First write Company and Product Description;
• Write a POSITIONING statement;
• Apply appropriate tools like a SWOT matrix, PESTEL, etc. for situational analysis;
• Discuss Market TRENDS;
• Describe a BUYER persona;
• Set Marketing Objectives;
• Write Marketing Strategies and 7Ps;
• Add implementation steps with a BUDGET, Resources, ACTIONS, and a TIMELINE;
• Determine KPIs and evaluation Metrics;
• Reconfigure and adjust, if needed;
• Create EXECUTIVE SUMMARY;
• Include the TABLE of CONTENTS after EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.
• Check the plan and proofread.

Reference

Theoharakis, V., Zheng, Y., & Zhang, L. (2024). Dynamic strategic marketing planning: The paradox of concurrently reconfiguring and implementing strategic marketing planning. Journal of Business Research, 174, 114525. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2024.114525