Developing a Marketing Plan Strategy

How are you going to get from (a) where you are now to (b) your goals? A marketing plan is the vehicle that gets from here to there. It is an outline of how your efforts are working together to reach business goals. Ultimately, you are finding the most effective strategies to sell your product or service to the most receptive audiences. There are several key stages in developing a marketing plan that help you organize and prioritize your communication efforts:

Outlining goals and identifying optimal market position
Initially, youshould determine where you want to gowhat are your goals? What is sensible yet aspirational? Its very important to be grounded in what is possible because your goals will determine how and where you place your efforts. If youre aspirations are unrealistic, it will be very challenging to meet them.

Once youve identified your goals, what is your position amongst your peer group? Are they moretechnical and youre str iving for creativity? Its always helpful to visualize your positioning through simplequadrant maps. Lets look at Apple. Apples quadrant map would potentially include a mindset (analytic and creative) and interactivity axises to define their iPhone. The purpose of such an exercise is to determine where they are within their peer group.

Segmenting and Aligning your Efforts with your Goals
Youve placed youre (a) and (b) on the map and now you have to draw a line between them. How are you going to get from where you are now to where youd like to be? What vehicle is going to get you to your destination?

Before you start focusing your marketing efforts, consider your audience.Segment your audience into distinct groups based on theirdemographics andpsychographics. Understand their need states and where they hang out. Where are you going to find your single women 16-35 with higher education looking for a need to escape? If youre targeting businesses, what trade publications can offer you insight into their particular needs or what conferences might they attend? Next you should consider what type of marketing is going help you reach your goals:

Types of Marketing

External Marketing
Once youve identified your audience and where you can reach them, d efine what marketing efforts are going to speak to your customer and ultimately help you reach your goal. Based on your audience need states and where you can reach them, how are you going to communicate your message? Are they online in social networks or would you find them at trade shows? Are you going to target influencers to create some buzz or are you going to hire an outside public relations agency?

Take example from Apple. When they launched the iPod, their famous silhouetted advertisements were plastered all over large urban environments. You could hardly go down a street in NYC without seeing the iconic image. Depending where you can reach your audiences, you will have to fine tune where you communicate your message. Then you can refine you message based on their need states.

Its important to understand your capabilities and budgetary restrictions. If you want to spend X on digital advertising and Y on PR and Z on TV and radio, do you have the financia l ability to do so? Be realistic. If your marketing efforts are beyond your reach, youve just sabotaged your marketing plan. Ensuring youre able to afford or leverage your...

To read more about developing a marketing plan strategy, go toSparxoo, a digital marketing, branding, business development blog.

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