2013 Marketing Plan Template

John Follett

If you are looking for help with marketing, you may want to consider a marketing plan template. Fortunately, there are resources out there that can help you find the best tools and templates available.

In fact, although you will need to know a little about what you are looking, it isn't critical that you are a marketing expert. This is one of the benefits of using a template: It can do the hard work for you.

Marketing Plan Template

An effective marketing plan template is often standard in its form. There are basic elements that need to be included for any business, and you can find most of those in various templates.

To begin, you will need to have an executive summary. This is a critical element in any marketing plan that explains the overall plan in professional terms. This is the introduction to your plan and it's going to prepare your audience for the rest of the information they're about to read. Other elements that are necessary for an effective marketing plan include:

-Challenge: This is the product that you're marketing, as well its goals and potential challenges or risks that need to be overcome.

-Situation Analysis: This section includes an analysis of the company, customers, competitors, collaborators, and the climate. It's important to break down each of these sections accordingly, but most templates will have the details you need to help.

-Market Segmentation: This basically explains the target market for your product or service, including what they want, how they can benefit, price expectations, and how to reach out to them as customers.

-Alternatives for Marketing: This just lists the various marketing strategies that were considered in the process of coming up with the chosen strategy.

-Chosen Marketing Strategy: This includes explaining why you chose a strategy, as well as information on product, price, distribution, and promotion. This will give details on how you came to choose this strategy and how it will be effective.

-Projections: This is a section where you will put short- and long-term projections for your marketing plan. Include immediate benefits, expected goals achieved over time, forecasts, and analysis.

If you have all of these elements in a marketing plan template, the only other thing you will need is a conclusion to summarize the plan in its entirety. There are many template styles and resources out there, so make sure yours have these elements before you commit to them.

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