3 tips on what to include in a marketing plan

Life is pretty hectic for the average small business owner.  Most of us manage a range of job functions completely unheard of in corporate careers. If your average working day sees you making sales, updating your website, monitoring competitor trends, as well as possibly keeping on top of stock levels and sales data, then you are far from alone. 

One thing business coaches say repeatedly is if you don’t enjoy doing something or it isn’t your key area of expertise, outsource it. They aren’t wrong; life is too short to do things you really don’t enjoy.  But, and it’s a big one, budget does have to play a part in the reality of a successful small business. And maybe you aren’t quite at the point where you can afford to pay to outsource everything.

That leads me very nicely to my next point. As a marketing consultant working mainly with small business owners, one of the things I often help with is marketing planning. I do this in a variety of ways from 121s to workshops, but I'm not here to pitch to you today. I am here just to give you some tips on what to include in a marketing plan if you are the person responsible for creating one, and maybe marketing isn’t your key area of business expertise. 

1. Support your business plan

Your marketing plan should support your business plan, sitting alongside your business plan as a separate but supporting document. I am not going to lecture you if you don’t have a formal written business plan, but you do need to consider what your business goals are for the period. For example, do you want to grow your customer base? Do you want to make more money? Do you want to launch new products? Are you planning to go into different areas completely like a brick-and-mortar shop or selling online?

2. Cover who your target customers are

Your marketing plan should cover who your target customers are. The job of your marketing plan is to help you organise your thinking on who the different groups of customers you are targeting are. Some marketing people use the term ‘customer segments’ - for example, stay at home mums, pet owners, over 50s, and coffee drinkers. For each period I would try to focus on a handful rather than lots of different segments. You can have completely different marketing approaches for each different segment.

3. Include your goals and objectives

Your marketing plan should include goals and objectives for your business. You want to be very clear about what you are trying to do, and how you will measure if you made the goal or not. An example of a marketing goal might be to increase the number of mums on your mailing list or to create a lead magnet (a piece of information customers want) for the website that drives sign-ups from mail-order customers. 

I really hope this has given you a useful checklist to think about the next time you are working on your marketing plan. 

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