Most of the time when you are writing the marketing plan, it is usually something that needs to stand on its own and in other cases it might need to be incorporated into another document like a business plan. So before we dive into the executive summary, it is important to understand that there are three marketing plan types with various content and sizes.
Marketing Plan Type #1: The Marketing Plan for the Business Plan
In the business plan series, we mentioned the sales and marketing section as part and parcel to the business plan, which is true, but it is not the entire picture. The business plan essentially holds the executive summary and key components, graphics and financials that support the greater business plan. This means that the data came from somewhere
Page Range: Usually 3-6 Pages
Marketing Plan Type #2: The Strategic Marketing Plan
Here is a great description of the Strategic version of the Marketing Plan From Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning in Oakville, Canada:
At the strategic marketing plan level, marketers are scanning the environment, pondering what is happening and looking for emerging or robust market segments which they could consider as target markets. The outcomes of such plans are clearly identified target markets and the strategies which will meet their needs, as identified in our analysis. Marketing plan objectives are typically on the level of sales, profit, return on investment or, for the larger firm, market share.
Page Range: Usually 6-12 Pages
Marketing Plan Type #3: The Tactical Marketing Plan
Here is a great description of the Tactical version of the Marketing Plan From Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning in Oakville, Canada:
Tactical plans, in contrast, presume the target market and marketing strategy as a given and don’t look much at the external environment. They deal with issues such as raising awareness or getting more returning customers. The main way to tell at which level you are working is whether your target market is a given or not. If you are scanning the environment, you are seeking new target markets or looking for subtle changes in your exisiting target markets; you are preparing a Marketing Plan. If however, you start from the premise that you know exactly who your target market is, you would then develop a range of tactics to reach them; this is a Tactical Plan.
Many people mistakenly operate at the tactical level when they should be at the strategic level. For instance, suppose your product sales were poor, so you came up with a plan to advertise more. The result was an even faster decline in sales. Why? People found even faster that your product was terrible. Had a strategic marketing plan been developed, we would have determined what consumers want, compared those desires to our product and made the appropriate modifications.
Page Range: Usually 10-”As many as people want to read” Pages
Sometimes it is better to start big and widdle your way down
There are different schools of thought on this one. The first being to write the tactical version with everything and then extract information to create the strategic and narrow further for inclusion in a business plan.
The second is to write the strategic one first to focus your thoughts and have one person tighten it up for the business plan and a team expand on it so the tactical issues are worked out. This can be a problem because your financial projections might not be totally accurate and your plan will fail.
I would offer taking the tactical plan and mapping out the sections with the abstracts so that all the issues are addressed, then write the strategic so there is a plan that others outside of marketing can digest and only when it is approved should it be tuned up and included in a business plan.
Now you know so let’s get started
Now that you understand what a marketing plan is, its purpose and the type you should write, let’s get to the heart of the matter. In Part 3 we will discuss the Killer Executive Summary.
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