Part 1: The Marketing Plan Section of The Business Plan
The Marketing Plan section explains to your readers how you’re going to convert your customers into potential buyers of your products and services. The marketing plan will include sections detailing your:

  • Products / Services and your Unique Selling Proposition
  • Pricing Strategy
  • Sales / Distribution Plan
  • Advertising and Promotion Plan

To make things easier while writing your marketing plan you should work through each section you completed when you were writing the previous sections of the business plan. Make sure that if you are making a market plan on its own, instead of being part of your business plan, it will need to include a Target Market and Competitive Analysis section. You can find out how to do these sections in “The Market Analysis Section of The Business Plan” and “The Competitive Analysis Section of The Business Plan”

Products / Services

This part of the marketing plan focuses more on the uniqueness of your product or service. It will also explain how your customer will benefit from using your products or services that you’re offering. You should use these questions to write a paragraph summarizing these aspects for your marketing plan:

What are the features of your product or service?
Here you should describe the physical attributes that your product or service posses, as well as any other relevant features, such as what it does, and how your product / service differs from your competitors products / services.

How will your product or service benefit the customer?
Remember that benefits can be intangible as well as tangible. Take for example you are selling a daily multi vitamin, you customers will benefit by receiving their daily intake for many nutrients, but they also may also benefit by enjoying better health. Brainstorm as many benefits as you possibly can and then choose which ones to emphasize the most to your targeted customers in your marketing plan.

What sets your products or services apart from the rest?
What is your unique selling proposition? Or in other words the message you want your customers to receive about the product or service you are offering?

This will end our discussion on creating the marketing section of the business plan, but stay tuned as this was only (part 1 of 4). Tomorrow we will be discussing how to set a pricing strategy for your products or services.

Part 1: The Marketing Plan Section of the Business Plan
Part 2: The Marketing Plan - Pricing Strategy
Part 3: The Marketing Plan - Sales and Distribution
Part 4: The Marketing Plan - Advertising and Promotion

Tags:

If you liked this post please consider adding us to your RSS Feed