Marketing Plan, I don't need that

Aug 21, 2016
2 min read

I have spent some time writing marketing plans and the common response from others involved is, “why do we need to do all this” and “skip this part, it is useless.” Well, I am not any good at not doing a complete task, as I still feel like I am going to get in trouble with someone if I skip over some detail. The more accurate account is that whenever I have skipped over something, someone has caught it and I just have to go back and do it anyway. Ok, to get back to marketing plans, what I found was that it was the parts people suggested were useless, were the ones I got the most value out of working on. A marketing plan makes you or your sales people really look at what the business is and where they want to go.

What’s often in a marketing plan?

A description of the business or product
The goals for the business or the product
A SWOT analysis for the business or product – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
Target customer description
Marketing avenues
Staffing assignments
Budget for marketing

The plan for every business and product will look different, depending on the goals. I highlighted "goals of the business" and "target customer description" in the list, because a sales person can know all the details of a product, but without a goal and a target they will make little progress. Marketing on any platform, social media, direct mailing, customer calls, or trade shows can be a waste of time and money if you and your sales staff do not have a well defined goal and customer.