The marketing plan is like a mythological creature that everyone knows, but no one has ever seen, especially in SMEs.
That's why on this page you will find a practical example marketing plan summarized in an operational diagram .
The sequence of elements contained in the diagram, and the type of questions you will have to answer while filling it out , come from a marketing course that I often hold for aspiring entrepreneurs (if you don't know who wrote the post and want to find out , here's my Linkedin profile ).
To use this scheme you don't need to have in-depth marketing knowledge , although a basic knowledge (which I myself provide during the course) is certainly recommended.
Why on this page you find a marketing scheme and not a complete example
Good question, thanks for thinking of it :-)!
Every marketing plan starts from a study that gives results that cannot be replicated by other companies : the same actions and strategies do not give similar results even for companies operating in the same market.
For this reason (and also for privacy reasons) I am against the disclosure of complete, ready-made marketing plans.
In any case, if before reading this post you want to delve deeper into the contents of a complete marketing plan, I recommend you read my previous post " What a marketing plan really is ".
But let's get back to us.
Here's the Marketing Blueprint for Your Strategy (Part 1)
The diagram (downloadable at the bottom of this post) was designed to start from the first box at the top left , and continue following the arrows. To be clear, the correct sequence is: business description -> customer groups -> value offered -> product/service characteristics -> price -> communication -> sales methods -> influencers -> decision makers -> value and volume of customer segments.
But let's see in detail how to use it!
Description of the activity
The first point, apparently simple, is the one where almost all of my students fall: describing their business in terms of brand positioning and not just as a company category.
Let me explain: it is not enough to say restaurant, but you need to write "fusion restaurant located in the city center, where Japanese cuisine meets Western tastes mixed with other types of international cuisine".
Different, right? You can immediately understand the essence of your business... and if you haven't thought about these details yet, or you can't imagine them for your company, the problem is not the marketing plan, but I repeat the brand positioning.
Once you have filled out this box you can go ahead and focus on your customer groups.
Customer groups
Defining customer groups means dividing the market into heterogeneous segments (or segmenting) that are looking for a slightly different value from your company.
Here too the most common answer to the question " Who are your customers ?" is " But of course everyone! "
...And of course that's the wrong answer! Because the heart of the marketing plan is precisely to identify a specific value proposition (i.e. a reason why they should buy your products/services) for different customer segments.
Returning to the restaurant example, it is logical that families have different needs than couples. The former will look for a play area, or the possibility of making noise, while couples will look for a romantic atmosphere and privacy.
Choosing one customer group over another has a cascading effect on all subsequent analyses because marketing means starting from the customer and building an ad hoc marketing offer (an offer not intended as a discount, but as a value proposition).
Marketing therefore does not mean trying to sell what you want to potential customers .
Value Offered
In this box you should write the main reason why customers choose you instead of the competition .
Please note that low prices or savings are not part of the value offered to the customer, but can be considered as commercial and promotional strategies.
Here you have to write in one sentence what differentiates you, being specific and avoiding generic phrases like " excellent customer service and attention to their needs ", because they are too generic and applicable to any company and market.
Always following the example of our phantom restaurant, an example of the value offered is " the possibility of travelling with the palate thanks to a fusion cuisine rich in unique recipes conceived by the chef, and adapted to Western tastes, going beyond the usual sushi ".
Product Features
The four boxes in this section are usually the basis of the so-called marketing mix , that is, the result of the mix between product, price, advertising and chosen sales channels.
Changing the parameters changes the customer perception of the product/service, and therefore also the marketing performance.
A practical example (always in the catering sector, to facilitate understanding):
Restaurant A : high price, few dishes selected by the chef, dining room service (no take away, no delivery, no counter), promoted only through social media and presence in industry guides.
Restaurant B : low price, many dishes to choose from, take away service, promoted with flyers in the area.
The marketing mix of the first restaurant could be that of a fusion restaurant in the city center, while the second could be the marketing mix of a takeaway sushi restaurant in the suburbs.
It is logical that coherence between the elements is fundamental: in this specific case, a high number of products for restaurant A would undermine the "high" positioning by shifting it, as a perception, towards the low end of the market.
Price
The topic of pricing is very broad and complex, and there are various techniques for calculating the right price, mainly starting from the contribution margin of the product/service, subtracting marketing costs.
Without going into those calculations, the purpose of the box in the diagram is to indicate whether the price you intend to charge is in line with the market, higher, or lower .
In general, price contributes greatly to the perception of the value of a product/service : often, when choosing between two similar products, if one of the two has a higher price with the same functionality, it is perceived as better by the customer.
This is why price is considered a fundamental part of the marketing mix: because it contributes greatly to influencing customer perception.
For a SME, the general advice is to avoid price competition, focusing on a profitable niche where instead you can practice a medium-high price that is satisfactory for the company.
Communication
In this box you must write all the online and offline communication activities that you intend to set up within your marketing plan to connect with each of the targets that you have indicated in the "customer groups" box,
This means that communication activities are usually not perfectly the same for all customer groups , because each target will have, for example, a different use of the available media, a different tone of voice in communication, different purchasing motivations and so on.
Continuing the example of catering (by the way, here you can find a case study of a project and marketing plan for a restaurant ) it is clear that the activities to attract couples during the weekend (for example a Facebook Ads campaign aimed at couples who live in the area of the restaurant) are different from the promotion of the lunch break (which could be done with direct e-mailing or with flyer distribution in the area).
Sales methods
Sales methods are the "old P" of Places within the mythical P's of the marketing plan... and ultimately it is the box where you have to write what your sales channels are.
Most often this box is reduced to describing the following options:
Direct channel : selling directly to your targets through channels that do not involve intermediaries in the distribution of the product/service. E.g. a network of salespeople or agents, a physical store, or a call center.
Indirect channel : very common for consumer goods, it is the sale that involves intermediaries in the distribution of your product/service. For example, the use of foreign distributors, large-scale retail trade, etc.
Online channel : the online channel can be direct or indirect depending on whether you sell through your own e-commerce platform, or whether you use marketplaces (such as Amazon).
Mixed situation : the use of one or more channels simultaneously in the same market
Some considerations: the more "long and indirect" the sales channel is, the more likely it is that your message and communication will be diluted, because the moment of truth (i.e. the moment of actual purchase) is in someone else's hands.
For this reason, for indirect sales channels it is always a good idea to include extra training and support activities within the marketing plan, aimed precisely at the "intermediaries". But as far as the marketing plan outline above is concerned, for now you just need to "imagine" the length of your sales channel.
Influencers and Decision Makers
The purpose of this box is simple: to remind you that your target customer base is often (if not almost always) divided into those who make the purchase and those who influence the purchaser's decision .
They are the influencers and the decision makers and, from my experience as a marketing consultant, influencers are often forgotten, thus missing out on the opportunity to truly impact the purchasing process.
In the restaurant example: in a couple, it is often the woman who suggests a restaurant to her partner for a romantic evening. It is therefore appropriate to focus your marketing efforts on women to ensure that they convince their husband/partner to choose a specific restaurant. Cynical and retro? Maybe, but it works and gets the idea across.
In B2B the classic example is the entrepreneur who is influenced by the area manager who in turn is influenced by the department head. Who should we communicate with? It depends on the purchasing process, but in general the answer is on the second and third ring of the process, not on the entrepreneur.
Segments by value and volume
And here we are at the most "ignored" part of the marketing strategy, that is, the quantification of your potential market.
To delve deeper into this topic, I recommend our free guide with a practical example , while here I will limit myself to reminding you why this step is fundamental, in three points:
You need to know if your market is growing or declining before you can create a strategy to attack it.
You need to have information about both the market volume (number of products and services sold) and the value (monetary value of the market) because the ratio between the two tells you whether the prices you see are going up or down, and therefore whether the market is becoming commoditized.
This data is essential to quantify the possible revenues and the necessary investments in terms of marketing budget.
Diagram part 2 (back)
Well, now that you have finally approached internal analysis and customer segmentation, you can continue with the second part of the marketing plan model that I have developed, which focuses on the in-depth analysis of customer needs , the analysis of the competition , and the construction of the map of your market .
Here is the second part (at the bottom of the article you can download the PDF front and back of the pattern):
Customer needs
This part of the framework focuses on "Buyer Personas", that is, on the creation of prototypes of ideal customers included in your customer segments.
It is a sort of identikit that contains all the useful information to guide the marketing strategy. The four initial boxes of this part of the diagram must be filled in for each customer segment identified in part 1. That is:
Reasons for choosing : price excluded, in this box you must indicate why customers should choose your product/service over those of the competition. Attention: the reasons to indicate are not generic such as quality, efficiency, reliability and so on, but must be specific and distinctive compared to the competition. Returning to the example of the restaurant, referring to the target families for example a reason for choosing could be "because there is a free play area with face painting every weekend" .
Purchase Channels/Pricing : This is a sort of checkbox compared to page 1 of the diagram. If your customers are purchasing through channels other than the ones you can use, or if the price of the channels they are using is not acceptable to you (for example online, and the logistics costs are too high for you), well, this is the time to detect and address the problem.
How they choose : to help you understand how to fill out this box in the diagram, I quote from the beautiful book " Il Succo del Web Marketing by Alessandro Sportelli and Manuel Faè " the different phases of the purchasing process that you need to know about the customers you want to reach. Answer the following questions: a particular desire/problem has arisen, what does your potential customer do? What does he do when he knows nothing about the problem? What does he do before knowing the solution to the problem or how to satisfy his desire? What does he do immediately before buying? What does he do to buy?
Where are they : this box is also a check and analysis box for the identified customer segments. Also check that the number of customers indicated on page 1 of the diagram is consistent with the number of customers you expect to reach with your sales channels .
Competition
In the four central boxes on the second page of the diagram you have to do a similar job to the same boxes in part 1, but thinking about your competitors.
What are the characteristics of your competitors' products/services? Are their prices similar to yours, higher or lower? What marketing actions and communication media do they use? What are their sales channels and how "long" are they?
This section helps you understand if you are "copying" the strategy of one or more competitors , putting yourself in direct competition with them.
Market Map
The market map works like this: you have to position your company and all your competitors with respect to the two main axes , using two elements of competition as coordinates.
An example? On the vertical axis, the price is "measured": if a company is in the two lower quadrants, it means that it has a low-price policy, while if it is in the two upper quadrants, it is the opposite.
On the other axis you can "measure" another factor, for example the number of products in your competitors' range.
The result is a position more or less close to the two axes and in one of the four quadrants (usually the choice of the axes and the position is elaborated following market research, with dedicated statistical software, but to begin to have an idea of your market you can design it empirically with the data at your disposal).
Strengths and weaknesses
The last two boxes concern the comparison between internal and external analysis , that is, the answer to the following questions to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your company compared to competitors:
Can your products/services be perceived as different from those of your competitors?
What are the obstacles that can undermine your marketing strategy?
What are the competitive advantages that can give you a head start over your competition?
How can advantages help you overcome obstacles and weaknesses ?
In conclusion
This insight is the beginning of the marketing plan creation journey, and many technical insights have not been included to facilitate easy use of the template.
If you have any doubts about how to fill it out or want to contribute to the topic, comment below: