Think of a marketing plan as a guidebook for a business marketing adventure. It shows where the business wants to go with its marketing and how it plans to get there. Moreover, the marketing planning process is like drawing up that guidebook. It’s a series of steps you take to figure out the best route for your marketing journey. 

When you do it well, it sets you up for success and makes your marketing efforts much smoother.

Marketing Planning Process Defined 

The marketing planning process is like making a game plan for how to tell people about a business or its products. It involves setting goals, figuring out how to reach those goals, and deciding what actions to take to get there. 

Furthermore, depending on what’s happening with the business, different parts of the plan might be more important. For example, if a new product is being launched, the focus might be on how to introduce it to customers. 

And if the business is inclined to rebrand, the plan might be about how to let people know about the new look. Typically, businesses review and adjust their plan each year, mainly looking at how things are going and making small changes as needed.

Further, learn about, “Software Development with Digital Marketing Integration: Strategies for Success.”

Marketing Planning Process Steps

Here are the nine most important steps in making a marketing planning process:

1. Carry Out Your Marketing Audit 

Imagine a marketing audit as taking a snapshot of your business. Just like a photo captures a moment, a marketing audit captures how your business is doing and how well your marketing is working.

To do a marketing audit, you gather information about your business and the market it’s in. This includes things like looking at past marketing efforts, understanding why you’ve won or lost customers, seeing how sales are going, figuring out what skills your team has, and looking at how your budget affects everything.

Once you have all this information, you can do something called a SWOT analysis. It helps you see what you’re good at, what you need to improve, what opportunities you can take advantage of, and what challenges you might face.

By doing a marketing audit and SWOT analysis, you get a clear picture of where you are now, which helps you make smart decisions about what to do next in your marketing plan.

Create SWOT Analysis 

SWOT analysis is a simple but powerful tool used in marketing planning. Here’s what it means:

SWOT stands for:

Strengths

These are the things that your company or product does really well. They can include things like a strong brand, unique features, or excellent customer service.

Weaknesses

These are the areas where your business might not be as strong. They can include things like limited resources, poor distribution, or lack of brand recognition.

Opportunities

These are external factors that could help your company grow or succeed. They can include things like new market trends, emerging technologies, or changes in consumer behavior.

Threats

These are things from the outside that could hurt your company or product. They might be things like other companies competing with you, times when the economy is not doing well, or changes in rules and laws that affect how you do business.

In marketing planning, conducting a SWOT analysis helps you understand your business’s current situation and identify areas for improvement or growth. 

By examining strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, you can develop strategies to maximize your strengths, minimize your weaknesses, capitalize on opportunities, and mitigate threats, ultimately leading to a more effective marketing plan.

Gather Historical Marketing Performance Data

Your marketing plan is like a big strategy made up of different ways to reach people, like ads, social media, or emails. Data is like clues that help you understand how well your plan is working. By looking at data from all these different sources, you can see if your plan is meeting its goals.

Analyzing past data means looking back to see how things went. Did your marketing efforts do what you wanted them to do? If not, this is your chance to figure out why. Maybe certain ads didn’t work well, or maybe people didn’t respond to your emails. Understanding what went wrong in the past helps you make better decisions in the future and improve your marketing strategy.

2. Conduct your Marketing Research 

The second step in the marketing plan process is to do some research. This means finding out information from outside sources to understand what’s happening in the world around your business. Here are the four main things you should look into:

Economic Trends

This means understanding how the economy is doing overall. Are people spending more or less money? Is the job market strong or weak? Knowing this helps you figure out how it might affect your business.

Geopolitical Issues

These are big events or situations happening in the world that could impact your business. For example, changes in trade agreements or political instability in certain regions could affect your ability to sell products or services.

The Competition

This means looking at other companies that are similar to yours and seeing how they’re doing. Are they gaining more customers or losing them? Are they coming up with new products or services that you need to compete with?

Customer Intelligence (surveys)

This involves asking your customers questions to understand what they want and how they feel about your business. You might ask them about their preferences, opinions, or satisfaction with your products or services.

By researching these things, you can get a better idea of where your business stands compared to others, how you’ve been doing over time, and what your customers think. This information helps you make smarter decisions about your marketing strategy.

Study the Competition 

Think of your company’s market share like a slice of pizza at a party. When you first arrived, there were only a few slices left, and you managed to grab a big piece for yourself. But as more people come to the party, they start taking slices too. 

Some might take small bites, while others might grab entire slices. If you don’t keep an eye on the pizza, you might end up with less than you started with. 

Similarly, in business, new companies entering the market can take away some of your customers, just like party guests taking pizza slices. 

And if older companies don’t keep up with the changes, they might go out of business, leaving more opportunities for others to grab a bigger share of the market, just like the pizza getting eaten up.

So, by analyzing how the pizza (market share) gets divided among different guests (competitors), you can understand the whole story of what’s happening in your industry.

Perform Online Surveys 

A survey is like a questionnaire that we send to certain customers. We ask them questions about our brand and what they think about it. 

This helps us learn things we might not know and see if there’s a difference between how we advertise and what people actually think about us. It’s like getting feedback to make sure we’re on the right track.

3. Know your Target Audience 

Understanding your audience is super important in the marketing planning process. It’s like getting to know your friends really well so you can plan fun activities they’ll enjoy.

Here’s how:

Know your Audience

Just like how you know your friends’ likes and dislikes, you need to understand who might want to buy your product or service. This means knowing what problems they have, what they really want, and what they need.

Keep learning about them

Your audience isn’t static. They might change over time, just like how your friends’ interests change. So, you have to keep learning about them by paying attention to what they do and how they change.

Adapt to Changes

Just like you might change your plans based on what your friends like or don’t like anymore, you need to adapt your marketing to fit your audience’s changes. This means adjusting your strategies to keep meeting their needs and wants.

So, understanding your audience is like being a good friend, you listen, you pay attention, and you adapt to make sure they’re happy.

Let’s break down the steps in understanding your audience, including explaining the buying cycle in simple terms with examples:

Build out Personas

Make up characters who are like your customers. Give them names and details, like age and hobbies. For example, if you sell toys, you might create a persona named “Toy-loving Timmy” who is 8 years old and enjoys building things.

Consumer interviews

Talk to real customers to learn what they like. For example, if you have a lemonade stand, you might ask people why they chose your lemonade over others.

Collect Audience Data

Collect information from surveys or counting how many people visit your store. For instance, if you have a pet shop, you might see which pets are most popular by keeping track of what people buy.

Learn About Buyer motivations

Know why people want to buy your stuff. For example, if you sell bicycles, people might buy them to ride to work or for exercise.

Grasp a Sense of Buyer Expectations

Understand what customers expect from your product or service. For example, if you sell pizza, customers might expect it to be hot and tasty when it arrives.

Understand the Buying cycle

Know the steps people take when they decide to buy something

Awareness Stage 

This is when the buyer realizes they have a problem or need. For example, imagine you’re thirsty. You become aware that you need something to drink.

Consideration Stage

Once he  knows he has a problem or need, he will start looking for solutions. Going back to our thirsty example, that person might consider different options like water, soda, or juice.

Decision Stage

After considering different options, he will decide which one is the best fit for him. In our example, the buyer might decide to buy a bottle of water because it’s convenient and refreshing.

Repurchase

Sometimes, the need or problem comes up again. When it does, the one making a purchase goes through the same process of becoming aware, considering options, and making a decision. If he liked the water you bought last time, you might choose to buy it again.

So, the buying cycle is like a circle that repeats itself. Buyer becomes aware of a need, considers his options, makes a decision, and then potentially repeats the process when the need arises again. And it’s important for businesses to cater to each stage of this cycle to attract and retain customers.

4. Develop Positioning & Messaging 

Imagine you’re preparing for a big game. You need a strategy to win. Similarly, in marketing planning process, you need a plan. Here’s how it works:

Refining Your Audience

Just like in a game, you need to know who your fans are. In marketing, this means understanding who your customers are and what they like.

Segmentation

Think of this as dividing your fans into different groups. You can’t treat everyone the same. In marketing, you divide customers based on things like age, interests, and location.

Update Messaging

Now that you know your fans and how they’re divided, it’s time to talk to them. This is where you create messages that speak to each group. It’s like giving each group their own cheer!

Develop Your Positioning and Messaging

This step is like figuring out where you stand in the game. What makes you different from other teams (or brands)? This is your unique selling point. It’s what makes fans choose you over others.

So, in simple terms, the fourth step is about understanding what makes you special and using that to attract your fans (or customers). Just like in sports, knowing your strengths and how you stand out can help you win in the market!

Additionally, we suggest reading out, “Is Copywriting in Demand?”.

5.Set Company Marketing & Goals 

Below are the tips about making sure your marketing planning efforts are in line with what your business wants to achieve, organizing your goals in a clear hierarchy, and using specific measurements to track your progress along the way.

Align Business & Marketing Goals

This means making sure that what your business wants to achieve overall matches up with what your marketing efforts are aiming for. 

For example, if your business goal is to increase sales by 20%, your marketing goal might be to generate more leads or to improve brand awareness to help reach that sales target.

Create a Goals Pyramid to Assign Ownership

Think of a goals pyramid as a way to organize your goals in order of importance, with the big overarching goals at the top, and smaller, more specific goals underneath. 

By assigning ownership, you’re basically saying who is responsible for achieving each goal. This helps everyone involved understand their role and accountability in reaching those goals.

Determine KPIs Needed (Key Performance Indicators)

KPIs are like signposts along the road to success. They’re specific metrics or measurements that tell you how well you’re doing in reaching your goals. 

For instance, if your goal is to increase website traffic, a KPI might be the number of unique visitors to your site each month. 

If your goal is to improve customer satisfaction, a KPI could be the average rating in customer surveys. Each KPI gives you valuable information about the progress toward your goals.

6. Determine Budget 

This means figuring out how much money you need to achieve the goals you’ve set for your marketing plan. For example, if your goal is to increase sales by 10%, you’ll need to allocate a certain amount of money for advertising, promotions, and other marketing activities to help you reach that target.

Build Agile Budgets

An agile budget is flexible and can be adjusted easily based on changing circumstances or new information. 

In marketing planning, this might mean being able to reallocate funds from one campaign to another if you find that one is performing better than expected, or if market conditions change.

Manage your Marketing Spend

This involves keeping track of how much money you’re spending on marketing activities and making sure it’s being used effectively. 

It’s important to monitor your spending to ensure you’re getting the best possible return on investment (ROI) for your marketing efforts.

7. Develop Marketing Campaign 

In the marketing planning process, after setting your budget, the next step is to decide how to use that money effectively. Here are some tips:

• Choose campaigns that will make the biggest difference for your business. Focus on strategies that will have the most impact on reaching your goals.
• Look back at past campaigns to see what worked well. Use successful ideas or tactics from previous efforts to inform your new campaigns.
• Make sure to allocate a portion of your budget specifically for each campaign. This ensures that you have enough resources to execute your plans effectively.

8. Implementing Plan 

Remember, successful implementation is the key to realizing the full potential of your marketing plan. By following these steps and staying focused on execution, you can effectively bring your marketing strategies to life and achieve your business objectives.

Set Clear Goals

Clearly define the objectives and goals of the marketing plan. Ensure that everyone involved understands what needs to be achieved.

Assign Responsibilities

Identify team members responsible for each task or component of the marketing plan. Assign roles based on strengths and expertise.

Establish a Timeline

Develop a timeline with specific deadlines for each task or milestone. This ensures accountability and keeps the team on track.

Regular Check-ins

Schedule regular check-in meetings to review progress, address any challenges, and adjust strategies if needed.

Communication Plan

Establish effective communication channels to keep all team members informed and updated on progress and changes.

Allocate Resources

Ensure that necessary resources, whether it’s budget, tools, or manpower, are allocated appropriately to support the implementation process.

Monitor and Measure

Implement systems to track and measure the success of the marketing plan against established goals. This allows for ongoing optimization and adjustments as needed.

Flexibility

Remain flexible and adaptable to changes in the market or unexpected obstacles. Being able to pivot when necessary is crucial for successful implementation.

Celebrate Milestones

Recognize and celebrate achievements and milestones reached throughout the implementation process to boost morale and motivation.

Continuous Improvement

Continuously evaluate the effectiveness of the implementation plan and identify areas for improvement to refine future marketing strategies.

9. Make Improvements 

Let’s be real, striving for perfection in marketing plans? That’s like trying to catch smoke. But no worries! When it comes to marketing planning, the final step is to take a hard look at what went down, what needs fixing, and how we can step up our game. Here’s how you can do it. 

Evaluate marketing plan performance

This means looking at how well your marketing plan is doing overall.

Hold status meetings

This involves having meetings to discuss the current progress of your marketing plan and campaigns.

Identify what’s working

You need to figure out which parts of your marketing plan are successful and effective.

Justify your changes

When you decide to make changes to your marketing plan, you need to explain why you’re making those changes and why they’re necessary.

Measure plan ROI

You should measure the return on investment (ROI) of your marketing efforts, meaning you assess how much you’re getting back compared to what you’re putting in.

Conclusion 

The Marketing planning process is really important for businesses. It helps them set goals, understand markets, and figure out the best ways to grow and stay competitive. With a clear plan, businesses can use their resources wisely and adjust to changes in the market, which leads to long-term success.