Marketing Plan Sample Outline: 9 Key Steps to Follow Now

You are the new UK Market Manager for the brand/business of your choice marketing plan. The company would like to penetrate a market segment by building a direct customer base.

Currently the business has a limited presence in this segment – due to limited focus on new customer acquisition in the last year.

There is a lot of competition in the market, and there are competitors selling similar products at competitive prices. Please identify a new business opportunity and put together a marketing plan and campaign to launch into the new market segment for 2021/2022 to build the customer base.

You have an overall marketing budget of up to £50,000 for this new segment – it will depend on your presentation whether the management team approves the plan.

Title Page to include your name, unit code and title of report

Contents Page – including page numbers, section subheadings and sub-numbers

Executive Summary

Your executive summary of your marketing plan should be no more than a page

It should summarise all of the other sections of your report

What is the gap in the market the brand/businesses is not capitalising on

What is the solution

What is the business opportunity for the campaign?

How will you achieve this?

What will be the results and recommendations for the brand to take forward?

Its concise length and summary format will enable the reader to quickly

understand the outcome of your report

1. Introduction to marketing plan

Purpose of the report and why the report was written

Sources of information you have used for your report

Limitations of your research

How you conducted your research (primary and secondary)

2. The Market Sector – introduce the market sector
2.1 Current market analysis (size and performance)
2.2 Key external influences that are affecting the businesses current performance – written and visual analysis of PESTEL
2.3 Competitive environment – Plot out the competitive environment for the business using Porters 5 Forces using written and visual analysis
2.3 Current Industry life cycle – visually plot out the phase which the business/sector is currently in and provide written analysis how this impacts the business future performance and strategy.

3. Brand within sector marketing plan

3.1 Current competitive strategy the business is operating – provide an analysis of Porters generic strategy
3.2 Current product portfolio – Plot out with visuals and written analysis of product range and their sales performance using Boston Consultancy Matrix
3.3 Key competitors – plot your brand and key competitors on a Price / Style Matrix; highlighting your brand and key competitors with a circle

3.4 Place – multi-channel retailing including on-line and physical stores, national and international presence – (number of stores and which brands are they located next to if applicable)
3.5 SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of the brand current position and performance including the micro and macro environment

4. Market research and campaign proposal marketing plan

4.1 Gap planning – provide analysis to identify business opportunity and growth in the market
4.2 Marketing trends – Provide at least 3 marketing trends that support the business opportunity. Use LSN, WGSN and other reliable sources for example.

4.3 Provide details of the how you conducted your primary research – techniques, sample size etc

4.4 Primary research – Synthesis of the key findings of your quantitative and qualitative research to support the gap planning

4.5 Business proposal – Outline the proposal to support the identified gap in the market.

4.6 Business goals for 2021/2022 – provide at least 4 SMART goals

4.7 Name of campaign to be launched

4.8 Campaign mission statement

4.9 Campaign strapline

4.10 Campaign launch date and duration

5. Target Customer profiles

5.1 Primary research – synthesis of customer interviews and create at least 2 customer profiles/tribes to target for the campaign
5.2 Customer values
5.3 Spending power/priorities

5.4 Psychographic Profile (Innovators, Early Adopters etc.) 5.5 Buying behaviour
5.6

6. Resource Planning

6.1 Identify key stakeholders – written and visual analysis
6.2 Organisation organogram to support campaign – written and visual analysis of staffing resources required to deliver the campaign
6.3 Internal resources – outline team structures and resources to propose how organisation will work to deliver business goals
6.4 Resource and capability analysis

7. Marketing activity marketing plan

This section of the report should be visually produced using Adobe software

Include bullet points,

Use secondary research to support your reasons for marketing activity

For each marketing activity indicate what key performance indicators

(KPI’s) you hope to deliver

Provide explanatory text to navigate the reader through your marketing

proposal.

Select suitable promotional tools to assist with your marketing plan

to penetrate new market segment

7.1 Content Marketing – consider the relevance of your curated content to broadcast through advertising including video, magazines, newspapers, billboard, TV and online
7.2 Digital Marketing – demonstrate and visualise social media campaigns and / or mobile marketing

7.3 Direct Marketing – consider CRM (Customer Relationship Management) strategies – using the correct tone of voice for your brand, write-up and visualise an email to consumers and / or leaflets / SMS / on-line chat through owned media (e.g. own website)

E.g. Rational, Emotional, Patronage


Value proposition canvas – written analysis and visual application


9.

10.

8.

7.4 Influencer and celebrities – identify suitable people that align with the campaign
7.5 Affiliate Marketing – Identify Blogger outreach and / or websites
7.6 PR activities – launch event – provide details of the event, where this will take place, who will be invited, provide names of celebrities and influencers to attend. What will happen at the event.

Implementation and Budget

8.1 Schedule the marketing activities with a timeline (calendar dates)

8.2 Highlight key milestones for the success of the project delivery

8.3 Analysis of financial implications of unmet milestones.
8.4 Marketing campaign budget – Provide a breakdown of allocation of funds to marketing activity/external suppliers and services/additional external staff to deliver the work, Plot out campaign spend over the duration of the project

Measuring campaign success

9.1 What tools and analysis will be used to measure the success of marketing activity and plan.
9.2 Provide analysis of return on investment you hope to achieve against each marketing activity.

Conclusion

Your conclusion should include the main findings of sections 2 – 8, and discuss your marketing plan section 7, bringing your report to a logical end.