Write a Sales & Marketing Plan
A sales and marketing plan is a document that outlines a business' sales and marketing strategy and presents a plan for implementing that strategy. An effective marketing plan includes general information about the company's overall approach to developing and promoting its products as well as concrete details regarding marketing and advertising budgets, naming specific advertising venues and promotional ideas. In addition, a successful marketing plan includes quantifiable benchmarks and goals to use in assessing marketing strategies.
Instructions
1. Write an introduction to your sales and marketing plan outlining its purpose and mission. Describe the broad purpose of your marketing strategy, such as guiding customers to use your product for a wide range of uses or positioning your product line as the safest or most effective solution to a particular problem. Explain how this purpose fits in with your company's broader objectives, such as becoming the leader in your field or drawing a loyal, long-term clientele.
2. Write a situational analysis describing and evaluating your company's current status with regard to the purpose and mission that you delineated. Include information about your current products and current target market, your main competitors, the distribution network you use, your financial situation at this point and any external factors that affect your business and marketing activities.
3. Outline your marketing strategy and objectives, explaining concrete details about how you intend to implement your objectives and achieve your goals. Include information about the "4 Ps" of marketing: product, price, promotion and place. The product is the item that you want the public to buy. The price is the amount to intend to charge, and the message it will communicate, such as choosing a high price to signal that you are selling a premium product. Promotion is the avenue you choose to raise awareness about your product. Place is the distribution strategy, detailing where you will sell it. Whenever possible, express strategies and objectives in quantifiable terms, such as, "We intend to distribute our products to 100 stores in the Seattle area."
4. Include a budget in your marketing plan. Be specific about how much you will spend on each type of advertising or promotional venue. Either provide a dollar value for each aspect of your marketing plan or establish a percentage of your sales that you will designate for this purpose.
5. Quantify the results that you intend to achieve with your marketing plan, including sales figures, percentage sales growth and time frame during which these developments will occur.
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