Marketing plan is content commonly deployed by businesses to reach target markets. So how to build a successful Marketing plan ? Businesses, please join 1C Vietnam to find answers through the article below!

1. What is a marketing plan?

A Marketing Plan is a methodical and long-term business strategy, built by businesses with the purpose of monitoring the process of promoting products, services, and brands according to a pre-determined roadmap. Marketing planning can apply separate marketing solutions for each different marketing group. However, basically, these strategies all have the same business goal that has been planned from the beginning.

In fact, businesses will rely on the field and method of operation to devise corresponding marketing plans. Here are some popular Marketing plan templates:

• Overall marketing strategy on a quarterly or annual basis: This plan template will highlight the campaigns the business executes over a 3-month, 6-month or 1-year period.
• Paid Marketing Plan: This is a plan that includes marketing strategies for which the business must pay a fee. For example: Advertising on social platforms, advertising on mass media.
• Media Marketing Plan: In this plan template, marketers need to highlight tactics, campaigns and advertising channels on media to attract customers.
• Content Marketing Plan: Includes different marketing strategies, in which the Marketing department will use content to promote the business's brand or products.

2. The importance of marketing plans in businesses

Marketing plans play an extremely important role in attracting customers and making accurate business decisions, enhancing brand reputation. Some important roles of marketing planning include:

• Strategic planning

Marketing plans help businesses determine their goals, customer groups and how they approach the market. At the same time, strategic planning helps businesses shape their overall marketing strategy to achieve business goals.

• Optimize resources

Based on the marketing plan , businesses will easily allocate budget, human resources and time effectively. By determining the activities that need to be performed, businesses can make the most of available resources to achieve the best results.

• Ensure consistency

Ensuring consistency in marketing activities means that marketing activities are aimed at a common goal, conveying the same message, image and style. This helps create a good impression on customers and makes it easy for them to remember the business's brand. Businesses can ensure consistency by clearly defining their goals, strategies, and approaches.

• Internal communication tools

If businesses know how to build and deploy appropriately, a Marketing plan can become an effective internal communication tool. Therefore, businesses need to pay attention to the following information:

- Marketing plan includes information about products/services, strategies and goals of the business. Managers need to understand clearly about the business and their role in the journey to achieving common goals.

- Marketing plans are often expressed through communication channels such as: Website, social networks, email or internal reports,... These are "fertile land" for businesses to quickly reach employees. members at all levels.

- Marketing plans must be regularly updated to ensure the information is always the latest and most accurate. From there, employees will promptly grasp important key points of information provided by the business.

• Branding

Marketing planning helps businesses reach and communicate with customers to develop and maintain their brand. This process will include investigating and selecting appropriate communication channels, reaching target customers, and finding appropriate advertising and communication solutions.

• Suggest effective competitive measures

Thanks to market research and analysis, businesses will easily identify the strengths and weaknesses of their competitors. From there, quickly introduce effective competitive measures to enhance business advantages.

3. 7 steps to create an effective marketing plan

A complete Marketing plan will usually be established based on the following 7 steps. Businesses can refer to this to build a detailed and appropriate plan for their business activities.

3.1 Determine marketing goals

When planning a marketing plan , businesses need to clearly define long-term or short-term goals to know the specific destination of marketing activities.

Businesses can use the SMART model to set effective goals, evaluate the specificity, feasibility, relevance and reasonableness of goals in the Marketing plan . This application process will be based on 5 criteria: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant and Time-Bound.

In addition, the SMART model also helps businesses determine appropriate goals for each marketing strategy in different stages, helping businesses recognize changes and learn from experience for their next marketing plans. according to.

3.2 Analyze customer needs and buying behavior

Analyzing customer needs and behavior is one of the prerequisites for building an effective marketing plan . Customer behavior is the activities and trends of customers carried out through the process of data collection, market research and customer surveys. Normally, customer behavior will not have specific manifestations but will be hidden deep within the subconscious, motivating customers to express attitudes or actions towards the business's products/services.

If the process of analyzing customer behavior is effective, businesses will properly solve customers' "pain" and successfully attract them to purchase. From there, businesses can deploy projects to improve quality. product quality and effective business plans to improve conversion rates and boost revenue.

3.3 Prepare a SWOT analysis table

During the Marketing planning process, businesses need to analyze strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats based on the SWOT model. From here, businesses will clearly understand their goals as well as influencing factors to implement appropriate marketing strategies to help optimize sales conversion and increase revenue.

SWOT analysis not only helps businesses better understand their strengths/disadvantages, but also serves as a basis for businesses to evaluate and compare their competitors' business situations to find competitive advantages as well as potential opportunities. Risk prevention plan in production activities.

3.4 Develop an overall marketing strategy

Building a Marketing strategy is an overall plan that helps businesses know who their target customers are, what problems they are facing or what needs need to be met. There are 4 effective marketing strategies that any business can apply:

• Marketing strategy for product differentiation
• Brand positioning marketing strategy
• Marketing strategy according to each product cycle
• Marketing strategies for market leaders, challengers and followers.

3.5 Set up KPIs for the plan

Measuring KPI indicators is an important step in the process of building a Marketing plan, helping businesses understand the effectiveness of Marketing activities and campaigns, contributing to increasing conversion rates and improving business. sales revenue.

Specifically, setting up Marketing KPI will help businesses understand which communication channels are operating most effectively, which promotional campaigns need to be optimized and which keywords are increasing/decreasing in rankings to promptly adjust and Build a suitable marketing strategy.

To measure the effectiveness of Marketing campaigns, businesses need to pay attention to the following 14 KPI measurement indicators:

• Number of potential customers
• Number of quality customers
• Cost to get 1 potential customer
• Cost of each conversion
• Number of website visitors
• Average session duration
• Average bounce rate
• Number of visitors from natural sources
• Increase page rankings
• Increase target keyword rankings
• Number of backlinks
• Leads and conversions from advertising sources
• Click-through rate
• ROI index (net profit over total investment costs) of marketing campaigns

3.6 Budget estimates

Marketing budget is the amount of money a business is willing to pay for all marketing costs and should be listed in ranges for each channel the business is operating. The Marketing budget estimate will include the following main items:

• Costs related to the ongoing campaign: These are fees for PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns or advertising campaigns on social platforms.
• Cost of tools and software: Payment for software used to optimize marketing campaigns.
• Training costs: This could be paying for online courses or seminars to add more knowledge/experience to the staff.
• Salaries must be paid to the Marketing team.

3.7 Develop a detailed action plan

In the final step, businesses need to establish a detailed action plan by answering the following questions:

• What Marketing campaigns need to be deployed?
• What are the main tasks that help businesses achieve their set goals?
• Who will be responsible for each piece of work?
• How long does it take to complete specific tasks?
• How much does it cost to pay for Marketing activities?
• What are the results achieved (Completed, delayed deadline, paused,...)?

4. Some popular marketing plans

To help businesses visualize more clearly, below are some Marketing plan samples of famous brands in the world:

• Forbes Marketing plan template

Launched in 2013, Forbes' Marketing plan template has attracted more than 4 million views thanks to bringing positive results to businesses. With this plan, Marketing teams have created marketing roadmaps with clear vision and effectiveness. The main content of this Marketing plan template will include:

- Summary.

- Targeted customer.

- Effective sales proposals.

- Product pricing and positioning strategy.

- Distribution plan.

- Corporate incentives.

- Marketing materials.

- Incentive strategy.

- Marketing strategy.

- Transformation strategy.

- Cooperation and joint venture.

- Introduction strategy

- Strategy to increase transaction prices

- Maintenance strategy

- Financial forecasting

• Buffer's marketing plan template

Based on different Marketing plan samples, Buffer tested which strategy brings the best results, then selected the advantages to apply to the plan, to bring the most optimal marketing effectiveness. Buffer's plan template will include main contents such as:

- Set smart marketing goals.

- Sketch customer portraits.

- Solve customer needs with smart content.

- Research and evaluate competitors.

- Evaluate marketing strategies by examining topics.

- Create an editorial calendar.

- Develop advertising and marketing processes.

5. Download the Marketing plan template in Excel

Excel is a tool that helps marketers build effective and clear marketing plans, manage and analyze data. To save time and limit errors, businesses can refer to and download the following Excel Marketing plan template:

Download the Marketing plan template quickly: HERE

6. Contents needed in the marketing plan

As mentioned before, a complete Marketing plan helps businesses implement marketing strategies consistent with their goals. Therefore, businesses need to comply with the rules of Marketing planning and ensure that the following mandatory contents are fully included:

6.1 Executive Summary – Summary of business activities

This is an activity summary with brief content of Marketing ideas and recommendations suitable to the business situation. Executive Summary helps businesses evaluate the suitability and feasibility of the Marketing plan . During the process of implementing the marketing plan, businesses need to pay attention to how the presentation is short and concise and avoid rambling to ensure the information presented to the board of directors is clear.

6.2 Current Marketing Situation – Operational situation of the business

This category provides a general perspective on the current operating situation of the business. The content of Current Marketing Situation often revolves around investigating internal and external factors that affect the overall marketing strategy of the market. Specifically:

• Who are the target customers of the business? What are the specific characteristics of each customer?
• What competitors does the business have? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
• What are the highlights of the product/service? What problems do these products/services solve for customers?
• What marketing strategies does the business deploy? What goals did these strategies achieve?
• What goals has the business achieved? What challenges do businesses face?

6.3 SWOT Analysis – Analyze strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

SWOT is an indispensable content in the process of implementing a Marketing plan. Thereby, SWOT analysis will help businesses find their strengths and weaknesses to devise corresponding marketing strategies. In addition, identifying opportunities and challenges is also a way for businesses to promptly and effectively prevent risks.

In the SWOT content, businesses need to perform the following analysis:

• Analyze opportunities and challenges in the process of implementing Marketing plans to promote products/services.
• Analyze and solve planning and marketing problems.
• Analyze and point out strengths/weaknesses of products/services to implement effective promotional strategies.

6.4 Objectives – Determine goals

Objectives help businesses determine the specific goals of their product/service marketing campaign. Normally, the goals in a Marketing plan are often determined based on objective factors such as: Increase sales, increase customer reach, increase brand awareness, improve relationships between businesses. and customers.

The goals in the marketing plan need to be specific and measurable. This helps businesses shape specific strategies for Marketing activities and allows businesses to measure the final results.

6.5 Marketing Strategy - Marketing strategies

Marketing Strategy is part of the Marketing plan and is applied by businesses to shape their marketing strategies. Marketing Strategy will include long-term decisions about market access, customer interaction methods, customer goals and product positioning.

6.6 Action Plans – Action plans

Action Plans concretize business goals into practical activities. A good action plan will help businesses quickly achieve effective marketing goals. Normally, Action Plans will include the following complete contents:

• Detailed goals: Activities in Action Plans need to have specific and measurable goals. In particular, these goals need to be developed based on the overall Marketing goals of the business.
• Strategic content: Clearly states what needs to be done to achieve strategic goals, and the content needs to be specific, accurate and actionable.
• Implementation time: Needs to be clearly defined for each specific activity, helping businesses effectively control the progress of completing the Marketing plan.
• Responsible person: Each Marketing activity needs a specific responsible person.
• Budget: Enterprises need to determine a detailed budget corresponding to each activity.

6.7 Risks - Assumptions about risks

Risk estimation is an important step in the marketing planning process. This is the basis for businesses to determine whether this is a dangerous step or not, and if not successful, how many difficulties the business will face. Thereby, businesses need to answer the following questions to establish risk assumptions in the Marketing plan:

• What are the successful marketing and communication channels of your business?
• What product pricing strategies should businesses use?
• What is different about your business's pricing strategy compared to your competitors?
• What risks can businesses face?

6.8 Controls – Control

Control plays an indispensable role in the implementation of the Marketing plan to ensure discipline in time and bring outstanding efficiency. To successfully perform this role, businesses need talented and dedicated individuals at work. In a business, a control team will include: Director, Head of Marketing and managers. These individuals/departments are not only knowledgeable about Marketing activities, but also have the ability to motivate subordinates to complete set goals quickly and effectively.

7. Some mistakes that can be encountered when building a marketing plan

In developing marketing plans, businesses may encounter unexpected incidents, stemming from many subjective and objective reasons. Below are 8 common mistakes when planning a Marketing plan compiled by 1C:

• Confusion between strategy and tactics

When there is no clear distinction between strategy and tactics, businesses will set unclear marketing goals, making it difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of the marketing plan. At the same time, the business's marketing activities also lack connectivity and do not achieve the expected effectiveness.

Therefore, businesses need to clearly understand the difference between strategic and tactical factors. Specifically, the Marketing strategy needs to be implemented first, then deploy Marketing tactics. However, Marketing tactics will complement the Marketing strategy to help businesses achieve their business goals.

• Disjointed relationships between departments

Departments in an enterprise all take on separate roles and tasks, but their activities often interact and influence each other. Therefore, without close coordination between departments, businesses will face lack of resources, conflicts of interest, fragmented information... This greatly affects the implementation process. Marketing plans and achieved results are not consistent with the business's set goals.

• Lack of market information

Not providing enough information about the market is one of the common mistakes that businesses often encounter. This deficiency will lead to inaccurate, inflexible and outdated marketing decisions.

• Do not outline specific goals

Defining goals is a guideline that helps businesses determine the direction to succeed. Without specific goals, it will be difficult for businesses to plan necessary activities and not achieve expected results.

• Skip analyzing your competitors

Competitors are the key to providing important information about the market and contributing to building an effective marketing strategy. If a business ignores competitor analysis, it may miss an opportunity to create competitive advantage and sustainable development.

• Lack of Digital Marketing plan

A complete Marketing plan needs to include Digital Marketing strategies. Without an effective online marketing plan, businesses miss out on a large number of potential customers.

• The plan is not feasible

The Marketing Plan needs to be feasible and doable with available resources. Otherwise, businesses will set goals that are unrealistic or difficult to achieve.

• Lack of flexibility

In the face of constantly changing business markets, a marketing plan needs to be flexible so that businesses can promptly adapt to those changes. Without flexibility, businesses may miss potential opportunities and face unnecessary risks.

8. Solution to support effective marketing planning 1C:ERP

In addition to understanding common mistakes when planning Marketing, businesses need to apply planning support software to quickly achieve set goals and optimize customer experience. 1C:ERP is a comprehensive business management solution, developed based on modern low-code technology. This flexible solution includes many modules, including outstanding features to support Marketing activities with strengths such as:

• Helps optimize workflow

1C:ERP helps businesses manage and connect the activities of departments within the business, while easily eliminating duplicate work and manual operations. This helps the Marketing planning process take place in the correct order and set goals.

• Have a reporting system ready as needed

Businesses can create reports according to their needs at any time and can change reporting options without needing to know programming.

• Improve products/services

The system has the ability to quickly check inventory levels, quickly check shipping policies and customer feedback, from which businesses can quickly detect problems that arise during the supply of goods. service.

• Enhanced security

1C:ERP software is integrated with data encryption capabilities and strict decentralization, helping businesses easily manage information when implementing decentralization. In addition, the system also stores modified versions of data for each user, ensuring information transparency.

• Promote investment value efficiency

1C:ERP helps businesses optimize operating costs, easily control operating goals (KPI), estimate operating efficiency to achieve set financial goals.

Along with applying 1C:ERP software, businesses still need to combine and apply more support tools in marketing planning to ensure accuracy and bring marketing effectiveness to the business.

Above are shares about Marketing plans and methods for building effective product Marketing plans. It can be seen that marketing planning helps businesses focus on specific goals, optimize resources, affirm their brand, promptly respond to competition and measure achieved results. 1C Vietnam hopes that the above information will help businesses take the right steps in their next product marketing campaigns. For more information about 1C:ERP solution, please contact 1C Vietnam via hotline (+84)247 108 8887.