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If you are thinking of developing a marketing program, you need to start with a marketing plan. Some of marketing plan are short and to the point, others are hundreds of pages thick and cost thousands of dollars to produce.

Writing a well-researched marketing plan will make the task of marketing  more straightforward, more achievable and, once you’re under way, more effective.

Nine Easy Steps to Developing a Marketing Plan

Here are 9 easy steps to developing marketing plan you can follow :

1. Objective
Include your mission statement, if you have one, and refer to any targets already defined in your business plan. Make your goals specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time: SMART.

2. Service and Market Background
Outline of the services you offer, including a brief explanation of each. Collect, organize, and write down data about the market that is currently buying the product(s) or service(s) you will sell.

3. Carry out a SWOT Analysis
Identify the strengths and weaknesses internal and external opportunities and threats. Doing this will help you identify market opportunities.

4. Marketing Analysis
Consider current trends – the external factors that could affect your business. Consider, too, what your competitors are doing and what, as far as you can tell, their strategies are for the future.

5. Marketing Strategies
Identify as clearly as possible your core target market – approach it as if you were describing your typical customer. Consider gender, where your customers live, which newspaper they read, what type of TV programs they watch, their social class, their ‘life stage’, their likely usage rate of your services, and the benefits they are seeking.
Focus, as well, on how you will compete with your local rivals – what will make you stand out from the crowd?
And what ‘brand position’ are you aiming for?  The target market you’ve identified should determine, at least in part, how you ‘brand’ yourself.

6. Marketing Programs
Identify as clearly as possible to its primary target market – an approach is as if you were describing your typical customer. Consider gender, where their customers live, they read newspapers, what kind of TV programs they watch, their class, their “stage of life,” probably their utilization of your services, and benefits are looking for.
Focus also on how to compete with their local rivals – which will make you stand out from the crowd?
And what ‘brand position’ are you aiming for? The target market you have identified should determine, at least in part, on how to ‘brand’ yourself.

7. Evaluation
Your customers are a valuable source of marketing information – ask them how they heard about you and work out which communication tool works best for your business.

8. Finances
Develop a detailed budget plan, with separate figures for each marketing project. Estimate of what we hope to return for each marketing and investment, as the business develops, try to work out the return you are getting.

9. Operational Considerations
Staff awareness – keep staff informed about what is being done so that they can handle the research with informed consent.

Research – never stops! The more you know about your customers, the best decision your company will be.

Marketing information system – creating a database of customer information, to understand your customers. If you lose customers, please write to ask why.

Calendar – thinking at the time of any promotional activity. What time of day is the best advertising for broadcast, for example? And what better time of year is for one quarter page ad in the newspaper?