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By Entrepreneur Staff Jan 4, 2015
In their book Write Your Business Plan , the staff of Entrepreneur Media, Inc. offer an in-depth understanding of what's essential to any business plan, what's appropriate for your venture, and what it takes to ensure success. In this edited excerpt, the authors discuss the information you should include in the marketing section of your business plan.
The marketing information you need to include in your business plan has to show that you know your target market and understand how to make sure those customers know where they can find you. You need to define what you're selling, at what price(s), from where, and how you're going to spread the word. To simplify, you can use the four Ps of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion.
Product, the first of the four Ps, refers to the features and benefits of what you have to sell (as usual, we're using the term as shorthand for products and services). There are a number of issues you need to address in your product section. You need to first break out the core product from the actual product. Say you're selling snow cones. A snow cone is your core product. But your actual product includes napkins, an air-conditioned seating area, parking spaces for customers and so forth.
In the product section, you need to define your target audience and talk about your ideal customer as if he or she is someone you know very well. For example, your ideal customer could be 25 to 29 years old, earning x amount of money, has no children yet and earned a college degree.
It's important to quantify your market's size if possible. In addition, you may want to describe how you come up with ideas, screen them, test them, produce prototypes and so on.
You may need to discuss the life cycle of the product you're selling. This may be crucial in the case of quickly consumed products such as corn chips and in longer-lasting items like household appliances. Understanding the product's life cycle has a powerful effect on your marketing plan, as does knowing logical buying habits. For example, one popular department store was offering a buy-one-get-one-at-half-price deal on fine jewelry. The deal wasn't generating a strong response because most people don't shop for expensive jewelry in "bulk" quantities but instead take a personalized approach.
Other aspects of the product section may include a branding strategy, a plan for follow-up products or line extensions. Keeping these various angles on products in mind while writing this section will help you describe your product fully and persuasively.
One of the most important decisions you have to make in a business plan is what price to charge for what you're selling. Pricing determines many things, from your profit margin per unit to your overall sales volume. It influences decisions in other areas, such as what level of service you will provide and how much you will spend on marketing. Pricing has to be a process you conduct concurrently with other jobs, including estimating sales volume, determining market trends and calculating costs.
Place refers to channels of distribution, or the means you'll use to put your product where people can buy it. This can be very simple: Retailers and many service businesses (restaurants, personal services, business services) rely primarily on location. For manufacturers, conventional distribution systems have three steps: producer, wholesaler and retailer. You may occupy or sell to members of any one of these steps.
Manufacturers require certain basic conditions for their sites, but retailers and some service firms are exquisitely sensitive to a wide variety of location factors. In some cases, a few feet can make the difference between a location that is viable and one that is not.
Site selection plans for retailers should include traffic data, demographics of nearby populations, estimated sales per square foot, rental rates, and other important economic indicators. Service firms such as restaurants will want many of the same things. Service firms such as pest control services and bookkeeping businesses will want to provide information about local income levels, housing, and business activity.
Store design also must be addressed. Retailing can be as much about entertaining shoppers as it is about displaying goods, so store design becomes very important. Retailers may want to include photos or illustrations of striking displays, in-store boutiques and the like.
Then there's the Internet and e-commerce, where physical location gives way to driving traffic to the site. For businesses that are strictly web driven, you'll need to show how the site works and all that's set up behind the site for taking orders, shipping them and handling customer service, which is especially important for online businesses where buyers cannot walk in and return an item face to face. You'll also need to show how you'll drive traffic to the site.
Promotion is virtually everything you do to bring your company and your product in front of consumers. Promotional activities include picking your company name, going to trade shows, buying advertisements, making telemarketing calls, using billboards, arranging co-op marketing, offering free giveaways, building and maintaining your online presence, and more.
Not all promotions are suitable for all products, of course, so your plan should select the ones that will work best for you, explain why they were chosen, and tell how you're going to use them. Promotion aims to inform, persuade, and remind customers to buy your products. It uses a mix that includes four elements: advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and publicity or public relations.
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Follow these templates and guidelines to get started on your business's marketing plan.
To have a successful business, you need a well-thought-out marketing plan to promote your products or services. Although making a few social media posts or blasting a few promotional emails may seem simple enough, disjointed marketing efforts not only confuse your target audience, but can ultimately harm your business.
A marketing plan is a strategic road map for how you communicate (online and offline) with your target audience to successfully promote your products or services. Depending on your goal, marketing plans can be extremely basic or highly detailed.
According to Molly Maple Bryant, vice president of marketing at Vibrent Health, a marketing plan is not simply a list of things you want to accomplish. Instead, it should list the outcomes you seek — measurable and contextual, like the pipeline you’re developing, or leads you’re generating — and it should explain the high-level strategies you will use to achieve those outcomes. Developing strategies can be complicated, but they make a major difference in keeping you on track and avoiding diversions, also called scope creep .
“Once you have an agreed-upon plan, you are able to compare any incoming requests against your strategies to determine ‘Yes, this adheres to my strategy so we can add it,’ or ‘No, this sounds good in theory, but it doesn’t adhere to our agreed-upon strategy, so we won’t adjust resources,'” Bryant told us.
There are several different types of marketing plans you can use based on certain strategies that make sense for your organization. Your business will likely need a combination of the following marketing plans to create an effective, comprehensive marketing strategy:
A marketing plan is a crucial resource for any small business because it helps you identify the market needs your product or service meets, how your product is different from competitors, and who your product or service is for. Marketing plans also serve as a road map for your sales strategy, branding direction and building your overall business. This is important for successfully conveying your brand messaging to your target audience .
Another significant benefit of a marketing plan for your company is that rather than simply guessing metrics, it forces you to sit down and do the math about your business goals and how to realistically fulfill them. When you look at your growth outcomes, you can delve further to determine what it will take to get to those numbers.
Bryant offered the following example: “Need $100,000 in revenue? How many sales is that? If 10, what’s your close rate? Let’s say 10 percent from lead to closed deal. Now you have a metric to start with — to get to 10 sales, we need 100 leads. Where will they come from, and what strategies will you use? The plan helps you put it all on paper so you can map out resources and tactics later with a lot of preparation and realism,” said Bryant.
When analyzing outcomes and resources, you can save time and avoid scope creep by focusing only on strategies that are relevant to your marketing plan. A marketing plan helps you think realistically about your strategies, gets your stakeholders on the same page, and holds your marketing team accountable for their decisions.
“When everyone’s tasks and goals are laid out for the stakeholders and company partners to see, it is much easier for the entire team to feel at ease about reaching sales goals and allowing the marketing team the space and freedom needed to execute work without constant supervision,” said Cassady Dill, digital marketing consultant and owner of Ethos Agency.
Additionally, Dill said a marketing plan should be easily understood by your entire team, executives and outside departments. Your plan should also serve as an easy guide for future marketing managers and team members to understand and implement.
A marketing plan should be customized to fit your business; however, Dill said, all marketing plans contain five essential functions:
We broke down those five functions into 10 actionable categories to help you create a marketing plan that is unique and effective for your business.
The executive summary is a great place to give the reader of your plan an overview of your business’s mission or goals, as well as the marketing strategy you’re looking to employ. An executive summary is often written after you’ve completed the rest of the marketing plan, to ensure it covers all the important elements of your plan. If the executive summary is the only part of your marketing plan that someone reads (which is highly possible), you want to be sure they understand the most crucial details.
The mission statement , not to be confused with a vision statement, is a statement that encompasses your company’s values and how they relate to your overall goals as an organization. Here are some good questions to get you thinking:
Identifying your target market is one of the most important parts of your marketing plan. Without a defined target audience, your marketing expenses will be wasted. Think of it like this: Some people need your service or product but don’t know it exists yet. Who are those people?
Here are some other questions to help you brainstorm your target market :
In this section, don’t just list what your product or service is. Think critically about what you have to offer your customers and what that value proposition means to them.
At this point in your report, you should transition your thinking into actual marketing theory and practices. Distribution channels are the avenues you’ll use to reach a prospective customer or business . Think of all current and potential sales channels on which your specific target audience is active. One distribution channel that works great for one organization may be useless to another. For example, one company may host their website for free on a site like HubSpot and solely rely on that as their sales channel, while another company may have a whole team of people using Pinterest to drive sales. [Learn how CRM systems can help track your marketing leads based on various distribution channels.]
Examples of sales channels include the following:
One of the major aspects of your marketing plan is developing your unique selling proposition (USP). A USP is a feature or stance that separates your product or service from competitors. Finding your USP is all about differentiation and distinguishing your company as a sole proprietor of one type of good or service. Conduct a competitive analysis to identify your competitive profile and how you stack up against the competition. It is important to remain unbiased when conducting this analysis.
Here are some ideas to consider:
Consider pricing when drafting your marketing plan. Developing the right pricing strategy helps you better market your product. Think about your current and projected finances when developing a long-term marketing strategy that is realistic and beneficial for your business. Here are some key questions to ask yourself about your pricing:
Consider your objectives when developing a marketing plan. This aspect of your plan should involve specific goals related to market penetration and revenue targets. Be sure to keep your marketing objectives on-brand with your business. Here are some things to consider:
With all of the above items outlined, determine what steps need to be taken to enact your marketing plan. This includes determining the proper steps, setting goals, breaking down responsibilities, and establishing an overall timeline.
It’s also important to brainstorm potential roadblocks your business could face and some solutions to overcome them. Your research is useless if you don’t have an actionable plan that can be realistically implemented to carry out your ideas.
This last step allows you to establish a realistic marketing budget and better understand your marketing plan from a cost perspective. In addition to setting a budget, consider the overall return on investment as well. Here are some other financial projections to consider:
The internet is full of useful tools, including paid and free marketing plan templates, to help you build a successful marketing plan .
Whether you are looking for a free template generator to build a new marketing plan or a benchmarking tool to evaluate your current strategies, several great resources are available. Keep in mind that the best marketing plan for your business will be a customized one.
“Ultimately, you should design a marketing plan that best serves the needs of your team as you see fit,” said Dill. “Don’t force yourself into a plan that doesn’t fit your team. Use templates to shorten the workload time, but then adjust it for a more custom plan.”
Here are some tools and templates to get you started:
When creating an effective marketing plan, you need to avoid falling for common missteps and mistakes. For starters, failing to identify any of the 10 actionable categories above is an obvious mistake.
Here are some other key mistakes to avoid:
Avoiding these mistakes and missteps can help you create a more effective and successful marketing plan that drives results for your business.
Before you dive into marketing plan templates, it’s important to understand how to think about a marketing plan.
A good marketing plan targets who your buyers are, establishes the service or product you are offering, and determines your unique selling proposition. From here, you will tackle the marketing planning process and develop the best way to get your product in front of buyers who want your product or service.
Dill created a simple four-step process for how small businesses can take action with creating a marketing plan.
In addition to drafting your own plan, you can work with a digital marketing agency or use internet marketing and pay-per-click management services to leverage your online presence.
Once you’ve established a general road map, update it annually. Developing an evolving marketing plan sets your business up for continued success because it allows you to prepare for the unexpected and establish a connection between your brand and your audience.
Matt D’Angelo contributed to this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.
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Home > Business Plan > Marketing Strategy in a Business Plan
… we will get this market share by …
The marketing strategy section of the business plan can be presented in four sections relating to each of the four P’s product, promotion, place, and price as shown in the example layout below.
The marketing strategy is a key section of the business plan, at this stage you are not trying to present a complete marketing plan, but simply trying to show the investor that each major section of the marketing strategy has been thought about and that you have a good marketing mix.
All of the four sections should be consistent with and support each other, for example, if you are planning to adopt a high price strategy, then the product would be aimed at an upmarket target customer, distributed at high end stores, and make use of one to one personal selling.
This is part of the financial projections and Contents of a Business Plan Guide , a series of posts on what each section of a simple business plan should include. The next post in this series sets out the business model which the business intends to use to generate revenue.
Chartered accountant Michael Brown is the founder and CEO of Plan Projections. He has worked as an accountant and consultant for more than 25 years and has built financial models for all types of industries. He has been the CFO or controller of both small and medium sized companies and has run small businesses of his own. He has been a manager and an auditor with Deloitte, a big 4 accountancy firm, and holds a degree from Loughborough University.
Learn about the points to address in the sales and marketing section of your business plan, plus key aspects for a successful sales strategy.
Remember all that research and hard work you put into the Market Analysis section of your business plan? You learned all about your company, your customers, and your competition. This is where it will all pay off: sales and marketing!
In this section of the plan, you’re actually going to spell out how you’ll market your idea, along with the specifics of how you’ll get business. Sales and marketing are what will grow your business and help you achieve success.
As always, keep your audience in mind. If your business plan is meant for your eyes only, or as an internal document for your staff, you won’t have to be as detailed or specific as you should if it’s intended for a lender or potential investors. In the latter case, you’ll want to demonstrate a very well-planned strategy that will give them confidence in your proposal and make them more likely to want to fund your business.
Sales and marketing strategies will vary by industry, and your strategy will be individually tailored to your company, but there are general guidelines that cover most businesses. Because your marketing plan will lead to sales, let’s start there.
Many marketing textbooks refer to the “four Ps” of marketing, which is an easy way to remember what’s involved in a solid plan.
Explain in detail the product(s) or service(s) you’re offering, particularly how they are different from or better than what’s already available. What benefits do they provide to your potential customers? What ways is your product or service unique? What makes doing business with you preferable to dealing with someone else? All of these things will help make up your marketing message.
Talk about how you’ll portray the company and what kind of image you’ll present, especially how it will help connect you to your potential customers. Include a picture of your logo and anything that might carry your image, such as vans, trucks, or uniforms. Show screenshots of your website, photos of your store, pictures of your packaging, and anything else that conveys your company’s brand.
Once you’ve gotten the customers in the door (or online), you have to deliver on what you’ve sold them. Marketing isn’t just about promising, it’s also following through and delivering what you said you would.
You may find it helpful to outline exactly how a transaction with your business would take place. Also touch on return policies and customer service. You may not immediately think of these as “marketing” issues, but think back to the last time you had difficulty with a company and told five friends you’d never do business with them again, or you saw someone complain about a company on Facebook or Twitter. Cover your bases before you get caught short in a situation you hadn’t planned for.
It’s important to talk about where you’ll be located and how you’ll get your products and services to your customers. If you’re planning an online business, will you also have a brick and mortar store? What percentage of sales do you project will come from each?
If your business involves manufacturing or distribution of a product, discuss shipping and labeling requirements, and how you’ll meet them. What are your delivery terms and costs? Are you using distributors, and will you charge separately for shipping or build that into the product price?
How you decide to price your product or service is key to how much you’ll sell and how much profit you can make. Again, the Market Analysis work you did will come in very handy in helping you to price your product competitively while still turning a worthwhile profit.
By now, you should have a solid understanding of what your expenses will be, so you know how much you need to make to break even. Of course, if you have startup expenses (and who doesn’t?), you will need to factor those in, as well, understanding that your profit margin will grow when they’re paid off.
Discuss how you’ve arrived at the prices you have, where they fit in with what the competition is doing, and what kind of volume you’ll need to do to be profitable.
You can have the best idea in the world, but if no one knows about it, it won’t sell. So, how are you going to reach your target audience and turn them into customers? Will you advertise? Which media? How often? And how will you split up the budget?
Keep in mind that some forms of traditional and digital advertising cost money, such as buying radio or print ads, or advertising through Google. Some, such as social media or public relations can be handled in-house by a staff member (or outsourced for a fee). And others can be quite variable in cost, such as printing brochures, flyers, catalogs, etc.
How much business do you think you’ll get from each campaign? Will you give coupons, discounts, or offer other incentives to get people to try you out?
Describe how you’ll know whether or not your marketing strategy is effective, such as how many coupons are redeemed or how much of an increase in web or store traffic you expect. You’ll need to project what kind of a return on your advertising investment you anticipate to figure out how much you should be spending.
Some marketing experts think a fifth “P” should be added to the four we’ve already discussed: people. We touched on it under customer service, but a big part of marketing is the level of service you’re able to offer to your customers, and your people are the ones responsible for that.
Your restaurant might serve the best food in town, but your servers can have an even greater impact on the dining experience. You can discuss it here or in the next section, sales, but do make sure to talk about the people who will deal with your customers and handle your customer service, what kind of training they’ll get, and how you’ll measure their effectiveness.
Now that you have your marketing plan together, you need to close the sale and make it pay off. Marketing will help you get customers in the door, to your website, or on the phone, but the best marketing in the world doesn’t matter if you don’t make the sale. That brings us to the next step of the plan, your sales strategy.
What to include in your sales plan:
How much product will you sell or how many contracts will you close over the first month, six months, and year? Be specific, understanding what your cash flow needs to be to keep the lights on and your employees paid. Keep the numbers realistic, however, even though you may want to impress potential funders.
How will you make the sale, and who will do it? Are you selling a product directly to users through a website? Will you bring your merchandise to retailers for them to sell? Are you doing the selling yourself or will you have a sales force? If you have salespeople, will they be paid a straight salary or commission? If you have a service business, where will you get your leads, and how will you follow up? Perhaps you’ll offer an incentive program to current customers for referrals. Describe the sales effort in your plan.
If you offer different product lines or services, you may need a separate strategy for each. Similarly, if you’re selling to different segments of the market, you shouldn’t rely on the same approach to sell everyone. Selling at a craft fair is quite different than setting up a website or offering your product through ebay.com or etsy.com.
Detail whichever approaches you’ve decided on and spell out how you’ll proceed, including any sales quotas you may have established.
Get specific about the numbers you’re looking to achieve over a specific time period. Not only will investors want to see that, it’s an important way for you to know if you’re meeting your targets so you can make any necessary adjustments along the way.
Once you’ve established yourself, how will you continue to expand? This covers both your internal growth as a company, such as how you’ll increase your staff, and how you’ll grow beyond your current boundaries, such as buying another business or setting up franchises, if that’s applicable. Will you grow by offering a wider range of products and services? Perhaps you’ll expand by offering your current goods to a wider audience.
Perhaps more than any other section of your business plan, the Sales and Marketing section will act as your playbook for the actual running of your company , so think it through very carefully and use it!
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A marketing plan is a document that lays out the marketing efforts of a business in an upcoming period, which is usually a year. It outlines the marketing strategy, promotional, and advertising activities planned for the period.
A marketing plan will typically include the following elements:
Marketing objectives of the business : The objectives should be attainable and measurable – two goals associated with SMART, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
Current business marketing positioning : An analysis of the current state of the organization concerning its marketing positioning.
Market research : Detailed research about current market trends, customer needs, industry sales volumes, and expected direction.
Outline of the business target market : Business target market demographics.
Marketing activities : A list of any actions concerning marketing goals that are scheduled for the period and the indicated timelines.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) to be tracked
Marketing mix : A combination of factors that may influence customers to purchase products. It should be appropriate for the organization and will largely be centered on the 4Ps of marketing – i.e., product, price, promotion, and place.
Competition : Identify the organization’s competitors and their strategies, along with ways to counter competition and gain market share .
Marketing strategies : The development of marketing strategies to be employed in the coming period. These strategies will include promotional strategies, advertising, and other marketing tools at the disposal of the organization.
Marketing budget : A detailed outline of the organization’s allocation of financial resources to marketing activities. The activities will need to be carried out within the marketing budget .
Monitoring and performance mechanism : A plan should be in place to identify if the marketing tools in place are bearing fruit or need to be revised based on the past, current, and expected future state of the organization, industry, and the overall business environment.
A marketing plan should observe the 80:20 rule – i.e., for maximum impact, it should focus on the 20% of products and services that account for 80% of volumes and the 20% of customers that bring in 80% of revenue.
The purpose of a marketing plan includes the following:
The structure of a marketing plan can include the following sections:
This section outlines the expected outcome of the marketing plan with clear, concise, realistic, and attainable objectives. It contains specific targets and time frames.
Metrics, such as target market share, the target number of customers to be attained, penetration rate, usage rate, sales volumes targeted, etc. should be used.
Market analysis includes topics such as market definition, market size, industry structure, market share and trends, and competitor analysis. Consumer analysis includes the target market demographics and what influences their buying decisions – e.g., loyalty, motivation, and expectations.
This defines the target customers by their demographic profile, such as gender, race, age, and psychographic profile, such as their interests. This will assist in the correct marketing mix for the target market segments.
A SWOT analysis will look at the organization’s internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats. SWOT analysis includes the following:
The marketing strategy section covers actual strategies to be included according to the marketing mix. The strategy centers on the 8Ps of marketing. However, firms are also at liberty to use the traditional 4 P’s of marketing – product, price, place, and promotion. The 8 P’s are illustrated below.
The correct marketing mix is determined by the target market. The most expensive options are advertising, sales promotions, and PR campaigns. Networking and referrals are less costly.
Marketers also need to pay attention to digital marketing strategies that make use of technology to reach a wider market and have also proven to be cost-effective.
Digital marketing channels, which became popular in the early 21 st century, may eventually overtake traditional marketing methods. Digital marketing encompasses trending methods, such as the use of social media for business.
Other strategies within the marketing strategy include pricing and positioning strategy, distribution strategy, conversion strategy, and retention strategy.
The marketing budget or projection outlines the budgeted expenditure for the marketing activities documented in the marketing plan. The marketing budget consists of revenues and costs stated in the marketing plan in one document.
It balances expenditures on marketing activities and what the organization can afford. It’s a financial plan of marketing activities to be carried out – e.g., promotional activities, cost of marketing materials and advertising, and so on. Other considerations include expected product volume and price, production and delivery costs, and operating and financing costs.
The effectiveness of the marketing plan depends on the budget allocated for marketing expenditure. The cost of marketing should be able to make the company break even and make profits.
Performance analysis aims to look at the variances of metrics or components documented in the marketing plan. These include:
Revenue variance analysis : An analysis of positive or negative variance of revenue. A negative variance is worrisome, and reasons should be available to explain the cause of deviations.
Market share analysis : An analysis of whether the organization attained its target market share. Sales may be increasing whilst the organization’s share of the market is decreasing; hence, it is paramount to track this metric.
Expense analysis : An analysis of marketing expense to sales ratio . This ratio needs to be compared to industry standards to make informed comparisons.
The ratio enables the organization to track actual expenditures versus the budget. It is also compared to other metrics, such as revenue analysis and market share analysis. It can be dissected into individual expenditures to sales to get a clearer picture.
The marketing plan should be revised and adapted to changes in the environment periodically. The use of metrics, budgets, and schedules to measure progress towards the goals set in the marketing plan is a continuous process by marketing personnel.
There should be a continuous assessment to verify that the goals of the marketing plan are being achieved. The marketing manager should be able to review if the strategies documented are being effective, given the operating environment.
It is irrational for the marketing manager to notice anomalies and wait to review at year-end when the situation might have already deteriorated.
Changes in the environment may necessitate a review of plans, projections, strategies, and targets. Therefore, a formal periodical review – such as monthly or quarterly – may need to be in place. This may mean preparing an annual marketing plan but reviewing the plan quarterly to keep targets and plans aligned closely to environmental changes. It goes without saying that plans are as good as their feasibility to succeed in the given environment.
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12 min. read
Updated April 10, 2024
When starting a business, having a well-thought-out business plan prepared is necessary for success . It helps guide your strategy and prepares you to overcome the obstacles and risks associated with entrepreneurship. In short, a business plan makes you more likely to succeed.
However, like everything in business, starting is often the hardest part. What information do you need? How in-depth should each section be? How should the plan be structured?
All good questions that you can answer by following this business plan outline.
A business plan outline is similar to most business plan templates . It lists the common sections that all business plans should include.
A traditional business plan typically includes an executive summary, an overview of your products and services, thorough market research, a competitive analysis, a marketing and sales strategy, operational and company details, financial projections, and an appendix.
Starting with a business plan outline helps ensure that you’re including all of the necessary information for a complete business plan.
But, depending on what you intend to do with your plan, you may not need all of this information right away. If you’re going to speak with investors or pursue funding, then yes, you’ll need to include everything from this outline.
But, if you’re using your plan to test an idea or help run your business, you may want to opt for a one-page plan . This is a simpler and faster method that is designed to be updated and used day-to-day.
If you’re unsure of which plan is right for you, check out our guide explaining the differences and use cases for each plan type .
No matter the type of business plan you create, these are the ten basic sections you should include. Be sure to download your free business plan template to start drafting your own plan as you work through this outline.
While it may appear first, it’s best to write your executive summary last. It’s a brief section that highlights the high-level points you’ve made elsewhere in your business plan.
Summarize the problem you are solving for customers, your solution, the target market, your team that’s building the business, and financial forecast highlights. Keep things as brief as possible and entice your audience to learn more about your company.
Keep in mind, this is the first impression your plan and business will make. After looking over your executive summary, your reader is either going to throw your business plan away or keep reading. So make sure you spend the time to get it just right.
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Start the products and services section of your business plan by describing the problem you are solving for your customer. Next, describe how you solve that problem with your product or service.
If you’ve already made some headway selling your solution, detail that progress here—this is called “traction”. You can also describe any intellectual property or patents that you have if that’s an important part of your business.
You need to know your target market —the types of customers you are looking for—and how it’s changing.
Use the market analysis section of your business plan to discuss the size of your market—how many potential customers exist for your business—and if your potential customers can be segmented into different groups, such as age groups or some other demographic.
Describe your competition in this section. If you don’t have any direct competitors, describe what your customers currently do to solve the problem that your product fixes.
If you have direct competition, detail what your strengths and weaknesses are in comparison, and how you’ll differentiate from what is already available.
Use this business plan section to outline your marketing and sales plan —how you’ll reach your target customers and what the process will be for selling to them.
You’ll want to cover your market position, marketing activities, sales channels, and your pricing strategy. This will likely evolve over time, but it’s best to include anything that clearly details how you will sell and promote your products and services.
What’s included in the operations section really depends on the type of business you are planning for. If your business has a physical location or other facilities, you’ll want to describe them here. If your business relies heavily on technology or specific equipment or tools, you should describe that technology or equipment here.
You can also use this section to describe your supply chain if that’s an important aspect of your business.
In a business, milestones are important goals that you are setting for your business. They may be important launch dates, or a timeline of when you’ll get regulatory approval—if that’s something you need for your business. Use this section of your plan to describe those milestones and the roadmap you are planning to follow.
You can also describe important metrics for your business, such as the number of sales leads you expect to get each month or the percentage of leads that will become customers.
The company and team section of your plan is an overview of who you are.
It should describe the organization of your business, and the key members of the management team. It should also provide any historical background about your business. For example, you’ll describe when your company was founded, who the owners are, what state your company is registered in and where you do business, and when/if your company was incorporated.
Be sure to include summaries of your key team members’ backgrounds and experience—these should act like brief resumes—and describe their functions with the company. You should also include any professional gaps you intend to fill with new employees.
Your financial plan should include a sales forecast, profit and loss, cash flow projections, and balance sheet, along with a brief description of the assumptions you’re making with your projections.
If you are raising money or taking out loans, you should highlight the money you need to launch the business. This part should also include a use of funds report—basically an overview of how the funding will be used in business operations.
And while it’s not required, it may be wise to briefly mention your exit strategy . This doesn’t need to be overly detailed, just a general idea of how you may eventually want to exit your business.
The end of your business plan should include any additional information to back up specific elements of your plan. More detailed financial statements, resumes for your management team, patent documentation, credit histories, marketing examples, etc.
If you’re looking for greater insight into what goes into specific planning sections, check out the following outline for a business plan. It can help you develop a detailed business plan or provide guidance as to what may be missing from your current plan.
Keep in mind that every business plan will look a bit different because every business is unique. After all, business planning is to help you be more successful, so focus on the sections that are most beneficial to your business and skip the sections that aren’t useful or don’t apply.
To help, we’ve marked sections that are truly optional with an *.
Company purpose / mission statement.
A very brief description of what your business does and/or what its mission is.
A summary of the problem you are solving and an identifiable need in the market you are filling.
A description of the product or service you will provide to solve the problem.
A defined customer base who will most likely purchase the product or service.
Briefly describe who is behind the business.
A short overview of revenue goals and profitability timeline.
If you’ve already started selling your product or service, highlight important initial details here.
If you are raising money for your business, describe how much capital you need.
Problem worth solving.
A thorough description of the problem or pain points you intend to solve for your customer base.
A thorough description of your proposed product or service that alleviates the problem for your customer base.
Describe any initial evidence that your customers are excited to spend money on your solution. Initial sales or signed contracts are good signs.
If this is important for your business, outline it here.
If government approval is required for your business, explain the details and timeline.
What products and services might you offer in the future once your initial products and services are successful?
How many potential customers do you have and what potential groups of customers are separated by specific characteristics?
How consumers in your target market tend to act including purchasing habits, financial trends, and any other relevant factors.
The perceived potential increase or decrease in the size of your target market.
If your industry is changing or adjusting over time, describe those changes.
If your business relies on certain important customers, describe who they are here.
A snapshot of the potential market based on the last few sections and how your business strategy works within it.
Current alternatives.
A list of potential competitors. Identifying the competition isn’t always obvious and it may take some digging on your part.
The strategic advantage(s) that makes your target market more likely to choose you over the competition.
If there’s anything that makes it more difficult for other people to start competing with you, describe those barriers.
Market positioning.
Where do your products or services fit into the market? Are you the low-price leader or the premium option?
What’s special about your offering that makes your customers want to choose it over the competition.
An outline of your marketing and advertising strategy including costs, advertising channels, and goals.
How do you sell your product or service? Self-serve or with a team of sales representatives?
Describe your pricing and how it compares to alternatives in the market.
Describe how your product gets in front of customers. Are you selling in stores and online? Which retailers?
Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
If you have a physical presence, describe where and what it is.
What technology is crucial for your business success?
If special equipment or tools are needed for your business, describe them here.
If you purchase your products or parts for your products from somewhere else, describe that sourcing and supply chain.
If you have key partners that you work with to make your business a success, describe who they are and what services or products they provide.
A detailed roadmap of specific goals and objectives you plan to achieve will help you manage and steer your business.
Performance measurements that help you gauge the overall performance and health of your business.
Organizational structure.
An overview of the legal structure of your business.
A summary of your company’s history and how it relates to planning your business.
The team that is starting or running your business and why they are uniquely qualified to make the business a success.
Key positions that your business will need to fill to make it successful.
Projected profit and loss.
How much money you will bring in by selling products and/or services and how much profit you will make or lose after accounting for costs and expenses.
How and when cash moves in and out of your business. This also includes your overall cash position.
Expected balances for business assets, liabilities, and equity.
If you are raising money either through loans or investment, explain how funds will be used. This is typically meant to be shared with investors or lenders.
A brief explanation of how you intend to eventually exit from your business. This could include selling the business, going public, transitioning the business to a family member/employee, etc.
A repository for any additional information, including charts and graphs, to support your business plan.
Business plan outline FAQ
How do you organize your business plan?
There’s no real established order to business plans, aside from keeping the Executive Summary at the top. As long as you have all of the main business plan components, then the order should reflect your goals.
If this is meant solely for your personal use, lay it out as a roadmap with similar sections grouped together for easy reference. If you’re pitching this to potential investors, lead with the stronger sections to emphasize the pitch. Then if you’re unsure of what order makes sense, then just stick to the outline in this article.
Should you include tables and charts in your business plan?
Every business plan should include bar charts and pie charts to illustrate the numbers. It’s a simple way for you, your team, and investors to visualize and digest complex financial information.
Cash flow is the single most important numerical analysis in a business plan, and a standard cash flow statement or table should never be missing. Most standard business plans also include a sales forecast and income statement (also called profit and loss), and a balance sheet.
How long should your business plan be?
There’s no perfect length for a business plan. A traditional business plan can be anywhere from 10 to 50 pages long depending on how much detail you include in each section. However, as we said before unless you intend to pursue funding, you likely don’t need a lengthy business plan at first.
Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software , a co-founder of Borland International, and a recognized expert in business planning. He has an MBA from Stanford and degrees with honors from the University of Oregon and the University of Notre Dame. Today, Tim dedicates most of his time to blogging, teaching and evangelizing for business planning.
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The Business Plan and the Importance of Defining Your Target Market
Susan Ward wrote about small businesses for The Balance for 18 years. She has run an IT consulting firm and designed and presented courses on how to promote small businesses.
Polling your target market, writing the market analysis, online tools for market research, u.s. online market research sources, canadian online market research, local sources of market research, doing your own market research.
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The market analysis is basically the target market section of your business plan . It is a thorough examination of the ideal people to whom you intend to sell your products or services.
Even if you intend on selling a product or service only in your community, you won't be selling that service to everyone who lives there. Knowing exactly what type(s) of people might be interested in buying your product or service and how many of them reside in your projected area or region is fundamental in creating your market analysis.
Once target market data has been established, you'll also work on sales projections within specific time frames, as well as how prospective sales might be affected by trends and policies.
Research is key and cornerstone of any solid business plan .
Don't skip market research; otherwise, you could end up starting a business that doesn't have a paying market.
Use these general terms as linchpins in research data for the market analysis section of your business plan, and to identify your target market:
What age range are you catering products/services to? Kids? Adults? Seniors? Gen X? Millennials? | |
Are you targeting men, women, or both sexes? | |
Are your target customers married or single, or divorced? | |
What is their family structure (number of children, extended family, etc.)? | |
Where do they live? Are you selling locally? Regionally, nationally, or internationally? | |
How much education do they have? | |
What is their income? | |
What do they do for a living? | |
Are they members of a particular religious group? | |
Are they members of a particular language group? | |
What is their lifestyle like? | |
What motivates them? | |
What is the size of the target market? |
But don't stop here. To succinctly define your target market, poll or survey members of your prospective clients or customers to ask specific questions directly related to your products or services. For instance, if you plan to sell computer-related services, ask questions relating to the number of computing devices your prospective customers own and how often they require servicing. If you plan on selling garden furniture and accessories, ask what kinds of garden furniture or accessories your potential customers have bought in the past, how often, and what they expect to buy within the next one, three, and five years.
Answers to these and other questions related to your market are to help you understand your market potential.
The goal of the information you collect is to help you project how much of your product or service you'll be able to sell. Review these important questions you need to try to answer using the data you collect:
One purpose of the market analysis is to ensure you have a viable business idea.
Use your market research to make sure people don't just like your business idea, but they're also willing to pay for it.
If you have information suggesting that you have a large enough market to sustain your business goals, write the market analysis in the form of several short paragraphs using appropriate headings for each. If you have several target markets, you may want to number each.
Sections of your market analysis should include:
Remember to properly cite your sources of information within the body of your market analysis as you write it. You and other readers of your business plan, such as potential investors, will need to know the sources of the statistics or opinions that you've gathered.
There are several online resources to learn if your business idea is something worth pursing, including:
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has information on doing your market research and analysis , as well as a list of free small business data and trends resources you can use to conduct your research. Consider these sources for data collection:
The Government of Canada offers a guide on doing market research and tips for understanding the data you collect. Canadian data resources include:
There are also a great many local resources for building target market information to explore, including:
All of these will have information helpful in defining your target market and providing insights into trends.
The above resources are secondary sources of information, in which others have collected and compiled the data. To get specific information about your business, consider conducting your own market research . For instance, you might want to design a questionnaire and survey your target market to learn more about their habits and preferences relating to your product or service.
Market research is time-consuming but is an important step in affording your business plan validity. If you don't have the time or the research skills to thoroughly define your target market yourself, hiring a person or firm to do the research for you can be a wise investment.
Small Business Administration. " Market Research and Competitive Analysis. " Accessed Jan. 13, 2020.
The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Marketing Plan. Get our marketing plan template for FREE + Budget plan + Calculators + best marketing toolkit for 2024.
Rakefet is the CMO at Mayple. She manages all things marketing and leads our community of experts through live events, workshops, and expert interviews. MBA, 1 dog + 2 cats, and has an extensive collection of Chinese teas.
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Natalie is a content writer and manager who is passionate about using her craft to empower others. She thrives on team dynamic, great coffee, and excellent content. One of these days, she might even get to her own content ideas.
Updated May 1, 2024.
It takes time to build a marketing plan and it will change anyway, right? 100%. But creating your digital marketing plan is worth every minute of your time. If you build a business without a marketing plan, it’s like constructing a house without a blueprint. And you need a really good marketing plan template to get you on the right track.
Before we give out all the information and knowledge you need to create your winning marketing plan, let's start by giving you a FREE Digital Marketing Plan Template for 2024 . This is a great example of a great marketing plan that looks snazzy, too 😉.
Click on the image below, and make your own copy or download it to start using this template today.
Now that you have your marketing plan template, let's go over some basics before diving into more advanced aspects of marketing planning.
A marketing plan is a document that details how you're going to execute your strategy. It's written for a specific period of time and explains both your current situation and your future plans.
A marketing plan may be part of an overall business plan. A solid online marketing strategy is the foundation of a well-written marketing plan. While a marketing plan contains a list of actions, without a sound strategic foundation, it is of little use to a business. It has to have a set of concrete tasks and marketing tactics to follow.
There are a ton of reasons why every brand and marketing team needs a good marketing plan.
Here are the top 3 reasons:
When you have specific goals to achieve you can plan your way to achieve them. Having too general goals like "growing my business" VS. measurable KPIs like "I want to grow my revenue by $600K, and to do that I need 1,000 new customers" is different.
Actual KPIs can help you plan exactly what will get you there. We recommend you set up some SMART goals - which stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-framed.
Marketing without focus can be very messy and super ineffective. Have you ever tried to run a company meeting without an agenda? Just like meetings, marketing needs focus.
The best tip we can give you is to focus on specific activities and have them done well. A digital marketing plan will help you focus on exactly the tasks that will impact your success.
Of course, things will change and your plan will change as well. But as long as you are using a good marketing plan outline you will have your next month’s tasks written down and your work will become that much more effective.
The purpose of a marketing plan is to ensure that marketing activities are relevant and timely to achieve the organization's business objectives. It's a plan defining a sustainable competitive position and defining the resources necessary to achieve it.
Now that you know what a marketing plan is and what’s used for let’s talk about the key components that it’s built out of.
A good marketing plan should have the following parts -
And as a bonus we’ve added two more sections:
11. BONUS: How to assemble the right marketing team 12. BONUS: Top tools for marketing plan creation & design
Each of these key elements is vital for the right execution of your marketing strategy and I promise you it’s not as difficult as it looks.
Let’s dive in.
This might seem a little too formal for some marketers out there but it’s essential and I’ll explain why.
Marketing plans tend to get really long so it’s better to create a quick summary and highlight some of the key points of every aspect of your plan right at the beginning. This becomes the foundation of your marketing plan.
There is no set length for an executive summary but it should cover all of the main elements of your marketing plan. It should also quickly tell your story and highlight what you are trying to achieve. Add your KPIs, marketing channels, market strategy, and budget.
A good executive summary should give a quick taste of the entire plan and entice the reader (investor, upper management, CEO, etc) to read the rest.
Here’s a great 2-minute video from Hubspot that shows how to write an executive summary from start to finish.
The next section of the marketing plan has to do with your “why”.
A good mission should have 3 critical components -
The key is to keep it precise, short, and powerful. Don’t write a long essay, don’t just throw a bunch of jargon around, and do get some input from the employees at the company.
Employee feedback on this is critical because marketing and sales activities have to align with the mission of the company so all the various teams in the business have to be in agreement on the general mission.
The worst thing you can do is have a mission that has no direct correlation to the actual activities or tasks. Such a mission won’t help you grow your business .
What’s the difference between the company vision and its mission?
The vision is like the why, the overarching goal and foundation of the company. The company’s mission includes the vision and adds to it the actions and activities that the company will do to help advance its vision. Here’s a great video by Simon Sinek that explains this concept.
Now let’s talk about how you are going to go about achieving that mission.
The first step is to understand the market and your particular industry.
Have you ever seen the TV show Shark Tank?
The first part of any pitch is a personal story and a quick description of the founders’ “why”. This is where you can find the vision and mission of the company.
Next, they almost always mention the size of the market and they quantify the opportunity that they are presenting to the sharks.
This is exactly what a market analysis is.
A market analysis is a quantitative and qualitative assessment of a market. It looks at the size of the market in terms of the value ($) and volume (quantity of product sold) and often highlights some of the latest trends or environmental conditions that define the opportunity cost.
So how do we do this?
A great way to structure this is by using the SWOT analysis technique.
What is a SWOT analysis?
A common marketing framework that can help you create a good marketing analysis is called the SWOT framework . It stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats .
Strengths - what is your company really good at? what makes you unique? what unique advantages do you have over your competition? What is your value proposition? What are some of the key resources, processes, and capabilities that your company has?
Weaknesses - what are the weakest points of the business? What are some of the areas in which you could improve on? What is your company lacking compared to your competitors?
Opportunities - what are the biggest trends in the market that could give your company an edge or an advantage? These could be demographic patterns, lifestyle choices, population dynamics, or governmental regulatory policies.
Threats - what are some of the external factors in the market that could negatively impact your business? What are some environmental factors that you should be aware of? What are some possible changes that could threaten your business performance and success?
Pro tip: Want to do your own SWOT analysis? Get our Marketing SWOT Analysis Template .
The next vital step is to understand your competition and what the competitive landscape looks like in your industry or niche.
The main questions your competitive analysis should answer are:
Here’s one of my favorite competitive analysis frameworks from the renowned Myk Pono:
Now that you’ve completed your competitive analysis it’s time to zero in on your ideal customer.
The best way to create target personas for any brand is by creating a customer journey map. A customer journey map is a visual representation of all the various touchpoints that your brand has with a prospective customer.
This is a critical part of creating your marketing strategy.
Google introduced the moment of truth concept and this really relates to our discussion of marketing channels but it’s important to mention here as well.
Shoppers can find and interact with your brand through hundreds of channels, both online and brick-and-mortar. The Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) concepts represents that stage of the buyer’s journey that leads them to find your product or solution for their problem.
Identifying the specific problem that the customer is looking to solve is critical. This is how you define your persona and this is what ultimately affects the rest of your marketing decisions.
Here's a great buyer persona template from Hubspot to help you create better audience personas.
The first step when building a marketing plan is to understand and define which business goals are the plan aiming to achieve. Business and marketing should always go hand-in-hand - remember that. Questions you should answer are:
Pricing is often part of the market and competitive analysis sections but sometimes brands discuss it separately. It depends on how important price considerations are for your business and how competitive your market is. For example, if a major advantage in your business is that your product is priced significantly lower than your competition then a pricing strategy will play a key role in your marketing plan.
On the other hand, if you are a brand like Apple that is trading on the quality and its other features more than a price comparison, then your focus will be less on price.
There are 5 common pricing strategies:
This is when the price is solely based on the costs of the products. The company simply takes the cost it takes to produce the product or service and adds a markup.
This strategy is based on the perceived value of your product. So a great example here is a company like Apple that prices its products significantly higher than its competitors because of the perceived value they provide.
This is when a company sets a price based on what the competition is charging. A great example here is gas stations. Each gas station competes with the other stations on the block, trying to outbid the other.
This strategy involves setting a high price and then lowering it as the market evolves. A lot of tech products have a high price when they first launch in order to maximize profit and increased their perceived value.
Penetration pricing is the exact opposite of price skimming. It involves pricing a product really low at first in order to enter a competitive market, and then increasing the price slowly over time.
It's important to fit your pricing strategy to the specific customer segment that you are trying to reach. If you are markeing to the early adopters then price skimming will work. If you want to be adopted by the early or late majority then you may have to try penetration pricing.
You can always use customer feedback to get more data on this and make a better decision.
As you can see, there are a lot of different pricing strategies out there. Picking the right one for your business will depend on the previous steps in your marketing plan - the customer (or buyer) pain point, the market analysis, and the competitive analysis.
Your marketing budget plan depends on your business stage
Much like marketing goals and KPIs, your budget planning depends on your business lifecycle stage (are you a startup or an established brand). Normally, startups invest more in gaining market share and acquiring new customers, whereas established brands would invest more in retention and reputation.
Your niche is also a factor
Each industry has a different marketing structure and consumer behavior, so your niche defines your marketing budget allocation as well. eCommerce in a competitive niche like fashion, for example, will need ways to lower its CAC (customer-acquisition-cost) and upsell.
Spending tipping point
You can't expect that if you invested $20,000 and got 1,000 leads to keep the same proportion at $200. Every channel should have a different amount allocated to it based on the return on investment (ROI) and your profit margins.
So make sure you invest enough into each channel to move the needle. You can benchmark with other businesses in your niche, or use a rule-of-thumb by which at least 20% of your expected revenue should be invested in marketing.
Start planning your budget.
The first step when planning your marketing budget is to understand what are the growth channels that have worked for you so far and are part of your digital marketing strategy for the next year. According to each channel's effectiveness and cost, you can start allocating your monthly and yearly spend.
Questions you should answer for that are:
Now that you’ve identified what and how to spend your marketing dollars, it’s time to pick the marketing channels that you will be using to grow your business.
It's important to decide on the specific marketing mix that is best for your business. Social media platforms and other marketing channels have absolutely exploded in the last decade so you have a ton of channels to choose from.
Now, remember to have an authentic brand presence on every channel and only expand to ones that fit your brand strategy . Here are some of the top ones that you should consider for your marketing plan template:
Content marketing is very powerful for inbound marketing. Studies show that 60% of marketers create at least one piece of content per day and the year-over-year growth in traffic is 7.8X higher for content leaders.
Companies like Capterra and Quuu attribute their success to really good content.
Now, remember, content is a long-term game, short-term wins are very rare. You should create, design, and post content consistently and continue to optimize.
Social media is another powerful marketing aspect of any brand’s marketing strategy. It provides an opportunity for you to present your brand in a visual way through images and videos.
Studies show that 90.4% of Millennials, 77.5% of Generation X, and 48.2% of Baby Boomers are active social media users, so don’t ignore these platforms if your brand isn’t “sexy” enough.
The marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk has always said that brands in the construction or plumbing industries should absolutely post content and interact with their audience on social media. If you bring people value you will generate leads that will eventually convert into sales .
>> Want to get more engagement and traffic from social?
Email marketing has the highest ROI of any marketing channel. Studies show that marketers make $44 for every $1 they spend on email marketing. It’s 40X more effective than using social media to generate sales.
If you are a B2C company then this is an absolute must. You should be sending out weekly or biweekly campaigns, you should set up some automatic welcome and cart abandonment flows, and you should definitely set up some email automation for the customers that convert through a popup.
If you are primarily B2B you might think that email marketing is not as powerful for you but that is absolutely not the case. According to WordStream , 59% of B2B marketers say that this is the most effective way to generate sales.
Another great way to use this channel is for branding. For example, a lot of companies leveraged the global COVID pandemic to engage in new ways with their target customers. They used really creative ways to send really helpful and cheerful emails that helped lift people’s spirits.
Last but not least, there’s advertising. This is our specialty here at Mayple . We have over 1,500 talented ads experts that we match with the brands that we work with. Advertising is an important aspect of your marketing strategy that you should absolutely have on your digital marketing plan template.
There are several ways you could utilize advertising as a marketing channel .
First, there is social advertising. You could advertise on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Quora. Then there are Google Ads that come in the form of PPC or you could use a tool like Taboola or Outbrain to leverage Google’s Display Network.
You could also retarget your site visitors using ads on any of these networks. This type of advertising is particularly effective and we recommend it to all the brands that we work with.
Now let’s talk about your marketing or growth strategy.
After you’ve set your marketing goals, KPIs, and budget, it's time to plan your marketing activities for this year! Ready? 💪
After you figured out what are the channels you're going to invest in, the marketing plan should show all the activities you're going to run under each growth channel.
Here are some examples you can use:
To plan and design your paid campaigns correctly you should know what are the most effective channels you are going to start using and to build a marketing funnel that shows you when are you going to advertise to "first-touch" prospects (people that don't know you yet) and what will remarketing prospects will want to see in order to be persuaded to take the next move.
Now, plan the marketing activities for each of your marketing funnel stages (from the awareness stage to the decision stage) and prospects' journeys from the setup stage to the live campaign stage. You can also add special events and design seasonal promotions in your paid campaigns such as sales season and other special occasions.
Content marketing is all about connecting with your customer base and potential buyers at every level of the funnel. An effective content distribution strategy should take into consideration the types of content you want to publish and the ideal distribution channels for your potential customers at each stage of the marketing funnel.
Another important thing to remember about content is consistency.
Don't plan your content on social channels if you won't have the resources to be consistent with your posting. It's better to focus on fewer things and do them well. Content can include any valuable engagement you have with your audience, whether it's on your Facebook, on a blog post, or in your email marketing .
Some of your content efforts will be ongoing (for example, SEO) and some will be building assets for future use (for example, Video).
Ok, so we’ve covered all the aspects of an effective marketing plan.
Now let’s talk about the type of expertise you will need to assemble to execute your strategy.
As we all know, marketing management can be lonely (at every size of business by the way), so a crucial factor in your marketing success is building a good team to execute your marketing plan. It can be an in-house team, a team of experts you hire, or as in most cases, a hybrid of in-house employees combined with marketing service providers ( agencies or freelancers).
Here are the three top elements of a really effective marketing team.
I'll start by saying a good marketing team depends first and foremost on its leader (Yeah, that's you!). When you choose the right people and know how to manage them right, your success rates are already good. At the end of the day, good marketing starts with a good strategy, continues with a reasonable plan, and depends on great execution.
Your strategy and plan require specific human capabilities so they will be executed well. If you're planning on running paid media campaigns, you better start your year with an expert on your team that knows the job and that you can count on to deliver on your expectations.
To decide whether to hire an in-house employee or a service provider, you should consider two things:
In my experience, experienced marketing professionals either demand very high salaries or work independently / in small agencies (for example ecommerce SEO agencies ).
We're back talking about your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and so should you in every marketing decision you make. After you made sure you have all the needed resources in terms of human talent to get your plan running, you'll need to keep tracking, measuring, and motivating them to be focused on achieving your goals and KPIs.
Not an easy task, especially when you need to measure both in-house employees and service providers. It’s important to understand what KPIs are relevant to each of your team members, and how to run these tracking sessions in a way that will bring everyone together to achieving better results for your business.
Questions to ask a
Questions to assess their experience, with respect to your unique business requirements:
Questions that assess their ability to build the campaign strategy you need:
Questions about reporting and KPIs - clear expectations!
Excellent. You now know how to assemble your marketing team.
And you might be asking yourself, how do I write this marketing plan? It’s going to take me ages! There is so much research that goes into it, do I have to do it all manually?
The answer is no way! There are a ton of marketing tools & software that can help you create your actionable marketing plan way faster.
Here are a few.
Here are some of the top marketing tools to use to create your marketing plan.
There are numerous tools to use to obtain all the market research and business analytics for your marketing plan.
Alexa is a great tool to get insights into your market and your competitors. It has some really great advanced features that can show you your site demographics, where your traffic comes from, and the traffic sources of your competitors.
Similarweb is another great tool for research. It’s like Alexa in that it has some very similar features but has more reporting capability, and has other metrics like geography, referring sites, and SEO metrics.
Ahrefs is one of the top SEO tools out there. It can give you some of the most sophisticated information about the types of backlinks you or your competitors have, search engine rankings, and much more.
Basecamp is a great tool for team collaboration. You can use it to message your team, store and organize project files efficiently, and work better with your team. There are so many data points to gather for your marketing plan and you will need to collaborate with multiple teams in your company.
Slack is another great tool for team collaboration. Though it’s more focused on communication it does provide a great way to store information and collaborate with co-workers (and it has a slick design and an easy-to-use interface).
Speaking of design, let’s talk about visual design tools and software for your marketing plan.
This is a great design tool for making charts. They have a really easy-to-use drag and drop design interface that allows you to create fancy charts and diagrams for your marketing plan in minutes.
Canva is a great design tool for all kinds of design projects. It has a wide range of features that you could use to design amazing graphics and download them for your marketing plan.
There are so many areas of digital marketing and if you want to be really efficient you should make a plan for each one. The best way to learn is from the experts so let’s look at some of the best sample marketing plans. You can download any of these or save a copy for yourself.
This is a really great plan for your content. It breaks down every process from discovering your ideal customers, to creating their buyer persona, finding the main challenges that your content could solve, and so on. This is a really in-depth guide designed for any content marketing out there.
Here’s another really great marketing plan example. This one looks really old school, so if you are a visual learner this one is probably not for you. But if you want to see a really well-written explanation of every section of a traditional marketing plan, you will get a lot of this example. Download it and fill it out, you will get a lot of value out of it.
Ok, if that wasn’t simple enough for you, here’s a quick one-page cheat sheet that you can use to quickly summarize your entire marketing plan. This one is really useful for a quick brainstorming session, especially when working with a remote team.
Sumo has some incredible marketing plan templates. I used one of their templates to grow an Instagram account from 0-30k subscribers in 18 months. And here they strike again with a super-specific template & strategy on how to take your blog traffic to 10,000 visits in just 12 weeks.
Speaking of content, let’s talk about video.
Creating a video strategy for a brand can be a pretty complex task. You have a bunch of teams, a variety of factors to consider, and it can become a big mess pretty quickly. So, if you want to create a strategic marketing plan template for a specific project like that, then use this infographic template from Visme to display everything and make it all really easy for the whole team to follow.
This format is especially powerful when you’ve hired a digital marketing consultant because that’s when things can get a little unclear. So organizing every project into a quick infographic can provide a really great way to keep everyone organized.
An email list is one of the most powerful tools any business has. It’s really hard to grow your list and keep subscribers engaged. Here’s a great marketing plan example for growing a list to over 1,500 new subscribers in 12 weeks.
Here’s a great email marketing planning template from Hubspot that helps you create better emails. Hubspot is an incredible software product for any brand and they make incredible templates and guides on virtually every aspect of digital marketing. This template in particular has 3 parts - email planning, analytics, and A/B testing.
We’ve been focusing more and more on eCommerce businesses recently, and you can learn all about it in our eCommerce marketing guide . Here’s an example of a marketing plan that takes you through all the steps of growing your eCommerce revenue in 12 weeks.
Here’s another great marketing plan example from Drip. This one is a broad overview of each section and has some additional tracking info to fill out, that the other plans didn’t cover. It’s a quick and easy one.
This is something that we get asked often. Sometimes a marketing manager or brand owner doesn’t want to design a whole new marketing plan from scratch, but only wants to focus on their social media.
How do you go about creating a social media marketing plan ?
Here’s a high-level overview of how to go about it.
We’ve spoken about this at the beginning of this article, and it’s super crucial that any kind of plan starts with some goals that make sense.
SMART stands for -
Here’s an example of a vague goal:
-We will increase our blog traffic to 100k monthly uniques.
Here’s how you turn that into a SMART goal:
- We will increase our blog traffic by 10% each month for the next 12 months by increasing all of our posts to 3,000 words and optimizing on-page content.
Did you notice how I set a deadline on that SMART goal?
T stands for time-bound and deadlines are absolutely crucial.
It’s time to narrow down who your ideal customer is.
First, start by looking at your data on Google Analytics or any other tool you’re using. Find out as much information on your audience as you can.
This could include:
4. analyze your social data.
Now that you know what your competitors are doing, compare that to where you are holding with your current marketing efforts.
Look at the following things on each channel:
Next, choose the right social media platforms for your business. Decide which ones you want to use and for what purposes. It could be that one channel you could use for impressions, and on the other one, you really care about the engagement.
Here’s what we do at Mayple:
You might find that Pinterest is a perfect platform to get traffic, while Instagram is primarily for sales. It totally depends on the industry, design, content format, and type of business you have.
Now that you’ve decided on the channels you’re going after, look at some of the best social media posts for your niche and make an inspiration wall for yourself.
Look for posts or videos that catch your eye, designs, color schemes & messaging that would work well for your content.
Next, decide on the exact types and formats of your posts.
Here are a few post formats you could pick from:
I recommend deciding on 4-5 formats and testing them out for a few weeks.
Now it’s time to put it all together into one calendar.
Use a scheduling app like eClincher , Sendible , CoSchedule , or Later .
They all have different features, so find something that fits your needs and budget.
Once you upload all of your posts into one calendar you can see it all visually, and see your post frequency for each platform.
Are you excited? It’s time to launch this thing!
Launch your posts for the next 1-2 months and see how they do. After 2 months, re-evaluate your progress, and double down on the posts that did really well.
Take out the posts that didn’t do so well.
Continue optimizing as you go along.
Here are a few of our favorite social media plan templates. You can use these to plan your calendar, to better optimize your strategy, and to rock out like the top brands out there.
This template is a really great general for all of your needs. They have a separate tab for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Pinterest. Each tab is divided into a grid for all your accounts, performance, audience, goals, and even a SWOT analysis. These guys cover it all!
Get it ->
We’ve covered pretty much everything you need to know about how to plan, create, and design your digital marketing plan. Your plan should be the basis for all of the marketing initiatives of your marketing department. It should serve as the guideline for creative marketing material, setting up your campaigns, and your plan of action.
We’ve already created a really effective marketing plan template, which you can get - here .
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Use this free business plan template to write your business plan quickly and efficiently.
A good business plan is essential to successfully starting your business — and the easiest way to simplify the work of writing a business plan is to start with a business plan template.
You’re already investing time and energy in refining your business model and planning your launch—there’s no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to writing a business plan. Instead, to help build a complete and effective plan, lean on time-tested structures created by other entrepreneurs and startups.
Ahead, learn what it takes to create a solid business plan and download Shopify's free business plan template to get started on your dream today.
This business plan outline is designed to ensure you’re thinking through all of the important facets of starting a new business. It’s intended to help new business owners and entrepreneurs consider the full scope of running a business and identify functional areas they may not have considered or where they may need to level up their skills as they grow.
That said, it may not include the specific details or structure preferred by a potential investor or lender. If your goal with a business plan is to secure funding , check with your target organizations—typically banks or investors—to see if they have business plan templates you can follow to maximize your chances of success.
Our free business plan template includes seven key elements typically found in the traditional business plan format:
This is a one-page summary of your whole plan, typically written after the rest of the plan is completed. The description section of your executive summary will also cover your management team, business objectives and strategy, and other background information about the brand.
This section of your business plan will answer two fundamental questions: “Who are you?” and “What do you plan to do?” Answering these questions clarifies why your company exists, what sets it apart from others, and why it’s a good investment opportunity. This section will detail the reasons for your business’s existence, its goals, and its guiding principles.
What you sell and the most important features of your products or services. It also includes any plans for intellectual property, like patent filings or copyright. If you do market research for new product lines, it will show up in this section of your business plan.
This section includes everything from estimated market size to your target markets and competitive advantage. It’ll include a competitive analysis of your industry to address competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. Market research is an important part of ensuring you have a viable idea.
How you intend to get the word out about your business, and what strategic decisions you’ve made about things like your pricing strategy. It also covers potential customers’ demographics, your sales plan, and your metrics and milestones for success.
Everything that needs to happen to turn your raw materials into products and get them into the hands of your customers.
It’s important to include a look at your financial projections, including both revenue and expense projections. This section includes templates for three key financial statements: an income statement, a balance sheet, and a cash-flow statement . You can also include whether or not you need a business loan and how much you’ll need.
What do financial projections look like on paper? How do you write an executive summary? What should your company description include? Business plan examples can help answer some of these questions and transform your business idea into an actionable plan.
Inside our template, we’ve filled out a sample business plan featuring a fictional ecommerce business .
The sample is set up to help you get a sense of each section and understand how they apply to the planning and evaluation stages of a business plan. If you’re looking for funding, this example won’t be a complete or formal look at business plans, but it will give you a great place to start and notes about where to expand.
A lean business plan format is a shortened version of your more detailed business plan. It’s helpful when modifying your plan for a specific audience, like investors or new hires.
Also known as a one-page business plan, it includes only the most important, need-to-know information, such as:
💡 Tip: For a step-by-step guide to creating a lean business plan (including a sample business plan), read our guide on how to create a lean business plan .
It’s tempting to dive right into execution when you’re excited about a new business or side project, but taking the time to write a thorough business plan and get your thoughts on paper allows you to do a number of beneficial things:
A business plan can be as informal or formal as your situation calls for, but even if you’re a fan of the back-of-the-napkin approach to planning, there are some key benefits to starting your plan from an existing outline or simple business plan template.
A blank page can be intimidating to even the most seasoned writers. Using an established business planning process and template can help you get past the inertia of starting your business plan, and it allows you to skip the work of building an outline from scratch. You can always adjust a template to suit your needs.
If you’ve never sat through a business class, you might never have created a SWOT analysis or financial projections. Templates that offer guidance—in plain language—about how to fill in each section can help you navigate sometimes-daunting business jargon and create a complete and effective plan.
In some cases, you may not need to complete every section of a startup business plan template, but its initial structure shows you you’re choosing to omit a section as opposed to forgetting to include it in the first place.
There are some high-level strategic guidelines beyond the advice included in this free business plan template that can help you write an effective, complete plan while minimizing busywork.
If you’re writing a business plan for yourself in order to get clarity on your ideas and your industry as a whole, you may not need to include the same level of detail or polish you would with a business plan you want to send to potential investors. Knowing who will read your plan will help you decide how much time to spend on it.
Understanding the goals of your plan can help you set the right scope. If your goal is to use the plan as a roadmap for growth, you may invest more time in it than if your goal is to understand the competitive landscape of a new industry.
Writing a 10- to 15-page document can feel daunting, so try to tackle one section at a time. Select a couple of sections you feel most confident writing and start there—you can start on the next few sections once those are complete. Jot down bullet-point notes in each section before you start writing to organize your thoughts and streamline the writing process.
Planning is key to the financial success of any type of business , whether you’re a startup, non-profit, or corporation.
To make sure your efforts are focused on the highest-value parts of your own business planning, like clarifying your goals, setting a strategy, and understanding the target market and competitive landscape, lean on a business plan outline to handle the structure and format for you. Even if you eventually omit sections, you’ll save yourself time and energy by starting with a framework already in place.
What is the purpose of a business plan.
The purpose of your business plan is to describe a new business opportunity or an existing one. It clarifies the business strategy, marketing plan, financial forecasts, potential providers, and more information about the company.
If you need help writing a business plan, Shopify’s template is one of the most beginner-friendly options you’ll find. It’s comprehensive, well-written, and helps you fill out every section.
The five essential parts of a traditional business plan include:
There are several free templates for business plans for small business owners available online, including Shopify’s own version. Download a copy for your business.
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As an aspiring entrepreneur gearing up to start your own business , you likely know the importance of drafting a business plan. However, you might not be entirely sure where to begin or what specific details to include. That’s where examining business plan examples can be beneficial. Sample business plans serve as real-world templates to help you craft your own plan with confidence. They also provide insight into the key sections that make up a business plan, as well as demonstrate how to structure and present your ideas effectively.
To understand how to write a business plan, let’s study an example structured using a seven-part template. Here’s a quick overview of those parts:
In this section, you’ll find hypothetical and real-world examples of each aspect of a business plan to show you how the whole thing comes together.
Your executive summary offers a high-level overview of the rest of your business plan. You’ll want to include a brief description of your company, market research, competitor analysis, and financial information.
In this free business plan template, the executive summary is three paragraphs and occupies nearly half the page:
You might go more in-depth with your company description and include the following sections:
You can also repurpose your company description elsewhere, like on your About page, Instagram page, or other properties that ask for a boilerplate description of your business. Hair extensions brand Luxy Hair has a blurb on it’s About page that could easily be repurposed as a company description for its business plan.
Market analysis comprises research on product supply and demand, your target market, the competitive landscape, and industry trends. You might do a SWOT analysis to learn where you stand and identify market gaps that you could exploit to establish your footing. Here’s an example of a SWOT analysis for a hypothetical ecommerce business:
You’ll also want to run a competitive analysis as part of the market analysis component of your business plan. This will show you who you’re up against and give you ideas on how to gain an edge over the competition.
This part of your business plan describes your product or service, how it will be priced, and the ways it will compete against similar offerings in the market. Don’t go into too much detail here—a few lines are enough to introduce your item to the reader.
Potential investors will want to know how you’ll get the word out about your business. So it’s essential to build a marketing plan that highlights the promotion and customer acquisition strategies you’re planning to adopt.
Most marketing plans focus on the four Ps: product, price, place, and promotion. However, it’s easier when you break it down by the different marketing channels . Mention how you intend to promote your business using blogs, email, social media, and word-of-mouth marketing.
Here’s an example of a hypothetical marketing plan for a real estate website:
This section of your business plan provides information about your production, facilities, equipment, shipping and fulfillment, and inventory.
The financial plan (a.k.a. financial statement) offers a breakdown of your sales, revenue, expenses, profit, and other financial metrics. You’ll want to include all the numbers and concrete data to project your current and projected financial state.
In this business plan example, the financial statement for ecommerce brand Nature’s Candy includes forecasted revenue, expenses, and net profit in graphs.
It then goes deeper into the financials, citing:
You can use Shopify’s financial plan template to create your own income statement, cash-flow statement, and balance sheet.
A one-page business plan is a pared down version of a standard business plan that’s easy for potential investors and partners to understand. You’ll want to include all of these sections, but make sure they’re abbreviated and summarized:
A startup business plan is meant to secure outside funding for a new business. Typically, there’s a big focus on the financials, as well as other sections that help determine the viability of your business idea—market analysis, for example. Shopify has a great business plan template for startups that include all the below points:
Your internal business plan acts as the enforcer of your company’s vision. It reminds your team of the long-term objective and keeps them strategically aligned toward the same goal. Be sure to include:
A feasibility business plan is essentially a feasibility study that helps you evaluate whether your product or idea is worthy of a full business plan. Include the following sections:
A strategic (or growth) business plan lays out your long-term vision and goals. This means your predictions stretch further into the future, and you aim for greater growth and revenue. While crafting this document, you use all the parts of a usual business plan but add more to each one:
Now that you’re familiar with what’s included and how to format a business plan, let’s go over a few templates you can fill out or draw inspiration from.
Bplans’ free business plan template focuses a lot on the financial side of running a business. It has many pages just for your financial plan and statements. Once you fill it out, you’ll see exactly where your business stands financially and what you need to do to keep it on track or make it better.
PandaDoc’s free business plan template is detailed and guides you through every section, so you don’t have to figure everything out on your own. Filling it out, you’ll grasp the ins and outs of your business and how each part fits together. It’s also handy because it connects to PandaDoc’s e-signature for easy signing, ideal for businesses with partners or a board.
Miro’s Business Model Canvas Template helps you map out the essentials of your business, like partnerships, core activities, and what makes you different. It’s a collaborative tool for you and your team to learn how everything in your business is linked.
Building a business plan is key to establishing a clear direction and strategy for your venture. With a solid plan in hand, you’ll know what steps to take for achieving each of your business goals. Kickstart your business planning and set yourself up for success with a defined roadmap—utilizing the sample business plans above to inform your approach.
What are the 3 main points of a business plan.
To create a simple business plan, start with an executive summary that details your business vision and objectives. Follow this with a concise description of your company’s structure, your market analysis, and information about your products or services. Conclude your plan with financial projections that outline your expected revenue, expenses, and profitability.
The optimal format for a business plan arranges your plan in a clear and structured way, helping potential investors get a quick grasp of what your business is about and what you aim to achieve. Always start with a summary of your plan and finish with the financial details or any extra information at the end.
Creating your social media marketing strategy doesn’t need to be painful. Create an effective plan for your business in 9 simple steps.
A social media marketing strategy is a summary of everything you plan to do and hope to achieve on social media. It guides your actions and lets you know whether you’re succeeding or failing.
The more specific your plan is, the more effective it will be. Keep it concise. Don’t make it so lofty and broad that it’s unattainable or impossible to measure.
In this post, we’ll walk you through a nine-step plan to create a winning social media strategy of your own. We’ve even got expert insights from Amanda Wood, Hootsuite’s Senior Manager of Social Marketing.
Bonus: Get a free social media strategy template to quickly and easily plan your own strategy. Also use it to track results and present the plan to your boss, teammates, and clients.
A social media strategy is a document outlining your social media goals, the tactics you will use to achieve them and the metrics you will track to measure your progress.
Your social media marketing strategy should also list all of your existing and planned social media accounts along with goals specific to each platform you’re active on. These goals should align with your business’s larger digital marketing strategy.
Finally, a good social media plan should define the roles and responsibilities within your team and outline your reporting cadence.
Create. Schedule. Publish. Engage. Measure. Win.
No time to read the whole article? Let Amanda, Hootsuite’s own Senior Manager of Social Media Marketing, guide you through our free social media marketing strategy template in less than 10 minutes:
Step 1. choose goals that align to business objectives, set s.m.a.r.t. goals.
The first step to creating a winning social media strategy is to establish clear objectives and goals. Without goals, you have no way to measure success and return on investment (ROI) .
Each of your social media marketing goals should be SMART : s pecific, m easurable, a ttainable, r elevant and t ime-bound.
Psst: Need help getting started? We’ve got social strategy guides for small businesses , financial services , government , higher education , healthcare , real estate , law firms , and non-profits .
Oh, and if you need examples of smart social media goals , we’ve got you covered there too.
Once you’ve decided on your goals, track them in a social media strategy doc — grab our free template if you don’t have one already.
Vanity metrics like number of followers and likes are easy to track, but it’s hard to prove their real value. Instead, focus on things like engagement, click-through, and conversion rates.
For inspiration, take a look at these 19 essential social media metrics .
You may want to track different goals for different social media networks, or even different uses for each network.
For example, if you use LinkedIn to drive traffic to your website, you would measure click-throughs. If Instagram is for brand awareness, you might track the number of Instagram Story views. And if you advertise on Facebook, cost-per-click (CPC) is a common success metric.
Social media goals should align with your overall marketing objectives. This makes it easier to show the value of your work and secure buy-in from your boss.
Start developing a successful social media marketing plan by writing down at least three goals for social media.
“ It’s easy to get overwhelmed by deciding what to post and which metrics to track, but you need to focus on what you want to get out of social media to begin with,” says Amanda Wood, Hootsuite’s Senior Manager of Social Marketing. “Don’t just start posting and tracking everything: match your goals to your business, and your metrics to your goals.”
Get to know your fans, followers, and customers as real people with real wants and needs, and you will know how to target and engage them on social media.
When it comes to your ideal customer, you should know things like:
Here’s a simple guide and template for creating audience/buyer personas .
Don’t forget to document this information in your strategy doc!
Social media analytics can also provide a ton of valuable information about who your followers are, where they live, and how they interact with your brand on social media. These insights allow you to refine your strategy and better target your audience.
Jugnoo, an Uber-like service for auto-rickshaws in India, used Facebook Analytics to learn that 90% of their users who referred other customers were between 18- and 34-years-old, and 65% of that group was using Android. They used that information to target their ads, resulting in a 40% lower cost per referral.
Check out our guide to using social media analytics and the tools you need to track them .
Odds are your competitors are already using social media, and that means you can learn from what they’re doing.
A competitive analysis allows you to understand who the competition is and what they’re doing well (and not so well). You’ll get a good sense of what’s expected in your industry, which will help you set social media targets of your own.
It will also help you spot opportunities and weaknesses you can document in your social strategy doc.
Maybe one of your competitors is dominant on Facebook, for example, but has put little effort into X (Twitter) or Instagram. You might want to focus on the social media platforms where your audience is underserved, rather than trying to win fans away from a dominant player.
Social listening is another way to keep an eye on your competitors.
Do searches of the competition’s company name, account handles, and other relevant keywords on social media. Find out what they’re sharing and what other people are saying about them. If they’re using influencer marketing, how much engagement do those campaigns earn them?
Pro tip : Use Hootsuite Streams to monitor relevant keywords, hashtags and accounts in real-time.
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As you track, you may notice shifts in how your competitors and industry leaders are using social media. You may come across new, exciting trends. You might even spot specific social content or a campaign that really hits the mark—or totally bombs.
Use this kind of intel to optimize and inform your own social media marketing strategy.
Just don’t go overboard on the spy tactics, Amanda advises. “ Make sure you aren’t ALWAYS comparing yourself to the competition — it can be a distraction. I’d say checking in on a monthly basis is healthy. Otherwise, focus on your own strategy and results.”
If you’re already using social media, take stock of your efforts so far. Ask yourself the following questions:
Once you collect that information, you’ll be ready to start thinking about ways to improve.
We’ve created an easy-to-follow social media audit guide and template to walk you through each step of this process.
Your audit should give you a clear picture of what purpose each of your social accounts serves. If the purpose of an account isn’t clear, think about whether it’s worth keeping.
To help you decide, ask yourself the following questions:
Asking these tough questions will keep your social media strategy focused.
During the audit, you may discover fake accounts using your business name or the names of your products.
These imposters can be harmful to your brand—never mind that they’re capturing followers that should be yours.
You may want to get your accounts verified too to ensure your fans know they are dealing with the real you.
Here’s how to get verified on:
Decide which networks to use.
As you decide which social networks to use, you will also need to define your strategy for each.
Benefit Cosmetics’ social media manager, Angela Purcaro, told eMarketer : “For our makeup tutorials … we’re all about Snapchat and Instagram Stories. [X], on the other hand, is designated for customer service.”
Hootsuite’s own social team even designates different purposes for formats within networks. On Instagram, for example, they use the feed to post high-quality educational infographics and product announcements and Stories to cover live events or quick social media updates.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Hootsuite 🦉 (@hootsuite)
Pro tip : Write out a mission statement for each network. A one-sentence declaration to keep you focused on a specific goal.
Example: “We will use X for customer support to keep email and call volumes down.”
Or: “We will use LinkedIn for promoting and sharing our company culture to help with recruitment and employee advocacy.”
One more: “We will use Instagram to highlight new products and repost quality content from influencers.”
If you can’t create a solid mission statement for a particular social media channel, you may want to ask yourself if it’s worth it.
Note : While larger businesses can and do tackle every platform, small businesses may not be able to — and that’s ok! Prioritize social platforms that will have the most impact on your business and make sure your marketing team has the resources to handle content for those networks. If you need help focusing your efforts, check out our 18-minute social media plan .
Once you’ve decided which networks to focus on, it’s time to create your profiles. Or improve existing ones so they align with your strategy.
Pro tip : Use high-quality images that follow the recommended dimensions for each network. Check out our always-up-to-date social media image size cheat sheet for quick reference.
We’ve also got step-by-step guides for each network to walk you through the process:
Don’t let this list overwhelm you. Remember, it’s better to use fewer channels well than to stretch yourself thin trying to maintain a presence on every network.
Never heard of social SEO ? It’s time to learn.
44% of Gen Z consumers use social platforms to research their purchase decisions, which means it’s extra critical that your channels are optimized for social search.
That means making sure your profile names are clear and descriptive, you’re including relevant hashtags and keywords in your bio and on every post, and you’re using features like alt text and captions to include your target keywords as naturally as possible.
While it’s important that your brand be unique, you can still draw inspiration from other businesses that are great on social.
“ I consider it my job to stay active on social: to know what’s trending, which campaigns are winning, what’s new with the platforms, who’s going above and beyond,” says Amanda. “This might be the most fun step for you, or the hardest one, but it’s just as crucial as the rest of them.”
You can usually find these on the business section of the social network’s website. ( Here’s Facebook’s , for example.)
Case studies can offer valuable insights that you can apply to your own social media plan.
You could also check out the winners of The Facebook Awards or The Shorty Awards for examples of brands that are at the top of their social media game.
For learning and a laugh, check out Fridge-Worthy, Hootsuite’s bi-weekly awards show highlighting brands doing smart and clever things on social media.
Who do you enjoy following on social media? What do they do that compels people to engage and share their content?
National Geographic, for example, is one of the best on Instagram, combining stunning visuals with compelling captions.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by National Geographic (@natgeo)
Then there’s Shopify. The ecommerce brand uses Facebook to sell themselves by showcasing customer stories and case studies.
And Lush Cosmetics is a great example of superior customer service on X. They use their 280 characters to answer questions and solve problems in an extremely charming and on-brand way.
Source: lushcosmetics on X
Notice that each of these accounts has a consistent voice, tone, and style. That’s key to letting people know what to expect from your feed. That is, why should they follow you? What’s in it for them?
Consistency also helps keep your content on-brand even if you have multiple people on your social media team.
For more on this, read our guide on establishing a compelling brand voice on social media .
Consumers can also offer social media inspiration.
What are your target customers talking about online? What can you learn about their wants and needs?
If you have existing social channels, you could also ask your followers what they want from you. Just make sure that you follow through and deliver what they ask for.
Sharing great content is essential, of course, but it’s equally important to have a plan in place for when you’ll share content to get the maximum impact.
Your social media content calendar also needs to account for the time you spend interacting with the audience (although you need to allow for some spontaneous engagement as well).
Your social media content calendar lists the dates and times at which you will publish types of content on each channel. It’s the perfect place to plan all of your social media activities—from images, link sharing, and re-shares of user-generated content to blog posts and videos. It includes both your day-to-day posting and content for social media campaigns.
Your calendar also ensures your posts are spaced out appropriately and published at the best times to post .
Pro tip: You can plan your whole content calendar and get recommended best times to post on every network based on your past engagement rate, impressions, or link click data in Hootsuite.
Hootsuite’s Best Time to Publish feature
Make sure your content strategy and calendar reflect the mission statement you’ve assigned to each social profile, so that everything you post is working to support your business goals.
(We know, it’s tempting to jump on every meme, but there should always be a strategy behind your social media marketing efforts!)
You might decide that:
Placing these different post types in your content calendar will ensure you maintain the right mix.
If you’re starting from scratch and you’re not sure what types of content to post, try the 80-20 rule :
You could also try the social media content marketing rule of thirds :
Whatever you decide on, be sure to document it in your strategy doc.
If you’re starting a social media marketing strategy from scratch, you may not have figured out how often to post to each network for maximum engagement yet.
Post too frequently and you risk annoying your audience. But, if you post too little, you risk looking like you’re not worth following.
Start with these posting frequency recommendations:
Pro tip : Once you have your social media content calendar planned out, use a scheduling tool to prepare messages in advance rather than updating constantly throughout the day.
We might be biased, but we think Hootsuite is the best social media management tool. You can schedule social media posts to every network and the intuitive calendar view gives you a full picture of all your social activity each week.
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Remember those mission statements you created for each channel in Step 5? Well, it’s time to go a bit deeper, a.k.a. provide some examples of the type of content you’ll post to fulfill your mission on each network.
If you’re not sure what to post, here’s a long list of social media content ideas to get you started. Or (to make it even easier) you can use an AI tool like OwlyWriter to generate on-brand content in a flash.
The idea here is to:
This last point especially will help you avoid any tension when your colleagues want to know why you haven’t posted their case study/whitepaper/blog post to TikTok yet. It’s not in the strategy, Linda!
Ideally, you will generate content types that are both suited to the network and the purpose you’ve set out for that network.
For example, you wouldn’t want to waste time posting brand awareness tweets if you’ve designated X/Twitter for primarily customer support. And you wouldn’t want to post super polished corporate video ads to TikTok, as users expect to see short, unpolished videos on that platform.
It might take some testing over time to figure out which type of content works best on which type of network, so prepare to update this section frequently.
We won’t lie: content creation isn’t as easy as everyone not on the social team seems to think. But if you’re struggling, Amanda suggests going back to basics.
The first question to ask is: is there cohesion between your content types? Is your content providing value? Do you have a good mix of entertaining, or educational content? What does it offer that makes a person stop and spend time? Creating a few different content pillars or categories that encompass different aspects of storytelling for your brand, and what you can offer your audience is a good start.
This brings us to Step 9.
Your social media marketing strategy is a hugely important document for your business, and you can’t assume you’ll get it exactly right on the first try.
As you start to implement your plan and track your results, you may find that some strategies don’t work as well as you’d anticipated, while others are working even better than expected.
That’s why it’s important to document your progress along the way.
In addition to the analytics within each social network (see Step 2), you can use UTM parameters to track social visitors as they move through your website, so you can see exactly which social posts drive the most traffic to your website.
You’ve got your numbers, but how do they stack up to the competition in your industry? Industry benchmarks are a great way to evaluate your performance against other businesses in your category.
If you’ve got Hootsuite Analytics , you can use our built-in social media benchmarking tool to compare the performance of your social accounts against the average of brands in your industry with just a couple of clicks.
You can set up custom timeframes, switch between networks — Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and TikTok — and look up benchmarks for metrics like followers, audience growth rate, engagement rate, clicks, shares, and much more.
You’ll also find resources to improve your performance right in the summary section:
Once this data starts coming in, use it to re-evaluate your strategy regularly. You can also use this information to test different posts, social marketing campaigns, and strategies against one another. Constant testing allows you to understand what works and what doesn’t, so you can refine your social media marketing strategy in real time.
You’ll want to check the performance of all your channels at least once a week and get to know the basics of social media reporting so you can track your growth over time.
Pro tip: If you use Hootsuite, you can review the performance of all your posts on every network in one place. Once you get the hang of checking your analytics, you may even want to customize different reports to show specific metrics over a variety of different time periods.
Surveys can also be a great way to find out how well your social media strategy is working. Ask your followers, email list, and website visitors whether you’re meeting their needs and expectations, and what they’d like to see more of. Then make sure to deliver on what they tell you.
Spoiler alert: nothing is final.
Social media moves fast. New networks emerge, others go through demographic shifts.
Your business will go through periods of change as well.
All of this means that your social media marketing strategy should be a living document that you review and adjust as needed. Refer to it often to stay on track, but don’t be afraid to make changes so that it better reflects new goals, tools, or plans.
When you update your social strategy, make sure to watch our 5-step video on how to updating your social media strategy for 2024:
Ready to start documenting? Grab your free social media strategy template below!
What’s next? When you’re ready to put your plan into action, we’re here to help…
Save time managing your social media marketing strategy with Hootsuite. From a single dashboard you can easily:
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With files from Shannon Tien .
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Christina Newberry is an award-winning writer and editor whose greatest passions include food, travel, urban gardening, and the Oxford comma—not necessarily in that order.
Amanda Wood is a senior social marketing professional who combines analytical and creative thinking to build brands.
As head of social at Hootsuite, Amanda oversees the global social strategy encompassing organic and paid social on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn, a social engagement and listening strategy, and an employee advocacy program.
As the leader of a high-performing social team, she has extensive experience collaborating with creatives to bring campaigns to life on social and drive business results.
Struggling with structuring your efforts on social? Set yourself up for success with our guide to setting and achieving smarter social media goals.
A social media audit is the best way to review and improve any social marketing strategy. Check in on your efforts with this free template.
Social media content calendars are the best way to plan and organize your content. Build one in 4 easy steps or use our free templates.
Automate your work, save time, and build better relationships with your audience by using the right social media marketing tools.
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Use our business plan tool, download a detailed business plan template, tips to help you write your business plan.
Whether you've just started out or have been running your business for years, business planning can be the key to your success. Having a business plan:
It will help you to develop a shorter business plan to:
Use this template if you are seeking finance for your business or want to include more detail in your business plan.
Business plan template
Does your business plan have more than one purpose? Will you use it internally, or will you share it externally, for example with potential investors or banks?
Deciding what the purpose is, can help you develop your plan for the right audience. If the plan has been developed for third parties, you will need to determine what they’ll be most interested in.
Use our detailed business plan template if you are seeking finance.
Lenders and investors will want to know if your finances are in order and your business is in a strong financial position. They'll want to know how much money you currently have, how much money you need and how much you expect to make in the near future. While a bit of extra funding will help you ensure you’re covered for unexpected costs, be realistic and avoid asking for more than you need.
If you're starting out and don't have financial information yet, our template provides resources to help you get your finances ready.
Summarise the main points of your business plan using as few words as possible. You want to get to the point but not overlook important facts. This is your opportunity to sell yourself, but don't overdo it. The summary should include details about your business, market, goals and what makes you different from other businesses.
Don't leave your business plan to the last minute. It takes time, research and careful preparation to develop an effective business plan.
If you aren't confident in completing the plan yourself, consider getting a professional to look over it and provide advice.
There are a number of government services available to help you plan, start or grow your business. These services can provide general advice, workshops, seminars and networking events, and can even match you with a mentor or business coach.
Get expert help from a business adviser in your area .
As your business changes, your plan will need to change to ensure your business is still heading in the right direction. Having your plan up-to-date can keep you focused on where you are heading.
It's a good idea to keep a record of each version of your business plan.
Having an understanding with third parties when distributing a plan could be enough protection for some businesses. But if you have innovative business practices, products or services, you may want people to sign a confidentiality agreement to protect your innovations.
It may also be a good idea to include some words in your plan asking the reader not to disclose the details of your plan.
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1. Describe your product/service and target market. The idea is to paint a picture of your product or service as valuable to the customers in your target market. This component details what you ...
Marketing strategy. The marketing strategy portion of your business plan presents the approach you plan to take to provide products or services to your customers. It explains, at a high level, what you are going to do to get your customers to buy in the desired quantities. Someone who reads your market strategy should come away with a "big ...
A marketing plan is a strategic document that outlines marketing objectives, strategies, and tactics. A business plan is also a strategic document. But this plan covers all aspects of a company's operations, including finance, operations, and more. It can also help your business decide how to distribute resources and make decisions as your ...
A marketing plan includes analysis of the target audience, the competitors, and the market so that teams can determine the best strategy for achieving their goals. The plan's length and detail depend on the company's size and the scope of the marketing project. A marketing plan is useful for all types of marketing, including digital, social media, new product, small business, B2C, and B2B.
Marketing plan on the other hand, dives deep into the specific strategies and tactics related to your marketing efforts. It expands on the marketing section of a business plan by detailing: Specific marketing goals (e.g., brand awareness, lead generation, sales) Target audience analysis (detailed understanding of their needs and behaviors)
To make sure your marketing plan is clear and concise: Create an outline. Using your chosen format as a guide, start creating an outline of the sections and subsections you'll include in your marketing plan. Fill out each section. Next, fill in the subsections composing each section of your plan.
Marketing Plan Example (Filled Out) Here's a fake content marketing plan example for a fictitious shoe company. Marketing Plan Template: [Project Zeus Running Collection] Marketing Goal. Drive $200,000 in sales for the new Zeus running collection within the first 4 months of launch day. Target Audience.
The marketing and sales section of your business plan dives into how you're going to accomplish your goals. You'll be answering questions like: ... A marketing plan brings together strategic goals with tangible marketing activities designed to reach and engage your target market—ultimately convincing them to purchase your product.
You need to have a solid understanding of your target audience before integrating your marketing efforts. Example: If your target audience is executives that spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, focus your social media strategy around placing branded content on LinkedIn. 5. Differentiate with creative content.
Sales and distribution plan. Advertising and promotions plan. The easiest way to develop your marketing plan is to work through each of these sections, referring to the market research you completed when you were writing the previous sections of the business plan. (Note that if you are developing a marketing plan on its own, rather than as part ...
Marketing Strategy: This section of a marketing plan details the business's unique value proposition and the channels that will communicate it. A robust marketing strategy addresses the touchpoints in a consumer's buying cycle and breaks down the 4 Ps (product, price, place, promotion) of the marketing mix.
Most business plans also include financial forecasts for the future. These set sales goals, budget for expenses, and predict profits and cash flow. A good business plan is much more than just a document that you write once and forget about. It's also a guide that helps you outline and achieve your goals. After completing your plan, you can ...
To simplify, you can use the four Ps of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion. Product. Product, the first of the four Ps, refers to the features and benefits of what you have to sell ...
Strategies to consider: Networking - Go where your market is. Direct marketing - sales letters, brochures, and flyers. Advertising - print media and directories. Training programs - to increase awareness. Write articles, give advice, become known as an expert. Direct/personal selling.
Free marketing plan template: business.com has developed a free template that is fully customizable based on the needs of your business. Each section provides in-depth explanations, examples and resources to help you create an impressive marketing plan.
The marketing strategy section of the business plan can be presented in four sections relating to each of the four P's product, promotion, place, and price as shown in the example layout below. The marketing strategy is a key section of the business plan, at this stage you are not trying to present a complete marketing plan, but simply trying ...
A marketing plan is a document that a business uses to execute a marketing strategy. It is tactical in nature, and, as later sections of this article explore, it typically includes campaign objectives, buyer personas, competitive analysis, key performance indicators, an action plan, and a method for analyzing campaign results.
In this section of the plan, you're actually going to spell out how you'll market your idea, along with the specifics of how you'll get business. Sales and marketing are what will grow your business and help you achieve success. As always, keep your audience in mind. If your business plan is meant for your eyes only, or as an internal ...
A marketing plan integrates business functions to operate with consistency - notably sales, production, finance, human resources, and marketing. ... The marketing strategy section covers actual strategies to be included according to the marketing mix. The strategy centers on the 8Ps of marketing. However, firms are also at liberty to use the ...
Internet, E-commerce & Social Media. Your marketing section outlines your overall marketing plan, which includes three key areas: Pricing. sales strategies. advertising and promotion. Pricing. Carefully determine your pricing to be in line with the market you are trying to reach. Various factors will influence your pricing strategies, including:
5. Marketing and sales. Use this business plan section to outline your marketing and sales plan—how you'll reach your target customers and what the process will be for selling to them. You'll want to cover your market position, marketing activities, sales channels, and your pricing strategy.
Sections of your market analysis should include: Industry Description and Outlook. Target Market. Market Research Results. Competitive Analysis. Remember to properly cite your sources of information within the body of your market analysis as you write it. You and other readers of your business plan, such as potential investors, will need to ...
Our template steps you through the process of developing a succession plan with links to extra information if you need it. You may want to check our tips below before you start. 1. Analyse your market. 2. Set your goals and objectives. 3. Outline your marketing strategies. 4.
Content marketing. Content marketing is very powerful for inbound marketing. Studies show that 60% of marketers create at least one piece of content per day and the year-over-year growth in traffic is 7.8X higher for content leaders. Companies like Capterra and Quuu attribute their success to really good content.
Our free business plan template includes seven key elements typically found in the traditional business plan format: 1. Executive summary. This is a one-page summary of your whole plan, typically written after the rest of the plan is completed. The description section of your executive summary will also cover your management team, business ...
The five Ps. The five Ps are product, price, place, promotion, and people . Today, many marketers use the five Ps over the four Ps because they center the experiences of customers and staff in the marketing process. Typical considerations include how a customer behaves, their product experience, and overall satisfaction with the business.
Marketing plan: A strategic outline of how you plan to market and promote your business before, during, and after your company launches into the market. Logistics and operations plan: An explanation of the systems, processes, and tools that are needed to run your business in the background. Financial plan: A map of your short-term (and even ...
Step 7. Create a social media content calendar. Step 8. Create compelling content. Step 9. Track performance and make adjustments. Bonus: Get a free social media strategy template to quickly and easily plan your own strategy. Also use it to track results and present the plan to your boss, teammates, and clients.
Tips to help you write your business plan. Open all. 1. Determine what your plan is for. 2. Prepare your finances. 3. Write your summary last. 4.