Phases of the marketing plan: Know all its stages

To avoid taking steps without a fixed direction, working without having previously established objectives and getting lost in the process, it is necessary to establish a plan. All companies, small or large, need a marketing plan to have their business strategy well prepared and to facilitate the work dynamics. Would you like to know how to make a marketing plan step by step?

what is a marketing plan?

Before we start talking about the steps and phases that we must follow to make a marketing plan, etc. It is important to be clear, what is a marketing plan?

A marketing plan is the basis of any strategy that a company wants to undertake in order to achieve its objectives. Without objectives and without a well-defined plan, it will be very difficult to get down to work.

Although it may seem so, a marketing plan is not only where the company's objectives are set out, but it also includes other important aspects. In short, a marketing plan is a document or a report where the market studies that our company has carried out are collected as well as the analysis of the competition to find out what our strengths and weaknesses are and what we need to work on.

The marketing plan also includes the objectives, the strategies that we are going to carry out to achieve them and the planning to follow.

When drawing up our marketing plan, it is important to carry out a study of how our company is seen both internally and externally in order to know what our strengths and weaknesses really are.

Once we have carried out this study, we can get down to work with our plan because we will have analysed all the necessary points and we will know which aspects we need to work on. Making a marketing plan is not a task that can be too complicated, but it is important to follow all the steps to know how we are going to act and what strategies we are going to follow.

However, another aspect that we must also take into account is that our marketing plan does not have to be the same for life. We can make a marketing plan that adapts to temporary objectives. Therefore, when the objectives change, it will be necessary to change the plan. The marketing plan is essential for the growth of our company, so it is important that we revise and update it as we change the objectives and strategies that we want to develop.

Steps to make your marketing plan

The marketing plan can be developed in many different steps. There is no single methodology to follow to establish a marketing plan, but there are some fundamental steps that must be taken into account.

• Analyse the current situation: As in any area of our lives, not only in the workplace, when we want to establish a roadmap it is important to define where we are going to start. Therefore, analysing the current situation of our brand will be our starting point.

At this point we must analyse what things we want to improve, what goals we would like to achieve and what is the new strategy we need to carry out to do so.

It is also important that, in addition to analysing ourselves internally as a company, we analyse external factors such as new market trends and our competition.

If we analyse the market and the trends we will realise what is required by the sector in which our work is developed and thus be constantly updated. Also, when we analyse our competition we identify the strategies that our competitors are using and we will be able to know where we can do better and thus stand out in our sector as a quality brand.

Once we have considered the analysis of our brand, our competitors and the market, we can perform a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats and Strengths).

In this SWOT report we can summarise everything we have gathered from this first step of our marketing plan and it will help us with the work of the following phases.

• Defining our buyer personas: It is as important to define the plan as it is to know who the plan is aimed at. One of the main pillars of any inbound marketing strategy is: defining our buyer personas. In other words, knowing who our target audience is, to whom we are going to direct our commercial action. To better understand our audience and know how to address them, we can take into account two variables:
  socio-demographic variables: Mainly data on age, sex, location or educational level. A first analysis of who is going to consume the product or service.
  psychographic variables: qualitative data. Here we put ourselves in the customer's shoes and try to understand their needs, tastes, personality and their decision-making process when buying a product or service.

In this phase we can also discover our customer's customer journey: it will help us to understand our audience's decision-making process. In this section we take into account the motivations and objectives of our potential customers and how our product or service will help them to satisfy their needs.

• Setting objectives: This is the most fundamental phase of our marketing plan, and when setting objectives, we must make them SMART, i.e. specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. You can read our post about SMART objectives and how they work here.

Similarly, it is important to pay attention when defining the marketing objectives of our company as these are the ones that will take us to the point where we want to position ourselves both internally and externally. Therefore, it is equally important for our plan to work that the objectives are realistic. For example, we cannot define objectives that we will not be able to achieve because we do not have the means or resources to do so. We must be consistent with our objectives and know how to define them consistently and appropriate to the situation of our company at the time we start to draw them.

• Define our strategies: This phase of our marketing plan will change depending on the type of business we have and the objectives we want to achieve. Once we have defined our objectives in the previous step, it will be very easy to choose which strategies we are going to carry out. However, we must know the objectives very well and be realistic when it comes to establishing how we are going to achieve them.

It is best to start with basic functions and then specify the actions as the objectives require.

• Analysis of the results: Every marketing plan, once it has been implemented, must be followed and analysed to check whether it is giving the expected results. If, on the contrary, our plan is not helping to meet the objectives we had set or the strategies are not proving effective, we must review it and make the necessary changes. As we mentioned before, marketing plans are always subject to changes and modifications because this will be required by the passage of time and the measurement of results.

if you have already prepared your marketing plan for your company, it's time to get down to work. If you still have doubts or need help, don't hesitate to contact us, we are here to help!

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