In general, companies are divided into four levels of hierarchy, the corporate, the division, the business unit, and the product level. The general plan of the company is designed at the corporate level. As part of this planning, each resource is assigned to each division of the company. Division-level planning then allocates resources to each business unit in the company. In addition, business unit planning designs a strategic plan for each business area, which determines each of the objectives/goals, marketing strategies and tactics, which must be consistent with the overall strategic plan.
Therefore, a marketing plan, according to Kotler, is a “written document, which includes the objectives, strategies and action plans regarding the elements of the marketing mix that facilitate and enable the fulfillment of the strategy dictated at the corporate level”.
So to bring success to your business, you need a strategic marketing plan. Strategic plans are classified according to their time frame into long-, medium-, and short-term plans. In general, long-term plans are usually between 5-10 years at the corporate level, medium-term plans 2-5 years and short-term plans consist of a period of time ranging from 6 months to 1 year.
A proper marketing plan has 10 sections.
Executive summary: the marketing plan, like all the documents that are presented to the established executive bodies, must begin with a brief summary of the entire plan, with numerical data and basic info.
Mission and Vision: the marketing plan includes the “reason for being” of the company, values and its future intentions and strategic approach.
Situation Analysis: This section includes all the results of the market research with various subsections. It includes an external analysis (macro-environment and micro-environment analysis) and an internal analysis (with the help of various internal matrices such as the BCG Matrix and the General Electric Matrix).
SWOT analysis: the strengths and weaknesses of the company and the threats and opportunities of the environment for the company, this is the basis for defining marketing objectives and strategies.
Objectives: the goals that the company intends to achieve, which can be classified according to their characteristics as quantitative or qualitative.
Marketing Strategies: Based on goals, a marketing strategy is the roadmap to success.
Marketing Mix: one of the key points of the marketing plan is the design of the medium and long-term approach of the 4 P’s (price, place, product, promotion).
Action program: this section includes all the actions to be carried out with specific information, schedules and responsibilities of the staff.
Provisional income statement: the plan must include an income statement with the inputs by the marketing department.
Monitoring and Control: the purpose of this section is to ensure that the 9 sections are met and the proposed objectives are achieved.
In addition to these 10 sections, a marketing plan to be successful must have 3 characteristics.
The plan must be flexible, because the business environment is changing rapidly and the plan must be able to adapt to achieve the objectives that have been set.
The marketing plan must be clear and precise in the order of each section to avoid misunderstandings within the department.
It has to be systematic and structured, written as a series of logical steps, organized and comprehensive in terms of the amount of information.