A marketing plan tells where you're going, and how you will get there

In these times, a marketing plan is more important than ever.
Usually, a plan has four parts.

1) The situation analysis examines the strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats – SWOT – which your business faces.
Strengths and weaknesses are the competitive advantages and
disadvantages of your company versus others in the same or
related fields. Opportunities identify circumstances, current and
future, from which your business expects to benefit. Threats are
those obstacles which will prevent your taking advantage of
opportunities.

2) Goals are the results you want your company to achieve, while
objectives are the specific steps toward each goal. If the goal is to
increase sales of sports cars at a dealership by 10 percent, one
objective might be to increase sales of a specific model by 15
percent.

3) Strategies and tactics are the courses of action to reach
these goals and objectives. In our car example, one advertising
strategy could be to promote the car model in mass media that
targets 35-45 year-old males with high disposable incomes.
One tactic might be to place ads on radio stations which reach
that group effectively.

4) Budgeting requires that each tactic be assigned a realistic
cost.

The marketing plan’s priorities are: a) protect current market
share; b) expand primary market; c) develop secondary markets.

Create a plan for a year and update it quarterly, or when
market conditions change dramatically.

By being among the few who have an up-to-date marketing
plan, you gain a significant advantage against competitors,
most of whom do not have one.

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Haynes Marketing Network is a full-service marketing and advertising agency
in Macon, Ga. 478-742-5266 www.haynesmarketing.com