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Whether you've completed the marketing plan framework or not, download your Marketing Plan Presentation and editable slides of your marketing plan will be automatically generated for you to take with you.

Marketing Plan Builder

Below is the Marketing Plan Framework (MPF), an online marketing plan builder that provides a comprehensive guide to help you build your marketing plan. It contains all the fundamental plan elements, definitions for a better understanding of the elements, and examples to help stimulate strategies, campaigns, and ideas.

Get Started Generating Plans Online

Use this online plan generator to build marketing plans, with the ability to export and download the plan you create. Whether you build your plan later, start but don’t finish, or complete the Marketing Plan Framework below, click the “Download Plan Presentation” button to get editable PowerPoint slides containing your answers, the framework, and best practices to take with you.

Marketing Plan Builder

Marketing Plan Builder

Customize Your Marketing Plan Below

Situation Analysis

Situation Analysis

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Use learnings from the previous year and take inventory of your company’s status in the market. Look at historical data for performance and conduct a SWOT analysis for a qualitative view of where you’re at.

Examples:

  • SWOT analysis
  • Sales numbers
  • Lead gen numbers
  • Win/loss analysis
  • Marketing team skillset
Market Research & Analysis

Market Research & Analysis

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The activity of gathering information about customer needs and preferences for analysis and decision making. Your marketing plan should be generated to combine your situation analysis and market research for goals and strategic decision-making.

Examples:

  • Analyst report data
  • Competitive analysis
  • Independent surveys
  • Economic conditions
  • Expansion opportunities
  • Technology trends
Company Goals

Company Goals

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Business drivers that marketing goals will support. The most common company goals that pertain to marketing are related to sales, customers, or products/services.

Examples:

  • Revenue targets
  • Customer satisfaction
  • New products to market
  • Company perception
Marketing Goals

Marketing Goals

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Support the company goals. Create topline marketing goals to include in your marketing plan—both qualitative and quantitative.

Examples:

  • Increase sales
  • Create awareness
  • Build brand perception
Marketing Strategies

Marketing Strategies

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Marketing strategy is a forward-looking approach and an overall game plan for any business. The purpose of the strategy is to achieve sustainable growth and competitive advantage. You can have different strategies for achieving different goals. When creating marketing plans, build strategies to achieve each goal you set.

Examples of marketing strategies:

  • Growth
  • Promotional
  • Expansion (new markets)
  • Competitive replacement
  • Land and expand
  • Wedge issue
  • Product/services leadership
  • Customer retention/loyalty
  • Content marketing
  • Viral marketing
Target Audience (including segmentation and need)

Target Audience (including segmentation and need)

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It’s important to identify the ideal audience you would like to message as you begin building your marketing plan, to stimulate a response or create an impression.

Examples:

  • Target audience definition
  • Segmentation (by geo, demographics, behavioral, and psychographics)
  • Personas
Positioning and Messaging

Positioning and Messaging

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Positioning focuses your messaging platform. A positioning statement includes a target audience, the needs or wants of that target audience, your product or service definition, benefits of the offering, and differentiation from the competition. Supporting messages come from the positioning statement and should live in a messaging guide. The messaging guide provides consistency of message across different communications to multiple audiences. Both the positioning statement and topline messages should be built into your marketing plan.

Positioning statement:

  • Target audience
  • Need
  • Product definition
  • Benefits
  • Differentiators

Messaging guide:

  • Company messaging
  • Product messaging
  • Messaging by audience
  • Competitive messaging
  • Messaging by channel
  • Customer messaging
Product and Services Direction and Definition

Product and Services Direction and Definition

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For companies that have brand management or product management as part of the marketing function, roadmap strategy will need to be part of the marketing plan. It is important to have a clear vision of what is coming in order to prepare for go-to-market launches

Definition:

  • Clear articulation of the product value proposition

Product direction:

  • Roadmap/innovation
Pricing and Packaging

Pricing and Packaging

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The process of finding the optimal price that the buyer is willing to pay for your products and services, taking profitability and the competition into account. Packaging creates product/service configurations based on the target audience’s needs. Both are essential elements to include when building a marketing plan.

Examples:

  • Pricing table
  • Packages
  • Profitability analysis
  • Competitive pricing
  • Value/ROI analysis
  • Win/loss analysis
Competitive Analysis

Competitive Analysis

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Competitive analysis is an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of your competition. When building your marketing plan, this evaluation creates both offensive and defensive strategic context to solidify differentiated competitive messaging.

Examples:

  • Full product/service analysis and comparison
  • Offensive messages
  • Defensive messages
  • Competitor 2×2 map
Sales Channel Strategy

Sales Channel Strategy

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Marketing’s primary function is to drive sales to support the business, so outlining how the marketing strategy aligns with the sales strategy will be a critical element when building your marketing plan.

Examples:

  • Sales model: direct vs. indirect sales channels
  • Sales team structure
  • Sales goals for the year
  • Lifetime customer value
Sales Support

Sales Support

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If the product you offer is complex or has a long evaluation cycle before purchase, such as an automobile or enterprise software, it is important to create a sales support strategy and tactical execution plan. This will include sales training and tools to help them close business.

Training and sales tools:

  • Onboarding new salespeople
  • Sales skills training
  • Product & messaging training
  • Presentations, brochures, selling scripts, pricing tools
Partner/Channel Strategy

Partner/Channel Strategy

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Partner strategy is a critical element of any marketing plan. Some companies sell direct to the buyer exclusively, but most have either a full indirect selling strategy or a mixture of both direct and indirect. For companies that sell indirect exclusively, this is their sales strategy.

Examples:

  • Partnering goals
  • Partner revenue targets
  • Partnering strategy
  • Partnering tactical plan
  • Partner program
  • Joint marketing programs
Product and Services Launches

Product and Services Launches

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Planning out product and services launches based on the roadmap will be a crucial part when using the marketing plan builder. Product launches are one of the most important campaign types.

Examples:

  • Key messages
  • Announcement schedule
  • Communication strategy
  • Market education
Campaigns

Campaigns

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Campaigns are large-scale marketing initiatives that are goals-based, have a specific target audience, promote a specific set of messages, use several communication channels (both online and offline), and can be measured. Marketing campaigns are usually time-based. All campaigns should be included when generating your marketing plan. 

Examples of campaign types:

  • Integrated
  • Thematic
  • Promotional
  • Product launch
  • Demand generation
  • Thought leadership
  • Competitive replacement
Marketing Channels (Vehicles)

Marketing Channels (Vehicles)

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A marketing channel is a vehicle for carrying your key messages to the target audience. Marketing channels should be selected based on where the target market goes, what they read, what they watch, and who they consult. There are a lot of offline and online marketing channels for reaching audiences. When building your marketing plan, determine which channels have the greatest chance of reaching your target audience is critical for generating leads:

Examples of marketing channels (both online and offline):

  • Email
  • Social
  • Advertising – TV/radio/print
  • Trade shows/events
  • Search engine – SEM/SEO
  • Webinars
  • Content syndication
  • Website
  • Direct mail
Programs

Programs

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Programs are ongoing initiatives that have goals and budget but are not necessarily time-based or audience specific. Programs are not campaigns since many of the activities are created over the course of the year due to opportunistic marketing.

Program examples:

  • PR
  • Partner
  • Community
  • Loyalty
  • Social
Marketing Activity Timeline/Calendar

Marketing Activity Timeline/Calendar

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The marketing activity timeline has all the major milestones over the life of the plan. The marketing plan timeline will include campaigns, launches, major events, etc. A more detailed project plan that includes the timeline will be generated outside of your strategic marketing plan.

Milestone examples:

  • Product launches
  • Campaigns
  • Program launches
  • Expansion announcements
  • Major events
Marketing Team Structure, Growth and Responsibilities

Marketing Team Structure, Growth and Responsibilities

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A marketing team structure starts with the goals and what resources are necessary to achieve them. The marketing plan you create must justify any new headcount and provide a structure for the new team members to be successful.

Examples:

  • Organizational chart
  • Scale requirements and resource justification
  • Division of team labor
  • Succession planning
Technology (Software)

Technology (Software)

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Include your current marketing technology stack and any additional systems you plan to add. Discuss any efficiency gains the technology will bring to the marketing team.

Examples:

  • Full tech stack
  • New tech implementation plan, timeline, and payback
  • Expected efficiency gains
Budget Allocation

Budget Allocation

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Include a topline budget broken out by key functions, campaigns, and by time period. Budgeting is a critical part of the process and necessary to successfully execute plans. Build your marketing plan first, and mandate the funds you need to achieve the goals.

Examples:

  • Headcount
  • Discretionary spend
  • Technology spend
  • Correlate budget to sales performance for true ROI
Testing

Testing

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Testing takes several forms. Using a test market is a good way to gather data on a certain demographic or geo to gauge product/service interest prior to roll-out. A/B testing is a method of determining buyer preferences by comparing messages. Surveys and focus groups can also help gather valuable input to improve marketing effectiveness.

Examples:

  • Test market
  • A/B testing
  • Surveys
  • Focus groups
  • Independent research
Metrics of Achievement

Metrics of Achievement

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Measurement of critical goal-based success metrics that represent marketing performance. Most marketing metrics are indicators of sales performance and should be measured in terms of return on investment.

Examples:

  • Impressions
  • Leads
  • Influenced pipeline
  • Opportunities
  • Sales
  • Conversion rate
  • Lifetime value
  • Customer satisfaction
  • Market share
Assumptions, Dependencies and Risks to Success

Assumptions, Dependencies and Risks to Success

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Now that you have your marketing plan created and built out online, include a list of assumptions that are essential for success and the dependencies your team will require to be effective. Understand the key internal and external risks to successfully execute the marketing plan you’re building. Lastly, include scenario planning to prepare best-case and worst-case scenarios.

Examples:

  • Budget
  • Sales team readiness
  • Product roadmap delivery
  • Industry dynamics
  • Economic dynamics
  • Competitive pressure
  • Staffing/talent challenges
  • Budget cut risk
  • Organizational commitment
  • Cross-functional cooperation

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