Creating A Marketing Plan Template
The process of developing your marketing plan can help your company allocate resources, organize operations, prioritize activities, evaluate different marketing activities, think creatively about problems, and identify new business opportunities.
V. OPERATIONS
Your operations plan should be derailed enough to enable your reader to understand in general terms how your business is managed and should describe any factors that may impact you’re your company’s ability to achieve its marketing objectives.
1. Describe your product schedule.
Specify that date that you will have a working prototype. Specify when beta-test units will ship to selected customer sites. Describe how you will support your beta-sites. Specify the date for your first product shipments.
2. Describe your production capabilities
Describe your manufacturing operation. Describe your product distribution operation. Describe strategic relationships with third party service organizations. How quickly do you expect demand for your product to ramp? Do you have plans to outsource production if product sales increase more rapidly than expected? What processes or tasks can your company outsource? Are alternative suppliers available for raw materials and sub assembles?
3. Describe your plan to service and support your products in the field.
Do you plan to support your products directly, through resellers, or through a third-party support organization?
4. Describe your staffing requirements and hiring plan.
Do you have all of the production and support personnel in place to support your marketing plan? Do you have a budget to hire additional personnel? How long will it take to train new employees?
5. Discuss your company’s short – and long-range objectives.
Are your objectives and key results overtly aggressive, or are they conservative?
VI. RISKS
1. Describe any potential problems that may impact your marketing plan.
If you cannot envision any potential problems, you are not being objective or realistic.
2. Identify assumptions that you are making in your marketing plan about your customers’ requirements and purchase factors.
Explain how you have tested your assumptions about your customers’ requirements and purchase factors.
3. Summarize any market research that you have done.
Use customer focus groups and meetings with consultants and industry analysts to verify elements of your marketing plan and help you evaluate any assumptions that you have made about your customers.
