What Is a Marketing Plan and How to Make One?

Organizations use marketing plans as a road map for the entire span of their promotional and advertising activities. These plans outline and detail a company’s strategy, from developing a new offering to converting customer interest into sales.

Everyone in the organization has a role in maintaining the brand’s presence and setting its products or services up for success. The marketing plan makes their roles and responsibilities clear.¹

A good marketing plan helps an organization coordinate, execute and review the performance of its marketing strategy. Without a marketing plan, it may be challenging for a business to design a cohesive marketing strategy and measure its effectiveness.²

Read on to learn how to build a marketing plan that is both implementable and results-driven.

To build a marketing plan, you may include several components.

• Executive summary: A summary of the organization, its business goals and how its marketing strategies support objectives³
• Market research and analysis: Details about the industry, the company's products and relevant benchmarks⁴
• Target audience identification: Description of your target market, including demographics, interests, behaviors and other traits³ 
• Marketing objectives: Specific goals you hope to achieve³ 
• Marketing strategies and tactics: Methods and channels you'll use to reach and convert potential customers³ 
• Budget and resource allocation: Allocated resources for marketing activities, including money and in-house or outsourced staff⁴
• Performance measurement and KPIs: Specific, quantifiable metrics to track the performance of marketing efforts⁴

Your first step in designing a marketing plan is to perform market research. To do so, you'll need to analyze the different aspects of your industry, including your competitors and customer base.

Start by looking at overall trends in your market, such as its size, projected growth and customer demand. Those factors tell you how many potential buyers may be interested in your products or services. You'll also identify direct competitors with offerings similar to your organization’s and what their estimated market share is within the industry.⁵

Your market will likely change over time, so it's vital to recognize upcoming opportunities or threats. Opportunities may arise where your competitors haven't met a customer's needs. Additionally, a threat may impact your organization's plan, such as an issue with your suppliers, or the entire industry, such as new regulations or a recession.⁵ Always be prepared to adapt your strategy accordingly. Regularly assess market trends and gather feedback from customers to identify shifts in demand.

By staying vigilant and responsive, you can capitalize on emerging opportunities and mitigate potential threats, ensuring your marketing plan remains relevant and effective in a dynamic landscape.

In the next step, you'll identify your target market, which is a broad sector of consumers who need and want your products or services. For instance, if you sell athletic goods, your target market might be sports enthusiasts, but it also might be professional athletes or wholesale purchasers for schools.⁶

You'll further break down your target market into multiple target audiences. Each target audience is a segment of your target market. Individuals in each target audience share different characteristics, which helps you develop buyer personas that speak to their particular needs. If you're looking to sell athletic goods to individual enthusiasts, you might create different target audiences based on gender, sports types, location and income.⁶

Once you establish your target audience segments, you can tailor your messaging to align with their buying motivations. Tailored messaging is more likely to resonate with customers, especially when you understand their interests and why they might want your products or services.⁶

Many organizations use the SMART system to evaluate business performance in different areas, including marketing. SMART is an acronym used to describe specific, measurable, actionable, relevant and time-bound objectives. These types of goals make it easy to evaluate a team’s performance at delivering results.⁷

You may set a combination of short and long-term marketing goals. Short-term goals may take days, weeks or months to accomplish, while long-term goals typically take a year or more to complete. Setting several short-term goals as milestones toward achieving longer-term objectives is good practice. That way, you can ensure that you continue steadily progressing.⁸

All of your marketing goals should align with your organization's overall objectives. For example, if you want to establish a brand presence in a new location, you'd tie your marketing goals toward reaching new customers in the area.

You’re likely familiar with the four Ps of marketing: product, price, place and promotion. There is also a fifth P that is equally as important: people.

Each P plays a role in developing your marketing strategies and how you share, advertise and position your brand.

• Product: The features and value your products offer to customers⁹
• Price: The amount your customers are willing to pay for your product⁹
• Place: Where your target clients may look for your product⁹
• Promotion: Differentiation of your product from similar competitor offerings⁹
• People: The employees and customers who influence the experience and success of your brand

The right mix of the five P's will enhance the results you see from your marketing strategies. They inform your value proposition–what the customer can gain by purchasing your products or services–and the messaging you use to attract customers.¹⁰

A marketing budget establishes the amount of money you'll spend on marketing activities over a period, such as a quarter or a year. It details all the expenses you may incur from marketing activities and how much money you should allocate for each.

Some costs commonly incurred from marketing include employee salaries, software expenses, ad placement, press relations and outsourcing.¹¹

You may set a marketing budget based on a fixed amount, on industry standards or as a percentage of revenue. Whether your company has an established presence or is in the early stages of growth may also impact your marketing spend.¹¹

You’ll want to design a marketing plan with some flexibility. Since many factors may impact the size of your marketing budget, it's important to revisit it regularly. For example, you may tweak the budget as your company's brand presence grows or to accommodate revenue changes.

Once you flesh out your marketing plan, it's time to put it into action.

Start by distributing tasks and responsibilities among your in-house marketing team and any outsourced resources you use. Each party will execute different parts of your plan, from crafting messaging and designing content to reviewing results.¹

Set timelines and milestones for each marketing activity. Having definitive deadlines for completing each activity will help keep your team engaged and working toward the desired outcome.¹

You may need to coordinate marketing activities with other teams. For instance, keeping sales reps informed of qualified leads allows them to follow up and close customers. The finance and accounting team can help your marketing team stay aligned with your budget constraints, helping to avoid cost overruns.

You created several SMART marketing objectives when drafting your marketing plan. You'll track your performance using key performance indicators (KPIs) in this final step that are informed by your SMART objectives.

A KPI uses quantitative data to determine whether you are on track to achieve your objectives or need to make adjustments. KPIs are typically used for short-term marketing campaign goals, but you can compare KPI results over time to see whether you're on target to reach long-term goals, too.¹²

You can use KPIs in each marketing strategy you implement. For instance, if email is a pillar of your marketing strategy, you might use KPIs to track new subscribers or conversion rates over a specific period. KPIs are also helpful for monitoring overall results for your marketing strategies, such as return on marketing spend or customer acquisition cost.¹²

KPI results provide quick insights into the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and strategies. If KPI outcomes don't meet your expectations, you can make data-driven adjustments to enhance overall campaign results. For example, if you’re not seeing improved conversion rates in areas where you have physical marketing, going forward you might reassign that part of the budget to your social media marketing team.

This section addresses key questions businesses have about marketing plans, covering everything from effective marketing initiatives to tracking key metrics. Whether you’re building a digital marketing plan template or working on your department’s next strategy, these FAQs will help you develop a strong plan.

A business marketing plan outlines your company’s strategy for reaching customers, driving engagement and achieving growth. It covers everything from the goals of each marketing initiative to the budget required. The essential components often include:

• SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats)
• Key metrics to measure progress of your marketing mix
• Detailed timeline for campaigns
• Allocation of resources across the marketing department and stakeholders

By having a well-structured outline, your marketing team stays aligned and focused on achieving meaningful results.

Effective marketing initiatives are specific campaigns or efforts designed to support larger business objectives. Whether launching a new product or increasing brand awareness, each initiative should align with the broader marketing strategy. These initiatives could include:

• Content marketing to engage customers through valuable resources
• Social media campaigns that build brand visibility via social media marketing
• Email marketing to nurture leads through the marketing funnel

Coordinated initiatives ensure your business stays relevant and resonates with target audiences.

Many businesses rely on templates to create their marketing plans efficiently. A digital marketing plan template which includes your content strategy offers a starting point by organizing key sections like audience segmentation, messaging and channels. Content management systems, project management tools and KPI dashboards also streamline the creation, execution and tracking of your marketing activities.

Tracking key metrics ensures that your marketing efforts are driving results. Common KPIs include:

• Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
• Return on investment (ROI)
• Conversion rate through the marketing funnel
• Website traffic and lead generation

These metrics provide insights into what’s working and where adjustments are needed. Regularly monitoring performance helps your content marketing manager and other team members optimize future campaigns.

The best marketing plans remain flexible to adapt to changing conditions. Market trends, customer behavior and business needs can shift quickly, so regular reviews are essential.

Your marketing department should schedule periodic evaluations to assess key metrics and adjust marketing initiatives and marketing channels as needed. Whether launching a new campaign or refining an existing strategy, agility ensures sustained marketing success.

Learning how to build a marketing plan may seem simple, but effective plans require extensive research, industry knowledge and a dose of creativity. Depending on your industry, you may face extensive marketing competition, making it imperative to use marketing strategies that stand out.

If you'd like to improve your marketing skills and develop the know-how to create and implement effective marketing plans, joining the Online MS in Marketing program at William & Mary can help.

William and Mary’s Raymond A. Mason School of Business Online MS in Marketing program provides the tools you need to become an effective marketer, including courses in marketing innovation, evaluation and situation analysis and product management.

You'll graduate ready to take on a marketing role that advances your career. To learn more about W&M's Online Master of Science in Marketing and how it can benefit your career goals, speak with one of our admissions outreach advisors today.