FINAL PROJECT—CREATING YOUR MARKETING PLAN

A solid marketing plan starts with these 8 components:

· Market Research. First, you need to understand the environment that you are selling in by using tools like a SWOT Analysis. …

· Target Audience. …

· Market Strategies. …

· Goals & Objectives. …

· Media & Tactics. …

· Budget and Action Plan. …

· Metrics. …

· Content Plan & Schedule. [endnoteRef:1] [1: https://venngage.com/blog/marketing-plan/]

For your final project Include the following components in your marketing plan. Remember that a Marketing Plan is a part of an overall business plan. This will determine how your business succeeds within the marketplace.

1. Cover Page and Table of Contents

2. Executive Summary— The executive summary is no more than two paragraphs long–short but effective.

The executive summary tells readers about the company/organization and how they are about to overtake one of their competitors or position themselves in the current market.

An effective executive summary should have enough information to gain the reader’s interest,

The executive summary also sets the tone for your marketing plan. Friendly and humorous? Professional and reliable? Inspiring and visionary?

3. Goals— This is one of the most important parts of the entire marketing plan, so be sure to take your time and be as specific as possible. You should set goals that impact website traffic, conversions, and customer success — and to use real numbers if possible. Think about your assignments throughout this semester and incorporate the information that you identified for your radio, advertising, promotion and distribution plans. Use information from your timeline.

Avoid outlining vague goals like:

·
Get more Twitter followers

·
Write more articles

·
Create more YouTube videos

·
Increase retention rate

·
Decrease bounce rate

Instead, identify 

key performance metrics

 you want to impact and the percentage you want to increase them by. They not only identify a specific metric in each of their goals, but they also set a timeline for when they will be increased.

The same vague goals listed earlier become much clearer when specific numbers and timelines are applied to them:

·
Get 100 new Twitter followers per month

·
Write 5 more articles per week

·
Create 10 YouTube videos each year

·
Increase retention rate by 15% by 2020

·

Decrease bounce rate

by 5% by Q1

·

Create an online course

 and get 1,000 new leads [endnoteRef:2] [2: https://venngage.com/blog/marketing-plan/]

4. Create your Audience Persona or Target Audience sheet. Include demographics about your target audience or customer. Knowing your audience/customer is the most important factor of your plan. Make sure you identify and describe your target.

5. Include a SWOT analysis for your business. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. You must think about your competition in order to identify these properly.

6. Appendix—include your overall timeline, budget, metrics, or any other information here that you want to have be a part of your plan. These can be taken from the assignments/workshops or could be new items you want to introduce.