Google ‘what is marketing’ and you will find a number of different definitions. Ask people around you what it is and you will hear different ideas. Marketing encompasses the full life cycle of a customer. It starts at the first encounter with a company’s message and continues until either the company closes up shop or the customer’s life has ended.
Marketing Plan
It all starts with a plan, an outline to help the organization to stay on track, focused, and accountable. A Marketing plan needs to fit into the company’s larger business plan by addressing how it will meet the mission, the goals, and the bottom line. It is a living, dynamic, document that grows with the company and at it’s core respects the concrete values of the organization.
A plan must address the following:
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Purpose, mission, or goal of the plan
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Definitions of important terms, words, and concepts
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Outline budgets and financial targets
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Identify tools, software, partners and venders
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Identify the key indicators of the target market
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Identify how you will reach your customers
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Identify the unique selling proposition of the company
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Identify strategies for both online and offline campaigns
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Identify step by step strategies
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Identify measurable KPIs
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Identify client maintenance strategies
To be effective it should communicate to anyone in the organization what the purpose of the Marketing team is, what they are doing, how they are going to do it, and what the outcome of their efforts needs to be. Regardless of talent acquisition, growth, or turnover the plan works independently as a consistent manual for the department
