An 8 Steps Guide to Create a Winning Marketing Plan

Step 1: Define Your Marketing Objectives

The first step is to think about your main objective. What do you want to achieve with your marketing efforts?

Your objectives should be clear, measurable and foremost realistic.

Ideally these objectives are also in line with your company’s bigger goal and hence it makes sense to have your leadership team on board (if you are not already member of it of course). Questions you could ask yourself are for example:

- increasing brand awareness,
- push sales,
- lift customer ratings
- entering new markets, or
- improving customer retention

No matter the goal, we advise to rather start small and go step-by-step. By doing so, you can fine-tune and adjust your strategy to any occurring circumstances. Because as we all know, not everything always goes according to plan.

Step 2: Conduct a Thorough Market Analysis

Understanding your market landscape is crucial. This involves studying your target audience, competitors, and industry trends. To gather insights, a first step is to simply Google it. As in every research, one finding will pave the way to another one and hence, you will find the data most relevant to your objective. As a basis, you should analyze at least the following three data points:

- Target audience: Define your ideal customer profile. What are their needs, preferences, pain points, and how does your product/service address these?
- Competitors: Identify your direct and indirect competitors. Analyze their strategies, strengths, weaknesses, and market share.
- Industry trends: Keep an eye on market dynamics, technology trends, and regulations that could impact your business.

Step 3: Develop Your Brand Strategy

Your brand strategy should illustrate what your brand stands for, its values, personality, and the unique value it provides. This strategy should guide all your marketing efforts and establish an emotional connection with your audience. Furthermore it should be consistent throughout all channels and messages. For a starter, start by asking you the three following questions:

- Brand positioning: How do you want your brand to be perceived in the market? Define your unique selling proposition (USP) that sets you apart from competitors. As Simon Sinek pointed out in his famous «Why/How/What» frame work: Define it in a way that a small child would understand it.
- Brand messaging: Develop key messages that convey your brand's values and USP effectively. An easy way to do so is creating a message map in which you develop three solutions for a problem you client might face.
- Brand voice and personality: Define the tone-of-voice your brand personality is talking to your clients. This will help you and your team to have a coherent and yet recognizable style across multiple channels.

Step 4: Define Your Marketing Mix (4Ps)

As a someone working in marketing you surely have heard about the 4Ps: 4Ps—Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Even if these should be known, and even if this may sound a bit "old school", a look at these classic marketing measures is usually worthwhile.

- Product: Understand how your product or service meets the needs of your target audience.
- Price: Establish a pricing strategy that reflects your brand positioning, offers value to customers, and meets your profit objectives.
- Place: Decide where and how you will sell your product—online, offline, direct sales, or through partners.
- Promotion: Identify the most effective channels and tactics to communicate with your audience—social media, email marketing, SEO, PR, etc.

Step 5: Define key marketing channels

Why do we mention the 4th P separately? Well, because most people think that a lot helps a lot. However, based on our experience this is not always the best strategy. On the contrary: Have a look on those channels in which your main target group is present. Invest foremost in those channels, before thinking about spreading widely.

Step 6: Set Your Marketing Budget

Your marketing budget needs to balance ambition and pragmatism (especially here in Switzerland, right?).

Consider the potential return on investment (ROI) of different activities you have defined for your marketing channels.

The calculated costs ideally include both internal labor costs, as well as external marketing costs (like media space for Social Media).

Step 7: Create an Action Plan and Timeline

No it’s time to put everything in action and also on a timeline. Put the measures and the KPIs you have defined earlier in the process on a timeline. Rather, plan generously and, above all, realistically. A good template for this is the so-called "SMART" approach. Here, goals should be

- Specific → State what you will do
- Measurable → How do you measure Success (KPIs)
- Achievable → What are you realistically able to achieve?
- Relevant → Is the goal relevant for my defined marketing objective?
- Time-bound → What’s my deadline?

Those step will help you ensuring accountability and allows for better project management.

Step 8: Measure, Analyze, and Adjust

This step might sound simple, but often gets forgotten: Regularly analyze these metrics and adjust your plan as necessary to improve performance. Remember, marketing is a dynamic process that requires constant monitoring and optimization.

Conclusion

Crafting a winning marketing plan is a strategic endeavor that sets the stage for your company's success. The process might seem daunting at first, but with a systematic approach, it becomes a valuable tool that can guide your marketing efforts and help you achieve your business goals.

As a communication agency, we understand the complexities and are here to help you navigate through this process. Should you need assistance in creating a comprehensive and impactful marketing plan, don't hesitate to reach out. We're in this together!

‍