Marketing Task List Format

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Marketing Plan Outline
UW Oshkosh Small Business Development Center
Tel. 1-800-232-8939 (In Oshkosh, (920) 424-1453) – Web Site:
For new businesses requiring little or no start-up financing, or existing businesses looking to increase
sales, marketing plans are often used in place of detailed business plans. There are a variety of styles and
formats for such plans. The following will help you organize your marketing, although keep in mind that
the content of the plan is much more important than rigid adherence to a specific format.
I. Executive Summary
The Executive Summary highlights the main goals of the marketing plan and the strategies for achieving
those goals. It should also briefly address budget requirements and how success will be measured.
II. Business Overview
This section identifies and describes the products and/or services that your business will market to
customers along with a description of what makes them special or unique. That description of your
uniqueness is also sometimes referred to as your “competitive positioning.”
To put your positioning strategy into perspective, there should also be an analysis of competing
businesses, including the strengths and weaknesses of your direct competitor’s product/ service mix,
pricing, place/location and positioning. There should also be information on products, services and
businesses that may be indirect competition.
Some marketing plans organize their analysis of competitor information into a SWOT (Strengths,
Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis. Such an analysis looks at the overall weaknesses of
your competitors to see what opportunities they create for your business, and also looks at their
collective strengths to see what threats they pose to your business.
III. Target Market
This section identifies your target market in terms of potential customers and the geographic area to be
served. It should include as much detailed information as possible about your customers in terms of
demographics, such as income, age, gender, etc.
In addition, analyze the potential customer information to see if it is possible to divide your target
market into major segments so that you can tailor marketing strategies to a particular segment’s
problems, needs or wants. Finally, based on those segments and customer demographics, there should be
some estimate of number of potential customers in your target market area.

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