Compliance18 Juni, 2025

Develop a winning marketing plan: A key component of your business plan

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The marketing portion of a business plan addresses four main topics: product, price, promotion, and place.

A business plan is a blueprint that takes an idea for a product or service and helps make it a commercially viable reality. The marketing portion of the business plan addresses four main topics:

  • Product: What is the good or service that your business will offer? How is that product better than the competition? Why will people buy it?
  • Price: How much can you charge? How do you balance sales volume and price to maximize income?
  • Promotion: How will your product or service be positioned in the marketplace? Will your product carry a premium image with a price to match? Will it be an inexpensive, no-frills alternative to similar offerings from other businesses? What type of advertising will you use? When will ads be run? How will the product be packaged?
  • Place: Which sales and marketing channels will you use? Will you sell online, in a retail outlet, or both? Which channels will let you economically reach your target audience?

You should use the marketing section to explain how you will get people to buy your product or service in sufficient quantities to make your business profitable. In preparation, you will need to complete the following:

  • Market analysis: Assess the market environment in which you compete, identify your competitors and analyze their strengths and weaknesses, and identify and quantify your target market.
  • Marketing strategy: Explain how you will differentiate your business from your competitors' businesses and what approaches you will take to get customers to buy from you.
  • Marketing and sales plan: Specify the nature and timing of promotional and other advertising activities that will support specific sales targets.

Market plan analysis

How do you determine if there are enough people in your market willing to purchase what you have to offer at the price you need to charge to make a profit? The best way is to conduct a methodical analysis of the market you plan to reach. A market analysis presents your conclusions regarding external market factors that will affect your business. It examines the totality of the business environment in which you will compete.

Topics addressed in the market analysis include the existence and type of competitors, the characteristics of your target customers, market size, distribution costs, trends in your industry, and trends in the market in general. Much of the information that will be included in the market analysis can be derived from a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis to be performed early in the planning process. The purpose of the market analysis is to set the stage for presenting your marketing strategy. That strategy sets forth your plan for successfully competing in your selected market.

Note: Business plans generally have market analysis as a separate, standalone section. However, it may help to weave some of the key insights from your analysis to support the points you are making in the marketing plan section of the plan. For more information, see What are the elements of a business plan?

Marketing business plan strategy

Your marketing strategy is the approach you plan to take to provide products or services to your customers. It explains, at a high level, what you are going to do to get your customers to buy in the desired quantities. Someone who reads your market strategy should come away with a "big picture" view of how your business will present itself to the market segment that is relevant to your business. For example, the target market for a pickup and delivery service may be busy individuals and households who are looking for convenient, time-saving solutions. You should assess both the merits and the risks of your enterprise in the marketing strategy. Some potential areas to address include -

  • Who are your target buyers
  • The market segment in which you'll compete
  • The reasons why the product or service you offer is unique
  • Your pricing philosophy
  • Your plans for market research
  • Your ongoing product or service development plans

You may find it useful to keep in mind the four Ps of marketing: product, price, promotion, and place. Do this as you define the scope of your marketing business plan strategy. Be sure to stress what is unique about your business.

Topic

Description

Product

What is the good or service that your business will offer? How is it better than the competition? Why will people buy it?

Price

How much can you charge? How do you balance sales volume and price to maximize income?

Promotion

How will your product or service be positioned in the marketplace? What type of advertising will you use? When will ads be run? How will the product be packaged?

Place

Which sales and marketing channels will you use? Will you sell online, in a retail outlet, or both? Which channels will let you economically reach your target audience?

Market Analysis

Assess the market environment, identify competitors, analyze their strengths and weaknesses, and quantify your target market.

Marketing Strategy

Explain how you will differentiate your business from competitors and what approaches you will take to get customers to buy from you.

Marketing and Sales Plan

Specify the nature and timing of promotional and other advertising activities that will support specific sales targets.


Marketing and sales plans

Your marketing and sales plan explains how you will 1) reach your target audience, 2) create interest and demand for your product or service, 3) convince potential customers to buy your product or service, and 4) keep those customers coming back.

For example, the marketing business plan may discuss how you are going to use organic content and paid advertisements on various platforms and channels, such as TikTok, Instagram, and online search. In essence, the marketing plan takes the marketing strategy that you developed to a tactical level. It sets forth the specific steps you will take to sell your product or service and provides a timetable for those actions to occur. When discussing paid posts and ads, you may want to include details such as target audience, campaign objectives (ex. awareness, lead generation, etc.), campaign spend, and campaign duration for each platform and/or channel that you plan to use.

The marketing and sales plan usually includes a calendar that ties marketing and sales activities to specific operational events. For example, an advertising campaign may begin some months before a new product is ready to be sold. As the date of the new product introduction approaches, the ad campaign would be stepped up. Once the new product hits the market, additional advertising is used to support specific sales objectives.

Sales. An integral component of any business plan is a strategy for getting your product or service to your targeted customers. There are many ways to reach your customers. One challenge in developing your business plan is selecting the sales channel that is most effective. For instance, if you're in a business where you provide services personally, your participation in the sales process can be extensive.

Many good home improvement contractors make their sales pitches in person, and they count on referrals from satisfied customers to generate new sales prospects. It would be difficult to rely on a separate sales organization when the essence of the job includes creating estimates and selling the prospective customer on your ability to deliver what the customer wants.
In contrast, if your business deals in the sale and production of large quantities of product with little associated service, you will face a different challenge. Customers may not know or care who you are.

A coffee distributor roasts and grinds coffee for resale to a number of local convenience stores. The stores brew and sell the coffee by the cup. The people who buy and drink the coffee are the end-users of the product. But the convenience stores are the target market for the distributor's product. The sales plan must address how to reach them, as intermediaries between the producer and the end-user.

Sales plans are based on the particular mix of goods and services that you plan to offer and on the way you intend to reach potential customers. If you are going to have a customer acquisition team of some kind, be sure you know what you will expect each team member to do. When making hiring decisions, do your best to find people who can do what you want. If you will be the entire sales force, try to quantify the activities and time involved.

For example, a remodeling contractor won't spend all of the time actually working on houses. In addition to back-office tasks, the contractor will also spend time meeting with potential customers, discussing the job, preparing and submitting bids or estimates, etc. These are vital sales activities and are essential to keeping work lined up.

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Dave Griswold
Senior Customer Service Operations Associate
small business services

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