A marketing plan contains information about your company and its products, marketing objectives and strategies, as well as how you will measure the success of your marketing activities. It describes all the marketing activities you’ll perform during a specified time period (usually one year).

You’ll also include any background information and research results you used to select those marketing activities. Finally, you’ll document the costs associated with your planned marketing activities as well as the measurements you’ll use to determine success. Most often, a marketing plan is a component of a business plan. A business plan basically states how you plan to run your company, what your goals are, how much money it will take to achieve your goals and what activities you’ll perform to achieve your goals. Marketing, obviously, is one of those activities. Marketing plans sometimes stand alone but should always support and be closely linked to a company’s business objectives.

You need to have a thorough understanding of the following points to develop a marketing plan:

• your products or services and their features and benefits,

• the problem, need or desire your product or service solves or meets for your customer

• your target market and its characteristics and buying habits

• current and potential competing products or services