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Developing the Perfect Marketing Plan

Submitted by Mitch Seigel on Tues, 03/29/2016

Developing a marketing plan is relative to the size and type of business for which the plan will be used. Locking down the budget is critical when there are so many choices of ideas and directions from which to choose to be part of your plan. Once you have the budget established you can then start to determine where to spend it.

Next, you must determine which aspects your marketing team can handle internally, and which parts of the plan you need to look outside the company for help. In either case, there must be stakeholders who are accountable for making sure that each part of the plan is completed, time lines established for the same, as well as how much of the budget will be devoted to move each part of the plan to fruition.

At this point a tracking mechanism should be put in place to know where each group of stakeholders are, toward meeting your goal of completing the plan. Fluidity is very important to the success of carrying out a good plan. Possibly too many team members were assigned to one part of the plan, and should be moved to other groups. Or perhaps not enough budget was determined at the outset for a part of the plan, and dollars need to move from other stakeholders to balance the plan for more efficiency.

Once the plan is developed, it’s time to start executing the plan with strategies and tactics. Again, flexibility is needed here, when you run into a roadblock that causes your plan to go off the established timeline. If everything is working smoothly, move forward. If you run into a snag, fix it fast and then move forward.

The perfect marketing plan is in reach by cooperative collaboration internally among stakeholders. It is equally important as well for a deep understanding of your needs by parties outside your company to exist. The more seasoned the stakeholders are who are part of the team establishing the plan, the quicker and more creative it will be. Over time, your team will increase its capacity to succeed in this never ending process in developing the perfect marketing plan.

What are your challenges when it comes to developing a strong marketing plan? I look forward to hearing your comments. Until next time…