2. Marketing planning process

How to write your own marketing plan

SWOT analysis: The SWOT analysis is a very simple but effective means of carrying out an analysis of a company/product.

The SWOT analysis is probably the first step in putting together a marketing plan or business plan for your product/business. If you would like help with your SWOT analysis, please contact us.

Marketing plan. A marketing plan is critical for the development of a successful business. The following marketing plan table gives you an indication of the marketing process you should be going through in order to produce a coherent and achievable marketing plan. The large multi-national companies will spend many months on this and hold many, many internal meetings to debate the options. Smaller companies should at least consider the process and attempt to answer the same questions - although it should be much quicker/easier.

Marketing mix. You have decided what your overall company mission is. You have then gone through the process of defining your marketing objectives, and defining the marketing strategies you will employee in order to meet those objectives. You are now moving into the decision-making process for defining the actual tactics you will utilise.

• Which elements of the marketing mix are most appropriate?
• Which weapons in the marketing armoury should you be using?