Metric’s Guide to Developing an Annual Marketing Plan
Digital Marketing
INTRODUCTION
Why did we create this guide?
Marketing planning is crucial for marketing success, and now an even more important activity in the new era of marketing. With all of the different channels and technology options available today, marketing can get complex and confusing. Traditional advertising, online marketing, customer experience, design and web technology are all parts of the modern marketing mix. Proper marketing planning is what brings everything together.
A strategic marketing plan should combine all of your organization’s marketing objectives into one holistic strategy, and provide a detailed, step-by-step execution plan. Better marketing planning means better marketing, and we are constantly developing, optimizing, and improving our process to ensure our planning is as comprehensive as possible.
The intent of this guide is to provide readers with a strong understanding of what marketing planning means, and to also provide a detailed look at the marketing planning process here at Metric.
Who Did We Create This For?
We created this guide for you. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, chief executive, marketing director, marketing manager, marketing coordinator, or anyone else who needs to write a marketing plan to ensure your marketing is more effective, we created this guide for you. If you’ve struggled to write a marketing plan, or even if you’ve never written one at all, this guide is for you.
How To Use The Guide
Each chapter stands on its own and can be read separately. However, in order to get the most out of this guide, it’s best to read through everything we have here in its entirety. If you found what we’ve put together here useful, sharing is greatly appreciated.
Table of Contents
An outline of what we have included in this resource:
Chapter 1
Learning the Basics
What is a Marketing Plan?
A marketing plan is a comprehensive blueprint that outlines an organization’s overall marketing effort. By definition, a marketing plan is a business document written for the purpose of detailing the current market position of a business and its marketing strategy for the period covered by the marketing plan.
A ...
Chapter 2
Before Developing Your Marketing Plan
Deadlines, Responsibilities, and Budget
Before you begin, it is be helpful to establish three items:
- A deadline set in advance for the completion date of the first draft. It’s important to remember that establishing an effective plan will be an iterative process. You can count on your plan changing.
- Your team’s roles and responsibilities. ...
Chapter 3
What to Include In Your Marketing Plan
Before you begin to piece together your marketing plan, it’s key to remember that this document will be the basis of all your marketing activity for the next year (or however long you’ve planned for). Regardless of the scope of your plan, it is important that you keep the document fluid and ensure that it’s easy to read. It is also ...
Chapter 4
Budget Allocation
When piecing together your marketing plan it can be easy to get lost planning all the great campaigns and tactics you want to implement and lose sight of the required budget you’ll need to implement your plan. It’s really important to be thinking about your marketing budget before and during the entire marketing plan development process to ...
Chapter 5
Measurement and Tracking
When it comes to measuring your marketing plan it’s either make it or break it, and there is one difference between those that make it and those that don’t– a well defined measurement plan.
The most common reason for the failure of most marketing plans is not the lack of great marketing ideas, creativity, inclusion of specific marketing ...
Chapter 6
Next Steps
Now that you’ve written your marketing plan you’ll need to prepare yourself for the next half of the battle– implementation.
The implementation of a marketing plan can get quite comprehensive and we plan on creating a follow up resource detailing how Metric manages and implements these marketing plans within our agency.
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