Doing business without having a marketing plan is like driving a car without a map. You will get to your destination, but the risk of making costly errors is high. A well-structured and defined marketing plan is critical to your marketing success.
Marketing plan keep everyone on the same page, it has potential to make business proactive and align it with vision and goals of the organization. Developing a good marketing plan is the first step of starting a new business venture. This document clearly shows how a business is going to attract and persuade customers.
This document build trust and confidence among consumers as well as financial institutions. A well designed and well developed marketing plan is not a one-time effort destined to be placed in a binder on your desk. It should have to reflect the changing needs of your business as well as customers on a daily basis.
Once Abraham Lincoln said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.”
Either it is chopping down a tree or execution of an integrated marketing plan, the steps you take or the tools you use are crucial for your success in the market. When it comes to crafting a solid marketing plan for your small business you should have to make it a perfect mixture of some essential ingredients.
- What Are The Essential Ingredients of a Marketing Plan?
- Some Don’ts of Your Marketing Plan
- How do You Create a Marketing Plan For a Small Business?
- What is a Small Business Marketing Plan?
- Why Does Your Small Business Need a Marketing Plan?
- What Are Some Elements of an Effective Small Business Marketing Plan?
- What is a Guerrilla Marketing Plan
- How Much Does a Marketing Plan Cost For a Small Business?
- Why is a Guerrilla Marketing Plan Important to a Small Business?
- What Should be Included in a Marketing Plan?
- How do You Write a Marketing Plan For a Restaurant?
- How do You do a Real Estate Marketing Plan?
- How do You Create a Marketing Plan For a School?
- What Are The Examples of Marketing Plan?
- How do You Write a Budget For a Marketing Plan?
- How do You Write a Sales And Marketing Plan?
What Are The Essential Ingredients of a Marketing Plan?
Here is the list of those key ingredients of your marketing plan.
Do Company Financials and Footfall
A Clear understanding of the business financials and details of your daily, weekly and monthly footfall or people interested in your product is important to know before putting a marketing plan into action. Marketing is a one-time investment, but it is an investment with high ROI. You should have to include a section in your marketing plan for allocating budget to different planned activities.
Read Also: T-shirt Designs and Brands: A Marketing Tact
It will make marketers responsible for a specific amount of funds and particular activity. It would be wise if you keep it simple and easily understandable. Don’t overload the marketing plan with financial information and don’t make it complicated.
Marketing Research
Marketing research is the cornerstone of a successful marketing plan. It is a qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the internal and external resources. Marketing analysis allows you to adequately assess untapped markets, opportunities,values, and risks associated with those opportunities.
Market research is the backbone of a marketing plan. Market research helps to identify consumer buying habits, market size, market growth or decline and current marketing trends revolving around customers.
The market analysis allows you to understand the magnitude and geography of your market as well as customers. It allows you to find and fill the unfilled gaps and unexploited opportunities in the market. Utilize some useful marketing tools such as SWOT analysis, STP analysis, consumer buying behavior model to assess the market and take advantage of such information.
Identify your Target Audience
A target market is a group of potential buyers. Therefore it is important to discuss two to three segments of your target market in your plan.Understanding of the target audience is the most pertinent aspect of the marketing plan. The target market can be defined as a group of individuals sharing similar needs and characteristics which the company should have to serve.
These people are end users of the product. Keep a profile of your customer on age, income, interest, opinion, and attitude. Target market profile will allow you to demonstrate inside out knowledge of your customers including their expectations and their whims. Target market profiling portrait a clear picture of your client.
It also helps in estimating demand and finding the customer motives behind their purchase intentions. You should have to use information related to your target market to segment the market for better reach and better communication.
Define your Marketing Goals and Objectives
What do you want from marketing? What is the motive behind the implementation of a marketing strategy? Why do you want to market your products and services? These are some common questions that might come to your mind when you think about a marketing plan. The most general goal of a marketing plan is to generate sales by increasing brand awareness.
Every marketing plan has predefined goals and objectives. Defining goals and targets in the marketing plan is effective ways of measuring success. You can track your performance by making sure that the marketing budget is not wasted.
These performance metrics help you to funnel the marketing budget in the correct direction. The ultimate goal of each marketing strategy is to attract the market and position the brand among consumers.
Develop your Marketing Tactics and an Effective Action Plan
If you have identified your goals and objectives and you have integrated your marketing objectives with vision and mission of the organization. Then, it is high time to go for crafting an effective marketing strategy and an action plan. Marketing plan defines your path and guides your decisions.
Your tactical plan is going to turn your marketing strategy into reality. Therefore, it is important to clear and effective at the same time.
Addressing the seven elements of marketing mix and other factors like the packaging of the product, the efficiency of your purposes and quality of the presentation of your products/service are some good marketing tactics. Proper consideration of all these tactics can make your marketing plan, and marketing campaign a successful one.
Your action plan is set of actions and activities which you are required to perform for successful implementation of your marketing strategy. Action plan allows you to list all steps involved in the delivery of your marketing tactics. The action plan should have to include all information related to the supplier, customer and other issues and it should have to be supportive of the company.
Craft an adequate Marketing Strategy
A marketing plan is the thorough blueprint of your overall marketing efforts. It highlights the steps which you need to undertake to attain your marketing goals and objectives. It is good to know what needs to be done and the tools you have. But, there is no use of a marketing plan, if it fails to define marketing strategy.
Proper explanation and execution of a marketing strategy are necessary to use all the resources effectively and efficiently. Following a marketing plan without strategy is like running around in a circle and running out of resources. Marketing strategy compels investors to put money into a project.
Marketing plan entails regular review and revisions of strategy to measure marketing progress.
We have mentioned above some DO’S of marketing plan along with the main ingredients to season your marketing gravy than ever before.
Some Don’ts of Your Marketing Plan
Marketing activities seem worthy at the time but sometimes end up as holes in the bottom of your business’s boats. Getting too many holes and water inside the boat will end up rising your business boat under water.
Here is the glimpse of some DON’TS of your marketing plan.
• Don’t ignore the details, customer by customer, item by item and territory by territory sales projection and customer research is an essential part of your marketing plan.
• Don’t imitate your competitors. Always come up with some fresh ideas to make your brand and marketing plan unique.
• Don’t confine your marketing plan by last period’s budget plan. It is effective to repeat best performing elements of the past but doesn’t invest on elements producing low or negative returns.
• Don’t engage yourself in unnecessary spending. Keep all the unnecessary marketing activities in tight financial rein.
• Don’t try to make you plan one-size fits all. Marketing activities are consistent, and, of one kind, you can go with a single plan, but this strategy will not be working if you are selling products and services for different niches.
How do You Create a Marketing Plan For a Small Business?
Marketing is what separates successful companies from unsuccessful companies. If a company has great marketing, it can have a substandard product or service and still be successful. This is sad but true. Now on the other hand, if a business has great marketing coupled with a great product or service the results can be remarkable.
Below are the 7 steps that will increase the effectiveness of your marketing plan.
1. Determine What Your Are Going To Sell And To Who (Your Target Market)
– get a clear understanding of what you want to sell and what problem your product or service will solve for your customers
– if your product or service does not solve a problem you will have a hard time selling it
2. Determine Your Positioning
– determine your points of difference (what you do hands down better than the competition)
– list what your competitors do better than you
– list what you are you do a relatively similar job at when compared to your competitors (this is called your points of parity)
– summarize the essence of your product and brand, emphasizing your unique points of difference), in a short sentence
3. Create Your Product Plan
– analyzye your competitor’s products and services to see what is working and what is not
– survey your customers and prospects to better understand what they are looking for and what they value
– create your product offering based on what customers want and are willing to pay for, not what you want to provide
4. Create Your Pricing Plan
– review the pricing strategies of your competitors to see what is working and what is not
– set your price based on value, not your cost
– analyze your price elasticity
5. Create Your Distribution (Place) Plan
– review the distribution strategies of your competitors and determine what is working and what is not
– survey customers and prospects to understand where and how they want to buy, if you can’t survey brainstorm how you think they would answer
– brainstorm ways to increase the distribution of your product/service
6. Create Your Promotional Plan
– determine the message you want to communicate from your positioning statement
– review the promotion strategies of your competitors and determine what is working and what is not
– review what promotional strategies have worked for you in the past
– select the promotional strategies that will be able to best convey your message to your target market
– create a plan to maximize your referrals
7. Create Your Marketing Budget
– determine the amount you can afford to invest in marketing (the more the better)
– list the cost, impressions, estimated conversion rate, time required and ROI for each marketing method
– select the marketing methods that have a high return on investment and low time requirement
What is a Small Business Marketing Plan?
A small business marketing plan is a strategic roadmap for how you communicate (on and offline) with your target audience to successfully promote your products or services. Marketing plans range from extremely basic to highly detailed, depending on what you want to accomplish.
According to Molly Maple Bryant, head of marketing at ArcheMedX, a marketing plan is not simply a list of things you want to accomplish. Instead, it should list the outcomes you seek – measurable and contextual, like the pipeline you’re developing, or leads you’re generating – and it should explain the high-level strategies you will use to achieve those outcomes.
Developing strategies can be difficult, but they make a major difference in keeping you on track and avoiding diversions, which is also referred to as “scope creep.”
“Once you have an agreed-upon plan, you are able to compare any incoming requests against your strategies to determine ‘Yes, this adheres to my strategy so we can add it,’ or ‘No, this sounds good in theory, but it doesn’t adhere to our agreed-upon strategy, so we won’t adjust resources,'” Bryant told business.com.
Why Does Your Small Business Need a Marketing Plan?
A marketing plan is a crucial resource for any small business. Essentially, it helps you identify the market needs your product or service meets, how your product is different from competitors, and who your product or service is for.
Marketing plans also serve as a road map for your sales strategy, branding direction and building your overall business. This is important for successfully conveying your brand messaging to your target audience.
Another major benefit of a marketing plan for your company is that rather than simply guessing metrics, it forces you to sit down and do the math about your business goals and how to realistically fulfill them. When you look at your growth outcomes, you can delve further to determine what it will take to get to those numbers.
Bryant offered the following example: “Need $100,000 in revenue? How many sales is that? If 10, what’s your close rate? Let’s say 10% from lead to closed deal. Now you have a metric to start from – to get to 10 sales, we need 100 leads.
Now, where will they come from, and what strategies will you use? The plan helps you put it all on paper so you can map out resources and tactics later with a lot of preparation and realism,” said Bryant.
When analyzing outcomes and resources, you can save time and avoid scope creep by focusing only on those strategies that are relevant to your marketing plan. A marketing plan not only helps you think realistically about your strategies, it also gets your stakeholders on the same page and holds your marketing team accountable for their decisions.
“When everyone’s tasks and goals are laid out for the stakeholders and company partners to see, it is much easier for the entire team to feel at ease about reaching sales goals and allowing the marketing team the space and freedom needed to execute work without constant supervision,” said Cassady Dill, digital marketing consultant and owner of Ethos Agency.
Additionally, Dill said a marketing plan should be easily understood by your entire team, executives, and outside departments, and it should serve as an easy guide for future marketing managers and team members to understand and implement.
What Are Some Elements of an Effective Small Business Marketing Plan?
A marketing plan should be customized to fit your business; however, Dill said, all marketing plans contain five key functions:
- Your business goals
- Key metrics (how you quantify and measure success)
- Strategies (an overview of implementation and how that will achieve goals)
- A plan (the details of execution and the human resources, departments, and software that will be involved)
- Reporting (what reports of progress will include and/or look like)
We broke down those five functions into 10 actionable categories to help you create a marketing plan that is unique and effective for your business.
1. Executive summary
The executive summary is a great place to give the reader of your plan an overview of your business’s mission or goals, as well as the marketing strategy you’re looking to employ. An executive summary is often written after you’ve completed the rest of the marketing plan, to ensure it covers all the important elements of your plan.
If the executive summary is the only part of your marketing plan that someone reads (which is highly possible), you want to be sure they understand the most crucial details.
2. Mission statement
Your mission statement, not to be confused with a vision statement, is a statement that encompasses your company’s values and how they relate to your overall goals as an organization. Here are some good questions to get you thinking:
- What does your company do today?
- What’s important to your company?
- What would your company like to do in the future?
- What is your brand identity?
- What’s your culture like?
- How does your company benefit customers, employees and stakeholders?
3. Target markets
Identifying your target market is one of the most important parts of your marketing plan. Without a defined target audience, the money you spend on marketing will be a waste. Think of it like this: Some people need your service or product, but they don’t know it exists yet. Who are those people?
Here are some other questions to help you brainstorm your target market:
- What is the demographic of your customers (gender, age, income, education, etc.)?
- What are their needs and interests?
- What’s their psychographic profile (attitudes, philosophies, values, lifestyle, etc.)?
- How do they behave?
- What are some existing products they use?
4. Products and services
In this section, don’t just list what your product or service is. Think critically about what you have to offer your customers and what that value proposition means to them.
- What do you make or provide for customers?
- What are your customers’ needs?
- How does your product or service fulfill customers’ needs?
- What value do you add to your customers’ lives?
- What type of product or service are you offering?
5. Distribution channels
At this point in your report, you should transition your thinking into actual marketing theory and practices. Distribution channels are the avenues you’ll use to reach a prospective customer or business. Think of all current and potential sales channels that your specific target audience is active on. One distribution channel that works great for one organization may be useless to another.
Some include examples of sales channels include:
- Website(s)
- Retail
- Mobile text message marketing
- Social media
- Resellers
- Print (newspapers, magazines, brochures, catalogs, direct mail)
- Broadcast (TV, radio)
- Press releases
- Trade shows, product demonstrations, event marketing
6. Competitive profile
One of the major aspects of your marketing plan is developing your unique selling proposition (USP). A USP is a feature or stance that separates your product or service from those offered by competitors. It’s all about differentiation and distinguishing your company as a sole proprietor of one type of good or service.
Conduct a competitive analysis to identify your competitive profile and how you stack up against the competition. It is important to remain unbiased when conducting this analysis.
Here are some ideas to consider:
- What’s your USP?
- Who are your competitors? What do they offer?
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of your competition?
- What needs of the market (or customer) are not being served? What can you do to meet those needs?
7. A pricing strategy
Pricing is something you should consider when drafting your marketing plan. Developing the right pricing strategy helps you better market your product. You want to consider your current and projected finances when developing a long-term marketing strategy that is realistic and beneficial for your business. Here are some key questions to ask yourself about your pricing:
- What are reasonable margins to make a profit and cover the costs of production?
- Is there a market for products or services at your projected price point?
- Are you willing to sacrifice profit margins in return for a greater market share?
- What are your marketing and distribution costs?
8. Objectives
Consider your objectives when developing a marketing plan. This aspect of your plan should involve specific goals related to market penetration and revenue targets. Be sure to keep your marketing objectives on-brand with your business. Here are some things to consider:
- Sales quotas
- Number of new customers gained
- Customer retention percentages
- Revenue targets
- Market penetration
- Brand awareness
- Website traffic
9. Action plans
With all of the above items outlined, determine what actual steps need to be taken to enact your marketing plan. This includes determining the proper steps, setting goals, breaking down responsibilities, and establishing an overall timeline.
It’s also important to brainstorm potential roadblocks your business could face and some solutions to overcome them. Your research is useless if you don’t have an actionable plan that can be realistically implemented to carry out your ideas.
10. Financial projections
This last step allows you to establish a realistic marketing budget and better understand what your marketing plan will look like from a cost perspective. In addition to setting a budget, consider the overall return on investment as well. Here are some other financial projections to consider:
- Cost of implementation
- Cost to produce product or service
- Existing and projected cash flow
- Projected sales
- Desired profit margin on projected sales
What is a Guerrilla Marketing Plan
Guerrilla marketing is a marketing tactic in which a company uses surprise and/or unconventional interactions in order to promote a product or service.
Guerrilla marketing is different than traditional marketing in that it often relies on personal interaction, has a smaller budget, and focuses on smaller groups of promoters that are responsible for getting the word out in a particular location rather than through widespread media campaigns.
Companies using guerrilla marketing rely on its in-your-face promotions to be spread through viral marketing, or word-of-mouth, thus reaching a broader audience for free. Connection to the emotions of a consumer is key to guerrilla marketing.
The use of this tactic is not designed for all types of goods and services, and it is often used for more “edgy” products and to target younger consumers who are more likely to respond positively. Guerrilla marketing takes place in public places that offer as big an audience as possible, such as streets, concerts, public parks, sporting events, festivals, beaches, and shopping centers.
One key element of guerrilla marketing is choosing the right time and place to conduct a campaign so as to avoid potential legal issues. Guerrilla marketing can be indoor, outdoor, an “event ambush,” or experiential, meant to get the public to interact with a brand.
How Much Does a Marketing Plan Cost For a Small Business?
The industry average varies from $10,000 to $40,000+. At LAIRE, the average cost of a marketing plan is between $10,000-$15,000.
At the high-end, you can expect your marketing plan to be almost as long as a business plan, complete with:
- A detailed competitive analysis
- Content audit and keyword gap analysis
- Website audit
- Your ideal customers, or buyer personas
- Sales process research
- Social media audit
- 6-12 months worth of strategy
- And so on
At the lower-end you could expect to cover messaging, ideal target clients, which channels to market to and why, and a full year of strategy and tactics to reach identified goals.
Preparing a marketing plan takes a great deal of research and preparation which is why the cost is where it is and why it varies so much.
Why is a Guerrilla Marketing Plan Important to a Small Business?
Sending creative messages
The importance of Guerilla Marketing is not only the aesthetics and appeal of the design but the concept behind the idea. The message conveyed to the audience needs to be clear and effective. If the consumer does not understand the message in a short amount of time then the concept should be re-evaluated.
A good idea does not need to be expensive. As designers we have to find ways to create something visually effective without having a large budget. So if your company has a creative solution it can be an interesting way to interact with the community and your brand.
In this Hunger Awareness advertisement, Feed South Africa uses emotions and guilt to speak to the audience. Although most Guerilla Advertisements we will see are witty and humorous, some can really touch the audience on a more serious subject.
Keep more money in your pocket
A lot of companies spend large amounts of money on promotional marketing, direct mailing, commercials, and other various forms of marketing. In Alexandra Bruell’s article on AdAge, she notes that direct-mail response rates decreased from 4.37% in 2003 to an average response rate of 3.40% in 2013.
Many of these items will not be opened if the envelope does not attract the viewer to open it. Guerilla Marketing can be more functional than these forms of marketing; depending on the location you can attract a broad range of people or a specific target market.
For example, Colgate is targeting young children and their parents. They are telling kids to brush their teeth with their products because it prevents cavities. The parents also become aware of the effects of sugary foods to their children’s teeth.

Making your advertisement memorable
Guerilla Marketing can help your brand become memorable. Guerilla advertisements are known to be shocking and all-consuming, so most people who encounter these ads will most likely remember the brand and become familiar with their essence.
Understanding the culture of the target market can help you narrow ideas for a guerilla advertisement. For example, Bounty places their guerilla advertising in the middle of New York streets that are full of locals and tourists. This is a perfect photo op and for people to interact with the brand.

This can be good for both small and large business to really grab the audience’s full attention to their specific brand. It is a way to bring the product out of its normal context. Bringing it outside of a store shelf can help consumers focus on just one brand and not its competitors, building brand loyalty.
It works for companies selling products and services
Guerilla Marketing does not necessarily mean that your company has to sell a product. This can also work well with a company that provides intangible services.
Here a dentist used Guerilla Marketing in a very inexpensive way by displaying gums and teeth made out of cut paper. As people walk by they tear off a “tooth” with the phone number and address of the dentistry.

What Should be Included in a Marketing Plan?
Every business needs to begin with a well structured plan that is based in thorough research, competitive positioning and attainable outcomes. Your plan should be the basis for your activities over the coming months. However, you should always be willing to enhance or redirect your plan based on what proves successful.
1. Market Research
Collect, organize, and write down data about the market that is currently buying the product(s) or service(s) you will sell. Some areas to consider:
- Market dynamics, patterns including seasonality
- Customers – demographics, market segment, target markets, needs, buying decisions
- Product – what’s out there now, what’s the competition offering
- Current sales in the industry
- Benchmarks in the industry
- Suppliers – vendors that you will need to rely on
2. Target Market
Find niche or target markets for your product and describe them.
3. Product
Describe your product. How does your product relate to the market? What does your market need, what do they currently use, what do they need above and beyond current use?
4. Competition
Describe your competition. Develop your “unique selling proposition.” What makes you stand apart from your competition? What is your competition doing about branding?
5. Mission Statement
Write a few sentences that state:
- “Key market” – who you’re selling to
- “Contribution” – what you’re selling
- “Distinction” – your unique selling proposition
6. Market Strategies
Write down the marketing and promotion strategies that you want to use or at least consider using. Strategies to consider:
- Networking – go where your market is
- Direct marketing – sales letters, brochures, flyers
- Advertising – print media, directories
- Training programs – to increase awareness
- Write articles, give advice, become known as an expert
- Direct/personal selling
- Publicity/press releases
- Trade shows
- Web site
7. Pricing, Positioning and Branding
From the information you’ve collected, establish strategies for determining the price of your product, where your product will be positioned in the market and how you will achieve brand awareness.
8. Budget
Budget your dollars. What strategies can you afford? What can you do in house, what do you need to outsource.
9. Marketing Goals
Establish quantifiable marketing goals. This means goals that you can turn into numbers. For instance, your goals might be to gain at least 30 new clients or to sell 10 products per week, or to increase your income by 30% this year. Your goals might include sales, profits, or customer’s satisfaction.
10. Monitor Your Results
Test and analyze. Identify the strategies that are working.
- Survey customers
- Track sales, leads, visitors to your web site, percent of sales to impressions
By researching your markets, your competition, and determining your unique positioning, you are in a much better position to promote and sell your product or service. By establishing goals for your marketing campaign, you can better understand whether or not your efforts are generating results through ongoing review and evaluation of results.
How do You Write a Marketing Plan For a Restaurant?
For your restaurant marketing plan, you’ll just need to pull together relevant pieces from your business plan in a way that will translate into a succinct, actionable restaurant marketing plan. Here’s how to do it.
Step 1: Solidify your brand.
Before you begin brainstorming marketing activities, revisit your brand’s mission statement, vision statement, value propositions, and positioning statement. These should already be in your business plan, but it’s important to revisit them with a restaurant marketing lens. Here’s a reminder of what these components should look like.
Mission statement: A mission statement is the reason your restaurant exists. Mission statements are usually one to three sentences and approximately 50 words. They should:
- Describe your restaurant’s value
- Inspire your customers, staff, and stakeholders
- Be plausible and realistic
- Be specific and to the point
Vision statement: Your vision statement should answer the question, “What does your restaurant hope to create in the future?” Make it inspirational and motivational. Announce your goals and how you intend to impact your customers and the restaurant industry in the future. Use the future tense.
Value propositions: In one sentence, describe the unique value your restaurant provides to customers. Feel free to break down this sentence further into three or four value propositions that are unique to your restaurant. You will use these statements to describe how your restaurant stands out from your competition.
Positioning statement: In one sentence, describe how you want competitors, customers, and the rest of the marketplace to perceive you.
Step 2: Remind yourself of your target audience.
Your target audience was defined based on the the demographics, psychographics, and behaviors of your customer segments. All restaurant marketing strategies you develop should speak to one or more segment of your target market.
Run through the following questions for each customer segment:
- Do they communicate on social media or review sites?
- What do they do before choosing to dine at a restaurant?
- Do they prefer to dine in or take out?
- What kind of events do they enjoy?
- Are they influenced by coupons or discounts?
Feel free to add any concept-specific questions that address the behaviors of your customer segments. You’ll want to determine the motivations behind choosing one restaurant over another, so that you can properly speak to your target audiences in ways that will resonate with them.
Step 3: Perform a SWOT analysis on your competitors.
Choose your top three to five local competitors.
For each competitor, perform a SWOT analysis:
- Strengths: What are your competitors doing right? By understanding what your competitors are doing right, you can do it better.
- Weaknesses: What could the competitor do better? Learn from your competitors’ mistakes by identifying holes in their operations.
- Opportunities: How can you exploit your competitors’ weaknesses and do better?
- Threats: Do your competitors offer something unique that you can’t?
Check your competitors’ website for the most current promotions and campaigns. Log coupons or freebies, deals, and daily recurring specials. Note special events like live music, karaoke, games night, etc.
Visit your competitors’ Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and blog. Evaluate their follower numbers and content
Step 4: Define your market differentiators.
Repeat the SWOT process on your own restaurant, and define your market differentiator in a single statement. This statement should describe your advantage over the competition.
Examples of a unique selling point are: lower pricing, unique location, specialty dishes, more engaging service, the atmosphere at your restaurant, or the culture you’re creating.
Example:
Domino’s Pizza
You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less or it’s free.
Step 5: Craft your elevator pitch.
An elevator pitch is how you would describe your restaurant to a stranger in 60 seconds or less. It’s important to keep this in mind as you craft the messaging behind promotions later.
In your elevator pitch, state:
- Your restaurant’s name and concept
- The type of cuisine you offer
- What you do for your target audience
- How you do it uniquely
Example: The Burger Bank is a gourmet burger fast casual restaurant. Our burgers fuse traditional Americana with flavors from around the world. Located in the heart of New York’s financial district, Wall Street professionals choose us to satisfy their quick service needs, without sacrificing gourmet taste or breaking the bank.
Step 6: Define and prioritize your restaurant marketing objectives.
Your restaurant marketing priorities at the beginning of your restaurant’s life will change as you develop. In general, however, all restaurant marketing initiatives will serve at least one of these three purposes:
- Branding
Your brand precedes you. It’s your reputation – and you want to have a good one. Your brand will be reflected in everything you do as a business, including your marketing materials, decor, etc. Promoting your brand is vital to capturing the attention of your target audience and sticking out in their memory when they’re deciding where to eat.
Example initiatives: social media, PR, events, blogs, partnerships
- Customer acquisition
This is your obvious objective: to fill seats, fill bellies, swipe credits cards, and collect cash. These are the marketing campaigns that will get customers in the door.
Example initiatives: promotions, coupons, advertisements
- Customer retention
Customer retention campaigns are the marketing efforts you use to secure return business. Customer retention strategies involve capturing customer information and mixing branding and acquisition strategies. Customer retention initiatives make sure you can easily lure customers back in with incentives.
Example initiatives: social media, email marketing, loyalty programs
Step 7: Choose your promotional strategies.
Based on your budget, target audience, and goals, choose a few of these strategies to implement first (see below for detailed descriptions of each):
Digital restaurant marketing strategies
- Website and SEO
- Content marketing
- Social media
- Email marketing
- SMS text messaging
- Review sites
- Loyalty programs
Traditional restaurant marketing strategies
- Direct mail
- Contests and giveaways
- Leagues and events
When you’ve chosen your strategies, define the following for each:
- Objectives
- Audiences
- Timelines
- Roles and responsibilities
- Quantifiable goal
- Campaign details
- How you’ll measure success
How do You do a Real Estate Marketing Plan?
The key to a successful real estate investor marketing plan begins with goals and ends with persistence. It takes a dedication to follow any plan through the proverbial ups and downs, only to achieve the goals one sets out to accomplish from the beginning; it also helps to plan ahead and prepare for the future.
1. Identify the target market
This is probably the number one strategy that you can use to become truly successful as a real estate agent.
Many real estate brokers and businesses focus on a niche market and become an expert in that market. This gives you an idea about what’s driving the target market currently, what risks are involved, and most importantly where the market is headed in the short and long term.
For example, a real estate broker who knows the details about a new transportation or school project coming locally could change his marketing strategies accordingly.
2. Budget for marketing expenses
Another major factor in successfully expanding your real estate business is to develop a marketing budget and stick to it.
There are literally hundreds of avenues to spend your marketing dollars on, such as real estate websites, email marketing, social media marketing, and postal marketing.
Your spend must be based on your target audience. For example, customers in the San Francisco bay area might require internet-based marketing, whereas customers in a rural area might require a different approach.
3. Create a website and use social media
Regardless of the market, you must establish your presence on the internet with the help of a professional website, as well as dedicated accounts on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. These are relatively inexpensive, with the potential for huge outreach.
You can also market your business on search engines such as Google and Bing, by paying for ad campaigns.
4. Encourage referrals and word-of-mouth
Most successful real estate agents generate several deals through referrals from previous customers. A customer referral is most valued by a new buyer or seller.
For example, new customers are more comfortable selecting a real estate agent when referred by a friend, colleague, or relative. You can always boost this approach by offering referral bonuses to the person who refers a new customer.
5. Respond quickly
We live in a world that is moving at a much faster pace than ever before. It is very important to respond to customer queries or else you will risk losing new business.
You must have access to email via a smartphone at all times and ensure that you respond to a customer request as soon as possible. You cannot wait to respond until the next day in this business. If you are prompt in responding, it adds to your credibility and reputation.
6. Publish a real estate newsletter
If you are serious about your long-term success, then you may consider publishing a weekly or monthly newsletter with updates on current mortgage rates, changes in real estate laws, benefits of homeownership, how to develop a real estate investment portfolio, health checks on the local market, and so on.
All current and prospective customers would appreciate the insights from such a newsletter, as it shows your knowledge and commitment to the business.
7. Dispel questions on the need for a real estate agent
Disintermediation refers to the mindset where customers wonder whether they really need a real estate agent or not. Disintermediation marketing targets such customers to convince them of the value offered by a real estate professional.
You can educate the customers via your website or marketing channels on the need for a real estate agent and lawyer during the sales or purchase of a house or piece of land.
8. Plan for success
Regardless of whether you are a real estate agent or a real estate developer, you will need a real estate development business plan. This will set you up for success. You can plan your expenses, contingencies, and other risks with the help of a real estate development business plan.
Many people fail when they work in a vacuum without such planning. For example, you can plan your budget for next year’s real estate marketing strategies with the help of a well-documented business plan.
9. Develop brand awareness
Just like big brand businesses, your real estate business must also strive to develop a brand of its own. It could be under your name or your business’s name. Any real estate sales strategy that you apply must keep this concept in mind.
People often wonder how to get into real estate sales and how to successfully build a business. The answer lies in planning to develop a name brand and using it to market the business for years to come.
How do You Create a Marketing Plan For a School?
1. Identify Goals
If you have a strategic plan, accreditation self-study or marketing analysis, you can pull from those documents. If not, the administration likely knows where the school(s) needs improvement, and you can dig into your databases to get benchmarking information on how these initiatives have performed in the past such as:
- Enrollment
- Donations
- Event attendance
- After school programs
- Communication with parents
Having actual quantifiable goals for the different parts of your school marketing plan will be helpful in determining whether or not your initiatives are successful. Some examples include:
- Increase enrollment by 5 percent
- Increase donor gifts by 5 percent; increase donor participation by 10 percent
- Improve holiday program attendance by 20 percent
- Introduce a new after school program: enroll a minimum of 15 students
- Improve communications with parents
- Develop a newsletter with 40 percent readership
- Improve newsletter readership by 15 percent
2. Prioritize
Don’t try to do everything at once. As you begin to make a list of goals, it often can become excessive or overwhelming, especially for multi-level schools, schools with multiple campuses and school districts, which may have significantly different goals throughout the community.
This is where it becomes crucial to prioritize goals and be realistic about what you can accomplish in one year versus three or five years.
Some initiatives can easily be accomplished in one year, others may take two or three years. The viability of accomplishing each goal will depend on your school community and the resources available to you, and many overarching goals will have sub-sets of goals that work towards accomplishing the larger goal.
For example, while enrollment may be a top priority, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll double it in one year. Instead, find a smaller goal that will help you reach that larger objective, like increase inquiries by 10 percent.
Pick the top three or four things that either need the most urgent attention or will have the greatest impact on your community in one year, and be realistic about your expectations.
3. Assess Needs and Required Resources
Start thinking about the resources that are available to you. A budget is an obvious one, but don’t forget time, talent and tools. It’s one thing to say you want to redesign your holiday event program and include an online registration, but if you don’t have access to a graphic designer, writer or online registration software, then you’ll need to build them into your list of required resources.
Other resources you might need include social media, email marketing, print marketing and website improvements. These tools also require design and strong messaging. You may need to consider purchasing new products or outsourcing work to a professional. It’s important to not sacrifice quality when pursuing a new project.
In addition, don’t forget the time it will take for you to research and assess the right tools for the job. Tools are an investment and the right tools will make your efforts more efficient and effective.
Some of the tools some like to use for building and managing a marketing plan include the school’s Strategic Plan to determine the school’s biggest goals and objectives, statistics from databases like Raiser’s Edge for assessing outreach efforts and engagement levels, and Google Analytics for determining online behavior.
4. Brainstorm and Refine Ideas to Build a Strategy
Too often, this step is left out of the marketing plan process. One of the most fun parts of building a marketing plan is when you brainstorm how you’re going to accomplish your goals. This is your chance to write down every idea you’ve ever had when it comes to marketing your school, and start picking out the ones that can best work together to achieve your goals.
As you continue to build your school marketing plan, you’ll revisit and adjust your ideas regularly. Just because it’s a great idea now, doesn’t mean it will make the final cut.
Refining ideas means carefully choosing a strategy that will work for your school. If you’re not skilled in building marketing strategies, you might consider asking a consultant for help.
5. Implement a School Marketing Plan
For each of your goals, you want to clearly illustrate your timeline, concept, and the tools that you will use. The more you can explain why you’re doing what you’re doing, the better. Making these plans is also helpful when you get those requests for small projects from departments other than your top clients.
It gives you validity when you say “we can’t accommodate this project right now,” and explain why. It doesn’t mean everyone will be happy with your response, but it can help you make them understand your reasoning.
For example, if in part of your plan you decide that you can reasonably create three print publications and send five targeted emails to constituents on a set schedule with set concepts for each, it will give you the authority to nix alternate ideas that pop up during the year.
In addition to the major efforts, such as print, you might want to outline the complementary efforts you’re planning to make as well. While not every detail of your school initiative needs to be explained, a quick explanation of why you’re doing what you’re doing can go a long way.
6. Assess Success
It’s not enough to build a school marketing plan and carry it out. You also need to measure results. This is where those quantitative goals come in handy. The images below is an example of how Cheshire Academy assessed the success of its annual fund marketing program.
The best thing you can do is pay attention to the areas that did well and celebrate them, but also focus on the areas that didn’t perform well. You can continue the successful components of your school marketing plan and delve into those unsuccessful initiatives to learn how to improve efforts next year.
What Are The Examples of Marketing Plan?
To get your creative juices flowing, we’ve compiled a list of 5 inspiring marketing plans. Analyze them, learn from them and apply this knowledge to your own marketing plan. Let’s get started.
- Content Marketing Strategy Example by Buffer
- Marketing Plan Example by morebusiness.com
- Sample Marketing Plan by Palo Alto Software
- Sample Internet Marketing Plan by NerdyMind
- Multichannel Marketing Plan Sample by BusinessTown
- Templated Email Marketing Automation Plans by Drip
How do You Write a Budget For a Marketing Plan?
Allocating funds for a marketing plan may seem confusing, but it’s essential for career longevity. Below are the 6 steps you need to understand and create a successful marketing budget for your small business.
Step 1: Look at the Big Picture
A marketing budget is essential for your small business at any stage. However, knowing where you are on your small business journey can help you make important decisions. Essentially, there are two obvious categories your business can fall under — start-up or running.
Your current start-up or expert status will impact how much you’ll need for the marketing budget for your small business. In general, expect to spend more when you’re in the start-up phase than once you’re up and running.
For example, Matt’s biggest expense occurred in the start-up phase. He noticed that in LA’s competitive dog walking scene, a good logo is key for getting clients in the door. Therefore, he spent most of his initial budget on his logo in order to solidify brand identity. “I hired a cartoonist to bring my ideas to life and I didn’t skimp,” he said.
Step 2: Outline Your Sales Funnel
A sales funnel is a series of steps your potential customer has to take in order to purchase your product or service.
Outlining your sales funnel will help you understand:
- How your clients find you in the first place
- What they need to know before they buy
- The major factors that contribute to their final decision (and your marketing plan)
If you’re up and running, map out each possible sales funnel that current clients take to purchase from you. Notice which sales and marketing tactics are working. How much do you currently spend on these tactics? Where can you trim the fat?
Step 3: List Your Operational Costs
Compared to our other tactics to help you set a marketing budget for your small business, this step is even more straightforward.
Create a spreadsheet or template with all your current or anticipated operational costs. Costs may include web hosting, sales tax, professional fees, content outsourcing fees and whatever else you need to run your business.
These calculated business essentials paint a realistic picture of what you have to work with regarding your marketing budget.
Step 4: Set Goals
Now you know what phase your business is in, your current or future sales funnels, and how much it costs to run your company. It’s time to set goals.
Answer these questions to determine how your marketing budget and goals work together:
- How much revenue do you need?
- How many sales do you need to make your revenue goal?
- Determine how many leads you need to convert the right number of sales. At what percentage do your leads typically convert? If you’re just starting, research typical sales conversion rates in your niche to get a realistic target.
Now that you know your goals, you’ll need a system for tracking your progress. Matt says, “If I’m going to spend anything I have to think of my ROI and it’s usually high.” A great way to figure out the best marketing tactics for high ROI is to research your competitors.
Step 5: Scope Out the Competition
When it comes to setting a marketing budget for your small business, understanding your niche is of the utmost importance.

Keep track of your top competitors and study their marketing campaigns.
- Who are the major players in your industry?
- What methods do they use for advertising?
Next, outline what they share in common.
- Do they favor physical marketing collateral over digital ads?
- Are they investing in every possible marketing platform or a select few?
Matt observed that his competitors typically used flyers, social proof, and printed materials to market their businesses. Once he tested these methods, he was able to narrow down what worked best for his unique company.
“I find that going to dog parks and coffee shops and handing out business cards is more effective than taking out ads in papers,” says Matt.
Step 6: Create Your Marketing Plan
Now for the fun part, actually creating your marketing plan. By this point, you should have a firm understanding of where your business is and where it can go.
Use the information from the above steps to outline:
- How much money you’ll need to spend to achieve your goals
- The basic marketing tools you’ll need to get started
- An understanding of how your customers want to be marketed to
Once the plan is fully fleshed out, setting a marketing budget for your small business will be easy.
How do You Write a Sales And Marketing Plan?
The Sales and Marketing section for our cycling rental business could start something like this:
Target Market
The target market for Blue Mountain Cycling Rentals is western VA, eastern WV, southwestern MD, and northern NC. While customers in the counties surrounding the George Washington National Forest make up 35% of our potential customer base, much of our market travels from outside that geographic area.
Marketing Strategy
Our marketing strategy will focus on three basic initiatives:
- Road signage. Access to the forest is restricted to a few primary entrances, and visitors reach those entrances after traveling on one of several main roadways. Since customers currently rent bicycles in the local town of Harrisonburg, road signage will communicate our value proposition to all potential customers.
- Web initiatives. Our website will attract potential visitors to the resort. We will partner with local businesses that serve our target market to provide discounts and incentives.
- Promotional events. We will hold regular events with professional cyclists, like demonstrations and autograph signings, to bring more customers to the store as well as to extend the athletes’ “brand” to our brand.
Pricing Strategy
We will not be the low-cost provider for our target market. Our goal is to provide mid- to high-end equipment. However, we will create web-based loyalty programs to incent customers to set up online profiles and reserve and renew equipment rentals online, and provide discounts for those who do. Over time we will be able to market specifically to those customers.
Read Also: 10 Inspiring Designs to Jump Start your T-shirt Printing Business
Just like in the Market Opportunity section, you may want to include a few more categories. For example, if your business involves a commission-compensated sales force, describe your Sales Programs and incentives. If you distribute products to other companies or suppliers and those distribution efforts will impact your overall marketing plans, lay out your Distribution Strategy.
The key is to show you understand your market and you understand how you will reach your market. Marketing and promotions must result in customers–your goal is to thoroughly describe how you will acquire and keep your customers.
Also keep in mind you may want to include examples of marketing materials you have already prepared, like website descriptions, print ads, web-based advertising programs, etc. While you don’t need to include samples, taking the time to create actual marketing materials might help you better understand and communicate your marketing plans and objectives.
Make sure your Sales & Marketing section answers the “How will I reach my customers?” question.
Conclusion
According to Seth Godin, Marketing is a contest for people’s attention. Failing to plan is planning to fail. So if you want to win the competition, marketing have a lot to plan. Make sure that you are aware of all the essential elements to make your marketing plan good.
The landscape of marketing is changing rapidly; it can be overwhelming or discouraging sometimes. An effective marketing plan along with a well-defined marketing strategy for each goal and an adequate tactical approach, as well as action plan to veer off course due to distraction is essential for your survival.