Marketing Plan Tutorial  

I. Executive Summary
II. Introduction 
III. Situational Analysis 

A. The Situational Environments 

1.     Demand & demand trends 

2.     Social & cultural factors 

3.     Demographics 

4.     Psychographics 

5.     Economic & business conditions  

6.     State of technology 

7.     Laws & regulations 

B. The Neutral Environments 

1.     Financial environment  

2.     Government environment  

3.     Media environment 

4.     Special interest environment  

C. The Company & Competitor Environments 

1. Describe your main competitors 

IV. SWOT
V. The Segment, Target & Position (STP)
VI. Marketing Objectives & Goals
VII. Marketing Tactics (4 P's)
      1.     Product
      2.     Price
      3.     Place
      4.     Promotion
VIII. Marketing Strategy, Implementation & Control
IX. Summary (Steps 10-13)
X. Appendices

Why do you need to formally write a Marketing Plan?      

• To keep track of all possible ideas for marketing so you can use the best ideas for your company
• To measure the success of a plan
• To improve funding possibilities since marketing plans are a key component to obtaining funding 
• To enable everyone involved to have the same plan in mind and function as a team

Objectives and Goals-

Is the product or service being introduced (to a new market or all new), rebranded, retrenched (shored up against competitors) or ready to be retired?  (You will write about this in Step 7.)  Consider early on why this marketing plan is needed but this may change as you understand your company, competitors and the industry more fully. 

• How to make the research easier:  each time a new source is introduced a brief overview of that source will be provided to help you understand and use it more easily.  
• How to make the final Marketing Plan much easier to use:  organize the information you find in the structure of the template and cite as you go. 
• Consider using Microsoft's Marketing Plan Template in Microsoft Word or the Marketing Plan Template made for this Tutorial.