How to Create the Marketing Section of a Business Plan

Many components go into creating a business plan, from your mission statement to descriptions of your company, products, and services, to a statement concerning startup costs and cash flow for at least the first year, if not more, just for example. But you also need to include information about your market and demographics, as well as your plan for marketing your business and your products or services. Once you've spelled out the market you plan to target for sales, your next step is to lay out your marketing strategy. And the more comprehensive you make this section of your business plan, the better prepared you will be to impress lenders, and ultimately, to implement your strategy. Here are a few things that go into completing the marketing section of your business plan.

Your marketing strategy revolves largely around the products or services you plan to offer, so the first step is making these as complete as possible so that you can figure out how to price them competitively while still earning a profit. You might not think of pricing as part of your marketing strategy, but your ability to effectively promote and sell your products relies on pinpointing the intersection of 1) attracting customers, 2) outbidding competitors, and 3) earning profits. So pricing accordingly is the first part of any marketing strategy.

You also need to think about where you plan to sell your goods - distribution, in other words. Even if you have your own brick-and-mortar retail store, you might also want to sell your products through an online store, or alternately, distribute them to other retailers in order to expand your market and increase brand awareness and sales. And of course, your channels of distribution become particularly important if your business plan includes manufacturing, but not a dedicated store front.

Now you can begin thinking about the part of the marketing strategy that you are likely more familiar with: promotion. This includes everything from the names you choose for products, to packaging, store placement, advertising, and more. These are the details you will focus on with marketing campaigns, cross-promotions, giveaways, and so on. While you don't necessarily have to spell out every component and task involved in anticipated marketing campaigns for the next 1-5 years to come when creating your business plan, you do need to provide a thoughtful overview.

The idea here is to list your goals for marketing and lay out the groundwork for meeting those goals. It's not so much about listing the finer points of intended marketing campaigns, but rather painting your plan in broad strokes. This could include ideas for public relations, opportunities for sales and cross-promotion, and covering the media you intend to target (print, radio, TV, and online ads, for example, or email marketing and social media efforts), as well as anticipated costs. A few emails providers like Yopmail provides disposable emails for checking out churn and burn campaigns.

Don't forget, you will need help developing and implementing your marketing strategies, so make sure to include plans to hire advertising agencies or sales firms like Invenio Solutions. It's important that you have a well-developed marketing strategy when creating your business plan, but the truth is that you probably won't start to address many of the details until your business is up and running, or at least funded.