I know, I know- everyone wants to read about the Executive Summary – but let’s show the marketing plan a little love…
So you’ve started your plan and you’ve reached the marketing strategy. Of course, you’ve already read our previous post, Components of a Business Plan part 2, but you want something a little more in depth. So how do you write a great marketing strategy? What do you need to write about? What do you need to think about? Your marketing strategy should analyze both your physical market (size, conditions, demographics) and your market’s trends (what’s going on in your target market?).
The market size is not as cut and dry as it sounds. This section should not only describe the size of the market (it should do this), but should also describe other factors that will impact your success. How many customers are currently purchasing similar products or services? Remember, if you’re B2B this would include other businesses. How much money is being spent in your market (combined annual revenue)? How many companies would be in competition with you? Is your market confined to your local area? If no, is it a national market? A global one? Use industry overviews to jump start this section and then get more specific once you have the overview in place. Remember to site your sources.
What is the condition of your market? Is it growing? Shrinking? Stagnant? You can get a good foundation on the conditions of a market from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. View the number of customers and the revenues of the top five companies in your market or industry. Use this information to glean a basic understanding of your market (to answer the questions stated above) and then do some supporting research to get the specifics.
How do you define your market?
