Much like a road map, a marketing plan gives specific information about taking a company from one place to another. To generate success, a company needs to establish a marketing plan that lays out the steps to take that will improve not only the sales of the company, but the direction. A marketing plan will include demographics of the target customers, market positioning and pricing, the plan for product distribution and special offers or incentives. Specific marketing tools such as online marketing and other forms of advertising should be detailed. There should also be included a retention strategy for maintaining customers and financial projections about the success of the product.

The marketing plan is different than a sales plan in that the marketing plan mainly deals with how the included products will be presented to the intended office. The sales plan deals mainly with the actual sale of an item. Within the marketing plan, there needs to be information that includes not only how to sell the items, but how the advantages a little pre-planning can give you an edge like no other.

Establishing the plan for marketing will not only save the company money, it will save time and energy as the company begins to focus on the next level of marketing. From a customer perspective, the marketing plan details how often I’ll see the advertisements for products, where the advertisements show up and the call to action that the advertising gives. A marketing plan will also focus on how to retain customers once they have made purchases from you. It is significantly less expensive to keep a customer than to acquire a new one. The final piece of information on the last clue is how to project what future sales the product is going to have, and the goals for the next round of marketing.