[Your Company Logo]

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[Your Company Name]

MARKETING PLAN

[Month], [Year]

[Your Name]

[Your Title]

[YourCompany Name]

[Your Address 1]

[Your Address 2]

[City, State Zip]

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CONFIDENTIAL

Table of Contents

(Right click and Choose “Update Field” when you are done to automatically update the page numbers)

1.Executive Summary

2.Target Market/Target Customers

3.Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

4.Pricing & Positioning Strategy

5.Distribution Plan

6.Your Offers

7.Marketing Materials

8.Promotions Strategy

9.Online Marketing Strategy

10.Conversion Strategy

11.Joint Ventures & Partnerships

12.Referral Strategy

13.Strategy for Increasing Transaction Prices

14.Retention Strategy

15.Financial Projections

PLEASE READ FIRST:

The Ultimate Marketing Plan Template is much more than a fill-in-the-blanks template.

It provides the best marketing strategies that have helped tens of thousands of businesses reap massively increased sales and profits.

Each section of the plan includes text describing these strategies plus fill-in-the-blanks areas for you to choose and describe which strategies you will use.

You can choose to print The Ultimate Marketing Plan Template and hand-write your answers in the blanks provided.

Or, you can type your answers directly into this document. If you type in your answers, we recommend saving the file under a different name, and then, at the end, deleting all of the text describing the strategies. Then you will have a comprehensive marketing plan for you and your company (or you might want to leave the strategies to teach others in your organization).

1.Executive Summary

[Complete this last, as the information will come
from the other sections of your marketing plan.]

[Company Name] is in the business of {provide 1-2 line description of your company}

  1. Our target customers are: {include your answer to question D in Section 2}
  1. Our unique selling proposition is: {include your answer to question #7 in Section 3}
  1. Our distribution strategy includes: {include your answers to questions 1 and 2 in Section 5}
  1. The key offers we will use to attract customers includes: {include your answers to the question in Section 6}
  1. The promotional methods we will use to attract customers include: {include the methods you selected in Section 8}
  1. Our online marketing strategy includes: {summarize your answers to the questions in Section 9}
  1. The strategies we will use to increase our customer conversion rates include: {summarize your answers from Section 10}
  1. We will maximize our transaction prices by: {include answers from Section 13}
  1. We will maximize the value of our customers by: {include answers from Section 14}
  1. Our key financial projections include: {include Lead & Revenue Results and Profit Results charts from Section 15}

2.Target Market/Target Customers

Your marketing plan must start with a detailed summary of who your target customers are and what their wants and needs are.

Without this understanding, you can’t speak directly to your customers. And if you can’t do this, your marketing ROI (return on investment) will suffer.

For example, if you were selling a teeth whitening product and knew that your customers were men aged 30 to 40, making between $40,000 and $50,000 per year, living in Manhattan, and who owned dogs, you could effectively reach this market and speak to their exact needs.

Unfortunately, most businesses don’t take the time to create this profile, and thus waste a lot of money by targeting the wrong audience with their marketing messages.

You must note the 80/20 rule when creating your customer profile. The 80/20 rule states that 20% of your customers will generate 80% of your revenue.

The point is this….clearly some people who buy from you will not fall neatly into the detailed description of your target customer. That’s ok. By focusing on marketing to and serving your core customer, you’ll get more of the 20% you want and thus much more “bang for your marketing buck.”

Complete the following exercises to develop your target customer profile:

A. Demographic Profile of Our Target Customers

(Note that not all of these demographic criteria may be relevant to your company. Ignore ones that are not relevant. Add any to the list that might be missing.)

Note that if you are serving U.S. consumers in a specific geographic area, type in the zip code(s) at to find a demographic profile of that area.

If you are serving U.S. business customers, you can find much demographic data at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics located at .

Location:______

Age:______

Generation: (e.g., baby-boomers, Generation X):______

Income: ______

Gender:______

Nationality/Ethnicity:______

Marital Status:______

Household Size:______

Occupation/Employment status:______

Industry (if B2B):______

Religion:______

Language:______

Education:______

Organizational Memberships:______

Other: ______

B. Psychographic Profile of Our Target Customers

Describe the psychographic profile of your target customers. What do they do for fun? What TV shows do they watch? What do they believe in? What do they really care about?

Activities ______

Interests ______

Opinions ______

Attitudes ______

Values ______

C. Your Target Customers’ Key Problems, Desires and Needs

Write down your target customers’ key problems, desires and needs below. Examples include price, location, exclusivity, results, safety, timeliness, convenience and atmosphere.

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D. Your Detailed Customer Profile

Based on your answers above, write down your detailed customer profile below.

For example: Our customers are single men aged 30 to 40, making between $40,000 and $50,000 per year, living in Manhattan, who have no kids, own dogs, really care about the environment, enjoy watching and playing sports, and want white teeth in order to feel more attractive.

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3.Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Having a strong Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is one of the most important elements of your marketing plan.

Your USP separates your product or service from your competitors. It makes your product or service a “unique, must have” item.

In fact, great USPs have been noted as the keys to success for companies in multiple industries such as these:

  1. The Domino’s Pizza USP is “Fresh hot pizza delivered to your door in thirty minutes or less, guaranteed” (key USP elements are quality (hot/fresh) and timeliness (30 minutes or less))
  2. The Federal Express USP is “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.” (key USP elements are reliability and quick delivery)

A great USP will lower your cost of getting leads and increase your conversion rates.

Here are some more famous USP examples:

  • Head & Shoulders: You get rid of dandruff
  • Olay: You get younger-looking skin
  • M&M's: Melts in your mouth, not in your hand
  • Wonder Bread: Wonder Bread Helps Build Strong Bodies 12 Ways
  • Nyquil: The nighttime, coughing, achy, sniffling, stuffy head, fever, so you can rest medicine

Here are some more USP examples used by local businesses:

  • We are the only car repair shop that will buy your car if you are not 100 percent satisfied with our work.
  • Delivered in 30 minutes or it’s on us!
  • No other furniture company will pay for your shipping.
  • Our recipe is so secret, only three people in the world know it!
  • We guarantee that you will have a comfortable experience and never have to wait more than 15 minutes for the dentist or you will receive a free exam.
  • Don't pay 300% markups to a traditional jeweler for inferior diamonds! We guarantee that your loose diamond will appraise for at least 200% of the purchase price, or we'll buy it back.

Follow these steps/exercises to create your USP:

1. Put together a detailed description of who your customers are and the problems and desires they are looking to solve/fill (you should have just completed this in the last section).

2. Describe the key values and/or benefits that your customers will receive from buying your products and/or services.

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3. Describe how customers will feel after consuming your product or service (e.g., their teeth will be whiter, they will feel more confident, they will feel safer, they will have more energy, they will have more money, etc.).

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4. Write down ways in which your company is different, and ideally stands out fromcompetitors (factors such as price, location, exclusivity, results, safety, timeliness, etc.)? (And if currently nothing really makes you unique, come up with some new ideas!)

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5. Branding: How would you like customers to think about your business? (e.g., as being the guaranteed lowest cost provider, as being the most reliable company, etc.) (e.g., customers think of WalMart as low price; they think of Lexus as luxury, and Toyota as value).

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6. Long USP summary. Take your answers to questions 1-5 and create a paragraph that portrays your unique selling proposition.

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7. Final USP. Condense your long USP summary to just one line. Use the Domino’s and Fedex examples as inspiration. Realize that you can’t say everything in just one line, but you must get your key points across.

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4.Pricing & Positioning Strategy

Your pricing strategy should reflect your branding strategy. For example, if you want to be known as the premium service provider, clearly your prices will be higher. Or, you could combine premium service with value and offer moderate prices. Or further, you could offer products or services at multiple price points.

Branding & Positioning: (you answered this in question #5 in the previous section); How would you like customers to think about your business? (e.g., as being the guaranteed lowest cost provider, as being the most reliable company, etc.) (e.g., customers think of WalMart as low price; they think of Lexus as luxury, and Toyota as value).

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Pricing:

Detail your pricing strategy below, answering the following two key questions:

  1. What prices do/will you charge for each of your products and/or services?
  2. How do/will these prices compare to your key competitors?

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5.Distribution Plan

Your distribution plan details how customers will buy from you.

Answer the following questions with regards to your Distribution plan.

1. Will you directly distribute to customers via your own retail location(s), company website, direct mail catalogs, etc.?

Direct Distributions Methods Used: ______

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2. And/Or, will you distribute to them indirectly using distributors, other retailers, partners, etc.?

Indirect Distributions Methods Used:______

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If you will be distributing both directly and indirectly, you should complete all the relevant exercises in this marketing planner twice – once for your direct customers (e.g., end users) and once for your indirect customers (e.g., retailers), because you will be marketing to both groups.

6.Your Offers

You will get better results from your marketing efforts if you craft powerful offers.

Offers are special deals that you promote to customers in order to make your product and/or service offerings more irresistible to them.

Good offers will drive more new customers to you, and also drive past customers back to you.

There are five basic types of offers as follows:

  1. Free Offers & Free Trials

A free offer could include a free information piece (e.g., special report). Or it could be a free trial of your product or service.

By giving something of value away for free, you will encourage prospective customers to try your product or service. Then you can influence them to become paying customers.

  1. Guarantee Offers

Guarantees give customers the confidence that your product or service will meet their needs. They are also known as “risk reversal” in that they put the risk of customer dissatisfaction on you and not the customer. This results in more customer purchases.

Guarantee offers include money-back guarantees for a specific time period (e.g., 30-day, 60-day, 1-year, or even a lifetime money back guarantee). Note that the longer your guarantee period, the higher your sales usually are. You can also use double-your-money-back guarantees if feasible for your business, as they should increase customer conversions.

  1. Packaged Offers

A packaged offer combines multiple products into a package that best suits the needs of your customers.

Examples range from the McDonald’s Happy Meal to starter kits that offer each of the products a beginner needs to embark on something (e.g., a baseball starter kit may include a helmet, batting glove, bat and baseballs).

By offering a packaged offer, you can create a strong perception of value in the customers’ eyes, while making a nice profit on the sale.

  1. Discount Offers

Discount offers are simply offering customers products or services at reduced fees. A better discount offer strategy is often to leave your prices the same, but offer more value. For example, a buy-one-get-one-free offer allows you to get more sales while maintaining your price point.

  1. Premium Offers

Premium offers are similar to buy-one-get-one-free offers. But rather, these are offers whereby you sell one product at the established price, but offer related products either free or at a discount upon purchase. So, for example, a premium offer might be that you can buy all of our software packages at a 25% discount when you buy a computer today.

Getting Customer to Act NOW!

The final piece of a great offer is that it influences customers to act (i.e., buy your product) NOW.

Ideas to incorporate into your offer in order to get customers to act now include:

  • Limited time offers (offer only good through Saturday at midnight)
  • Limited availability offers (we only have 45 products left to sell)
  • Fast action bonuses (the first 50 buyers will get these extra bonuses)

Write down the offers below that you will use in your business:

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7.Marketing Materials

Every business needs marketing materials. Below is a list of materials that you might need. Mark and detail the relevant ones below and when (if not right away) you will need them.

Two great resources for finding inexpensive graphic and web designers to design your marketing materials are

On both sites, you create a design brief, and then designers from around the world compete for your business. They will submit mock designs, and you only pay once you’ve seen and approved their work (and the price is very affordable).

Logo______

Business Cards______

Stationary______

Brochures/Flyers______

Website/Blog______

Newsletter______

Catalog______

Print Advertisements______

Promotional products/giveways (pens, t-shirts, note pads, etc.)______

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Signs______

Article Reprints______

Case Studies ______

Customer Testimonials ______

Employee shirts/uniforms______

Other______

Other______

8.Promotions Strategy

Your promotions strategy details how customers will learn about your company and your products and/or services.

When developing your promotions strategy, consider how your target market acts and/or prefers to receive information.

For example, if you target customers in rural areas, billboards may not be as effective as they would be in congested urban areas.

Or, if your target customers don’t read newspapers, then cross newspaper advertising off your list.

Below is a list of the 28 best methods of promoting your company. Below the list are descriptions of each of the methods. Read the descriptions first, and then come back to this page and check and/or describe each of the methods you will employ. Your goal is to find the promotional strategies that will reach the largest number of target customers at the lowest cost.

Blimps, Banners, and Billboards ______

Blogs, Podcasts, etc. ______

Card Decks ______

Catalogs ______

Celebrity Endorsements ______

Classified Ads ______

Contests ______

Coupons ______

Direct Mail ______

Door Hangers ______

Email Marketing ______

Event Marketing ______

Flyers ______

Gift Certificates ______

Networking ______

Newsletters ______

Newspaper/Magazine/Journal ads______

Online Marketing______

Postcards ______

Press Releases/PR______

Radio ads/TV ads/Infomercials ______

Seminars /Teleseminars / Webinars______

Telemarketing ______

Trade Shows______

Value-Paks______

Voice Broadcasts ______

Word of Mouth / Viral Marketing ______

Yellow Pages______

Other ______

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Below are the 28 proven ways to promote your company. Figure out which ones will allow you to reach the largest number of target customers at the lowest cost.

  1. Classified Ads – This is something everyone should be testing in some form or another. It’s great for lead generations. You should have a strong benefit-driven headline and a clear call to action. Free reports work very well with classifieds. Prices are generally very reasonable.
  1. Direct Mail – Mail pieces sent directly to your highly targeted market via direct mail can deliver a terrific return on investment (ROI) when tested properly. Reference USA ( and InfoUSA ( are good places to get compiled lists by industry, SIC, demographics and more. It contains names, addresses and lots of other great information for businesses and consumers.
  1. Postcards – Yes, postcards are a form of direct mail, but they warranttheir own category. Postcards are cheaper to produce and mail than full-blown direct mail packages or sales letters, and they are great for generating leads. Postcards are also a great way to stay in touch with your customers and prospects, and they also work well as part of a sequence of mailings.
  1. Yellow Pages – The Yellow Pages is another great resource that is often underutilized or used ineffectively. Yellow page ads are great because when someone sees your ad, they are already in the market for your product or service. Yellow page ads need to be benefits-driven, with your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) stated clearly and boldly (remember, this is the one place where your prospects will see your ad alongside all of your competitors). You want your ad to stand out from the clutter. Use a direct response type of ad, and again, free gifts or premiums work well here.
  1. Newspaper/Magazine/Journal Ads – Space ads in relevant newspapers, magazines and trade journals can expertly target your desired customer base. By purchasing remnant (or previously unsold) space, you can get discounts. Note that with print media, sometimes you need to provide your advertising designs a month or more before it will run.
  1. Radio Ads/TV Ads /Infomercials – You might be surprised how inexpensive you can get these types of slots, especially if you use remnant advertising. Study the best infomercials, for example (the ones you see over and over again…they must be working or they wouldn’t keep airing them), to get some ideas on how they are constructed.
  1. Flyers – It’s easy and cheap to hire a high school student to stuff mailboxes or stick flyers under windshields? Obviously if you are selling a high-priced financial course, it would be better to target the windshields of cars parked at a fancy hotel than your local Wal-Mart.
  1. Networking – Your local Chamber of Commerce, trade shows, seminars, and anywhere your prospects hang out are all good opportunities for networking. In many cases, the hotel bar the night before the seminar is the best opportunity for making contacts. It’s usually more effective to try to capture contacts and leads than to try to close a sale on the spot, so get your elevator pitch ready and have plenty of business cards on hand. Networking is also great for finding and securing partners.

Likewise, online networking via social websites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter can be very effective in reaching customers.