Marketing Plan Examples

Marketing Plan Samples for Learning and Inspiration

Economic independence is what everybody looks for. Although starting a business is a challenging task, young people and adults dream about opening a beach café, a hand-made store, or a Mexican restaurant. However, you can’t just choose any place and begin building a new spa or showroom. You need a plan!

When we say “plan,” we don’t mean a scheme drawn on a paper tissue. We mean a detailed, well-structured, and completely calculated marketing plan. A good marketing strategy requires profound research, concentration, and much time and energy. It doesn’t sound that easy now, right?

In fact, the planning of a business requires much more than just a good plan. Some may have a good business sense, but others need years of learning. Sometimes, work experience is a better way to understand how exactly a business works. We advise you to try your hand in the sphere you want to choose for creating your own business. Feel the work atmosphere of a café, bookstore, or casino before planning your own.

Unfortunately, we can’t plan everything for you. The only thing that we can offer is to read our marketing plan samples provided by professional writers. Miguel de Cervantes, the well-known author of the famous novel “The Ingenious Nobleman Sir Quixote of La Mancha,” or “Don Quixote” for short, wrote in his book: “The man who is prepared has his battle half fought.” Don’t be afraid of the business battles and plan every step to achieve your goal!

Below, you will read about the ideal marketing strategy template, the mistakes you should avoid while writing a marketing plan, and how to use our samples wisely. Let us start with the latter.

How Will Our Marketing Plan Samples Help You to Write Your Own?

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. All people who live on the planet Earth have probably heard this proverb once or twice in their lives. We think that the best way to teach you how to write a marketing plan is to provide you with a high-quality marketing plan example. Let’s see what you can learn from our authors.

First of all, examine the structure of a marketing plan sample. Although some aspects may differ, you will still have a template to make further changes. No matter what kind of business you plan to start, you have to specify your mission, provide a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis, describe your product or services, and offer a marketing plan strategy.

Secondly, read thoroughly the whole marketing plan example and see if you like the writing style. This refers to the manner of argumentation, useful phrases, the order of presentation, etc. If you feel convinced and inspired after reading our sample, no one forbids you from using our marketing plan as a template for your own work.
Please, remember that you cannot copy our sample and present it as your own work. Don’t commit plagiarism! We are sure that our guide will be enough for you to write your own excellent marketing plan.

Finally, our marketing plan examples are of a good quality. You can find thousands of samples on the internet, but there is no guarantee that they were written by professional writers. We have a great team that cares about your success. We always provide you with great guides and samples in order to help you train your writing skills.

What Is the Ideal Marketing Strategy Template?

There is NO ideal marketing strategy template. Face it. There are too many different factors that may influence the choice of aspects you have to analyze. If you are planning to open a unique massage parlor for your town, there is no need to analyze the competitors. If your goal is to open a hand-made store, the number of your workers will be lower than in a big mall.

Still, we can provide you with a few tips that might help you to understand what a really good (but not ideal) marketing plan should look and sound like.
The structure and presentation are very important for a marketing strategy sample. Imagine that you write the plan not for your personal use but to impress your potential investors. The people who have enough money to invest in a business don’t have enough time to waste on reading ill-structured and incomprehensible plans.
“It’s what’s on the inside that matters.” That is an utterly wise phrase but, unfortunately, it doesn’t always work when it comes to the world of business. In that case, beautiful wrapping paper can be more significant than the present itself.

Consequently, you have to present your marketing plan the right way. Let’s talk about a few common rules:

1. Avoid long, boring texts.

Do you remember how stubbornly you were looking for some pictures in the history books at school? The same works for marketing plans. Add some schemes and diagrams and don’t forget to divide all information into blocks! Short paragraphs will allow your readers to concentrate on all key elements that they are looking for.

2. Use logic.

Does the book make sense if you read it from the end to the beginning? Of course, it depends on the book but, as a rule, a logical presentation of your ideas is the best way to help your readers understand your genius thoughts. Move in a soothing way from one big aspect to another and leave the details for the end.

3. Create your buyer persona.

A buyer persona is a fictional character who represents the “ideal buyer” of your business. Although this person is not real, its portrayal should be based on real data and feedback. Imagine the person you are going to sell your products and services to. This method will improve the whole marketing strategy and make it more customer centric.

4. Follow the standards.

Although business writing is far removed from academic writing, it still has some standards. First, your marketing plan is not a comic book. You have to use one style and one font throughout the document. Second, forget about slang and colloquial language. You have to sound serious to impress your readers. Third, you shouldn’t use complex or unusual words that might confuse your targeted audience.

5. Don’t copy someone else’s plan.

The good old days when copying the right answers could save your grades have passed. If you copy a marketing plan, it may result in a business disaster. Every concrete situation needs a unique plan. Don’t try to cheat in this case: you may not like the consequences.

Mistakes You Should Avoid While Writing a Marketing Plan

1. Developing only a few options for marketing strategies.

A good marketing strategy example includes a wide range of different tactics. Nobody can predict the future with full confidence, so you have to be ready for any course of events. You should not only have a plan “B” but also “C,” “D,” and “E” – just in case.

2. Presenting too many advantages/disadvantages of your product.

No doubt, you have to define your product’s benefits and mention a few weaknesses in order to create the impression of an objective assessment. At the same time, you should keep the balance between positive and negative points with a delicate emphasis on your product’s advantages.

3. Neglecting the marketing budget.

The world of business is tightly connected with marketing. Advertising actions, customer engagement, and social media is very important for a successful company. Of course, you have to spend money in order to promote your service. Take into account that at least 10% of your general budget should be spent on your marketing campaign.

4. Forgetting about goals.

Every well-considered action should have a clear objective. If you don’t define your mission in your marketing plan, the readers may think that you are not serious about your business.

5. Omitting the research.

Marketing is a science. No scientific project can exist without the research. Every marketing plan should be based on real and exhaustive data. You have to know as much as possible about your targeted market, competitors, potential difficulties, etc. Don’t be lazy; provide profound and comprehensive research.

Conclusion

Marketing plans are not the easiest form of business writing. They require a lot of various skills: research, planning, logical thinking, etc. Sometimes, to write the first word is the most difficult. Now, you don’t have to start from scratch. We are glad to provide you with our samples to simplify your path to the world of business.

We can’t promise that everything will go as planned. Still, it is better to be ready for all obstacles than to act blindly. Strategies and tactics are not a guarantee of victory, but their absence is a harbinger of failure.

We hope that our marketing plan samples will act as a great template for your own plan. Remember that the more samples you read, the more ideas your brain accumulates and processes. Who knows, maybe the next example you read will inspire you on the creation of something like Starbucks or Apple!