Marketing Plan & SWOT Templates
Marketing Plan
A marketing plan is a comprehensive document or blueprint that outlines a company’s advertising and marketing efforts for the coming year. It describes business activities involved in accomplishing specific marketing objectives within a set time frame. A marketing plan also includes a description of the current marketing position of a business, a discussion of the target market and a description of the marketing mix that a business will use to achieve their marketing goals. A marketing plan has a formal structure, but can be used as a formal or informal document which makes it very flexible. It contains some historical data, future predictions, and methods or strategies to achieve the marketing objectives.
Marketing plans start with the identification of customer needs through a market research and how the business can satisfy these needs while generating an acceptable level of return. This includes processes such as market situation analysis, action programs, budgets, sales forecasts, strategies and projected financial statements. A marketing plan can also be described as a technique that helps a business to decide on the best use of its resources to achieve corporate objectives. It can also contain a full analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of a company, its organization and its products.
The marketing plan shows the step or actions that will be utilized in order to achieve the plan goals. For example, a marketing plan may include a strategy to increase the business’s market share by fifteen percent. The marketing plan would then outline the objectives that need to be achieved in order to reach the fifteen percent increase in the business market share. The marketing plan can be used to describe the methods of applying a company’s marketing resources to fulfill marketing objectives.
Marketing planning segments the markets, identifies the market position, forecast the market size, and plans a viable market share within each market segment. Marketing planning can also be used to prepare a detailed case for introducing a new product, revamping current marketing strategies for an existing product or put together a company marketing plan to be included in the company corporate or business plan.
SWOT Analysis
SWOT analysis aims to identify the key internal and external factors seen as important to achieving an objective. SWOT analysis groups key pieces of information into two main categories:
- Internal factors – the strengths and weaknesses internal to the organization
- External factors – the opportunities and threats presented by the environment external to the organization
Analysis may view the internal factors as strengths or as weaknesses depending upon their effect on the organization’s objectives. What may represent strengths with respect to one objective may be weaknesses (distractions, competition) for another objective. The factors may include all of the 4Ps (product, price, promotion, and place) as well as personnel, finance, manufacturing capabilities, and so on.
The external factors may include macroeconomic matters, technological change, legislation, and sociocultural changes, as well as changes in the marketplace or in competitive position. The results are often presented in the form of a matrix.
Marketing Plan & SWOT Templates 
Sales & Marketing Templates
The collection of sales and marketing templates can also be accessed below:
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| Sales Plan | Marketing Plan | Alternate Channels | Sales Presentations |
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| Sales Proposal | New Product Launch | Trade Show |
