Do you know the current market situation in the technology sector? Have you ever wondered how your potential customers can consume your products and services? Have you already decided on the goals for the new period? Is it clear to you what actions are required to achieve these goals?
If you answered no to these inquiries or are unsure of the
answer to any of them, you need urgent planning. It's time to launch your
marketing plan.
How can a marketing plan help you?
The most common situation for developing a marketing plan
is, as a rule, at the beginning of the year, when the implementation of a new
strategic plan is marked for several months. But it can also be useful if you
are looking to launch a new product or service or enter a new market.
Either way, the marketing plan will point the way for your
tech company. Whether it's a startup or not, this plan is a report that you
must complete to set goals, choose funds, determine your resources, and justify
tactics based on a budget.
A marketing plan, among other things, will be very helpful
in defining your brand identity; attract new customers and retain them; and
improve your company's sales. Because in a sector like technology, where
competition is increasing day by day, you have to be prepared for change. And
therefore, it is necessary to draw up a detailed document that contains the
necessary information to anticipate them.
This plan should be the result of extensive research that
will help your marketing team and your sales team achieve their goals. Because,
in the end, the goals are common, and these teams should strive to achieve them
together. In short, it is a helpful and structured guide available to anyone in
your company (even a newbie).
How to write
your own marketing plan?
Any marketing plan,
especially for your tech company, should contain the following sections:
1. Company
Information
Your company's core
data should always figure in your marketing plan. It may seem obvious to always
include this information, but if you use a template, you do not have to
constantly change this section, and this is a reference information when, for
example, a new employee needs to quickly gain speed or if you need to.
outsource some work.
2. Analysis of
the situation.
Your company's
mission statement, your value proposition, your target market (for a general or
specific marketing campaign), your strengths and weaknesses, your main
competitors ... These are some of the examples you should consider when it
comes to analyzing the current market situation. ...
Consider this
section as one of the most important, as it will help you get a general and an objective view of your real situation in relation to your competitors. That is
why it is always recommended to conduct a SWOT analysis, a study of the situation
in your company or a technology project in order to know its strengths and
weaknesses (internal characteristics), as well as its threats and opportunities
(external factors).
So what do you need
to keep in mind?
Information related
to the economic, political and cultural data of your sector, which allows you
to assess how it will develop or what the consumer trend will be.
Information related
to the image of your company, your products or services, your positioning on
the network, your reputation, the demand for what you offer.
Information about
your main competitors and your indirect competitors in order to evaluate how to
position yourself and differentiate your products and / or services.
Information that
allows you to define your target audience, socio-demographic and psychosocial
characteristics that will allow you to know what their behavior (what will be
their expectations and motivations) when consuming what your company has to
offer.
3. Setting
goals
Do you know your
medium and long-term goals for each of your channels? In this section, you
should determine what your goals for this plan will be based on the
communication channels you intend to use in the strategy. It is important that
the goals you set are realistic and measurable in order to analyze their
evolution.
To do this,
consider that the goals should be SMART:
Specific:
individual for each channel and taking into account what needs to be achieved.
Measurable:
Measurable, for which you must specify quantities or percentages.
Achievable:
Achievable, so they must be realistic and build on previous data.
Relevant: Relevant
to the plan, no need to invest more resources and time.
By time: with a set
date to assess the development and make the necessary changes.
Strategy development
This is the
center of any marketing plan. The tactics you follow and apply in each channel
should be defined in your marketing plan. Some strategies should be based
on the goals that your company intends to achieve.
These
strategies will be the ones that, depending on each channel, will get you more
traffic, but most importantly, they will allow you to get more conversions
through which you can generate leads and final sales. In this case, you need to
explain your strategies as the most common actions have been taken. But
remember that all activities must fit your budget, so you must evaluate which
channels are primary and which are secondary.
When
developing a strategy, you must consider what audience they are targeting, as
they will be more or less effective depending on the appearance of your goal.
In this case, you can use targeting to focus your efforts on specific niches.
5. Budgeting.
Based on
your budget and the strategies that you thought were necessary to achieve your
goals, you will have to go back to the previous step many times. For this
reason, it is important to determine which channels are prioritized and which
are more optional. In some cases, it will be necessary to rethink even some of
the strategies and goals, so they should be realistic and achievable.
6.
Control methods
It is
important to follow the established plan, otherwise, it would be useless.
Monitoring lets you know to what extent goals are being achieved and how
effective your strategies are. Without control and analysis, you will not be
able to detect failures in your plan, but neither can you find successes.
Philip
Kotler, in his book Marketing Management, creates a fantastic timeline that can
be of great help in setting up the control process.