Helpful information for Designing a Market Plan
1: Define your business
• Your product or service
• Your geographic marketing area - neighborhood, regional or national
• Your competition
• How you differ from the competition - what makes you special
• Your price
• The competition's promotion methods
• Your promotion methods
• Your distribution methods or business location
2: Define your customers
• Your current customer base: age, sex, income, neighborhood
• How your customers learn about your product or service - advertising, direct mail,
word of mouth, Yellow Pages
• Patterns or habits your customers and potential customers share - where they
shop, what they read, watch, listen to
• Qualities your customers value most about your product or service - selection,
convenience, service, reliability, availability, affordability
• Qualities your customers like least about your product or service - can they be
adjusted to serve your customers better?
• Prospective customers whom you aren't currently reaching
3: Define your plan and budget
• Cost compared to sales
• Cost per customer
• Possible future marketing methods to attract new customers
• Percentage of profits you can allocate to your marketing campaign
• Marketing tools you can implement within your budget - newspaper, magazine or
Yellow Pages advertising; radio or television advertising; direct mail; tele-
marketing; public relations activities such as community involvement,
sponsorship or press releases
• Methods of testing your marketing ideas
• Methods for measuring results of your marketing campaign