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Structure your marketing with a Marketing Plan

Why is this important? Strategic planning is important to any business faculty, especially marketing. The Marketing Plan outlines all marketing objectives, planning and activity for the upcoming year. This will help you to stay organised and achieve your goals.

So just how do you write one? 

Here at Barley House Agency we use a SOSTAC framework. In this blog we will talk you through each stage of the Framework so you can write a Marketing Plan.

1. Situational Analysis

Before you do anything, we recommend performing a situational analysis. This answers the question of ‘Where are we now?’. Use a SWOT Analysis to see what strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats you have.

What to consider after a SWOT Analysis?
How can you turn threats and weaknesses into opportunities and Strengths?


2. Objectives

Simply, where do you want to be and what do you want to achieve? The 5s’s will help you to define what area’s you want to improve. In addition, make sure you use SMART objectives in your Marketing Plan.

SMART Objective example:
To Increase social media engagement across all platforms by 5% over the first three quarters of 2019.


3. Strategy

How do we get to where we want to be? How will you deliver your results to achieve your objectives? Which target market should you focus on? What is your overall intention and message towards that particular target market? How will you make yourself stand out from your competitors? 


4. Tactics

How EXACTLY do we get where we want to be? Use the 7P’s of marketing to help you with this. This will aid in defining effective ways and channels to deliver your message in line with your strategy and objectives. See how Barley House Agency used tactics to attract customers to Firstcare
See some other examples here


5. Actions

Who does what and when do they do it? Now you have defined your target market, key messages and delivery channels you need to plan how to implement it. Who is responsible in your team for each task and when will you do it in the year? Make sure you have a time-plan of when you will action each part of the Marketing Plan.
Outsourcing your marketing delivery to an agency is a great way to ensure you deliver your actions. See how Barley House Agency continues to do this for Allan & Bertram.


6. Control

Monitoring performance. How do you keep track of your Marketing Plan and its results? Use KPI’s, web analytics, sales data and any other processes you may have. Measure your performance against your original objectives to see if you have achieved what you intended to.

We hope the SOSTAC framework will help you to write your Marketing Plan. Need any help with your Marketing and Strategic Planning? Contact us and we will be happy to answer any marketing-related questions.

Who are we? We are a fully integrated creative marketing agency based in Cuffley, Hertfordshire. View our Services to see all the remarkable ways we can help your brave brand.