The exact nature of your plan, and your marketing situation, dictates its contents. You add detail or take it away to suit your needs.
In the real world you’ll want to customize your outline according to whether you are selling products or services, to businesses or consumers, or you’re a nonprofit organization. Although the outline does change in some respects as a result, this is a good standard sample outline for a basic marketing plan.
You may also find it helpful to browse examples of completed marketing plans on our sister site, Mplans.com.
Expanded plan outline
- 1.0 Executive Summary
- 2.0 Situation Analysis
- 2.1 Market Summary
- 2.1.1 Market Demographics
2.1.2 Market Needs
2.1.3 Market Trends
2.1.4 Market Growth
- 2.1.1 Market Demographics
- 2.2 SWOT Analysis
- 2.2.1 Strengths
2.2.2 Weaknesses
2.2.3 Opportunities
2.2.4 Threats
- 2.2.1 Strengths
- 2.3 Competition
2.4 Services
2.5 Keys to Success
2.6 Critical Issues
2.7 Channels
2.8 Macroenvironment - 3.0 Marketing Strategies
- 3.1 Mission
3.2 Marketing Objectives
3.3 Financial Objectives
3.4 Target Marketing
3.5 Positioning
3.6 Strategy Pyramids
3.7 Marketing Mix- 3.7.1 Services and Service Marketing
3.7.2 Pricing
3.7.3 Promotion
3.7.4 Service
3.7.5 Channels of Distribution
- 3.7.1 Services and Service Marketing
- 3.8 Marketing Research
- 4.0 Financials, Budgets, and Forecasts
- 4.1 Break-even Analysis
4.2 Sales Forecast- 4.2.1 Sales Breakdown 1
4.2.2 Sales Breakdown 2
4.2.3 Sales Breakdown 3
4.3 Expense Forecast
- 4.3.1 Expense Breakdown 1
4.3.3 Expense Breakdown 2
4.3.3 Expense Breakdown 3
- 4.2.1 Sales Breakdown 1
- 4.4 Linking Sales and Expenses to Strategy
4.5 Contribution Margin - 5.0 Controls
- 5.1 Implementation Milestones
5.2 Marketing Organization
5.3 Contingency Planning
Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software and Bplans.com. Follow him on Twitter @Timberry.
