What Skills and Knowledge Do You Need To Possess in Order to Develop A Useful Marketing Plan?

What Skills and Knowledge Do You Need To Possess in Order to Develop A Useful Marketing Plan?

At the foundation of any good business, the initiative is a solid marketing plan. A marketing plan is a detailed description that outlines your marketing strategy during a specific period. So, typically, a marketing plan includes an overview of your marketing goals, current marketing status, a timeline, tracking indicators, and most importantly, your target market and customer needs.

To set a marketing goal, you need knowledge like SMART(Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time). The marketing goal should be clear and specific, otherwise, you won't be able to focus your efforts. Setting a measurable goal is also very important because you can track your progress and stay motivated. In addition, the marketing goal should be achievable, not just a dream. Finally, you must set a deadline. Or, failure is the only result.

To understand your current marketing status, you need to draw a target market and your company's position in it. To know the targeted market you must do your research on it and analyze it. So, those data collection and analysis skills are the basic abilities. In addition, it is also necessary when you try to discover your target market and your customer needs.

You must know how to use SWOT Analysis to assess your company's current position before you decide on any new strategy. SWOT is Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Each part of the SWOT is crucial when you decide to apply a strategy. For instance, even a queen on a chessboard has its weakness. So, keep your strengths stronger and hide your weakness. Find your opportunities, avoid threats. 

Furthermore, you have to set the tracking indicators in order to keep your plan on track. Therefore, you must know your business very well so that you can identify those key indicators. For instance, if you are running a company like Tesla, you must know the KPIs such as average downtime, utilization rate, or throughput. Otherwise, you just look at the sales number and don't know if they still on your plan ship.

Finally, due to you must set a correct timeline for your marketing plan, you better know how to create a reasonable, logical, and visual timeline when communicating with your clients and the management. Otherwise, it just a confusing plan.

Reference

Tanner, J. & Raymond, M.A. (2015). Principles of Marketing. University of Minnesota Open Textbook Library. Licensed under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa.