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Creating a Winning Marketing Plan in 5 Easy Steps

In this Hubspot guide, we’ll review the definition of a brand, how to create a brand style guide, implementing your brand on your website and social media, and how to monitor and measure your brand’s reach and awareness.We’ll review brands that are successful and how they connect with their audiences, and how your brand can bring you new leads and customers. .

Introduction: Creating Brand Identity

Original Hubspot article here.

Do you take a good, hard look at your team’s marketing strategy every year?

If not, you should. Without an annual marketing plan, things can get messy — and it’s nearly impossible to put a number on the budget you’ll need to secure for the projects, hiring, and outsourcing you’ll encounter over the course of a year if you don’t have a plan.

o make your plan’s creation easier, we’ve put together a list of what to include in your plan and a few different planning templates where you can easily fill in the blanks.

To start, let’s dive into how to create a marketing plan and then take a look at what a high-level marketing plan has inside.

In this article, we’re going to discuss:

What a High-Level Marketing Plan Includes
How to Create a Marketing Plan
Marketing Plan Templates You Can Use
Simplified Marketing Plan Template
Plus — Social Media Plan Templates

Marketing Plan Outline

The below marketing plan outline will help you create an effective plan that easily generates buy-in from stakeholders and effectively guides your marketing efforts.

Marketing plans can get quite granular to reflect the industry you’re in, whether you’re selling to consumers (B2C) or other businesses (B2B), and how big your digital presence is. Nonetheless, here are the elements every effective marketing plan includes:

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1. Business Summary

In a marketing plan, your business summary is exactly what it sounds like: a summary of the organization. It’s essential to include this information so that all stakeholders, including your direct reports, learn about your company in detail before delving into the more strategic components of your plan. Even if you’re presenting this plan to people who’ve been in the company for a while, it doesn’t hurt to get everyone on the same page.

Most business summaries include:

The company name
Where it’s headquartered
Its mission statement

Our marketing plan outline also includes information on marketing leadership, which is especially helpful for companies with large marketing teams.

2. SWOT Analysis

Your marketing plan’s business summary also includes a SWOT analysis, which stands for the business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It’s essential to include this information so you can create targeted strategies that help you capitalize on your strengths and improve upon your weaknesses.

However, be patient with your business’ SWOT analysis; you’ll write most of it as you conduct your market research and create your strategy. Feel free to come back to this section periodically, adjusting it as you discover more information about your own business and your competition.

3. Business Initiatives

The business initiatives element of a marketing plan helps you segment the various goals of your department. Be careful not to include big-picture company initiatives, which you’d normally find in a business plan. This section of your marketing plan should outline the projects that are specific to marketing. You’ll also describe the goals of those projects and how those goals will be measured.

Every initiative should follow the SMART method for goal-making. They should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.

Not only does your brand include visual elements, but it portrays your company’s mission and values. For example, Starbucks is dedicated to empowering employees and provides benefits like healthcare and educational opportunities. CEO Howard Schultz, a de facto brand loyalty expert,comments, “If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.”

Another example is Patagonia. The company features an “Activism” tabright on their homepage,urging customers to help them save our planet, a mission that resonates with consumers.

What is a brand?

In the inbound marketing age, “brand” can be tricky to define. Typically, branding refers to branding on the internet-and the internet moves pretty fast. More than ever before, brands can be built up in an instant, and in turn they can fall just as quickly. A successful brand is one with longevity that is built up over time and flexible enough to adapt to the current market trends and expectations. So, what separates the flash-in-a-pan brands that come and go seemingly overnight from the brands that retain loyalty across demographics and generations?

The key: a differentiator.

A brand’s differentiator is what sets it apart from the competition and moves its brand from simply being known and recognizable to being desired beyond the confines of the brand identity. Once a brand finds that differentiator, it becomes its calling card. It’s how everyone recognizes the brand and the first thing everyone judges it by –so your brand needs to be consistent.

No matter which channels your customers choose to interact with your brand –your website, blog, email, Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), or whatever tomorrow’s technology may bring –they should all demonstrate the unique experience that your brand represents.

Examples of Great Brands:

The common thread shared by all great brands is their dedication to their differentiator. See if you can identify the calling card of each of these well-known, successful brands.

Regional Retail Brand

Nappanee Local Florist Store Branding:

Jayla’s Flowers and Gifts Nappanee, Indiana storefront features the same logo and color patterns. Its door utilizes the same pink color and the logo. Throughout the store the brand logo is seen. Every product that exists the door whether purchased or donated features the Jayla’s logo or icon. While it is a local retail brand, it has grown online to reach across the United States of America, and is now offering franchise opportunities.

National B2B Brand

Indiana & Florida Industrial Tool Distributer:

AMG Bolting Solutions was started by Alan Gross in Delray Beach, Florida as a hydraulic torque wrench manufacturer’s representative. In 2023, the company was inquired by DIR Incorporated. Since, the company as grown to become one of the largest industrial tools distributors in the USA. There branding is seen on there catalog images, training videos, and there tool guides and charts.

Global Product Brand

Indiana-Based Brand of Multiple Products:

Rohena’s is a brand which appeared out of nowhere. Whether is acquires company’s with existing niche products, or creates new ones, each product brand is affiliated with it name via a subtle logo, and brand identity witnessed through its branded customer service.