Marketing plan: executive summary and its importance
A good marketing plan guides brands and companies towards different goals. Therefore, the marketing plan is a management tool that must be used regularly and continuously updated, as it helps entrepreneurs adapt to constant market changes, identify trends, and create competitive advantages over competitors.
Creating a marketing plan is not a task for everyone; it requires time, dedication, and effort from one person, but from an entire team – after all, this tool will guide the marketing department and the whole company.
A marketing plan consists of several steps, and in this post, you will:
- Know all the steps necessary to carry out a marketing plan.
- Dig deeper into the first step of creating this plan
- Be able to get great insights into your current marketing plan condition!
What are the steps of a marketing plan?
A good marketing plan consists of 5 steps:
- Executive Summary
This is a summary of your company. One of the most essential pages where the brand is represented by the dreams, values , and ambitions defined by the executive body.
- Market Research
At this stage, the detailed segmentation, the composition of the 4Ps of marketing, budget definition, and execution timeline occur. It is worth mentioning that there are short, medium, and long-term marketing plans! Usually, who dictates the breadth of your marketing plan is the combination of your executive summary (goals) with budget and timeline!
- Strategy
One of the main points of strategy definition is defining its positioning. Positioning is expressed through the target market, encompassing its definition, competition study, and comparison of its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) within that market.
- Execution
Create, test and launch! These are the 3 verbs that explain the execution. It is time you put your thoughts into action for validation.
- Analytics
And last but not least, analytics. This phase is vital to evaluate the effectiveness of your plan. The marketing plan must be constantly evaluated and changed, according to the findings beginning in the analytics phase.
The executive summary and its importance
We understand the executive summary as the identity of the company. Before saying what sector I work in, who I sell to, what I do well, what my advantages are in the market, and even presenting your product, you first need to introduce YOURSELF – and that’s the function of the executive summary.
We can say that a marketing plan without an executive summary is the same thing as a person who doesn’t know who he is and what he wants. Have you ever heard the phrase “who doesn’t know what he wants doesn’t leave the place”? Well… we can already understand the importance of this step!
The executive summary is composed of some items:
- The company’s mission: the reason to exist
- The vision: where she wants to go in a specific time (usually long term)
- Goals: the small (and SMART) steps to achieve this long-term vision
- Value proposition: in which the company adds to society and the world
We also understand the executive summary as a summary of your strategic plan. Many people think that marketing is only related to sales, branding, advertising and forget that it is necessary to have a well-established base to sell and have effective communication. The basis of any company is its strategic planning, reflected as the first stage of the marketing plan!
So, you… company manager, don’t you have a defined marketing plan? Call your marketing team and start dreaming big now. From your dream, this plan can be drawn.
And you… from a company’s marketing team. Are you running a marketing plan and not knowing your company’s executive summary, or are you lost on where to develop that plan?
Talk to me. I can help you through this journey of creating your own marketing plan!