The difference between Marketing Plans and Business Plans
Business Plans and Marketing Plans sound the same, but there is a difference and if you plan correctly you will benefit from the results.
All businesses should have a Business Plan which lays out objectives and how these will be met. It should be assessed on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis with your Business Advisor, Financial Planner or Accountant depending on the size of your business. The content of a business plan should include some of the following:
- Objectives – Growing, selling, expanding.
- Financial – P&L, Turnover, budgets.
- Systems – Database, website platform, emails.
- Employees – Recruitment, Training
- Clients – existing and desired
- Sales – Methods and Processes
- Marketing – Above and below the line, methods and management
A Marketing Plan is something you should construct once you have figured out the above areas. It should include your financial objectives broken down monthly into a budget to demonstrate how you will reach the overall objective whether that is increasing sales by 20% or reaching a certain turnover figure annually.
Within your Marketing Plan, the following should be considered:
- Objectives – what do you want the marketing to achieve?
- Marketing Activity – Direct Marketing, Social Media, Website etc.
- Activity Details – how, when and budget.
The above are just a few ideas and each Marketing Plan is very different depending on what you want to achieve. If you have a solid Marketing Plan in place and work to those activities then your objectives should be met.
So to highlight the main differences between a Business Plan and a Marketing Plan is that a Business Plan focuses on how your business will run, and a Marketing Plan focuses on the Marketing alone. It sounds very simple, however many small business owners can often confuse the two which then results in them not having a strategic Marketing Plan in place to help with the Marketing and promotion of their great services and products.
If you or someone you know needs help constructing a Marketing Plan, we can help so please contact us today!