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Marketing Plan
Introduction
Marketing plan plays a key role in business management. The essay would explain and cover what is a marketing plan, its role and nature, structure of marketing plan, the relationship between a marketing plan and a business plan, the uses of marketing plan, elements of marketing plan, the purpose of each element, the links between marketing plan elements and their independence, the misconception between marketing plans and the conclusion.
The role and Nature of Marketing Plan
The role of marketing plan is to clarify the key marketing element in a business and it plans the objectives, directions and activities of the business and employees. Marketing plan broadens the perspective which is outlined in a business plan. The role of marketing plan is to focus on four issues, i.e. promotion, price, product and the place. A marketing plan has its nature. It is a written document that states the key actions to achieve the marketing objectives. The marketing plan covers a period of one to five years. It can be part of the entire business plan. A Marketing plan which has no strategic foundation is not that effective. The importance of this is to specify the plan from the general objectives to single action plan of one marketing program (Fifield, 2007).
The formal marketing plan is very critical as it provides an unambiguous reference point for the activities to be performed in the planning period. The benefit of these plans is in the planning activity itself. This process gives a unique opportunity and focused discussions between the persons involved. The marketing plan and the associated discussions then provides an agreed plan for the subsequent management activities including those not described in the plan itself. A classic marketing plan appears in the form of budgets. Since they are quantified, they are very essential (Ferrell, 2008). Therefore, they represent the
References: Ferrell, O. (2008). Marketing strategy. Mason, OH: Thomson South-Western. Fifield, P. (2007). Marketing strategy the difference between marketing and markets. Amsterdam McDonald, M. (2007). Marketing plans : how to prepare them, how to use them. Amsterdam Boston London: Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann. Luther, W. (2011). The marketing plan : how to prepare and implement it. New York: AMACOM. Jain, S. (2009). Marketing planning and strategy. Mason, Ohio: Cengage Learning. Pride, W. (2012). Marketing. Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning. Burrow, J. (2012). Marketing. Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning.