Develop your marketing plan

Market research helps you understand your customers, your competitors and the demand for your product or service.

Identifying your target customers is an essential part of your marketing plan. Not everyone will buy your product, so you need a clear understanding of your target market early on.

You need to know why and how these customers will use your product, and how much they’ll pay for it.

You also need to analyse your competition and identify their strengths and weaknesses. This helps you refine your marketing strategy and what's unique about your business.

Before you plan your marketing, you need to decide on your business’s positioning in the market.

Positioning means how you want your customers to think about your products or services. For example, is your business a budget choice for families? Or do you offer high-end services for customers who want the best?

Positioning helps you focus your marketing efforts. It shows what your business does, who you do it for and why you're different from your competitors.

You can promote your positioning to customers through things like your experience, location, product packaging and visual brand. For example, an accountant might use their international experience and fancy CBD office to position themselves as an upmarket service provider.

Once you understand your customers and your positioning, start thinking about what you want your marketing to achieve. For example:

• increase sales or revenue
• attract customers in a new market segment
• launch a profitable new product
• build brand awareness
• rank higher in search engine results
• increase trust in your business.

You might want to tie these into the overall goals in your business plan.

Set goals that are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound). For example, instead of a goal to ‘increase sales’, set a goal to ‘increase sales by 10% in the next 12 months’.

SMART marketing goals give you something specific to aim for. They also make it easy to measure if you’re successful or not.

Read more about setting goals.

You can use the 5 Ps of marketing to identify the marketing strategies and activities that will meet your goals.

Add your promotional and advertising activities to your marketing plan. Make sure you include the:

• target audience
• channel you’ll use
• detailed description
• estimated cost
• timing.

Choosing multiple activities that complement each other can be a good way to get your message across and reach a broader market. For example, if you want to launch a new product, you might combine:

• a social media campaign
• radio ads in key markets
• a lower introductory price.

You need to know how much money you have for marketing and how you’re going to spend it. A marketing budget lets you accurately calculate the costs of your marketing or advertising campaign.

Make sure you're only spending money on activities that contribute to your marketing goals.

Advertising and promotion can be expensive, so choose the options that offer the best value while still reaching your target customers. Low-cost marketing options include social media, flyers, posters and e-newsletters.

Evaluate and update your marketing plan as your business evolves.

Analyse the results of your marketing activities to see what worked. Then refine your plan to remove any activities that weren’t effective.

Stay informed of new marketing trends and any changes in your customer base. It’s also important to revisit your marketing plan as your business grows to reflect any new goals.