10 Steps To Prepare A Strong Marketing Proposal

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Today, no matter what the size of your company or business, you will need a marketing plan. It is a way to decide in advance what steps you need to take to serve your customers better than your competitors. However, it is crucial to stick to your objective to establish people’s belief in your business. Therefore, there is no question about the importance of marketing plans and proposals in a company’s business success.

But, even today when marketing is an essential part of any business, some enterprises or companies fail on many fronts due to a lack of correct marketing proposals. If you have a good infrastructure, an excellent product line, and fantastic service, but you fail in marketing proposals, it becomes tough to survive in today’s highly competitive business landscape.

Now, you know, how vital a marketing strategy is and how crucial it is to present it to your potential customers. Writing an appealing marketing proposal is an art. Here in this blog, we will tell you the 10 simple steps that you can follow to create your own marketing proposals.

So, what is a company’s marketing plan?

Usually, in this fast-transforming business and economic landscape, sustainability is very questionable. Thus you will require to constantly stay in front of the eyes of your potential customers and market influencers to maintain relevance in the market. This is when you need a marketing plan. In simple terms, the marketing plan is a strategic guide that is designed for the company to help it determine the steps to be taken at all times, with the intent to achieve business goals.

So, in a way marketing plan requires developed research, budget feasibility allocations, a structured plan for short and long-term business objectives, and also the roadmap, and timeline of each action. To achieve the business goal, companies are required to make strategies and take decisions and stick to them to retain existing customers and attract new customers and identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) for future courses of action and plans.

Marketing proposals are usually valid for a one-year maximum. Thereafter, it is recommended that you review and renew your strategies for next year. Every year, new objectives are set, and competitors, buyers, partners, consumers, and achievements are reevaluated. Finally, a new set of strategies and courses of action that meet the new demands and market trends are proposed.

It is not as easy as it may sound to you. It is actually strategic work that requires a lot of effort, patience, and a thorough understanding of your business goals. It is crucial to check the graph of performance that is, what worked and what didn’t work that was planned earlier. This will give you an insight into where the company stands and how much it progressed or where it lacked and how next time those gaps can be filled. The previous year’s strategy also helps in planning how to boost the company’s competitive advantage and growth.

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Why a marketing plan essential for a business?

Most entrepreneurs start a business without knowing how essential a marketing plan is for their business growth and success. But, as soon as they start, they realize they need to promote and market their products, attract customers and also build a good relationship with them.

That is when they become active on social media, print brochures, pamphlets, and business cards, and sometimes also plan to develop websites or e-commerce stores. However, these only make them visible at many places online and offline, but without any well-thought-out marketing strategy in place.

Many times, marketing plans are restricted only to managers, the rest of the team is just asked to execute some plan of action by the manager without explaining to them the whole picture and why it has to be done in a particular way. This is not motivating for the team as their responsibility is only to execute what the manager asked them and they do feel bound to the company’s objectives or business goals. The larger team is not made part of the bigger plan and so neither do they not understand nor feel like taking an active part in it.

In both scenarios, the chances of achieving positive results are almost zero. This is when the necessity of not only having a marketing plan but also making it a rulebook for everyone in the company to define a common path for the common goal should be understood. This is the way to achieve business objectives.

Marketing plans provide a clear roadmap and direction to achieve the objectives of any company. So, when you start your business, instead of working cluelessly, you have a well-defined plan to follow.

The plans also include strategies to be forged, performance indicators to be monitored, and much more. This way, be it small or big, every step or move in strategic planning is aligned with the business goals.

It is clear from the above discussions, a marketing plan is an essential part of any business of any size or type. Here are some reasons why you should have a marketing plan.

• It helps in understanding your market share and gaining a deeper and more comprehensive view of the industry.

• It allows you to better understand your competitors and, above all, the needs of your ideal customer.

• It allows for defining a strategy based on communication and actions focused on accurate objectives, as well as ensuring that there is coherence between them.

• Plan your actions over a whole year or a few months so that you can know how much budget and resources to allocate.

• Avoid unexpected situations that hinder the achievement of the goals you set.

• You will be able to carry out periodic evaluations to check the ROI status and make decisions to improve the strategy if needed.

10 simple steps on how to write a marketing proposal for your company

So, if you want to know the steps of the famous marketing plan that your company needs to follow, here we are throwing light on all the steps to help you create a visionary plan that will ensure your business’s success.

Let’s take a look at,

1. Make a Comprehensive Study of Your Company

Any plan should start by knowing yourself first. Unless you know what your business is about, what objectives you have, and what you need to achieve those, you won’t be able to look any further. So start by looking within the company. Try to outline the current position of your company, its infrastructure, the assets & resources, the total number of employees, the current sales volume, the current position in the market and industry, and the turnover records along with the objectives of the management.

It is not only about knowing the company from the inside and putting down the details somewhere, but it is also about making a detailed analysis of its existing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). This means you need to summarize everything that impacts its performance. SWOT analysis is the right tool, to begin with while moving ahead in the process.

A comprehensive analysis will ensure your plan is aligned with the business reality, keeping its budget feasibility and strategic planning decision in sync to meet the marketing objectives.

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2. Evaluate the Business Environment

In the next step, after you have drafted the inside story, it is time to understand the outside influences. In the process of making your marketing plan, in order to evaluate the factors that influence your company’s performance from the outside, you will need to identify all the relevant macro- and micro-level data from the surrounding environment where your company functions.

While doing this macro-level analysis, you should try to capture the main transformations and trends in the region you operate in, in the country, and all over the world. These should be relevant to your business.

• Demographic
• Economic
• Environmental
• Political-legal
• Sociocultural
• Technological

There are other factors too that affect a business from outside at a micro level and focus on the company’s functional sector and very much influence its performance like

• Customer’s business capacity
• Competitors rivalry
• Negotiation with suppliers.
• Threat from new products/services
• The threat of new competitors

All the above factors help you build future scenarios, and create strategies to meet the company’s business goals.

3. Conduct a Thorough Competitor Analysis

Analyzing your competitors is very important for a business or entrepreneur while making a marketing plan. It is vital to watch and analyze your competitors’ performance closely on a regular basis. You should also keep tracking their business network and customer base, the products and services, their PR and communication strategy, their market approach and their performance results.

Below are the steps to follow

• Look for information that will be useful for you in planning your strategies.
• You will have to anticipate market trends and what move your competitors take next.
• Look for opportunities and possibilities to position your business
• Identify your competitive advantage over your competitors.
• Identify where you are placed in the market and what is your participation in it.

Usually, people think it is not easy, rather impossible to access their competitors’ data as they are kept confidential. But, you will find several tools that will help you in the analyzing process. Using those tools you can monitor your competitors’ every single move and track what they are doing. However, it is essential to know that whatever you do, you do it in an ethical manner. Some of the tools like SEMrush, or Google Alerts, are known to most market researchers.

4. Define Your Target Audience and Potential Customers

After you have completed the phase of analyzing your competitors and market, you will now have a stronger base to define your target audience and potential customers. Based on this, you can build your strategies to reach them.

A target audience is a class of consumers whom you see as your potential customer. They mostly share demographic, behavioral and psychographic characteristics. Once you know who they are that share some common behaviors that can benefit your business or who can be benefitted from your business, you can define them as your target audience. Once you define who they are, all your business marketing strategy will be directed towards them.

To find this group of the target audience, you will need to create consumer categories based on common characteristics and recognise those who need your products or services to meet their requirements.

Once you have the definition and description of your prospects, creating your buyer persona will be easier for you. This will help you study far deeper about consumer or buyer behaviors, that is defined values, problems and expectations. All are combined into a single segment that represents your ideal or prospective customer.

Now after you have identified your ideal buyers, you can now track their buying behavior, and plan everything about how they will find and reach your products and services and purchase with you. Study their purchasing behaviors, and try to find out tier preferences, dislikes, expectations and more. You can also take regular feedback and use that to improve your business and their experience.

In short, your marketing approaches are targeted towards your target audience, but they interact with your buyer persona.

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5. Determine Your Positioning in the Market

After you have found your target audience, the next step is to determine your position in the market, that is how you want your consumers to perceive you. So, you have to give a human touch to your marketing strategy to connect to each target audience. How your customers see you is very important to succeed in a business. The position you create for yourself should be a unique and outstanding picture in the minds of your audience.

Regardless of who you are and what you do, it is very important that you analyze your competition in the market enough to distinguish yourself from them. Keep in mind, your position speaks about your characteristics as a company. It also talks about your products and services and their price, size, quality, features and design. Moreover, it should also represent the values and meanings with which your brand or business is associated.

Therefore, when you conceive your business marketing plan, your position should reflect in everything related to your business, be it advertisements, business content, proposals, and visuals you design, and also your customers’ points of contact. This will help them recall the image of your company that you would like to communicate.

6. Know Your Business Objectives 

The objective of your company is something around which you make your entire marketing plan, so there is no question of forgetting it. If your business does not start with an objective, it is bound to fail. The objective of any company is the soul of its marketing plan. However, it is essential to check and find out if the steps that are already accomplished by now, have not diverted from your objective and if none of the steps is left out. Every single step in the process establishes objectives to be aligned with the business plan and the market demands, thus reaching out to the right audience.

Use the SMART methodology to set your objectives. SMART stands for: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant or Realistic (Relevant or Realistic) and Time-Bound.

If you follow these five guidelines of SMART, your business goal becomes clearer, for you and also your team. The guidelines also define a common path, making the entire team feel like being a part of it and aspire for it.

With this, it is clear it does not make sense when a company sets ambiguous goals for their business. like “sell more”, “get more followers” “participate more”, “grow your networks”. The objectives should be straight and clear, like,

• Sell 5000 copies in one year
• Reach 10000 followers in the next 3 months
• Generate 1000 e-commerce sales in six months.
• Increase your participation by 5% in the next 2 months.
• In 3 months, increase the participation rate by 15%.
• Develop 2 new products in the next two years.

The above projections indicate that they are more specific and measurable, and also set a deadline for the team. Now, it is important to review if these indications are realistic and achievable. It is also vital to find out if they conform to what is being assessed or estimated in the marketing plan.

7. Specify Your Key Performance Indicators

Once you have your objectives defined, specifying your KPI will be much more manageable. When something is measurable, you can implement metrics or analytics to monitor its performance. This is a part of the strong marketing strategy to establish that you are fulfilling the desired results.

However, KPIs are different from measuring metrics. It is about the indicators of your success. Metrics are measurements of evaluation done on the performance of an action. For example, you measure the number of footfalls to your website, the number of people visiting from a certain location, and engagements on your website compared to previous months.

Though KPIs are also metrics, they have a direct relationship with the marketing objectives. In short, KPIs tell you if you are on the right track performing the right actions and if you have attained the objectives you had set at the beginning of your plan.

However, both using analytics to measure your performance metrics and key performance indicators, that is whether you are on the right track and have achieved what you planned, are equally important for the success of your business. Measurement metrics are a fundamental part of any business strategy. KPIs tell you, you have successfully executed your plan, so you need to monitor it closely. This way, if your actions and performances are detected in time and there is a need for possible modifications to improve results or if you have diverted from the set objectives, you can be corrected on time, without wasting time and resources.

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8. Plan Your Business Marketing Strategies Ahead

In business, marketing tricks have their own place. Plan your marketing strategies; that is, how will you take your products and services to your consumers. The strategy should involve tactics that will help you achieve your objectives. Like, if you want to generate 1,000 leads in 3 months, you will need to have a proper lead management strategy, SEO, SMO, SEM, etc.

Additionally, it is necessary that you define the 4 Ps of marketing here,

• Price
• Place
• Product
• Promotion

This is responsible for building brand awareness and increasing your brand visibility in the market and creating a place for it. For this, it is important to align the 4 Ps with the position of each target audience you have defined in your plan.

9. Define a Budget and Resources

Money and manpower are the two most important factors to running a business successfully. Along with the money, you also need other essential resources to make your business operational. You will need to decide what tools and equipment will you need to carry out your plan. How much will you require to invest to meet your business objective?

Some of the basic expenses that you will require to make are

• Staff Hiring
• Purchase of tools and equipment
• Employee training.
• Advertising campaigns.
• Investment for services like Internet, electricity, water, office rent (if rented) and telephone expenses, to mention a few.

You will have to invest a massive chunk of your money in marketing. So, planning a budget and resources is one of the most challenging steps in the entire process.

10. Timelines and Accountability are Essential

The major points in the execution of any action are setting timelines and defining roles & responsibilities for tasks. A timeline should be fixed for each part of the plan and also roles for each in the strategy.

This is of the greatest importance as verifying and monitoring the deadlines is essential to avoid any delay in the execution of objectives. Additionally, people responsible for the execution are also important so that every person in the team knows his/her accountability for the tasks undertaken. This increases the determination and commitment of people to the plan.

Conclusion

The above points discussed are enough to help you create your own marketing proposal for your business. You may have the best products and services and an excellent set of resources, but if you fail to execute a proper marketing proposal, you will fail your business. This is an essential tool for any business in this highly competitive world. It is important to remain visible and relevant too. Along with great products, services and resources, you will also need a great marketing proposal for your business to not only sustain your business but also to succeed efficiently.

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