Marketing Plan from Scratch 0 - How to Promote Your Startup Step-by-Step
2 Marketing Plan from Scratch 0 - How to Promote Your Startup Step-by-Step - Khutana E-Marketing

Marketing Plan from Scratch 0 – How to Promote Your Startup Step-by-Step

If you have needed to develop a marketing plan for your organization for some time now, and you never know where to start, don’t worry, we will help you write and create a marketing plan from scratch, and how to promote your entrepreneurial project step by step. There is a big challenge facing companies these days, which is developing a marketing plan that will be used to acquire new customers and occupy a strong position for the company or brand in the digital market. Regardless of the field in which your company operates, all companies must do a good job and invest properly in the marketing plan development stage, which will help expand the local market to the international market. Learn about What is the difference between an entrepreneurial project and a small business? 4 basic differences in the success and failure rate for both?

Marketing Plan

It is known as a practical document through which you can develop and prepare your business strategy and the strategy of the institution and organization in which you work to attract and attract target customers achieve progress and overcome competitors in the market. Also, developing a marketing plan shows in full detail the awareness and public relations campaigns that will be implemented over some time, including how the company measures the impact of these initiatives. The components and functions of the marketing plan include the following:

  • Scales.
  • Special messages specifically targeted to certain geographic areas.
  • Market research to support pricing decisions and all different new market inputs.
  • Choosing the main system to promote all products and all services, in addition to digital and commercial magazines, the Internet, radio, and various such platforms for each campaign.

Through this, you will learn about the type of customers that are suitable for your business and the stage they are in in the buying process, in addition to the means or methods that should be used to market and promote your organization and the services it provides. You can read the article on the main activities of the entrepreneurial project (3 stages with a detailed explanation of each stage).

The importance of preparing a marketing plan

Creating a marketing plan helps you identify and define the mission of each marketing campaign, the buyer’s journey, conversion rate, visitors, and more. With all this information in one place, you’ll have an easier time staying on track with your campaign, noticing what’s working and what’s not, and measuring the success of your strategy. A good business and marketing plan guides you through every stage of starting and running your business. You’ll use your business plan as a roadmap for how you’ll structure, manage, and grow your new business. It’s a way to think about the essential elements of your business. That’s why a marketing plan can help you attract a lot of audience and business owners, and it can also increase the confidence of your old customers when they see a return on their investment. Focus on your business plan, it’s like a magic wand that enables you to do whatever you want and achieve.

Reasons to prepare a marketing plan

More than ever, developing a marketing plan requires a strategic process with smart, data-driven planning if you want to reap any benefits. Arguably the most important reason to create a business and marketing plan is to clarify the concept of the business, summarize the goals of the business, identify all the resources (money and people) that the business owner will need, describe how the business owner will obtain those resources, and prepare the complete blueprint for the success criteria of the business. This is why the business and marketing plan may be the most important document that a company founder creates from the start.

It helps guide the early years of a new company in the desired and sought-after direction, in addition to giving potential investors an idea of the structure of this company and its plans and goals. For example, suppose your company launches a new software product that you want customers to subscribe to. This requires the marketing department to develop a marketing plan that will help introduce this product drive the required subscriptions, and so on. There are also many benefits to preparing a complete marketing plan, the most important of which are:

  • Marketing plans give your company a North Star to follow. When you use a marketing plan, your goals and expectations are clearly defined, as well as how to achieve them.
  • Your company’s marketing plans give you a clear, common path. This direction will help the different elements of your business model work in harmony toward a common goal.
  • Planning your business gives you a guideline for the company’s success. With a strong marketing plan in place, everyone in your business will know exactly what the goals are and what is expected of them to get there.
  • Marketing Plans Help You See the Big Picture When you have a flexible but clearly defined strategy for your company, you can stay away from the clutter and focus on key decisions.

So, it can be said that a marketing plan contains one or more marketing strategies. It is the framework through which all your marketing strategies are created, and it helps you link each strategy to a larger marketing process. Learn about the article on entrepreneurial project opportunities and the benefits they provide (top 5 opportunities).

Basic rules for preparing a marketing plan

Few things rival the importance of a business plan, which sets your company’s path to success. A critical part of that plan is your marketing strategy and action plan, one of many smaller outlines that come together to form the overall vision. Because this strategy is just one piece of the larger puzzle and requires a larger investment to see results over a longer period, marketing may not be given the attention it deserves. However, a well-thought-out marketing strategy can uncover opportunities through new audiences, changes in pricing strategy, or by differentiating your brand from the competition. For more on competitors, read our article. Competitor analysis for your business. Study the project’s superiority over the 4 most important competitors.

2 Basic Rules for Preparing a Marketing Plan - Marketing Plan from Scratch 0 - How to Promote Your Entrepreneurial Project Step by Step - Our Steps for E-Marketing

A focused marketing plan has two goals: to maintain engagement and loyalty among your existing customers and to capture market share within a specific segment of your target audience. Regardless of the specific format of your marketing plan, the executive summary is the first section of your marketing plan that you should focus on. It is a section that tells your new customer what your company is, where it is located, where it is headed, and what your plan is for success and achieving your goals. In this way, it can be said that this is the most important section at the beginning of your marketing plan. Your marketing plan should include the following:

  • The mission.
  • Products and services.
  • Company information.
  • Financial information.
  • Future expectations.

Your marketing plan outlines the strategies you will use to achieve each of the goals and the specific actions your marketing team will use, such as specific awareness campaigns, the channels they will take place on, the required marketing budget, and data-driven forecasts. We will now explore these strategies:

First, create an executive summary.

Marketing campaigns shouldn’t be considered stand-alone jobs. Marketing is your brand’s story as told to customers; like any story, its tone and characters should remain consistent. The executive summary details your marketing goals for the coming year and helps tie them all together. These goals should work together to create internal and external cohesion, telling a coherent story that informs customers of your precise message while building on previous chapters.

Secondly, define the target market.

Before you write a marketing plan, you need to find and understand your niche. Ask yourself who is the specific demographic you are targeting. For example, if your business sells 30-minute meals, your target customers are likely those who work traditional 9-5 jobs. Study that group of people to understand their struggles and see how your business can solve the problem. Learn about the 2 most popular entrepreneurial analysis tools in detail.

Third, develop insight into why a new customer would use your business.

Identify the core needs your product or service fulfills. Is it to help your customers go about their day more easily? Is it to make their work more efficient? Should your offering solve a customer’s problem or meet a customer’s need better than your competitors? Create a buyer persona so your ideal customers understand their needs better and guide your communication with this audience.

Fourth, distinguish your brand from inbound marketing.

Inbound marketing uses internal tools such as content marketing, social media activity, or search engine optimization (SEO) to capture a customer’s attention primarily through online communication. Content marketing can include informative blog posts, interviews, and podcasts with relevant industry figures, or supplemental guides on how to best use your product. For example, if you sell cooking supplies, consider posting lots of fun holiday recipes that your supplies can help you prepare.

Each of these marketing strategies works to enable the others in a loop to gain more customer engagement. Showcasing strong content can improve your search engine rankings, which will attract more people to your website and social pages. You can then share these developed pieces of content with that wider audience, which will again improve your search engine rankings. All of this can be done without the expense of a celebrity endorser or a commercial advertising campaign.

Fifth, identify competitors who also target your customers.

No matter how original your product or service is, there is always competition for your target customer. Small businesses rarely take the time to study their competitors in depth or identify competition that may be outside their industry but could attract customers. Knowing your competitors, their core competitive advantages, and what they offer (lower prices, increased communication, etc.) helps you develop strategies to compete with them.

Sixth, define your brand position for your target customers.

Ultimately, your brand and what it represents to customers is your strongest competitive advantage. You should be able to write a simple statement about how you meet customer needs and beat the competition. The best positioning statements are those that focus on solving a customer problem in a way that delivers the best value. For more, check out Customer Segments – The Foundation of Any 100% Successful Business and a Strong Competitive Plan.

Seventh, audit if all else fails.

Don’t panic if your initial marketing strategy isn’t giving you the results you want. A business audit, which you can do with the help of experts like Khatana, can help you succeed. Understand what products or services you offer and then identify who you’re helping and how you’re helping them. Then, check all of your marketing platforms to make sure they’re reflecting that message. If you’re seeing your brand message differently than your audience, that disconnect needs to be addressed. Key takeaway: When creating your marketing plan, understand why your customer is using your product, differentiate your brand from competitors, and review your product offering and message to ensure consistency.

Create a comprehensive marketing plan

You may prefer to create a comprehensive business plan if you are very detail-oriented or plan to seek funding from traditional sources. When you write your business plan, you don’t have to stick to an exact business plan outline. Instead, use the sections that make the most sense for your business and needs.

First, an executive summary.

Briefly tell the reader about your company and why you will succeed. Include your mission statement, your product or service, and basic information about your company’s leadership team, employees, and location. You should also capture or include all high-quality financial information and growth plans if you are targeting funding.

Secondly, company description

Use your company description to provide detailed information about your company. You should go into detail about all the problems your business plan can solve. Be specific, and list the consumers or businesses your company plans to serve. Explain the competitive advantages that will make your business successful. Does your team have experts? Did you find the perfect location for your store? Your company description and presentation are the best places to show off your strengths.

Thirdly, market analysis

You will need a good understanding of the industry and target market expectations. In your market research, look for trends and themes. What are successful competitors doing? Why are you doing it? Can you do it better? Now it’s time to answer these questions.

Fourth: Service or production line

Describe what you sell or the service you provide. Explain how it benefits your customers and what the product life cycle looks like. Share your plans for intellectual property, such as copyrights or patent filings. If you are conducting research and development for your service or product, explain this in detail.

Fifth: Marketing and Sales

There is no one way to approach a marketing strategy, but let me tell you that your strategy should be continually evolving. Your goal in this section is to describe how you will attract and retain customers. You will also describe how the sales process happens. You will refer to this section later when you are making financial projections, so make sure you describe your complete marketing and sales strategies accurately.

Sixth: Request for Financing

If you are working on a financing request, you are in the right place as this is where you will outline all your financing requirements. The main goal here is to clearly explain how much financing you will need over the next five years and what you will do to get it. State whether you want debt or equity, the terms you want to apply, and the length of time your request will cover. Provide a detailed description of how you will use your funds. Determine whether you need money to purchase equipment or materials, pay salaries, or cover certain bills to increase revenue. Always work on developing and attaching a description of all your strategic cash plans for the future, such as paying off all debts or selling your business.

Seventh: Financial expectations

Complete your funding request with financial projections. Your goal is to convince the reader that your business is stable and will be financially successful. If your business is already established, include income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements for the last three to five years. If you have other collateral that you can put up against a loan, provide a financial outlook for the next five years. Include projected income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, and capital expenditure budgets. For the first year, be specific and use quarterly or even monthly projections. Make sure to clearly explain your projections and match them to your funding requests. This is a great place to use charts and graphs to tell the financial story of your business. Check out the article Startup and Operating Expenses for a Startup and Sales Forecasts Near 100%.

Eighth, extra

Your Appendix Use it to provide documents supporting you and your business or other materials that have been specifically requested from you. Common items to include are credit histories, resumes, product images, letters of recommendation, licenses, permits, patents, legal documents, and other contracts.

Types of marketing plans

Depending on the company you work for, you may want to take advantage of a variety of different marketing plans. Here are a few of them:

3 Types of Marketing Plans - Marketing Plan from Scratch 0 - How to Promote Your Startup Project Step by Step - Khutana E-Marketing

  • Quarterly or Annual Marketing Plans: These plans highlight the strategies or campaigns you will implement over a specific period.
  • Paid Marketing Plan: This plan can highlight paid strategies, such as native advertising, PPC, or paid social media offers.
  • Social Media Marketing Plan: This plan can highlight the channels, tactics, and campaigns you intend to implement on social media.
  • Content Marketing Plan: This plan can highlight the different strategies, tactics, and campaigns in which you will use content to promote your business or product.
  • New Product Launch Marketing Plan: This will be the roadmap of strategies and tactics you will implement to promote a new product.

Remember that there is a difference between a marketing plan and a marketing strategy.

Marketing Strategy vs Marketing Plan

A marketing strategy describes how a particular task or goal will be accomplished. This includes the campaigns, content, channels, and marketing programs they will use to carry out that task and track its success. For example, while a business owner might approach a marketing plan through social media marketing, you might think of your Facebook business as a single marketing strategy. A marketing plan contains one or more marketing strategies. It’s the framework around which all of your marketing strategies are created, and it helps you tie each strategy to a larger marketing process and business goal. For example, let’s say your company is launching a new software product that you want customers to sign up for. This calls for your marketing department to develop a marketing plan that will help introduce that product to customers and increase the number of required signups.

The department decided to launch a blog dedicated to the product, a new YouTube video series to build expertise, and a Twitter account to join the conversation about the topic, all working to attract an audience and convert that audience into users of your product. Can you see the difference between a business’s marketing plan versus the three marketing strategies? In the example above, the company’s marketing plan is dedicated to introducing a new software product to the market and driving signups for that product. The business will execute that plan through three marketing strategies: a new blog, a YouTube video series, and a Twitter account. Of course, the company might also consider these three things as one giant marketing strategy, each with its content strategies. How broad you want your marketing plan to be is up to you.

Types of Marketing Strategies

In an article in the Harvard Business Review, Ansoff (1957) identified four strategies for business growth. These four strategies also identify four basic types of marketing plans and the types of investments and activities associated with each. The strategies are determined by whether the focus is on new or existing products and new or existing markets. See the article Entrepreneurial Ventures and 7 Steps to Making It Big and Reaching the Top.

4 Types of Marketing Strategies - Marketing Plan from Scratch 0 - How to Promote Your Startup Project Step by Step - Khutana E-Marketing

1- Market penetration strategy

When a company focuses on selling its current products to existing customers, it is pursuing a market penetration strategy. The marketing activities that will dominate this type of marketing plan are those that emphasize increasing the loyalty of existing customers so that they are not at risk of losing out to competitors, attracting competitors’ customers, increasing the frequency of product usage, and converting non-users to users. Increasing awareness through marketing and increasing availability through wide distribution are common marketing activities in this type of plan. Scheduling product launches may increase the use of your previous products or the subscription to use your new product.

For example, an orange juice advertising campaign with the slogan “It’s not just breakfast anymore” was an attempt to expand usage. Price promotions can be used to encourage competitors’ customers to try a company’s product if there is reason to believe that such a trial will lead to repeat purchases. Loyalty programs can be very effective in retaining existing customers. This strategy reduces risk by relying on what a company already knows and observes—its existing products and customers. It is also a strategy in which marketing investments should be paid for more quickly because the company is building on a solid foundation of customer relationships and product knowledge.

2- Market development strategy

Efforts to expand sales by selling existing products in new markets are referred to as market development strategies. These efforts may include entering new geographic markets, such as international markets. Creating awareness of the product and developing distribution channels are key marketing activities. Some product modifications may be required to better suit the needs of the local market. You can read How to Find a Successful Startup and 6 Points to Manage Startups.

For example, as fast food restaurants move into international markets, they often change their menus to better suit the food preferences of customers in local markets. Expanding into a new market with an existing product involves some risk because the new market is unknown to the company and the company and its products are not well known in the market. The return on marketing investment in such a strategy is likely to be longer than in a market penetration strategy because of the time required to build awareness, distribution, and product trial.

3- Product development strategy

Creating new products to sell to existing customers is called a product development strategy, and it is a common marketing strategy among companies that can enhance their relationships with existing customers. For example, American Express was able to enhance its relationships with its credit card customers to sell travel-related services.

Research and development activities play a dominant role in this strategy. The time required to develop and test new products may be long, but once a product is developed, awareness, interest, and availability should be relatively quick because the company already has a relationship with customers. A product development strategy is also riskier than a market penetration strategy because the necessary product may not be possible to develop at at least a cost acceptable to customers or the product developed may not match customer needs.

4- Diversification strategy

A diversification strategy involves introducing new products into new markets and effectively creating a completely new business. These are the riskiest strategies and are likely to require the most patience while waiting for a return on investment.

Models and types of successful marketing projects

5 Models and Types of Successful Marketing Projects - Marketing Plan from Scratch 0 - How to Promote Your Entrepreneurial Project Step by Step - Our Steps for Electronic Marketing

1- Shane Snow’s marketing plan for his book Dream Team

A successful book launch is a prime example of data-driven content marketing. Using data to improve your content strategy creates more awareness for your book, gets more people to subscribe to your content, converts more subscribers to buyers, and encourages more buyers to recommend your book to their friends. When Shane Snow began developing a marketing plan to promote his new book, Dream Team, he knew he had to leverage a data-driven content strategy framework.

So he chose his favorite option, the Tiered Content Strategy, which was defined by the Economic Times as a model used to create a system with a linear and sequential approach. Snow wrote a blog post about how his content strategy plan helped him successfully launch his new book. You can use his tactics to achieve your marketing plan. More specifically, you’ll learn how to:

  • He used the average post-exposure on each of his marketing channels to estimate how much content he had to create and how often he had to post on social media.
  • He used his ultimate business goal of $200,000 in sales or 10,000 purchases to estimate the conversion rate for each stage of his climb.
  • Calculating how much earned and paid media could reduce the amount of content you had to create and publish.
  • Create a buyer persona to identify which channels your audience prefers to watch your content on.
  • Analyze content performance metrics to improve your overall content strategy.
  • Apply your business goals to determine which marketing metrics to track.
  • He designed his process and workflow, built a team, and assigned members to tasks.

You can use Snow’s marketing plan to develop a better content strategy, know your audience better, and think outside the box when it comes to content promotion and distribution.

2- Content Marketing Strategy Template

Writing a content plan is tough, especially if you’ve never written one before. Buffer decided to help the content marketing community by sifting through countless content marketing strategy templates and testing the best ones. They’ve crafted a content marketing plan template with guidelines and examples for marketers. After reading Buffer’s marketing plan template, you’ll learn how to:

  • Evaluate your current content strategy by examining the topics and themes of your highest and lowest-performing segments.
  • Create a highly accurate audience persona by interviewing real content strategists.
  • Answering four key questions will help you create a clear executive summary.
  • Conduct competitive research by analyzing your competitors’ content and thought leaders.
  • Determine what types of new content you want to create, based on your team’s capacity.
  • Solve your audience’s problems with your content.
  • Define SMART content marketing goals.
  • Develop promotional workflow.
  • Establish an editorial calendar.

Buffer’s template is an incredibly comprehensive step-by-step guide with examples for each section. The audience persona section, for example, has case studies of real potential audience personas like “Blogger Brian.” If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the process of creating a marketing guide, this can help ease you into it.

3- Marketing plan template from Forbes

This is an oldie but a goodie. Forbes has published a marketing plan template that has garnered nearly four million views since late 2013 to help you create and design a marketing roadmap with a real vision. Their template teaches you how to fill out the 15 key sections of a marketing plan:

  • Pricing and positioning strategy.
  • Transaction price increase strategy.
  • Online marketing strategy.
  • Joint ventures and partnerships.
  • Exclusive sales offer.
  • Target customers.
  • Retention strategy.
  • Promotion strategy.
  • Conversion strategy.
  • Referral strategy.
  • Financial forecasts.
  • Executive Summary.
  • Marketing materials.
  • Distribution plan.
  • Your offers.

If you’re lost on where to start with an effective and powerful marketing plan, this guide can help you define your target audience, figure out how to reach them, and make sure they become loyal customers. These marketing plans serve as a starting point for your content marketing plan, but to deliver what your audience wants and needs, you’ll likely need to test a few different ideas, measure their success, and then refine your goals. And of course, we at Khutana Digital Marketing are here to support you in building your marketing plan and helping you implement it.

Important tips for developing a marketing plan

  • Instead of getting caught up in “vanity metrics,” like follower count, focus on engagement (or conversions), and be patient as it takes time to develop a successful social media strategy.
  • When developing your marketing plan, understand why customers use your product, differentiate your brand from competitors, and review your product offering and message to ensure consistency.
  • When determining your social media ROI, be specific about what you ultimately want to achieve and what metrics you will focus on to evaluate your progress.
  • Always working within precise strategic plans and ideas contributes fundamentally to the success of any project.
  • Work with successful plans and strategies when preparing marketing plans.
  • Be humane and provide high value to your plan and project.
  • Focus on your core audience and understand their communities.

Now you know the detailed steps that explain how to prepare a successful marketing plan through a set of foundations and rules that contribute to knowing your market and its needs and help you formulate a marketing plan for the actual target market, and reach it more efficiently and effectively. Just follow all the steps and all the matters included in this article and you will have a great marketing action plan.

Discover more articles:
Establishment and operating expenses for a pioneering project and sales expectations of close to 100%
Economic feasibility study, its importance, standards, and characteristics – 5 steps to implement it
The success of pioneering projects and 7 steps towards making glory and reaching the top


Questions about the article Marketing Plan from Scratch 0 – How to Promote your entrepreneurial project step by step

What is an entrepreneurial marketing plan?

A marketing plan details the strategy a company will use to market its products to customers. The plan identifies the target market, the value of the brand or product, the campaigns that will be launched, and the metrics that will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing initiatives.


How to write a marketing plan for a startup project?

Choose the right marketing strategies and channels.
Assign tasks and create a schedule.
Clearly define your target audience.
Set clear marketing goals.
Evaluate your current situation.
Set a budget.

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