![Create a Marketing Plan [+20 Free Templates]](https://visme.co/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/marketing-plan-header-wide.jpg)
In this article, you'll find a step-by-step guide on how to create a marketing plan that will work for almost every kind of business. We've also included 20+ free marketing plan templates throughout the post to help you get started on the right foot.
Here's a short selection of 8 easy-to-edit marketing plan templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more below:
Want to skip the tutorial? Create your marketing plan right away with Visme. Use ready-made marketing plan templates, download them as a PDF or share online.
Better yet, use Visme's AI Document Generator to create a fully designed marketing plan that aligns with your content. Prompt the generator with what you’re looking for, choose one of the styles and let the AI do its magic. Afterward, you can customize and finalize as you wish.
A marketing plan is a roadmap that helps you set goals, understand your target audience and optimize the impact of your marketing campaigns.
In simple words, it helps you get a clearer view of the what, why and how of all your marketing activities.
A good marketing plan also helps you communicate the “big” strategy and the different tactics involved to your marketing team. Last but not least, it lets you track the success of your campaigns.
A marketing plan should ideally include:
Take a look at this one-page marketing plan template as an example.
If your plan is more detailed, you can also consider including:
A marketing plan is usually presented as a PDF document, but you can also whip up a more creative version of it. For example, you can create an infographic, presentation and even an interactive web page to share your plan.
Or you can create a single-page marketing plan similar to the one above.
Scroll down to the end of this post to access seven full marketing plan templates.
Marketing plans and business plans are both essential pieces of business strategy, but their purpose is different. The terms are often used interchangeably or together: marketing business plan. But each plan is different and here's what sets them apart.
Business plans cover a business's overall strategy, from the branding strategy to the company-wide marketing strategies. A marketing plan solely concentrates on a specific marketing strategy or a branch of the overall department.
For example, one marketing plan can be for digital marketing strategies, while another can be for billboards. Likewise, a marketing plan can be for a single campaign, covering all marketing channels.
A marketing strategy and a marketing plan are key pieces in the company’s marketing puzzle. However, they serve different purposes.
A marketing strategy is the overall framework guiding a company's marketing efforts. It outlines how your organization will position itself in the market, target ideal customers, and create value for them. A marketing strategy is often long-term and forms the foundation for all your marketing activities.
A marketing plan is a detailed roadmap for organizing, executing and tracking your marketing strategy within a specific timeframe. It provides a step-by-step guide for achieving specific objectives, such as increasing sales, improving brand awareness, or entering new markets.
Simply put, a marketing plan translates your strategy into actionable steps with timelines for implementation and metrics for measuring success.
RELATED: The Complete Guide to Healthcare Marketing in 2024Just as there are several types of marketing strategies, there are numerous types of marketing plans. Let’s take a look at some of them.
Quarterly and annual marketing plans are high-level plans for all the marketing activities that will happen in the next quarter or year. From this overarching plan, your team will create smaller, more detailed plans according to specific strategies. These could be daily, weekly or monthly marketing plans.
Social media marketing plans highlight the goal and objective of a brand’s activities on social media that are geared toward marketing. This plan includes campaign information, repurposing guidelines across social media channels and who’s in the social media team.
A content marketing plan outlines all the content pillars for the brand and what content types need to be created for each pillar. Any content marketing strategies planned out for the brand’s content are detailed in the plan, along with a roadmap and goals.
In a new product launch plan, the pages lay out all the steps toward a successful launch. Separated into pre-launch, launch and post-launch, the different teams will know what they need to do to complete the plan’s objectives.
Growth marketing plans are specifically geared toward brand growth. This plan document lays out all the strategies to undertake in order to grow the brand name online, locally or some other way.
Influencer marketing plans concentrate on outlining all steps to implement an influencer strategy. Sections include the list of potential or chosen influencers and what will be asked and expected of them to reach the plan’s goals.
A market penetration marketing plan highlights all the activities involved in marketing existing products to existing customers.
This marketing strategy is considered the most popular in business models. Some examples include discounts on favorite products or new features and updates.
In market development plans, existing products are marketed to new customers and niches. These strategies focus on business objectives like developing distribution channels and increasing brand awareness.
Product development plans outline the activities dealing with marketing new products to existing customers. These marketing plans include examples such as product launches and market insertion plans.
In diversification, marketing plans focus on strategies to launch and promote new products or services to new markets and customers. These marketing plans are on the ambitious side.
Pro Tip: Use the Visme AI Writer to help you craft the content for your marketing plan. Open a text box and click on AI Writer to prompt the content for that section of your plan..
Need help putting together a full marketing plan?
Here is our handpicked collection of 10 marketing plan templates for various types of businesses.
Pick the one that best fits your industry and start customizing it in the Visme editor right away. Replace the colors, fonts, text, images, icons and more with a few clicks. Use the dynamic fields option to edit repeating content across slides and create more efficient templates for your team with custom dynamic fields.
You can also tap into a free library of stock photos and add animated characters, illustrations and gestures for advanced customization.
If you’re still on the fence about using Visme for your marketing plans, look at what one of our users has to say:
“I feel that for anyone who wants to improve efficiency and effectiveness at the workplace, VISME gives you the extra edge to take things forward.
It's an apt tool for quickly converting your thought process into a unique communication.” - Autumn | Finance Manager
This tailored marketing plan template is perfect for all kinds of real estate and property businesses, complete with a professional “About” section and SWOT analysis.
It has a modern feel to it with a clean layout and corporate color scheme. You can easily switch it out for your own brand colors if you want.
A good social media strategy needs a marketing plan of its own, which is why this template is a must-have for any business trying to win at this game.
Customize this social media marketing plan template to lay out your goals for the next year or quarter, and outline the key points of your strategy for each social channel.
Add a dose of interactivity by creating a clickable menu or building an interactive table of contents. Interactive plans make a positive impression on team members and stakeholders, improving work satisfaction and productivity.
Create an actionable marketing plan covering your digital channels with this detailed template.
This digital marketing plan has a classy design and layout, and features key headings like an executive summary, a SWOT analysis, key performance indicators and even a nice table of contents.
Creating an effective product marketing plan requires in-depth research of your target market, company strengths and weaknesses, as well as an effective marketing plan design.
This product marketing plan template covers all those basics, along with a detailed budget planner that you can edit with your own financial data.
Hiring someone to help build a powerful personal brand?
This personal marketing plan example is perfect for that purpose. It’s a simple, three-page document with a professional resume detailing skills and experience, followed by a goals page.
This marketing plan presentation template is a great way to share your marketing goals, SWOT, strategy, timeline, deliverables and more with your team and the management.
You can easily get the slides printed later and share the copies with your team. Edit this marketing plan presentation online in Visme and create a slideshow that's powerful and effective.
Here is another marketing plan presentation template you can use. This presentation template is especially relevant and useful if you're in the retail business.
Customize this marketing plan template online and download it in PDF or PowerPoint format, or save the slides separately in image format. You can also present this presentation online using a link — no downloads needed!
Designing a marketing plan doesn’t have to be daunting. With this template, you can create a comprehensive marketing plan for your food business, whether it’s a small cafe, a big fancy restaurant or a fast food joint.
This marketing plan example features stock photos of food that you can replace with your own. Additionally, you can edit any images with the AI Edit Tools to remove backgrounds or unwanted objects or upscale/unblur less than perfect photos.
This template also has a versatile design that can be tailored to your own brand style and even an entirely different industry.
Content is a key element of inbound marketing. This content marketing plan template is carefully designed to match the needs of SaaS and other businesses that want to focus on taking their content strategy to the next level.
If your marketing goals are to drive traffic, generate leads and grow sales through publishing insightful content, this marketing plan will help you organize your editorial calendar.
Take advantage of the fact that you’re already logged in to Visme, and use the resources at your disposal to execute a content marketing plan.
Design blog graphics, infographic visuals, social media content and videos right inside your Visme editor. Share and schedule posts to social media directly from the integrated social media calendar.
If you're not looking to create a detailed or formal document with several pages, this to-the-point marketing plan infographic template is a great pick.
It's a quick way to share the marketing plan for a one-off project and contains all the necessary details.
I’ve already mentioned how a marketing plan can help you better understand your company’s marketing goals and how to achieve them, but that’s not where the benefits end.
A well-researched marketing plan can help you:
There’s no one way of creating a marketing plan, but there are some key components that should go inside a winning one. Follow the steps below to create an effective marketing plan.
The executive summary usually goes at the beginning of your marketing plan. It’s basically a short summary or brief overview of your company and the key takeaways from the entire marketing plan.
Here’s an executive summary template you can edit and use for your own business.
The template above is a great example of an executive summary that highlights the key function of a business and the purpose of its marketing plan.
You can also include company achievements and future plans for your business in your summary.
Remember, your executive summary should be concise and to the point. Instead of boring your readers to sleep, it should grab their attention and get them excited about the rest of the plan.
Before you dive into all the marketing stuff, it’s a good idea to revisit your company’s values, vision and mission. This helps put all the information inside your marketing plan into perspective.
It answers the question of why you’re doing what you’re doing.
Here’s a neat mission, vision and values template to edit and use.
For anyone who reads your marketing plan, this section is important to educate them about the ultimate aim of your business so they can make better sense of your marketing goals, activities and future plans.
The next step is to build a marketing plan is back it up with solid research.
This is often achieved by analyzing your current market situation with a market analysis, by studying your competition and most importantly, looking into your own company’s strengths and weaknesses.
Here’s a market share template that can help you visualize that information and share it with your colleagues and stakeholders.
You can customize this template according to your own brand colors and input your own information. Use it on its own as part of a marketing plan or in a report or presentation.
Here’s another cool design to help you present your market research. Use this SWOT analysis template to highlight your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Instead of adding a boring table that no one wants to read, use a well-designed SWOT like the one above to draw attention to your research.
Here's another worksheet-style SWOT analysis template that you can print out and fill, or edit using Visme before adding to your marketing plan document or presentation.
You can also conduct a SWOT analysis of your competitors, which takes us to another key component of your market research — the competitor analysis.
Studying your competition is crucial to the success of your business. You need to know what they’re doing, what’s working for them and how you can do it better.
Here are a few things to research about your competitors:
Here's a competitive analysis template you can use and add to your marketing plan.
A template like the one above can help you organize and visualize important information about your competitors. In turn, this can help you identify opportunities and set goals.
Differentiating the target audience and the target market will help you better understand the position of your business within the market. Therefore, it’s important to identify who your buyer or ideal customer is so you can create more informed and tailored marketing strategies.
Naturally, the target customer for every business is different. But the goal is the same — to increase customer awareness.
You may also have more than one kind of customer. For example, a clothing store could be making products for both teens and older women at the same time.
Check out this target audience template to visualize your various customer segments. Use it to better understand your potential customers' attitudes and habits.
You can edit this template and use it as part of your marketing plan layout or presentation. It’s a great way to present the different types of your audience in a way that’s easy to understand.
The pie chart helps identify which chunk makes the bigger part of your customer base so you can focus most of your marketing efforts in that area.
If you’re looking for a more creative approach, take a look at the buyer persona template below.
This infographic template is a fun way to visualize your buyer’s demographic details, habits and goals, i.e., whether they're interested in online learning options like digital marketing courses or if they prefer in-person.
Another cool way to create a customer persona is to design it like a resume. This is useful for adding more information in one page without cluttering up the design.
Here’s a resume-style customer persona template you can edit.
This type of buyer persona design makes use of icons and data widgets, like progress bars.
In the end, the goal of creating a buyer persona is to better organize and understand key information about your customer. Use the template that works best for your business.
In this part of the marketing plan, you need to specify what you aim to achieve.
Outline your marketing goals and objectives, and make sure you use actual numbers instead of writing vague statements.
For example, if your goal is to increase website traffic, mention the exact target so you can track to see if you achieved it or not.
Here’s a marketing goals template you can use as part of your marketing plan.
Remember to create SMART goals for your marketing plan and strategy. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-Bound.
In the template above, notice how the target is defined as a percentage. You can also add a deadline to your marketing goal to make it time-bound.
If you want to share your marketing goals in an infographic format, here’s another template you can edit and use for your own company.
The template above is a more detailed goals infographic with three different phases, which makes it ideal for SaaS companies and mobile apps.
Now comes the good stuff. In this step, write down one or more marketing strategies and the tactics to execute for each one. Make sure you include:
This is best presented visually so the entire team can understand each step. You can divide your activities into stages, and present them using a marketing strategy template like the one below.
Another way to present your marketing strategy is by attaching deadlines to it. This can be easily done using a timeline or a Gantt chart.
Another way to present your marketing strategy is with the help of a roadmap. A roadmap outlines the tactics involved in your overall marketing strategy, and can be designed to look similar to a Gantt chart.
Here's a marketing roadmap template you can use for your own business.
If you want to do things differently, you can also use an infographic to visualize your marketing strategy.
An infographic is eye-catching and can be added to any of your presentations and reports. You can even share it on its own with your marketing team or other colleagues.
Here’s a marketing infographic template that divides your execution strategy into four phases.
Another way to visualize your marketing strategy is with the help of a mind map. Mind maps are great for providing your team with an overview of the different elements that are involved in your marketing strategy.
Here's a mind map template that shows how this can be done for a Twitter content marketing strategy.
You can easily build mind maps using our mind map maker.
Keep in mind that your marketing strategy should be actionable and detailed. Explain each step clearly and don’t leave out any information just for the sake of design.
Last but not least, detail your marketing budget considerations in your marketing plan.
This is important so you don’t lose sight of the financial aspect of things during execution and implementation. After all, marketing is costly and there are tons of hidden expenses involved. You need a budget template to lay out your financial projections.
Here’s an editable marketing budget template you can use.
Including a detailed marketing budget also helps in hiring the right staff and choosing between paid resources so you don’t exceed a certain amount.
You’re probably wondering: What does a marketing plan look like? In this section, we’ll share 5 real-life examples of marketing plans from companies.
This marketing plan is an example of how to create a well-structured and eye-catching marketing plan. The plan has a sophisticated design adorned with captivating images and a rich blend of bright colors.
The proposed marketing plan starts with a situational analysis and review of the previous year. The following pages take a deep dive into key sections, like
Each of the different marketing strategies has individual goals, strategies and detailed plans of action. Additionally, the plan features a comprehensive event calendar and evaluation criteria. This makes it easier for the marketing team to stay organized, implement and track progress.
If you're looking for a template for a marketing plan that will be presented to internal stakeholders at all levels of your organization, this is a perfect example. Although created by a non-profit, it can be adapted for startups and growing businesses.
This comprehensive plan includes everything you need to get started, from SMART marketing goals and deadlines to action steps, long-term objectives, target audiences, core marketing messages and metrics.
This marketing plan example follows a simple format. The content is mostly presented in a list and tabular format, making it well-organized and easy to scan. Readers quickly grasp the organization's strategic direction for its upcoming marketing initiatives.
This detailed marketing plan example is encased in a document format with a bold, eye-catching design. The stunning image and energetic orange color on the cover page immediately grab attention and communicate the brand's dynamic personality. This comprehensive market plan example from the University of Illinois has three key sections.
We love that the plan effectively dissects the high-level components of its overall strategy and pairs them with concrete, actionable marketing tactics. Another standout feature is that the pages are filled with compelling visuals, engaging copy and informative graphs and maps that convey their strategic vision and roadmap for marketing efforts.
One of the standout features of the plan is its ease of readability. The sections are clearly organized, allowing readers to quickly scan and identify the most relevant information. It contains key sections, including partners, goals and marketing initiatives—attraction, retention and community relations.
Additionally, the plan offers a thorough breakdown of projected costs per marketing initiative, a crucial detail for upper-level management and stakeholders. This feature makes it easier for decision-makers to understand the financial implications of the proposed plan and allocate resources accordingly.
Overall, Wright County Economic Development's plan serves as a valuable example for marketers looking to develop a practical and effective marketing plan.
Being a leisure and lifestyle business, Visit Oxnard infuses captivating designs and vibrant photos that showcase the beauty and excitement of landscapes, landmarks, adventure and resorts. Their innovative plan puts a spin on traditional tourism marketing by focusing on the business side of travel.
This marketing plan example begins with a marketing plan overview, company overview, mission, and goals. Then it dives deeper into the framework and approach the company will take to continue on a positive path forward to economic recovery and growth. Other key sections highlighted in the plan include
This approach by Visit Oxnard demonstrates how creating actionable marketing plans can help forward-thinking companies capitalize on untapped opportunities.
Still not convinced about the use of marketing plans for your business? Here are some frequently asked questions that can help you make a final decision.
A marketing plan template is a customizable document with placeholder content that can help you get started quickly. Creating a marketing plan from scratch takes too much time. Using a template not only sets up you for faster designing but it also inspires creativity.
Beautiful internal communications inspire delight in coworkers, making it more enjoyable to check off lists and follow processes. Marketing plans on plain white documents just get lost in email threads. Visme marketing plan templates are the solution.
The executive summary in a marketing plan is a superpowered table of contents. In an executive summary page or slide, you share the notable points to be discussed in the subsequent content of the plan in question. An executive summary is comparable to the Quick Read section at the top of our articles.
A top-down marketing strategy is a traditional strategy with a broad target and brand messaging. Think of the marketing funnel and how at the top it’s wide open. Top down marketing strategies work up there, catching as many people as possible with a message that appeals to a wide audience.
A bottom-up marketing strategy is a targeted strategy for a product or service that meets the needs of a specific audience. Bottom-up marketing strategies are more common in small businesses and startups that don’t yet have large audiences.
The 4C’s of marketing are:
These four are called the "marketing mix. Another marketing mix you should know is the 4 Ps or the Four Principles of Marketing.
For a marketing plan to be good, it doesn’t take much. But for a marketing plan to be great, make sure you check off this checklist:
The most important part of a marketing plan is the targeted consumer, specifically their needs and wants. The entirety of your marketing plan serves the purpose of how your company will use marketing strategies to sell solutions to the customer.
With Visme, you can create marketing plans collaboratively in a number of ways. Brainstorm and strategize the plan together in the infinite whiteboard and then design together in the editor. The Visme whiteboard can have multiple pages to control brainstorming iterations and organize meeting results.
Invite members to the whiteboard or workspace by clicking the person+ icon on the top right. They’ll need to have their own Visme account to access the editor or whiteboard you’re inviting them to.
You can also use the workflow feature to assign entire projects or specific tasks to different team members and work on a project together. Keep track of what’s being worked on, leave feedback comments and support each other through the process.
A marketing strategy is a document or plan that outlines how your organization will deal with market positioning, ICPs and other strategic aspects of a marketing scheme. They can be long- or short-term strategies that form the foundation of all marketing activities.
Marketing plans, on the other hand, are detailed roadmaps that organize how to execute and track a marketing strategy. They provide a guide to achieving the outlined objectives. Marketing plans turn your strategy into an actionable, step-by-step timeline and a foundation for measuring success.
For most businesses, operating without a solid marketing plan results in ineffective campaigns, reduced ROI and unexpected costs. And nobody wants that.
A custom marketing plan helps you align your marketing objectives and activities with your overall business goals and brings entire teams together on the same page.
Ready to create a professional marketing plan of your own? Get started from scratch or choose one of our marketing plan templates today.
