EOU SBDC Business Plans

	Small Business Development Center
1607 Gekeler Lane, La Grande, OR 97850
Phone and Fax: 541-962-1532 Email: sbdc@eou.edu Website: www.BizCenter.org

MARKETING PLAN OUTLINE

Your marketing plan should include:

1. YOUR MISSION STATEMENT
A. How you see your business evolving in 1 year
B. How you see it evolving in 5 years

2. THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF YOUR BUSINESS
A. Proprietor
B. LLC
C. Partnership
D. Corporation

3. MARKETING RESEARCH
A. Information about potential customers and the size of demand for your product
- Research own files
- Research general information
- Personal research

4. WHO:
A. Your understanding of who your customers are and for which group specifically you
will be producing -Age, Gender, Income, Education, Location etc.
B. Who is your ideal customer

5. WHAT:
A. What category do you place your products?
(Ex. Sports equipments/Transportation/Cosmetics/dressage saddles etc.)
- What is your product/service?
- Price/Quality relationship
B. How will you determine the price of your product/service?
C. What supporting ideas do you have if purchases should start going down?

6. WHERE:
A. Location and Distribution
- How are you planning on distributing your product/service?
- How are you planning on promoting your product/service
B. Your plan for global marketing and/or Internet marketing
C. Marketing research

7. WHEN:
A. How long will it take to replace your products?
B. When will selling begin?

8. WHY:
A. Satisfying Customer Needs

9. YOUR COMPETITION
A. Competitive position
B. Competition in the local market and your methods of dealing with the competition

10. YOUR IMAGE
A. What do you want people to believe about you?
B. Why do you want them to believe that?
C. How are you going to position your image in the minds of your customers?

11. ADVERTISING ACTION PLA N
A. Your marketing goals for this year, next 5 years
B. Criteria for success
C. Advertising theme
D. Advertising strategy

12. PUBLIC RELATIONS ACTION PLAN
A. How to get customers to say something positive about your business for no pay.
B. What tools do you plan to use for customer relations? (E.g. Public contact, News release, Public service announcements etc.)

13. PERSONAL SALES PLAN
A. What methods do you use to keep your selling plans organized?
B. How is your relationship with your employees?
C. What plans do you have for your business to lead in the product you offer?
D. How do you guarantee quality service?

14. FORECASTING YOUR SALES
A. Your estimated unit sales for the next 12 months
B. How do you plan to accomplish this estimated sale?

14. BUDGETING
A. What portion of your capital will you allocate to the various expenses? E.g. advertising, cost of sales, transportation and so on.
B. How would you divide your budget? Quarterly, monthly or yearly.

15. STRENGTH/WEAKNESSES FACING YOUR BUSINESS
A. What will you do to strengthen your business?
B. How will you improve the weaknesses of your business?

17. STATEMENT OF SOCIAL/ETHICAL ISSUES
A. What social and ethical issues do you want to address in selling your product?

18. TIMETABLE
A. Time is money
B. How will you schedule your activities in the order of importance?

19. CONDITIONS/CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH WILL YOU REVISE YOUR STRATEGIC PLAN.
A. What sought of foreseen or unforeseen conditions will lead you to change this plan?
B. How often do you anticipate such a change?

Link to other handouts

Who Is Your Customer? MSWord

50 Ways to Market Smarter MSWord
Advertising Your Business MSWord
Business Promotion List MSWord
Marketing MSWord
Price Your Product and Service MSWord
Pricing Your Product MSWord
Researching Your Market MSWord
Sale Forecasting MSWord
Small Business Exporting MSWord
Understanding Your Market MSWord
Promoting your Website Checklist MSWord
Promoting Your Business Checklist MSWord
Customer Communications Checklist MSWord
Expanding Your Markets Checklist MSWord