Writing a powerful B2B marketing plan is no easy task. When you are establishing your B2B marketing plan, it is important that you take the time to really get to know your brand, as well as your current and potential audience. You need to know what you are selling, and who you are selling to. However, it is not that simple, and there are many additional factors and steps that need to be taken to have a truly powerful marketing plan. At Millennium Agency, we are experts in marketing planning, as well as an assortment of other B2B branding and marketing strategy services which is why we have created this B2B marketing plan template that walks you through the stages of building a powerful marketing plan.
Phase One: Research and Foundation
Before you can begin writing a marketing plan that is powerful enough to drive success, you must know exactly what makes your business unique. During phase one of our B2B marketing strategy template, we encourage you to conduct in-depth research about your brand, both from an internal and external perspective. Knowing what your employees, customers, investors, and even potential customers think about your business can give you productive insight into what your business does well, and what you can improve on. It is in your best interest to invest in taking careful time to dive deep into your brand and what people think, because this research will be used to build your overall marketing planning strategy.
During the research phase, you also want to consider your competition and do a bit of research on them. Knowing who your competitors are, and how they position and market themselves not only helps you avoid being repetitive, but also shows you how you need to do better. Research is the key to marketing plan templates for every industry, and it allows you to build a stable, cohesive foundation for a powerful marketing plan.
Phase Two: Analysis and Goal Setting
Once you reach phase two of the B2B marketing plan template, you begin to use the research conducted in phase one. During this stage, you should analyze the information that you yielded and note any popular trends or consistencies present, both positive and negative. A common marketing planning strategy used by industry professionals is called the SWOT analysis, which combines internal and external analyses to guide you towards a marketing plan that is successful. A SWOT analysis examines your strengths and weaknesses, as well as your opportunities and threats, and requires you to look openly and honestly at how your business performs as is. Once you properly break down these key points of your business, you can establish your goals with ease.
Establishing goals not only includes pinpointing the successes you want achieve in the future, but also lays out the objectives you must meet to succeed. Goal setting is the core of marketing plan templates, and the more specific and direct you can be when setting your goals, the more cohesive and successful your results will be. Your goals serve as your guiding beacon for your marketing plan, and your objectives are what help get you there. Establishing your marketing plan objectives can be challenging if you do not have a background in marketing, because they are the logistical, technical details of your entire strategy. If you are unable to determine successful marketing objectives on your own, employing the help of a professional firm is the best way to get assistance and see a marketing plan example for yourself. Either way, you cannot move on to the next step in the template until you have clearly identified your goals and objectives.
Phase Three: Audience Identification and Targeting
By phase three of the Millennium Agency marketing plan template, you should have a wealth of knowledge on who you are and what people are saying about your brand, as well as a clear understanding of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. From there, you should have built out a clear set of goals and objectives that support your business reaching those goals. Once you have the basics down, it is time to fine tune your marketing planning to your specific audience.
You should have gained a thorough understanding of your target audience and your customers’ identities during the research phase of the marketing plan template, and now is the time to use what you learned to better serve your products or services to the right people. How you position yourself within your market and industry is important, and most customers take only a mere minute during first impressions with your brand to decide whether or not they wish to continue on with your business’ website, advertisement, blog, email, or however you are reaching them. Because of this, you need to make sure that you are making the right decisions when it comes to communicating with and engaging your audience; if you miss the mark, you may not get a second chance. During this phase of the marketing strategy template, you should be establishing a clear tone and message that you will be using to reach and engage your target audience and generate leads.
Phase Four: Coordinating Logistics
Before you can begin executing your marketing plan, you must also coordinate all of the different logistics that must be taken into consideration such as your business’ budget, timeline, and capabilities. If you have not already enlisted the help of a professional marketing strategy firm, now is the time to do so! Although you can tackle coordinating all of the technical logistics of your marketing plan on your own, having an experienced firm is a great way to guarantee that you are getting the most out of your marketing planning experience. The right marketing firm will help you ensure that you are getting the most optimal results from your planning efforts.
During this phase, you should lay out exactly when you hope to reach each goal, customizing each objective deadline to your specific business and industry needs. From there you need to determine what your budget is, how much you want to spend daily, and on what marketing efforts. You cannot move on to solidifying your tactics until you know how much time and money you are working with. Once you have your goals and objectives lined out, and have your budget and timeline sorted, you can begin to schedule and execute your strategy as outlined through this digital marketing plan example.
Phase Five: Execution
By the time you reach phase five, the execution phase, you should have already laid the foundation and pinpointed the exact goals and objectives you want to reach, as well as determined how you are going to achieve success using the budget and timeline you are working within. Now it is time to execute your marketing plan, which involves a lot of different components depending on your specific goals as a business. Making sure that your B2B marketing plan goes off with success can be tricky to manage, and marketing firms are well versed in juggling many different marketing components, ensuring the correct materials and efforts are launched correctly and without issue. During the execution phase, you should be preparing and launching all of the different objectives you pinpointed during earlier phases. From there you should be gathering data on your B2B marketing plan’s success and determining how successful your efforts are at generating leads. The execution process can take place over the span of weeks, months, quarters, or even years, and requires close management to ensure your plan stays on track.
Phase Six: Monitoring and Refinement
The final stage of any marketing planning template example is the monitoring and refinement process that takes place from initial launch up until a new campaign is launched or the current plan dies out, whichever comes first. However, we suggest reevaluating your B2B marketing plan strategies frequently to avoid falling behind in your industry. Throughout the monitoring and refinement process, you should be gathering data on how successful each component of your campaign is at meeting your goals, and using that data paired with qualitative data such as customer and employee comments allows you to modify and optimize your B2B marketing plan and strategies.
Don’t Navigate this Alone
Marketing planning can be difficult, especially if you do not have previous marketing plan examples for your brand or if you do not have a marketing planning template to follow. We have reviewed the most basic form of a market planning template, and through the six phases we highlighted, you should be able to build a B2B marketing strategy that works for your business. Although no one knows your brand better than you, an experienced marketing firm knows the ins and outs of marketing the best – after all its what their brand is all about. Hiring a B2B marketing firm will optimize your marketing planning experience and will yield more successful results every time. You do not need to navigate the marketing planning process alone, you have already done half of the hardest part by going through this marketing strategy template, the next step is to schedule time with a member of our staff to begin planning your next strategy.
About Millennium Agency
Millennium Agency is a nationally recognized, top woman led B2B branding, positioning, and digital marketing firm who knows how to create value that emotionally influences your customer’s buying decision, giving you the competitive advantage. As your trusted partner in B2B software technology and manufacturing, we provide the branding and positioning framework that make an impact – so you can focus on what you do best – run your business successfully. For more information, visit our website or call 877-873-7445.
