One Page Marketing Plan Guide
Summary: Learn how to write a one page marketing plan with this one page marketing plan template and guide. This one page marketing plan template is ideal for the small business owner or independent professional looking for an abbreviated marketing plan template to save time while still recording the most vital marketing plan details to make informed marketing decisions for their business.
Well-executed market research and the development of a marketing plan can be vital to the success of a small business. Yet writing a marketing plan is a commonly ignored part of business planning, especially in the digital age when an entrepreneur can start an online business with minimal effort. Writing a one page marketing plan can give small- and online-business owners a guideline for their marketing efforts without the time committment of preparing a full marketing plan.While a full marketing plan for any business is a good idea, there are several benefits to an abbreviated one page marketing plan for entrepreneurs wanting to save time, but without ignoring a marketing plan altogether:
1. A one page marketing plan can be prepared quickly.
2. One page marketing plans give business owners a marketing to-do list, in addition to a general snapshot of their marketing situation.
3. A one page marketing plan can later work as a springboard into a more comprehensive marketing plan, almost like a marketing plan outline.
At the end of this article, you’ll find a link to a .pdf one page marketing plan template. Here is a list of the sections of my one page marketing plan, with a brief description of each, to help you write your own one page marketing plan for your small or online business”
- Target Market – This is who you’re hoping to reach with your marketing message (including demographics, like age groups, ethnic groups, sex, location, etc.).
- Industry Trends – If your industry is experiencing widespread growth or decline, it might affect your marketing efforts, so you need to be aware of that and take note of it.
- Goal(s) – Choose specific and measurable goals that you hope to attain with your marketing efforts, and note them on your one page marketing plan.
- Strategies - Strategies very generally state how you plan to reach your goals. For example, if your goal is to increase listeners of your podcast by 10,000 in a year, an example strategy might be to invite well-known people in your industry to be guests on the show. Anything more specific would be considered a “tactic.”
- Yearly Marketing Budget - You need to estimate your yearly marketing budget, which will serve as a guideline when choosing your marketing tactics.
- Marketing Mix - The marketing mix is basically a breakdown of the 4 Ps of marketing.
- Top 3 Competitors – While you likely have many competitors, pick at least the top three competitors that you’ll need to position your products or services against in order to analyze them and form a comparison. By “top competitors” we’re talking about those that are most directly related to you; not necessarily the most well-known.
- Your Strengths – List your primary strengths as opposed to your top competitors.
- Your Weaknesses – List your primary weaknesses as opposed to your top competitors. Saying “I don’t have any weaknesses,” isn’t acceptable. Every entrepreneur has weaknesses in the competitive environment. You can’t overcome them if you don’t acknowledge them.
- Monthly Tactics – Here’s where you’ll choose very specific marketing tactics that fit within your strategies and your marketing budget. This one page marketing plan template lets you break them down monthly in order to ensure that your marketing efforts are continual, instead of using up the marketing budget on one or two tactics early on.
Use this one page marketing plan template and guide to help you build a quick and basic marketing plan for your small and online business needs.
Related posts:
- Sample Internet Marketing Plan Outline
- Elements of a PR Plan
- Create a Marketing Plan for Your New Blog
- Writing an Internet Business Plan
- Do You Need a Business Plan for Your Freelance Work?
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Thanks, I’m writing a marketing plan for a company doing their webhosting in a climate neutral way. By in the first place having their servers running on green energy and in the second place having a genius way of cooling the server room in a way which uses only 65% of energy compared to traditional cooling.
[...] have to be difficult. There are a lot of outlines, templates, and samples available. I even have a one page marketing plan template that you can feel free to use as an abbreviated tool if you really don’t want to [...]
[...] marketing plan, because they think it’s going to be too time consuming. I’ve created a one page marketing plan that’s ideal for bloggers – it allows you to keep track of vital information, plan marketing [...]
Thank you for your quick response when I contacted you via email, Jennifer. I was looking to get this link so i could take a look at the template. It seems that it may be very helpful and I can utilize this and expand on what this one offers to meet the needs of our business and marketing plan. Keep up the good work!
[...] of you in the first two groups at least, I have a resource that might help you out. It’s a one page marketing plan I created for my business blog (BizAmmo.com) a while back. Visit the link for a downloadable .pdf [...]
I am trying to write a marketing proposal for the companies one year planning. So I need a compite marketing plan.
[...] my free one page marketing plan template. (link to the .pdf is at the bottom of the guide page – the page linked above explains [...]
[...] business side to it. If you don’t bother to do market research and create a business plan and marketing plan, you don’t get to complain later when things aren’t working out as you [...]
[...] the idea of using abbreviated business plans. In fact, as you may remember I actually released a one page marketing plan template and a one page business plan template previously that you can [...]
Great guide and thanks much! Definitely the help I was looking for after freelance writing and web authoring for a bit now!
Cheers,
James
I am in charge of the sales and marketing of our services for our long term care division and would very much like to use your one page marketing tool for myself and the regional manager who works in a different area of Illinois.
Thanks in advance for offering such a helpful tool for small businesses.
Sincerely,
Lisa M. Zaenger, RRT, RCP
Thanks for sending your one page marketing template.
Lisa
[...] (or update) your marketing plan — There’s no good excuse for you not to have a marketing plan laid out for your freelance writing services. It’s your roadmap. It’s how you determine [...]
[...] of you in the first two groups at least, I have a resource that might help you out. It’s a one page marketing plan I created for my business blog (bizhow2.com) a while back. Visit the link for a downloadable .pdf [...]
Being the head of sales & marketing in a Dairy company in Asian region your one page plan provided an insight knowledge to make the starting point.
Thanks in advance for offering such a guiding tool.
Best regards,
Charles.
[...] You don’t have a plan. While I’m a big advocate of having a business plan and marketing plan for your freelance writing business, you don’t have to go that far. Just don’t go into freelancing completely clueless about what to expect. A lot of new writers do this, and the reality check can be harsh. They’ll hit their first slow period without having set money aside. They’ll anticipate earning twice what they actually make. They’ll forget about all of the itty bitty expenses that really add up over the course of the year. You get the idea. If you’d like to have a basic plan laid out, but you’re not interested in writing a comprehensive business and marketing plan, try these abbreviated templates to at least help you cover the basics (as much as I’d love to see every freelancer have a complete business plan, I’m a realist and know many won’t): one page business plan template | one page marketing plan template [...]
Thanks for the great tool, it made life easier.