Free Marketing Template

I have seen so many generic marketing plans now, that they all just blur into one limp, templated list of predictable recommendations, without the relevant market, customer or competitive research and evidence to support the claims.

Although the lack of research or supporting data means the recommendations are at worst a guess, and at best an opinion - that's not the biggest problem with templated marketing plans.

The biggest problem is that everything in the plan can be quickly and simply copied by your competitors, because it is not unique.

Example Recommendation One: Rebrand or update your logo

Problem: Without defining your organisational strengths, researching customer segments and buyer behaviour or conducting competitive analysis, the graphic designer - without a clear brief - will create a logo that suits them and adds to their portfolio preferences, rather than being a unique reflection of your brand attributes that captures and promotes your point of difference.

Example Recommendation Two: Establish a social media presence

Problem: Your competitors already have a strong social media footprint and are killing you with high output, multi-channel, differentiated content and meaningful engagement with key customer segment.

You get the picture.

It makes no business sense whatsoever to download a generic marketing plan template and fill it with generic responses to generic questions, unless your customers are a homogeneous clump of generic people with identical needs.

Marketing is a subset of competitive strategy, which is a subset of organisational strategy. Failure to link the marketing strategy to the organisational strategy is a surefire way to create meaningless, mass-market, nonsense marketing.

Brands don't benefit from TGIF posts on Instagram and LOLcats on Facebook - and neither do their customers. You must start with the customer and their needs, wants, hopes and fears. Your marketing must clearly link your product, service and delivery experience with your ideal customer groups highest values and needs.

Any downloadable, template marketing plan has as much value to a business as a mission statement generated from a random buzzword generator.

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EvettField Partners Pty Ltd #B2B #competitive #strategy #EvettField