Marketing Plan : How to do it step by step [2024]

The first step is to do an analysis of the company. To do this, it is necessary to do a SWOT analysis. That is, reflect on what the company’s weaknesses are in terms of the digital environment, what its strengths are, what its threats are, and what the opportunities are.
To understand it better, I am going to give examples of each item:
Weakness. Weaknesses are the aspects of the company that are best suited, not only in regards to digital marketing. For example, a business management that does not trust the digital environment; human team not without specific training, no online presence, etc.
Threat. Threats are those external factors that can have a negative impact on the company. For example, a legislative change, the appearance of a new competitor, a change in consumption trends, etc.
strength. They are the competitive advantages of the company. For example, having a qualified team, having financial investment to carry out actions, a novel product that arouses interest, etc.
Chance. Opportunities are all those external elements that can provide a competitive advantage for the company over its competition.

Regarding the product or service that we want to promote, it is advisable to analyze its value proposalThat is, the benefits of our product or service compared to other similar ones.
This differential value can be found in price, novelty, quality, design, customization, time… Bet on one and put the strategic focus on it.

With the Internet, competition is any other company that offers the same solution to the same problem to the same target audience: they can be direct, indirect or potential.
To carry out an analysis of the competition, first, specify what aspects you are interested in analyzing, not only in relation to the actions carried out in digital marketing, but also to its pricing, product and marketing policy.

Digital marketing objectives are what the company intends to achieve thanks to the strategy that the digital team will define for this in the digital marketing plan.
The digital marketing objectivesl must always be: concrete, achievable, measurable, realistic and defined in time.
These must be specified in two: quantitative and qualitative objectives; and each of them, in a main objective, and another or others, secondary.
Therefore, if our business is an online store, a quantitative objective can be “generate sales”, and the quantitative objective, “achieve an average conversion rate of 2% each month.”
Regarding the most common qualitative digital marketing objectives, we can indicate the following: inform, branding, generate sales, loyalty, increase ROI, improve online reputation, etc.

The target audience is that group of users who, due to their interests, purchasing behavior, lifestyle and socio-demographic characteristics, are likely to purchase the products or contract the services offered by the company. The better we define it, the better results we will obtain.

The strategy is theSet of interconnected actions that we will carry out in order to achieve the quantitative and qualitative objectives that have been previously defined. This must respond to 4 questions: «That” let’s do, “Where«, «When” and “As” we are going to do it.
For example, if our objective is to increase sales of a e-commerceWe can achieve it by following different strategies, but not all of them will help us achieve it in the same way.
Therefore, he is responsible for digital marketing or consultant who, thanks to his know-how, has to decide which strategy is the most appropriate.
We should not confuse it with tactical actions. For example, publishing a post on TikTok is a tactical action. Managing the presence of a brand on social networks with the intention of achieving measurable objectives would be the strategy.
In the article “Digital marketing strategies» I explain in detail what they are based on the digital marketing objectives that you want to achieve.

To carry out each of the strategies, certain tactical actions must be carried out, which will be different in each case.

The budget is the financial investment that the company is going to allocate to everything related to digital marketing during a specific period of time, for example, a year.
Once specified and having defined all the tactical actions, in a document, preferably in standing outAll economic items must be specified by month.
The most common items in a digital marketing plan budget are: team fees (community manager, strategist, SEO, designer, programmer, etc.), advertising investments for SEM or Social Ads, licenses for programming tools, mail marketing, etc.), purchase of images, etc.

KPI is an acronym formed by the initials of the terms: key performance indicator. Its translation is “Key performance indicator or management indicators.” That is, metrics that help us identify the performance of a certain action.
To know whether or not we have achieved the defined quantitative objectives in each strategy, we must establish what KPIs we are going to measure and analyze periodically.
For it,

Planning is scheduling in a document or in an application when each tactical action must be carried out, dividing it into tasks. In addition, it is advisable to indicate who is responsible for each task, and establish realistic execution deadlines.

If considered, at the end of the digital marketing plan observations or recommendations can be made that will surely help the team in the direction and management of the project.