A marketing plan is a planthat helps you define your market. Many small businesses operate theirbusinesses without giving much thought to preparing a marketing plan. Sometimesthey luck up and do things right, but most times they don’t know what workedand what didn’t work. A marketing plan will put in place a strategy forattracting more customers and it helps to anticipates changes.
A benefit to having amarketing plan is that it helps you understand your target market, what youpropose to do to reach that market, and how you plan to differentiate yourselffrom your competition.
It puts in place an outlineof the cost of how you are going to achieve your marketing goals within acertain timeframe. Each activity in the marketing plan is based on solidresearch and specific goals. It serves as a road map to help you achieve thosegoals. When you are working from your marketing plan it doesn’t mean that youcan’t change things and that it’s set in stone. Consider the tactics thatworked well and the ones that didn’t work at all. For example, an ad you put inthe paper gave high results, opposed to one you put in a directory that didn’tpull a high response.
Reference:
SBA: Developing a Marketing Plan