John Westwood - How to Write a Marketing Plan: Define Your Strategy, Plan Effectively and Reach Your Marketing Goals

• Dealing with Difficult People Roy Lilley

• Decision Making and Problem Solving John Adair

• Develop Your Leadership Skills John Adair

• Develop Your Presentation Skills Theo Theobald

• How to Manage People Michael Armstrong

• How to Manage Projects Paul J Fielding

• How to Organize Yourself John Caunt

• How to Write a Business Plan Brian Finch

• How to Write a Marketing Plan John Westwood

• How to Write Reports and Proposals Patrick Forsyth

• Improve Your Communication Skills Alan Barker

• Successful Time Management Patrick Forsyth

• Taking Minutes of Meetings Joanna Gutmann

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Publishers note

Every possible effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this book is accurate at the time of going to press, and the publishers and authors cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions, however caused. No responsibility for loss or damage occasioned to any person acting, or refraining from action, as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by the editor, the publisher or the author.

First published in Great Britain and the United States in 1996 by Kogan Page Limited

Sixth edition 2019

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licences issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned addresses:

John Westwood, 1996, 2000, 2006, 2013, 2016, 2019

The right of John Westwood to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBNs

Hardback978 0 7494 9883 2

Paperback978 0 7494 8483 5

Ebook978 0 7494 8616 7

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Westwood, John, 1947- author.

Title: How to write a marketing plan : define your strategy, plan effectively

and reach your marketing goals / John Westwood.

Description: Sixth edition. | London ; New York : Kogan Page Limited, 2019. |

Series: Creating success |

Identifiers: LCCN 2018056444 (print) | LCCN 2018059317 (ebook) | ISBN

9780749486167 (Ebook) | ISBN 9780749484835 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: MarketingManagement. | BISAC: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS /

Careers / General. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Marketing / General. |

SELF-HELP / Personal Growth / General.

Classification: LCC HF5415.13 (ebook) | LCC HF5415.13 .W48 2019 (print) | DDC

658.8/02dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018056444

Typeset by Hong Kong FIVE Workshop

Print production managed by Jellyfish

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

This is for Lucinda and Ben who are forever grateful to their father for his plans

This book is different from most business books. It is a practical workbook that will enable you to prepare your own marketing plan.

In the course of this book, you will follow the development of a marketing plan for a fictitious company The Equipment Manufacturing Company. Step by step you will be shown how to carry out the different steps in marketing planning. Exercises help you to produce sections of your own marketing plan.

By the time you reach the end of this book, we will have completed our marketing plan and you will have completed yours.

The book can be used in many ways:

• to prepare individual marketing plans;

• as an individual study guide;

• for group marketing planning exercises;

• as a textbook for marketing courses.

Since the completed plan is included at the end of the book, we include the answers as well as the questions!

Planning is one of the most important roles of management. A companys corporate or business plan runs the business. A companys marketing plan is a key input to the business plan. It should identify the most promising business opportunities for the company and outline how to penetrate, capture and maintain positions in identified markets. It is a communication tool combining all the elements of the marketing mix in a coordinated action plan. It spells out who will do what, when, where and how, to achieve its ends.

An overall company marketing plan can be made up of a number of smaller marketing plans for individual products or areas. These smaller plans can be prepared as and when the occasion requires.

Most books on marketing planning concentrate on theory. This approach is fine for business academics but makes the whole process too complicated for the average sales manager. The approach in this book is a practical one, including only as much theory as is necessary to understand the planning process. Working your way through this book will broaden your understanding of the principles of marketing planning so that you will be able to carry out the background work necessary to put together any type of marketing plan.

It is, however, becoming more common for sales and marketing personnel to have to put together individual plans for a product or an area very quickly. This book is designed as much to help those people as to provide guidance to marketing personnel putting together an overall marketing plan.

Throughout the book we will follow the fortunes of a company manufacturing filters and valves The Equipment Manufacturing Company. It will be used in examples and as the basis of a marketing plan. The plan will be for all its products for its home market. To get the best out of this book, you should follow this example and prepare an equivalent marketing plan for a product for your own company as we progress through the steps one by one. By the end of the book, you will have your own marketing plan.

Adopting and following the formal structure of the plan (shown later in this book) will make it easier for you to order your thoughts and the facts logically.

It will be easier for:

• people reading the plan to follow your arguments and to see how you reached your conclusions;

• you to present a professional-looking and complete document from even a relatively small amount of information.

The Equipment Manufacturing Company is a medium-sized company based in the south of England. Key facts are given below: