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Marketing Plan Template: Word, PowerPoint, Excel, PDF, & Google Docs Templates

Published July 11, 2022
/ Updated December 15, 2022

Need help creating a marketing plan?

Download this actionable marketing plan template kit in Word (.docx and easily uploadable into Google Docs), PowerPoint, Excel, and PDF formats below.

Alternatively, feel free to copy/paste the bulleted templates for each marketing plan component from the text throughout this piece to build your own custom outline.

Marketing Plan Template

Table Of Contents

The table of contents is a list at the beginning of your content that outlines the sections and where you can access them within the document. You can link each item to its corresponding section in-document with Google Docs, Microsoft Word, and Adobe Acrobat.

A marketing plan’s table of contents includes:

  • Executive summary
  • Mission statement
  • Marketing goals
  • Marketing KPIs
  • Target audience
  • Audience personas
  • Situational analysis
  • Core competencies
  • SWOT analysis
  • Marketing mix
  • Pricing strategy
  • Marketing initiatives
  • Marketing channels
  • Marketing technology
  • Marketing responsibilities
  • Editorial calendar
  • Marketing budget

Executive Summary

An executive summary is the highest-level overview of your marketing plan. Business.com suggests keeping notes on each section as you write your plan to inspire your executive summary.

An executive summary may include:

  • Business summary (headquarters and boilerplate)
  • Marketing team and management
  • Initiatives
  • Financial considerations

Mission Statement

A mission statement explains your organization’s benefits through your product or service. Your mission statement will help you decide what initiatives and target markets to prioritize in your marketing plan.

A mission statement may follow one of these templates:

{Organization} {action} to {stakeholder} by {unique value}.

Border States example: “Border States provide value to our customers by delivering innovative product and supply chain solutions.”

To {action}—{how}.

Starbucks example: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit—one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.”

To {action} that will/that are/so that {unique value}.

CoSchedule example: “To pursue growth, empower our team, and build simple products that are uniquely helpful, fun to use, and consistently punch above their weight.”

Marketing Goals

A marketing goal is a specific mark to accomplish by a determined date or in an allotted amount of time. Craft your goals with the SMART outline.

When setting SMART marketing goals, you should include the following components:

Essential SMART marketing goal components:

  • Specific: Focus on one metric.
  • Measurable: Establish a way to measure your goal performance.
  • Aspirational: Ensure your goal pushes you beyond your current performance.
  • Realistic: Make sure your goal is achievable.
  • Time-bound: Set a deadline to achieve your goal.

Marketing KPIs

Marketing Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are metrics that demonstrate your work is leading toward larger marketing goals.

Marketing KPIs are comprised of:

  • Lead indicators
  • Lag indicators
  • Funnel metrics

KPIs help you track your progress and can allow you to identify tactics that are working and places where your marketing strategy needs to shift.

Target Audience

Defining your target audience framework helps you determine to whom you will direct your marketing efforts.

Target audience documentation often includes:

  • Target market
  • Industry/vertical/niche
  • Demographics (Age and Gender)
  • Geo (Languages and Location)
  • Behavior (New vs. Returning, Frequency/Recency, and Engagement)
  • Career (authority and title)
  • Interests
  • Attitudes and opinions
  • Challenges and pain points
  • Buying triggers

Audience Personas

An audience persona presents audience data as an example customer. Audience personas create a visual representation of who your marketing team is targeting.

Audience persona frameworks often ask:

  • Who are they?
  • What is their personality?
  • How about their family life?
  • What are their values?
  • What is their job title?
  • What’s their income level?
  • What are their challenges?
  • What are their needs?
  • Why do they hire solutions?

Situational Analysis

A situational analysis allows you to discover the internal and external events that affect your business. These factors can include market conditions and competition and are essential for determining growth opportunities.

When executing your situational analysis, keep these factors in mind:

  • Competitor name
  • Competitor tagline
  • Competitor statistics (market share, financial resources)
  • Competitor products (positioning, strengths, weaknesses)
  • Competitor pricing
  • Competitor positioning
  • Competitor marketing (awareness, influence)
  • Environmental factors: Financial trends, company culture, population growth

Core Competencies

Your company’s core competencies are what it does better in marketing than anyone else.

Core Competencies Considerations

  • What are our strengths as a company?
  • What are our strengths as a marketing team?
  • What unique value do we bring?
  • What proof do we have that we’re the best in our industry?

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis is a way for you to scrutinize every area of your business and discover where you fit in the competitive landscape. A SWOT analysis examines strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

When you perform your SWOT analysis, you should ask yourself:

Strengths: In what areas does your product or company excel?

  • What are you good at?
  • What is working?
  • What do your customers like about you?

Weaknesses: What could your product or company improve on?

  • What aren’t you good at?
  • What isn’t working well?
  • What’s broken?
  • What don’t your customers like about you?

Opportunities: What external opportunities do you see for market success?

  • What does the industry want?
  • What are your differentiators?
  • What could you excel at?

Threats: What external threats could present difficulties?

  • What could stunt your business growth?
  • What competitors could steal your customers?
  • What partners could prevent growth?

Marketing Mix

The four Ps — product, price, place, and promotion — will help you center your marketing around your product and its relevance to your audience.

The four Ps of the marketing mix are:

  • Product: What product are you marketing, and why should your audience care?
  • Price: How much should you sell it for, and is it a good value for your customers?
  • Place: Where and how should you sell your product?
  • Promotion: How are you going to promote it? Will you use ads?

Pricing Strategy

Pricing strategy determines the cost of your product or service to attract and convert a specific customer. It’s a best practice to review your target audience and situational analysis to determine the pricing strategy that makes the most sense for your business.

Some examples of pricing strategies include:

  • Economy pricing: Charging low prices to bring in a large volume of customers
  • Skimming pricing: Setting the highest possible price when the product is new and reducing it over time
  • Competitive pricing: Pricing similarly to your competition’s prices

Marketing Initiatives

Marketing initiatives are either new ideas to create new campaigns or pose solutions to existing problems. These are the activities that the team will do to influence the KPIs and, therefore, the goals.

An initiative template framework often contains:

  • Initiative name
  • Description
  • Goal
  • Metrics

Marketing Channels

A marketing channel is the end platform through which a company reaches its intended target audience. Choosing which channels to output media to depends on the customer you are targeting and the desired outcome of the communication.

A marketing channel framework within your marketing plan template includes:

  • Channel name
  • Purpose
  • Metrics

Marketing Responsibilities

Marketing responsibilities are the cross-team collaboration of who is responsible for doing what throughout the process of executing initiatives.

A few different areas where marketing responsibilities are focused are:

  • Ideate
  • Strategize
  • Write
  • Design
  • Automate
  • Publish
  • Measure
  • Learn/communicate
  • Iterate

Marketing Technology

Marketing technology includes all of the tools needed to execute the planned initiatives.

Some technology examples may consist of:

  • CRM
  • Website
  • Blog
  • Email
  • Social Media
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Analytics
  • Testing
  • Knowledge Sharing
  • Communication
  • Work Management
  • Editorial Calendar

Editorial Calendar

An editorial calendar lets you track your team’s initiatives, including a marketing plan timeline and a quarterly marketing plan template.

Utilizing a tool for this helps you to accomplish these areas more efficiently:

  • Brainstorm
  • Plan
  • Execute
  • Analyze

Marketing Budget

Your marketing budget is the money allotted to accomplish the goals set by your marketing team. Having a budget in place allows you to focus money on priority projects.

Money from your budget will cover:

  • Expenses
  • Outsourcing/partnerships
  • Software/tools
  • Paid promotions
  • Events
  • Financial projections
  • ROI