Marketing Planning

Marketing Planning

Marketing Planning sits above Campaign Planning, but shares many elements with Campaign Planning. There are key differences between them in terms of:

• Goals
• Scope
• Audience
• Duration

Marketing Plans are relatively high level, aligned to an organisations overall goal, have broad (yet clear) objectives and is designed to cover an extended period of time. The time period will vary between organisations, but may well be tied in with the financial year.

A marketing plan may also include multiple audiences with different wants and needs.

Campaign Plans are typically lower level/ more detailed, more targeted/ focussed and shorter in duration.

As an example, let’s look at a business that sells insurance to three target audiences (a) Individuals; (b) Small businesses; and (c) Larger businesses.

The business has a division for each audience, each with it’s growth target. The audiences are entirely different in their needs, buying cycles and behaviours.

As a result, the marketing media, channels and approach adopted will differ, as will the internal teams that develop the business.

Beyond the overall business target, what binds the marketing together is a single brand, that needs to communicate in a consistent style, using the same internal systems, and the marketing is delivered by the same marketing team. There may well be nuances in the communication styles, but ultimately one brand = one voice.