Here’s a checklist you can use in considering a new business opportunity or campaign to assess whether you’ve addressed critical elements of a marketing plan. It’s especially helpful to use in business environments where you have non-marketing people driving product launches or efforts without a full grounding in how a strategic AND implementable marketing plan will increase the probability of success.
For each question, choose whether the most appropriate answer to each question is: YES, NOT SURE, or NO. If there is one NOT SURE or NO answer, the basic elements of a marketing plan aren’t in place. Ensure all the questions are answered satisfactorily and understood by the organization before deciding to launch the effort.
- Is there a clear business objective for this effort?
- Do we know the market's size and growth rate?
- Do we know our current revenue, profits, and share?
- Do we know the competitors and their strategies?
- Do we know who the customer / prospect is?
- Do we know customers' current and future needs?
- Do we have an estimate of our expected revenue, profit, share, etc?
- Do we know and can explain the service features?
- Do the features match customer needs?
- Do we know what the pricing levels and structure should be?
- Do we know what we want customers to think about it?
- Do we know how a customer will find out about it?
- Do we know what the necessary sales effort should be?
- Do we know who and how it will be implemented?
- Do we have all potential metrics in place?
