Business Marketing Plans

[Fievel121]

Anybody every written a marketing business plan for part of their company. I'm a department head and have a meeting with the owner next month to go over sales projection/marketing plan. Normally I do these by presentation without any formal documentation/very informal. This year I want to go all out so that I can show him where we've come since I came on board (3 years, dept sales up over 100%) and what I want to do this upcoming year. And I want it in writing

Any suggestions, books, links?

 

[TTK]

To recap the past growth/success, Excel spreadsheets with graphs are your friend provided that you show truly relevant information. Next, couple that with a concise and logical written account of how your efforts and leadership accomplished those results. If part of your responsibilities include formulating and controlling the marketing budget, then include how the expenditures were used to attain those results.

My next step would then be to show the 2009 marketing budget, or proposed budget, and detail how those expenditures will be allocated along with the logical results those should lead to, culminating in a pro-forma spread sheet & graphical presentation of 2009's expected results. Temper these with a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, & Threats) analysis for your market in 2009. Keep in mind that for most sectors 2009 is going to be tougher than the past few years, so some sandbagging / conservatism should be present. This time next year you can pull your SWOT and pro-formas out and either be able to say, "See, I told you 2009 was going to be really tough. It's a good thing that you had me around to manage all of this or the year may have been a complete disaster." Or you can point to it and say, "Wow, despite all of the challenges in 2009, I am really proud of my team, they really came through. Despite all of the turmoil, we defied the market conditions. Now, about that raise..."

Just my two cents.

If my boss is representative of others, they are suckers for numbers and graphic illustration. Plus, if the logic is there in your presentation