A marketing plan is an important step that no marketer can afford to miss as a marketing plan is like a pillar just like a pillar gives support to the whole building in the same way a marketing plan gives support to the whole marketing strategy of the company. A marketing plan in simple words refers to that process by which the company makes a detailed document that outlines the marketing strategy of the company for effective marketing of goods or services produced by the company for a financial year. In order to get a better understanding of this concept, one should look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of a marketing plan –
Advantages of Marketing Plan
Outlines Marketing Strategy
The first and foremost advantage of the marketing plan is that it outlines the overall marketing strategy of the company which in turn ensures that people working in the marketing department have an idea about the various aspects of marketing like budget allocated to the marketing department, pricing strategy to be used like whether the company will be using price skimming strategy or penetration pricing or some other pricing strategy, medium of advertising which will be used for promotion and other such factors. In simple words just like the boundary of a plot outlines the area of the plot in the same way the marketing plan outlines the boundaries of marketing as far as the company is concerned.
Accountability and Responsibility
Another benefit of the marketing plan is that it helps the company in fixing accountability as well as the responsibility of the marketing team because by having a marketing plan the company ensures that no one can escape from the responsibility assigned to him or her as far as the marketing department is concerned besides since responsibility is fixed beforehand it becomes easier for the company to take action in case the concerned person is unable to perform his or her duties according to the marketing plan.
Helpful in Assessment
Planning is always helpful in controlling and marketing plan is no exception as by having a plan a company can easily check the progress against the plan and if there is any deviation between the two then company can work to fix the problems due to which marketing department was not able to achieve the desired results set out by marketing plan. In simple words, a marketing plan is a good assessment tool as far as the assessment of the performance of the marketing team is concerned.
Disadvantages of Marketing Plan
Lack of Flexibility
The biggest drawback of a marketing plan is that it lacks flexibility because once the plan is laid out the employees and marketing team are expected to work according to a pre-defined plan which sometimes can be a problem as not all problems can be solved or tackled according to pre-defined plan or roles and some sort of flexibility is needed to tackle a problem or situation which unfortunately cannot be done if the company goes according to a pre-defined marketing plan.
Changing Business Environment
Marketing is a dynamic concept implying that marketing strategy needs to be modified according to changing business environment as the demand for a company’s product depend on so many factors like consumer taste, technology, competitors and hence the whole idea of having a marketing plan can be pointless if the company is operating in an industry which is changing or evolving quickly.
Time Consuming
A marketing plan is a time-consuming process as it involves a lot of preparation and effort on the part of the top management which in turn leads to top management devoting their time to making a marketing plan instead of doing some productive work. Hence in simple words, it’s a tradeoff between top management making marketing plans or devoting their time in trying to ensure how to increase the sales as well as profits of the company.
As one can see from the above that the marketing plan has benefits as well as limitations and that is the reason why any company thinking of making a marketing plan should carefully read the above points and then only should take any decision regarding the formulation of the marketing plan.