A 5-Step Process for Building an Overall Marketing Plan

In business, the difficulty is not only choosing the right product or service but also getting your marketing to the right customers. If you are struggling to find a way into the market and grow revenue, an overall marketing plan can be an effective answer. In the article below, let's go through MONA Media explore how to build an overall marketing plan that works for your business.

What is an overall marketing plan?

An overall marketing plan is a document describing a company's marketing activities and strategies. It covers the activities for advertising projects and communications that attract potential customers and increase sales.

An overall marketing plan is not just a bundle of small marketing tactics. It is a large, detailed plan that covers many aspects of a brand.

Of course, in form an overall marketing plan includes both marketing online and traditional offline. However, the level, scale and concerns of overall marketing are far more complex and larger.

A concrete example of doing only traditional marketing. The business Kim Khí Tiến Thành previously ran only offline marketing strategies. The brand was unknown and sales came only from long-standing customers. But after just 10 MONTHS of running a marketing strategy using SEO services across the whole site, website traffic grew by +6,000 VISITS/MONTH, and 46% of keywords reached the TOP 3.

SEE the case study in detail

Benefits of an overall marketing plan for businesses

Marketing with direction

• A sound overall marketing plan gives clear direction not only for the business but also for building the brand.
• Because, as noted, overall marketing covers and expresses every aspect of the brand as a single, unified entity.
• It helps the business know what it needs to do, keeps its actions highly consistent with one another, and expresses the brand's mission, personality and identity.
• On top of that, the plan sets specific goals, both short and long term. These are milestones and yardsticks for how well the direction and marketing are working.

Satisfied customers

• One of the biggest effects of an overall marketing plan is that the customer experience is raised to the maximum.
• A consistent experience across all of a company's channels, matching the personality and characteristics of each target audience.
• The relationship between brand and customer is strengthened, users enjoy more benefits and are treated in a warmer, closer, more personal way.

Brand building

• Something only overall marketing offers is building and strengthening the bonds among employees in the company.
• When everyone works toward one goal and shows the same culture and attitude, the brand's inner strength grows.
• The brand stands out more in the market and leaves a strong, lasting impression on users.
• In addition, harmony and unity among the company's employees are also nurtured and noticeably improved.

In an increasingly fierce market, a good product alone is not enough. Businesses that want sustainable growth need a clear, well-structured overall marketing plan. Yet some people say “Not spending on marketing but still want to sell?”. For Hùng, CEO of The MONA, who has been through both stages, from NOT DOING marketing to KNOWING HOW to do it, this is certainly WRONG WAY OF THINKING. Watch the video below to see why Hùng is so sure!

The complete process of building an overall marketing plan

Set the budget

As usual, the first thing when building an overall marketing plan is to look at how much budget is available.

• The scale, workload and duration of the strategy depend entirely on the company's available budget.
• The budget also depends on the company's goals and business scale. A company that has established its position and aims to capture most of the market should invest a larger budget.

Conversely, startups should set smaller goals aimed at their own pool of potential customers, moving step by step, slowly but more steadily.

• Keep in mind that overall marketing costs more than traditional marketing. In the long run, however, its results are stronger and more complete.
• Small businesses may choose to skip it, but if you want to build a brand, overall marketing is worth investing in.

Market research

The next step is to do the necessary analysis and research. There is quite a lot to research; the more thoroughly you research, the easier it is to prepare different scenarios for different situations.

• Market research: Define the brand's mission, values and culture
• Market research: needs and trends in the niche market
• Research your potential audience: Customer insights is essential for understanding target customers rankings.

Setting goals

• The overall marketing planning process needs specific short-term and long-term goals.
• Short-term goals take about 3-6 months to complete, while long-term goals run for 1 year or more.
• KPIs must be defined specifically and fit the timeframe as well as the capacity of each team.

One notable difference is that for overall marketing, you need to plan for all 5 marketing components mentioned above. Each needs milestones to work toward and to evaluate performance.

Planning

Next, the most important stage is the marketing planning itself. Planning is a fairly broad subject that cannot go into specific detail. However, some useful preparation will help you decide which strategies and actions to take at this stage.

SWOT and USP analysis

Businesses need to rely on SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) and USP (unique selling point) to determine the right strategy.

A SWOT matrix shows you strategies that exploit strengths or reduce risks from the environment, and more. USP analysis helps you recognize your own unique strengths so you can build the customer journey and approaches around them.

S&OP sales plan

Marketing is still one department of a business, so it also needs to refer to the S&OP plan (sales & operations planning) so it acts in step with the rest of the company's departments.

→ Read more: 14 Marketing model that work for the business

Implement, evaluate and measure the overall marketing campaign

In this final step, MONA believes that among the steps of overall marketing planning, the business needs to assign work to the right people. Pay attention to progress so that clients feel fully reassured while hiring an overall marketing service.

To measure results, MONA has a full range of paid measurement software, measurement apps and tools for each line of work so it can report to clients in the clearest way.

Looking after existing customers well does not make a company grow on its own. At some point you still have to actively look for new customers if you want the business to grow steadily. Watch the video now to see the 7 ways MONA has been using to do that.

What goes into an overall marketing plan?

Check on operations: Marketing Audit

To set the right marketing strategy, a business first needs to “know itself and know others.” It needs a clear grasp of the market and of its competitors' marketing activities. Specifically, a Marketing Audit includes the following:

• Analyze external factors affecting the business using the PEST model
• Forecast market trends
• Research competitors in your industry with a SWOT analysis of each one

Review what you did over the past years and see what changed in your marketing results. From that, your business can draw useful lessons to apply to its next overall marketing plan.

SWOT analysis

Once you understand the external situation, your business should also take a look at itself. From there, you can make recommendations based on a SWOT analysis: SWOT:

• S – Strengths: What your business is good at, what it already does well, what advantages it has in the market, and what sets it apart from competitors.
• W – Weaknesses: What your business does not do well yet, where competitors do better, and which difficulties you face and have not been able to solve.
• O – Opportunities: What goal your business is aiming for, whether market demand fits it, and what advantages you have to grow.
• T – Threats: What obstacles your business faces, and which outside factors work against it or hurt it.

Marketing objectives

Objectives are essential when building an overall marketing plan. Set them before you do anything else, otherwise the plan drifts and sometimes ends up off target. Marketing objectives are usually measured with the SMART framework as follows:

• S – Specific: An objective should be specific and detailed. It should not be vague, too general or too large to carry out, and it should not be so small that it is trivially easy to reach.
• M – Measurable: An objective must be measurable in numbers, not based on feelings or rough guesses.
• A – Attainable: An objective should match your capabilities. Avoid targets that are out of reach.
• R – Relevant: An objective should be realistic and relate to the company's services and activities.
• T – Time-bound: Set a specific deadline for reaching the objective.

An example of a bad SMART objective: you sell 1 billion packs of sesame seeds within 12 months in 2025. The specific, measurable target is 1 billion packs, but it is not attainable in 12 months of 2025, because not everyone needs to buy sesame seeds, and nobody buys them every day.

Marketing strategy

Once you have objectives, you need a concrete strategy to reach them. A marketing strategy is a set of short-term and long-term activities that promote your products and services to customers. These activities help raise brand awareness of your business. That encourages purchases and increases revenue. Your business then chooses the marketing strategy that fits the objectives it has set.

Action plan and event calendar

With a complete strategy and a list of tasks in hand, your business needs an action plan to get started. A specific action plan should include the following:

• Duration
• Job
• Crew
• Status

An event calendar is also an important part of an overall marketing plan. It lists the key events of the year that your business can use to run marketing programs such as product launches, promotions or customer appreciation campaigns.

Measuring results

When running overall marketing, your business also needs to decide which metrics matter most. Defining how you measure keeps marketing performance under control. If results are good, keep going and improve on them. If results fall short of expectations, adjust your approach so you get back to the results you planned for.

Marketing personnel plan

To keep marketing running smoothly, your business needs to think about how resources are allocated. When planning, check whether you have enough people to do the work. If not, decide how many more you need and how you will add them. People are a key factor in whether the plan delivers the results you want. With the right number of people, well allocated and highly skilled, work performance reaches its highest level.

Budget estimate

Cost is an essential part of planning overall marketing. Before carrying out the plan, your business needs to estimate everything it will pay for each activity. A budget keeps you in control of your finances and prepared in advance, so you do not spend too little or spend more than an activity needs. The goal is for results to match what you spend.

Things to keep in mind when building an overall marketing plan

Teams that do not work in step

To reach its objectives, an overall marketing plan needs every level of the organization to work closely together. Avoid errors in information passed down from the top or an inconsistent strategy, which cost you customer trust and weaken business results.

Confusing strategy with tactics

Strategy is long-term, while tactics are the concrete actions that carry it out and improve it. Understanding this makes your overall marketing plan easier to optimize and to carry out.

Not enough staff

People are a key factor. If you cannot meet your staffing needs, it is hard to complete the marketing plan well.

Not flexible enough for customers

Marketing strategies should be reviewed so you can adjust some tasks to market needs, behavior and trends, and not fall behind competitors. Even so, the marketing plan must always keep a clear direction.

Unrealistic objectives

As covered in the section on what an overall marketing plan should include, its objectives should aim for a result that is achievable and based on evidence. Unrealistic expectations waste budget and deliver nothing. Research carefully so you set a reasonable objective that is still worth aiming for.

Not focusing on brand marketing

Whatever the objective, an overall marketing plan ultimately has to serve business results, growth and consistency with what your business expects. Taglines, slogans and actions in a marketing plan should not run against your consistent brand identity.

When planning overall marketing, your business should start from the most important foundation: building brand awareness. When the brand is clearly and consistently positioned, every communication activity that follows works best. This is also why brand identity design service at MONA Media is a necessary step for building a professional image and growing faster.

What do you get when you work with MONA Media on brand identity design?

• Brand logo design for use on every platform, suited to your line of business
• A professional set of brand guidelines 
• Marketing materials, from banners and posters to signage and flyers
• Sales materials, product packaging, catalogs and company profiles
• Communication strategy consulting and a marketing plan for reaching customers

There is much more waiting for you when you work with MONA on overall branding and marketing. Contact HOTLINE 1900 636 648 or get advice directly from the MONA Media team below.

Not focusing on the company's overall goals or the shared marketing goals

Whatever the objective, the end result every business wants is business results and company growth. So the overall marketing plan must connect to and focus on the company's shared goals. The plans of each smaller marketing team must also be consistent and support the company's overall marketing plan in both directions.

That is the full process of building an overall marketing plan that works for your business. A good overall marketing plan does more than raise brand recognition and build customer relationships. It also creates a real competitive advantage in the market.

If your business does not have enough resources to do this, contact MONA Media qua HOTLINE 1900 636 648 to get advice an outsourced marketing department service and find the route to a big jump in sales.