if you play team sport you may be familiar with what goes on during a huddle in basketball our coach pulls up a whiteboard and tells us how we're going to execute the next play if we're on offense our team's objective is probably the score and the strategy we'll use to accomplish this objective is the play along with the play our coach might offer us tactics and individual reminders for players believe it or not a marketing plan is similar to a basketball team huddle objectives strategies and tactics are employed to guide the company in reaching its goals this is the first video in Unit 16 Market planning take a look at this breakdown which shows you how often this unit comes up on District State and international exams for each of the different clusters [Music] hello and welcome this is lesson 16.1 marketing plans now let's get to work team we'll start this video by explaining what marketing plans are then we'll go into the four P's of marketing mix and the four elements of the promotional mix finally we will give you some templates that you can base your future marketing plans off of a marketing plan may sound familiar to some of you but let's give an official definition just like you wouldn't take a road trip without Google Maps you wouldn't execute a marketing campaign without planning a marketing plan is a document that describes the business and marketing objectives as well as the strategies and goals that will be used to achieve them preparing a marketing plan takes months of researching the past performance of the company and how marketing can improve sales as a result the marketing team often works with the sales team to accomplish sales goals every marketing plan is different depending on the business for example a brand new startup probably wouldn't have a full marketing plan until its second year of operation on the other hand larger companies sometimes have multiple marketing managers who complete marketing plans for several different product lines picture it like planning on vacation your marketing objectives is where you're going to go let's say Disneyland your marketing strategies are how you will get there by car and your marketing tactics are the physical pots you will take like the highways and the roads to get your destination every marketing plan should address six essential questions what are the marketing objectives for the upcoming year what are the best strategies the business can Implement to achieve its marketing objectives what are the most efficient marketing tactics for each strategy what positioning and messaging strategies will work for the intended audience what are the current economic and competitive situations affecting the business and how will the success of the marketing plan be measured next up are the four P's of the marketing mix now both Deca exams and role plays love the four Ps so if you take anything away from our videos we hope it's this the four PSR product strategies price strategies Place strategies and promotion strategies let's start off with product strategies which are the decisions businesses make about which products to sell this includes product quantity sizes packaging brand name image and more as time passes products are reviewed to see if they are selling well or if new products should be created now let's go into price strategies basically most companies want to price their products low enough to be competitive but high enough to still make a profit higher prices could convey high quality but lower prices may increase sales a marketing plan covers price points percentage of annual sales and expected profit the third p is Place strategies which are the decisions about how and where products are produced shipped and sold to customers not only does this refer to the location of a brick and mortar store but also whether or not the business has an e-commerce platform the last P stands for promotion strategies which were first decisions regarding the promotional mix now you may be asking yourself what is a promotional mix well there are four elements in the promotional mix selling advertising sales promotions and public relations activities a promotional mix can include as many or as little of these four elements depending on the company's specific needs and goals the first element is personal selling which refers to face-to-face selling where the salesperson tries to convince a customer to buy a product for example say you were in a clothing store and the sales person tries to convince you to buy a jacket that's personal selling the second element is advertising which is how a business creates awareness for its products or services for example many businesses use TV commercials Billboards and social media posts but those are just a few ways to advertise the third element is sales promotions which are temporary strategies that a business develops to convince customers to buy products in the short term these might include coupons rebates and discounts the last element is public relations activities which are ways to maintain good relationships with the public and create Goodwill public relations activities could be through events speeches or community activities for example a company might do a promotion where they plan a tree for every product sold to demonstrate to the public that they care about the environment now this shouldn't be confused with value-based branding which is when companies promote values like eco-friendliness as part of their overall brand one is a short-term promotion and the other is a long-term identity finally let's give you some resources for marketing plan templates these can look different from company to company but because they have some common themes you can build your own marketing plan off of a template if you work for a company they might already have an established template and formatting rules that you need to adhere to but as long as all the essential elements of a marketing plan are included your plan can look however you want in the next lesson we'll talk about what these Essential Elements actually are for now know that there are many different sources that can provide free or low cost marketing plan templates including the Small Business Association various Chambers of Commerce and universities the American Marketing Association the service Corps of retired Executives and state websites we'll link some of these Down Below in the description now that we've gone over all the content it's time to test your knowledge with a real deck of question pause the video and try to answer the answer is B product from this video we know that each of the answer choices is one of the four P's of the marketing mix we just need to figure out which one it is as we discussed product strategies refer to the decisions businesses make regarding the quality variety and styles of products so these decisions will be included in the product section of the marketing plan and here are the sources we use for this video feel free to check them out if you still have any questions all right that pretty much sums up lesson 16.1 marketing plans great work team and we'll see in the next video