Your business plan defines what your business is about, what you do, and what you don’t do. Your marketing plan outlines how you’re going to get your customers to buy your products, invest in your services, and join your programs and the actions needed to achieve your marketing objectives.

Over time, the approach to creating and maintaining a marketing plan has drastically changed:

• The OLD SCHOOL Marketing Plan: A really long (think 30+ pages and more!), incredibly detailed plan that sets in stone all marketing actions big and small for your business for anywhere from one year to five years and limits what new ideas can be implemented. This usually ends up on a shelf or in a drawer somewhere and is only referenced and updated once a year.
• The NEW AGE Marketing Plan: A flexible tool that helps you decide what strategies are the best fit for you and your business, that changes and flexes as your business changes and grows, that defines the reasoning and logic behind the marketing actions. It can be one page to 10 pages and is reviewed and updated on a regular basis.

The new age strategic marketing plan is made up of two different parts:

• The Marketing Strategy
  The summary of your business, products, programs, and services in relation to your competition. It outlines your point of differentiation and unique selling proposition for each item.
• The Marketing Plan
  The step-by-step application of your marketing strategy. It is the exact actions that need to be taken to implement the marketing strategy and consistently communicate the value of your products and/or services to your customers.

Here’s the bottom line: Your big vision road map is made up of the what, where, when, and why puzzle pieces of your future goals and objectives. Your marketing plan, a more detailed turn-by-turn road map is the HOW puzzle piece you need to make your big vision a reality.

What’s your definition of a marketing plan? How do you use it to help your business grow and move forward?