50+ SAMPLE Brand Marketing Plan

What IS a Brand Marketing Plan?

A Brand marketing plan is a secret sauce that makes up the success of a company and its brand. It’s a roadmap to increasing brand awareness. A brand marketing plan consists of steps, strategies, tactics, resources, and costs needed to make the business’s brand a success in the market. Brand marketing is essentially telling the story behind your product, how it was conceptualized, the reason why it was developed, and most especially the benefits it has to offer. Brand marketing can be a make or break in a business’s success. Good brand marketing can help successfully position the brand in the market and can also help sustain the company’s existence through a consistent, stable revenue flow.

Benefits of Having a Strong Brand

It takes time and a lot of planning and effort to build up a strong brand that can survive and successfully overrun competitors in the market. People don’t usually come straight to businesses and accept what they offer unless they recognize the brand and the company. Developing brand awareness can be a tedious task. The marketing team plays an important role in creating strategies to make sure that the brand is widely accepted in the market. Once the marketing team can establish the brand, the benefits to the company are huge. But what exactly does a company stand to gain from having a strong brand?

Customer Recognition: There’s nothing more that greatly benefits a company than to have customer recognition. Being the first choice of a product brand is what every business strives for. And that’s what customer recognition is all about. You want your brand to be word of mouth. Better yet, a household name. You want your brand to be the first thing that they pick off the shelves. You want your brand to be the first thing that customers think about when they’re asked about their choice of product. To achieve customer recognition, the marketing team has to put in a lot of effort to make the brand appealing to the senses, especially visually. It has to be vibrant and aesthetically unique. Being able to achieve customer recognition is a sure way to win the market over.Effortless Advertising: Another benefit that comes out of having a strong brand is the almost effortless advertising put into the marketing plan. Since people know the brand, their awareness of the brand is at a high level, then there’s not that much left to do for the marketing team except to sustain that momentum and get creative. Once a brand has found its strong foothold in the market, advertising becomes a reinforcement strategy, making sure that the people would not forget that this is a brand that they trust and that this is the brand they should always choose. After getting through the barrier of gaining brand recognition, the fun stuff for the marketing team then starts! The team could think of vibrant and innovative ways of sustaining market momentum through colorful and fun ads. Hiring influencers, brand ambassadors, or celebrities to endorse the brand would be a cinch! Influencers choose to represent brands that have a positive effect on the customers, and at the same time, the brand could pull these influencers along with them into the limelight and also further their popularity.Competitive Advantage: Gaining a competitive advantage is another benefit that stems from having a strong brand. Competitive advantage is what makes your brand more preferable to other brands. Brand recognition makes your brand the first thing customers pick off the shelves amongst all the other same type products. Competitive advantage also means that customers are willing to pay the price of your product and that they’re willing to try any new brand the company produces because of that trust and reliance factor that’s already established between the company and the customer. It helps increase profit margin and broadens the scope of your target market.Growth Expansion: Creating a strong brand is one of the strategies that most companies apply to be able to grow and expand their business. Growth expansion could mean growth in terms of sales and profit, growth in terms of increase in products produced, or growth in terms of business expansion by increasing the number of employees or the number of field offices. It could also mean opportunities in forming partnerships with other businesses. These are the results companies hope to achieve through having a strong brand. Also, if a brand is well-established in the market, it would not be too difficult to be able to secure more funding or to invite more investors to join in to help expand the business.

The Essentials of Creating a Brand Marketing Plan

All businesses need to have a strong brand marketing plan to penetrate the market, stay on top of it, and stay on top of the competition. A brand marketing plan is an action plan, detailing the strategies and steps that need to be taken to create a booming business. There is no hard and fast rule when creating a brand marketing plan. Marketing plans should be flexible according to the business’s needs since each industry is different, each market segment is unique. To make a brand marketing plan effective, it needs to have the following essential elements included in it.

  • 1. Executive Summary

    The executive summary of a brand marketing plan includes a brief background about the business, what are the business’s goals and objectives, what the business has done so far, and a summary of the action steps to achieve those goals. It also provides detail into what are the company’s products and brands, and what benefits these have for the consumers. The executive summary should set the tone of the entire marketing plan. It should be written in a way that immediately captures its audience’s attention, and should be interesting enough to make them want to go through the whole marketing plan. Executive summaries often contain the mission and vision statements. A mission statement states the purpose of the marketing plan, anchored on the goals it sets out to achieve. A mission statement also contains the culture and values that the company represents. Coca-Cola’s mission statement “to refresh the world in mind, body, and spirit, to inspire moments of optimism and happiness through our brands and actions, and to create value and make a difference” reflects the company’s mission of leaving behind a footprint in its consumers, a legacy that would last for generations to come. It brings forth the company’s culture and values, to create happiness and optimism in every single drink. The company’s vision statement “inspiring each other to be the best we can be by providing a great place to work” depicts what the famous soft drink company hopes to achieve. A vision statement should set the tone of urgency for the whole marketing plan. It should be written in a way that inspires and motivates them to work together in accomplishing the company’s goals.

  • 2. Market Analysis

    Market analysis in a brand marketing plan looks into the market situation, checking how ready the market is for the company’s brand, and/or if there’s an existing need in the market. A market analysis looks into the consumers’ buying patterns and the current market trends. It also considers the position of its competitors in the market. Profiling the market and knowing who the target consumers are is part of doing market analysis. One way of profiling the target consumer market is doing a demographic analysis. It is done by classifying the consumers according to age, gender, income, lifestyle, location, culture, affiliations, et cetera. Conducting a SWOT analysis also helps prepare the brand for market positioning. SWOT refers to the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats that could either influence or affect the brand. Strengths are those factors that make the brand stand out in the market, what it does well, and what benefits it offers. Weaknesses are those brand attributes that need improvement. It could be in the form of lack of resources or funds, lack of training for the marketing team, lack of field sales personnel, lack of technology or technical knowledge, et cetera. Opportunities refer to those internal or external factors that can help boost further or help leverage the brand into the market. Some of these opportunities are taking advantage of online digital platforms, social media, or social networking to market the brand and widen the customer base; training sales personnel in new sales techniques; and/or creating a partnership with other businesses to boost brand exposure. Threats are risk factors or those factors that could potentially hurt the brand’s image and exposure. Examples of these threats are the increasing presence of competition in the area or a congested market; unavailability of supply to cater to the market demands; and/ or pricing competition within the market.

  • 3. Brand Strategy

    A brand marketing plan carries a brand strategy. A brand strategy is all about the consumer’s experience with the product. It primarily involves creating a brand identity that relates to its target consumers. A brand identity incorporates all the elements that appeal to its consumers, which include the name, the logo, the design, the website and marketing materials, et cetera. A brand identity should also carry the company’s message, as well as reflect the company’s culture and values. Part of making brand strategies is planning what are the best ways or best practices to enter the market. One of the best practices of brand strategy is to increase brand presence. It could be done by increasing the product’s presence and availability through local retail stores, field sales, online stores, et cetera. Another best practice is doing aggressive marketing. It could be through social media or social network marketing, online marketing by search engine optimization, email marketing, traditional marketing through TV, radio, and newspaper ads, phone marketing, and so on. Diversifying is also a key branding strategy. To stay relevant in the market, a product brand should stay attuned to the changing times and consistently meet customers’ needs. Just like Coca-Cola, the company did not stick with just one brand product. More than 200 beverage brands are coming from the company, ranging from soft drinks or sodas, coffee, water, juices, teas, and so many more. Coca-Cola created different product brands to essentially satisfy the need of a very diverse market.

  • 4. Review and Revise

    Reviewing and revising are essential in any marketing plan. Every strategy prepared should be bound to a timeline. This is to monitor and check how effective the strategies are and how long it would take to achieve the company’s goals. Reviewing strategies can help check if there is any need for improvement. If there are, or if the strategies are not making any progress in meeting the company’s goals, then a revision should be made with the strategies.

FAQs

What are the pricing cost strategies in a marketing plan?

Having a good pricing strategy is one of the best practices that can give your brand a good break in the market. Although it needs to be carefully planned out, pricing is a reflection of how the company values its consumers. Here are some of the pricing strategies commonly used in the market. The first is price skimming. Price skimming is ideally used by new brands or new products. It is introducing the brand at a high price, and then slowly lowering the price as competitors’ presence starts to increase. Next is the economy pricing. Economy pricing involves pricing the product while keeping in mind the consumers who want to save their money. Economy pricing is usually practiced by big retail chain stores such as Walmart, Target, Costco, et cetera. The third is the premium pricing. Premium pricing is all about luxury and lifestyle, commonly targeting high-income consumers. Premium pricing is practiced when the value for producing the product, its supply, and resources, is also expensive. There’s also the market penetration pricing strategy. Opposite of price skimming. In market penetration pricing, the product brand is introduced at a low price, initially cutting off competition, while at the same time attempting to broaden customer reach.

What are the 4Ps used in marketing?

The 4Ps of marketing are product, place, price, and promotion. Product is the result of the company’s objectives, meeting and satisfying consumers’ demands. The place is where the consumers go to purchase the product. The place should be strategically planned, making sure that the product is placed at locations where it is easily accessible to consumers. Price is the value the company puts to the product, considering the market’s condition. Promotion is the message the company wants to send out through its brand. The message is sent through public relations, advertising, and other media channels. Promotion should be designed so that it creates a need within the consumers and why they should be paying the price offered for the product.

What is financial forecasting in a marketing plan?

Financial forecasting in a marketing plan is making a financial projection based on marketing strategies. Forecasting is done in a given time frame, either in a one-year, three-year, or five-year period. Financial forecasting also includes computing the current cash flow and/or a balance sheet.

Coca-Cola’s success as a brand didn’t just happen overnight. A lot of careful planning and strategy making has been put in place to achieve the world-over success that the famous beverage company has. Being consistent in staying relevant is also what kept Coca-Cola on top of its game. The tool that brought all of this together is a marketing plan, a brand marketing plan. 

Creating a brand marketing plan should not be a difficult task. Why go through the hassle when we have a brand marketing plan template specially made for your brand marketing’s needs? Check out and download our template now, and start your journey towards a successful business venture. Who knows? Your brand might be the next “Coca-Cola”!