Marketing Plan
My own market plan skills are almost entirely around selling books so I'll use that as the basis but be aware that things are different depending on what you are selling or if you are offering a service. On the other hand, there are many parallels as well.
What is your 'Why'?
I found knowing your business mission and why you are in business will help you focus your marketing plan because the number one rule is to target your audience wherever you can.
How will you measure it all?
Key Performance Indicators or KPI's but really it is about how are you going to know your marketing plan is working. In selling books you are looking at Click through rates and Read through rates. This is knowing how many people go to your website or buy something based on the ad. Once you know this you should be able to set a clear SMART goal for your marketing plan.
Who is your audience?
Create personas for the audience. Literally image the kind of people you want buying your things. How will they see your ads? What will the do once they see the ads? This is about imaging pitfuls and coming up with innovative ways to put the right ad in front of the right person. This can include age, sex, location, family size, job title, and more.
Your Content and Strategies
What type of content are you going to make? Images, articles, product placements - the list is endless. So come up with the type of content you want and start creating them. Make them fit in with the different platforms you want to use. For instance, you won't use the video you used for Youtube on Pinterest. In your plan you should go over the type, amount of content, what channels they will be distributed on and how will you track it all.
AB testing
You should do some AB testing around your ads. Try out different images and different ad copy.
Early Adopters
This lesson and video will show you what group is likely to take up your goods and services first. You should also include in your strategy ways to appeal to your Late Adopters and Laggards.
Social Approval and Influencers
A very useful strategy is to get social approval, word of mouth or influencers involved.
Other strategies can involve social media marketing on places like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Or using SEO keywords to direct people or target the right audience.
Then you need to look at your budget. What are you going to pay for?
Your Competition
Identify your competition and come up with a SWOT plan to deal with this competition. Try a PEST analysis for this part. Come up with a unique selling point.
Who is going to do what?
Define the tasks that need to be done and assign it to people in your business. Also, include a timeline.
Contingency Plan
What are you going to do when things go wrong? Make a plan to deal with anything that might go wrong or minimise the possibilities of things going wrong.
Timeline
You need to look at your timeline - when will you do things? You don't want to spread it out too much or have too much happening at the same time - spread will mean the impact and visibility might be reduced or less effective and if it happens all on top of each other you will not be able to get an accurate measurement of the different channels or efficacy of certain ad copies.