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I’ll never forget the combined feeling of excitement and panic the first time my boss asked me to create a Marketing Plan for a new product.  While part of me was excited by the fact I had finally ‘arrived’ as a professional in my field—much like a doctor being asked to treat a first patient—the remainder of me was scared to death, because in reality I had absolutely no idea what a usable, real-world Marketing Plan actually looked like.

Sure, I had created a handful of semi-meaningless plans while earning my MBA, but this situation was different.  I was being asked to create a comprehensive roadmap that would be used by over a dozen people to release, market, and make money on a brand new product.  And unfortunately, I didn’t have a clue where to begin.

Attempting to climb out of the hole I dug for myself, I spent the following evening at the local bookstore, flipping through everything from college textbooks to home-based business manuals.  Although I came across a number of ideas for sections to include in my plan, the closest I came to finding the parameters of a ‘standard’ marketing plan was information in a textbook on something called The Four Ps of Marketing . . . the worst over-simplification of the Marketing process ever documented in textbook form.

It was after this evening of research and several extended conversations with colleagues that I realized something: in a smaller company environment, there is no such thing as a standard marketing plan.  And over a decade later, I now understand why: because every small company executive and stakeholder who ever commissioned a marketing plan was looking for something different.

Since the research project I conducted nearly a decade and a half ago I have created hundreds of marketing plans, ranging from a single page to well over 50 pages—not counting supporting documentation.  Although each is unique in its own right, I have found over the years that the list of ‘most commonly included information’ in these plans can be narrowed down to a short list of only 12 manageable sections, as follows:

1. A High-Level Description of the Product or Service
2. A Description and Size Estimate of the Target Market
3. Competitive Differentiators
4. Proposed Marketing Messaging
5. Packaging, Pricing and/or Bundling Strategies
6. Marketing Vehicles Used
7. Required Changes to the Company Website
8. Initial Rollout Activities
9. Ongoing Marketing Initiatives
10. Projected Sales Volumes and Margins
11. Required Year 1 Marketing Budget
12. Product Development Assumptions

To further explain each of these marketing plan sections, I have created a downloadable Marketing Plan Template in PDF format, which you may take free of charge.  The file is 4 pages in length, and approximately 150k in size.  Please follow this link to download it:

tool-the-12-essential-sections-of-a-new-product-marketing-plan

In exchange for this tool, I ask only for one of four things: a Stumble, a Digg, a Retweet, or a quick visit to one of my Google ad sponsors.  Handy buttons are provided for the first three, and the fourth is relatively easy—just follow one of the three links in the ad block above the numbered list.  Thank you.

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