How to Prepare a Marketing Plan

Book excerpt: Marketing is today more a management style than a group of activities under a department head, and is absolutely central to the success of a company as a whole. This has informed the revisions to this fifth edition throughout. Most of the earlier content is retained in an updated form, but a new structure has been introduced and a section on implementation included for the first time. All aspects of the planning process are covered, from analysing market share and deciding marketing strategy, to specific elements of the marketing mix - campaign planning, media evaluation, sales promotion, publicity, packaging and PR. An especially valuable feature is the charts and forms, over 150 of them, which are used throughout to clearly illustrate the planning process.