Building a marketing plan

IFAs have not been particularly bothered with marketing plans. But with the industry shake-up from depolarisation regulations, IFAs are facing increasing competition from non-traditional sources which has brought marketing to a fore.

So what if you don't possess a marketing plan? Scottish Mutual's guide to creating marketing plans says without a marketing plan IFAs face a lack of focus, vulnerability to market change, wasted resources and lost opportunities for profit.

A marketing plan should include a summary of external factors affecting company performance, an outline of critical success factors, a statement of overall marketing objectives and the implementation programme.

The first step involves creating a marketing audit which involves assessing environmental factors your company has no control over and reviewing the internal operations of your company.

This information can then be moulded into an analysis of a company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT), which will be used to identify key segments in the market for your company to target.

A strategy detailing how you will use the four P's - product, price, place and promotion - can then be established which outlines how you plan to achieve the business objectives.

The implementation stage includes a calendar of activity outlining objectives, action points and responsibility assigned to individuals.

But the marketing plan is useless without an evaluative component. Measures to calculate the success of individual initiatives over a specified period should be implemented, which eventually feeds back into the planning process.

With all the steps to follow, Scottish Mutual says "don't dwell or get too obsessed with the processes themselves … the major function of a marketing plan is to determine where the company is now, where it wants to go and how to get there. Too much detail may confuse the issue."

For tips and ideas on building a marketing plan, click on to the attached document.

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