On This Page: Marketing Action Plan (M.A.P.) | Geared to Small Business | Develop Your M.A.P.
Did you look at your advertising actual budget for last year and cringe (or pass out?) Without the proper tools, it is very easy for small businesses to over-spend and become advertising poor in avenues that have little to no impact on expanding brand awareness. The Marketing Action Plan (M.A.P.) is a tool that can help avoid unforseen costs and ballooning marketing budgets - know what you are going to spend and when.
The Marketing Action Plan
Consisting of a grid-style chart, the Marketing Action Plan (M.A.P.) lays out in a straight-forward context the various advertising and promotional activities (communication pieces / channels) that you will utlize to promot the brand during the cycle. It covers a range of activities from radio and TV advertising, mail drops, direct-mail peices and website updates to name a mere few.
Most importantly with a M.A.P. is the budgeting process. This gives a budget number for the activity which is then assigned to a sub-period (such as a quarter) to break down the overall marketing budget into more manageable chunks. The chart also has the availability to track actual costs against the budget so that year-end statistics are more meaningful and planning for the next period is more effective. Using your MAP properly should paint a picture at the end of the cycle of what was spent and ideally what the return on investment was for each component, allowing you to make the decision of should you do it again.
Geared to Small Business
Falcon Innovation Group specializes in supporting small to medium sized businesses and entrepreneurs. Our Marketing Action Plan for these size clients includes a short executive summary of the objective followed by the core strategies the MAP should address and accomplish. Each project is then laid out within its related Core Strategy complete with a forecast cost, executional timeline, description and priority.
At the end of the period, the actual budget costs for each project or activity can be added for a forecast vs. actual comparrison.
Developing Your MAP
Contact Falcon Innovation Group at 1-866-570-5344 or email our team for more information on how we can help you achieve your marketing goals and get out-of-control marketing and advertising costs arrested!
