Business Marketing Plan: Distribution, Pricing, and Promotion Strategies

People reading your business plan want to know details about marketing, including your plans for pricing, distribution, promotion, and other elements. Creating a marketing success story is a little like baking a cake. You take a little bit of this, a little more of that, and you arrive at one result. If you change the mix, you get a different outcome.

Business marketing distribution strategy

When developing your business marketing plan, assess your company’s distribution capabilities. Include the results of your assessment in the company description portion of your business plan. In your marketing plan — and briefly in the marketing strategy section of your business plan — describe how distribution supports your marketing goals and objectives.

Use this form as you tailor distribution and delivery systems to fit your marketing objectives.

Business marketing pricing strategy

One of the decisions most crucial to business success involves pricing your products. You need to arrive at prices that cover all costs and deliver a reasonable profit margin, while also hitting the sweet spot of what customers are willing to pay for the value they believe they receive from the purchase.

To get your pricing right, you need to arrive at prices that match the image of your business and the nature of your clientele (you can’t charge premium prices if you’ve established your business as a middle-of-the-road option), while also covering your production and operational costs and delivering the profits necessary for your business survival.

Use the following form to arrive at a pricing strategy that you summarize in the marketing strategy section of your business plan.

Business marketing promotion strategy

The description of your promotion strategy tells how you’ll communicate your marketing message to prospective customers in your business marketing plan.

In your marketing plan, provide a complete outline of your promotion strategy, including a detailed description of your target customer, your market area, your marketing message, the creative approach you’ll use to convey your message and advance your brand image, the media channels you’ll employ to reach prospective customers, and the budget you’ve allocated to get the job done.

In the marketing section of your business plan, summarize your marketing plan, taking care to describe how your promotion plan supports the product, pricing, and distribution strategies outlined in your business plan.

When appropriate, include samples of marketing materials (letterhead, business cards, web Web site screens, brochures, and so on) in the appendix of your business plan. Samples aren’t necessary, but if you have professionally produced materials that contribute to a good, strong image of your company, their inclusion in your plan will contribute to the favorable impression that readers take away from your business plan.

Use this form to fill in the blanks of your promotion strategy.