You’ve launched your online store, and now you’re busy promoting it. Customers are discovering your products, but those same customers might not know what to do with them once they make their purchase. You want to get the word out there that your products are good enough to justify a purchase – but how?

A marketing plan is a roadmap for your efforts to promote your business. It defines your goal, and it sets the criteria by which you’ll measure your success – whether it’s selling a specific number of products or growing your audience by a certain amount.

If you’re new to the world of online stores, you might be wondering what kind of marketing plan you’ll need. You have two options here: you can either create an ad hoc plan, which you’ll change as you go along, or you can write a full plan from the ground up. We’ve got you covered – in this post, we’ll discuss how to write a marketing plan for your online business, the advantages of doing so, and which plan template you should use to get the job done.

The Advantage of a Blueprint

The first and most obvious advantage of having a marketing plan is that it helps you keep track of your efforts. You can see at a glance what’s working and what needs to be changed to promote your store more effectively. If you have goals you’ve set for yourself, like increasing sales, then you can see whether or not you’re meeting those goals.

Creating a plan also forces you to be realistic about your goals. You can’t expect to grow your audience overnight – it takes time and effort to gain credibility with your readers. Your plan will help you set achievable, realistic goals for yourself, as well as provide you with a clear measurement of your success.

How to Write a Marketing Plan

Now, you don’t have to write an absolute masterpiece to write a marketing plan, but you should make sure that it’s comprehensive and that every part has its place. Your plan doesn’t have to be complicated – it just needs to have all the necessary information in it.

Here’s a recommended formula for you to follow: