Making a marketing plan is slightly technical-it is a well-balanced mixture of both creative idea and hard data, but implementing it is a different story. You need to be tactful to successfully implement the marketing plan, and in this you will need help of your team. Marketing plan implementation falls more in the realm of strategy and tactics then in the category of planning.

You should keep in mind that there is nothing like one-time implementation of marketing plan, it is a process. It is a process that evolves with the product and continues till the product remains in the market. You need to follow the following steps if you want your winning marketing plan to bring the result you want.

Always remember, it is the proper implementation of a marketing plan that turns a plan into action!

Step-by-step guide to Marketing Plan Implementation

Step1: Make it bite-size

Marketing plan implementation is a gradual process. It will not happen in a day or in a month. You will need to divide your marketing plan in bite-size chunk that could easily be handled. Proper implementation of the plan depends on how successfully your team completes the individual tasks. Break your marketing plan into smaller manageable chunks, and give one chunk one employee at a time to implement.

Step 2: Explain and delegate

Explain your team your marketing goal for the year, quarter, month, and week. Tell them what is expected of them, and also explain how they should go about implementing every bit of the assigned. Be thorough in explain, it will reflect in the implementation.

Step 3: keep a channel open

Do not adopt make, explain, delegate, shut, and forget strategy when implementing a marketing plan. Always keep a communication channel with your foot soldiers open. Tell them that they can contact you anytime they find suitable to discuss issues, challenges, and opportunity.

Step 4: Monitor Progress

Keep an eye on the progress of each employee. If anyone of them is having difficulty in implementing the plan then help him out, but if one seems incompetent then change his job description.

Step 5: Be open to ideas

You may not accept it, yet it will not change the truth that your foot soldiers have better idea about the reality of your market then you have, as they are physically experiencing the challenges you dealt with in the plan. Listen to them. Hear what they have to say. Instead of closing your door on their face, make them your eyes and ears. It will be hugely rewarding.

Step 6: adapt

No marketing plan, no matter how cleverly it is done can be perfect. There is always a scope for improvement. Keep this in mind and keep of adapting your marketing plan to the market condition.

A marketing plan is an organic being that evolves in relation to the market condition it faces.

Step 7: Reward and punishment

Incentivize the progress and penalize repetitive failures. This will keep your employees on their toes. Congratulate those who have done it successfully, and take private sessions with those who failed. Give them enough chances before putting them off the team.

Incentive works wonder!

Step 8: Relax! Result will come

If everything is going fine then results will come, there is nothing to be gained by being edgy, or hopping form here to there. Changing too many ships too often will land you in the cold red water filled with sharks (read competition).

Conclusion

While creating a marketing plan your focus was on what and why factors, but while implementing it you should be concerned about where, when, how, and who.

• Where: Where to start and where to end?
• When: When to do that?
• How: How to do that?
• Who: Who will do that?

A proper implementation will give your company an edge that your competition will find it hard to match. And continuous successful implementation of marketing plan will give you a sustainable competitive advantage that cannot be surpassed, not until you falter.

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