CLICK ABOVE TO DOWNLOAD: 15 Steps to Writing a Winning Marketing Plan

Much focus when starting a business is about putting together a great business plan. We have covered that and you can click here to download the e-book on that type of plan. However, most don’t talk about a critical component of every business – marketing.

The marketing plan is critical and I would almost do this first so you can flesh out your product value, understand the competition and price the product/service for profitability. The business plan takes components of this plan and really demonstrate the execution and operations to make the business work. But it is marketing that is the engine and analytic proof to demonstrate why your company should even exist in the first place.

You are either someone that has been doing marketing as a part of your professional career or you look at as that “thing you do to promote your business and attract customers to buy”. Regardless of where you are along that spectrum, you have arrived here because you have been charged by the CEO of the startup you work for to write a marketing plan for your business or you need to create one for your own business.

You need to not just write just any marketing plan. You need to write a Killer Marketing Plan.

One that your boss will say “awesome, let’s get started” and which will tell all those people who have been looking for a product or service like yours for a long time. This book is written for you.

Marketing plans are sexy mistresses that tempt you to include all of the coolest of campaign ideas without the sanity of budgetary constraints. While marketing is one of the more important functions of a small business, it is one that is limited by the budgets of that business and campaigns must demonstrate a return in order to justify their existence. Since I have written more marketing plans than I care to tell you, I can share with you my knowledge and experience of what has worked almost all the time, some of the time and none of the time.

While this is not the single tome on marketing plans, I hope that this helps you balance the unlimited creative ideas with the budget you have to work with and find a mix that is both innovative and results in sales.

I invite you to explore as many resources out there, some of which are mentioned at the end of this book. I don’t need to wish you luck. Just get started, get out there and crush it.

Similar to the Cash Flow Statement in a Business Plan

In our Business Plan Series, we covered the basic financial statements of the business plan, including the cash flow statement. Here is the plain english explanation from that post:

The cash flow statement reports the cash generated and used during the time interval specified in its heading. The period of time that the statement covers is chosen by the company. For example, the heading may state “For the Three Months Ended December 31, 2007″ or “The Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 2008″. For many, looking at a cash flow statement it looks a bit weird but it provides a different, yet critically important view of the business.

For this focus on the marketing plan, you need to create a subset of this that eventually rolls up into the business plan to support it and give detailed projections.

Three Sections of a Marketing Plan Case Flow Statement
For the purpose of the marketing plan cash flow statement that flows up and reports to the master cash flow statement, there are three sections that must be created:

SECTION 1: Operating activities
Converts the items reported on the income statement from the accrual (you book the sale but you might not have the money yet) basis of accounting and includes the following:

• Cash receipts from sales or for the performance of services
• Payroll and other payments to employees
• Payments to suppliers and contractors
• Rent payments
• Payments for utilities
• Tax payments

SECTION 2: Investing activities
Investing activities include capital expenditures – disbursements that are not charged to expense but rather are capitalized as assets on the balance sheet.  Investing activities also include investments (other than cash equivalents as indicated below) that are not part of your normal line of business.  These cash flows could include:

• Purchases of property, plant and equipment
• Proceeds from the sale of property, plant and equipment
• Purchases of stock or other securities (other than cash equivalents)
• Proceeds from the sale or redemption of investments

SECTION 3: Financing activities
Financing activities include cash flows relating to the business’s debt or equity financing:

• Proceeds from loans, notes, and other debt instruments
• Installment payments on loans or other repayment of debts
• Cash received from the issuance of stock or equity in the business
• Dividend payments, purchases of treasury stock, or returns of capital

Don’t Forget to Include an Expense Budget

Because you will be estimating cash inflows for various product lines you must account for the expenses that are incurred related to them. This must include enough detail to track expenses month by month and follow up on plan-vs.-actual analysis.

That’s a Wrap!

Well, this concludes our 15-part series on writing a marketing plan. We hope you have learned new things and relearned things forgotten long ago. We will continue to add addendum posts to the marketing plan series but only to add dimension and real life examples to support the information we just published. We hope you have enjoyed this series and will come back for more. Let us know your feedback in the comments.

Simple. Not quite but I will explain in plain English.

You mean there is a formula for this thing?

Yes, you knew I would eventually get to a formula, but fear not those math haters out there, it is straightforward. Here is the formula:

Fixed Costs divided by (Revenue per unit – Variable costs per unit)

Fixed Costs – Fixed costs are costs that must be paid whether or not any units are produced. Things like rent and equipment fall into this category. It usually goes on for a certain period of time or over the range of a production cycle. These costs are fixed only over a specified period of time or range of production.

Variable Costs – Variable costs are the things that make it fun and go up and down based on your production levels. Things like materials, labor, overhead are in this category.

Let’s give you a real example:

If your total fixed costs were $500,000, the price tag of your product (unit) was $25, and your variable Costs were $15, the equation would look like this:

500,000/25-15 = 500,000/10 = 50,000

This means you would need to sell 50,000 units to break even. Everything over that is profit and you dancing to the bank.

This is not a perfect equation

Bplans.com points out that this equation, while important, can be misread or misinterpreted. Here are some key things they point out:

- It is frequently mistaken for the payback period, the time it takes to recover an investment. There are variations on break even that make some people think we have it wrong. The one we do use is the most common, the most universally accepted, but not the only one possible.
- It depends on the concept of fixed costs, a hard idea to swallow. Technically, a break-even analysis defines fixed costs as those costs that would continue even if you went broke. Instead, you may want to use your regular running fixed costs, including payroll and normal expenses. This will give you a better insight on financial realities. We call that “burn rate” these post-Internet days.
- It depends on averaging your per-unit variable cost and per-unit revenue over the whole business.

However, whether we like it or not, this equation is a cornerstone of financial analysis. You may choose to leave it out, but really, a business or marketing plan would not be complete without it.

Next Time

The last part of our Marketing Plan Financials in Plan English sections focuses on Cash Flow Analysis.  This part of the marketing plan financials is there to demonstrate how your marketing group/division will maintain a cash positive nature based on budgeting and where you might need cash infusions based on sales projections. As important as when you will break even, you must be able to show how, on a monthly basis, you will manage the cash flow to support the business and not sink it from an overly ambitious strategy and action plan.

What Are Components of Sales Projections?

Projection of sales is an important part of the marketing plan. Part of the sales projection work is planning for a better performance in the future and correcting past performance with which you are not satisfied. You do this by finding out what profit contribution each sales representative makes. One goal of measuring a sales representative’s performance is improvement assistance. This is done in the marketing personnel section of the marketing plan.

Cost of Goods per Unit Worksheet
This is the first preliminary worksheet you must complete. The reason you have to start here is because these are the basic costs of raw materials, production labor and other costs that, once added up, give you the cost of goods per unit number you will need to get the “Estimated Sales Table” completed. To see an example of one take a look at this image.

Estimated Sales Table Worksheet
This is a preliminary worksheet that helps you figure out what the total sales and cost of goods sold are for each product year by year. You need to include the units, or number of things, sold by each product line. Take each number times the selling price of each product and you will get the actual sales for each product.

Tally that number up and create a column called % of sales and divide each number by the total and you can see how much each product brings in as a share of the entire sales projection. You should already have the “Cost of Goods Sold” per unit from the previous section. Put that number in after the “% of sales” and then multiply that number times the units and put the result into a new column called “Cost of Goods sold total”. Once that is done, do the same thing we did with “% of sales” and create a “% of Cost of Goods Sold”.

To see an example of one, check out this image from Plan Magic.

Sales Projections Worksheet
This is where all the hard work comes into focus and you break things down by months that give you the total amount you put together in the estimated sales table. You will use a concept called “weighing” which is basically splitting 100% across 12 months as to when you think that total amount will be met each month. Think of busy periods where sales are way up and slow periods where it is way down. A good example is retail with busy holiday periods and slow winters and then busy back to school sales.

You will also include the cost of goods sold numbers and percentages that breakdown according to the “weighing” you set up for each month overall.

These projections are also used on the business plan financials as revenue projections in the way they organize the business. You should also be aware how important this is not only from running your marketing division but when investors want to dive a layer deeper in the business plan and your numbers are what will back things up. It will also be used in other business plan financials but we will get into that in the next two sections. You can see a good example of this worksheet here.

Next Time:

The next part of our Marketing Plan Financials in Plain English sections focuses on Breakeven Analysis. This part of the marketing plan financials are in support of the overall business financial data section and shows how with your objectives met, when you will breakeven with the revenue goals and expenses detailed out and tied with the various parts of the marketing action plan.

I wanted to take the opportunity to thank Shashi Bellamkonda, our Social Media Swami, and the man responsible for launching this social media “road trip” and evangelizing both internally and externally to people growing it into the award-winning social media destination for small businesses on the Internet.

In typical TV Show fashion we are going to take a look at the last 500 posts and highlight all those who have contributed in our version of “flashbacks” while sparing you from the cheesy music and soft camera lense fades. We will then look forward about our refined mission, our expanding team and what you should expect from us for the next 500 posts.

So let’s turn on the way back machine and begin….

Best of Shashi Bellamkonda – “The Swami”

Who doesn’t know the Swami? Or in the case of the picture to the left, the Cowboy. He got that hat at SXSW and he now has two names. He has been the driving force with helping Network Solutions dive into the social media pool. Under his leadership we have grown into a family of blogs covering numerous small business related topics. Our presence on twitter as @netsolcares has helped transform our reputation management program so much that he won the 2008 Excellence in New Communications Award.

Here are some of his best posts from the last year:

10 Reasons to Use Facebook for Business

How Small Businesses Can Use Social Media

How I became a Social Media Swami at Network Solutions

Aesops Fables and Corporate Blogs

A Hard Sell? Social Media and Your Boss – Part 2 Becoming an Expert

Best of Connie Bensen – “Queen of Community”

Connie joined the team in July as the first community manager and wrote tons of great stuff until her departure in October. She has moved on to work with other companies to help build their communities. Her presence is missed but we still have her awesome content.

Here are a few of her greatest hits:

Building Your Business Online Series (6 Parts)

Building Your Brand Series (5 Parts)

10 Reasons to Choose Network Solutions to Register Your Domain Name

Use Social Networking to Grow Your Small Business

Does Your Business Need a Community?

Best of Steve Fisher – “Part Pinky, Part Brain”

I joined the team back in June as a writer to add content to this growing blog. Prior to that I was writing VentureFiles for about four years which focused on small business and raising funding from the entrepreneur’s perspective.

In November I “leveled up” and became the Social Media and Community Manager under the guidance and mentorship of “The Swami”. Over that time we have increased the size of our team, launched new blogs, brought in tons of guest contributors and done Social Media training courses for groups here at Network Solutions. I have had some great experiences meeting extremely talented small business owners and have had the opportunity to interview many great entrepreneurs. Most are customers of Network Solutions and it is always great to reach out to those who might become customers in the future.

Here are my favorite posts over the last year:

The Business Plan Series (15 Parts)

The Marketing Plan Series (15 Parts)

Rules for Entrepreneurs – Rule #1: Make Sure Your Business Card Doesn’t Get Thrown Out

Getting Productive in 2009 – Spending a Year with GTD

Thoughts on Coworking: What is it and is it for you?

Best of Jill Foster – “Our Most Passionate Blogger”

Not to be confused with the character on Young and the Restless, Jill signed on in November to contribute as a writer to Solutions Are Power and a few months ago we launched a new blog in our growing family of blogs. This blog focused on Women Entrepreneurs Growing their Businesses is appropriately called Women Grow Business. She has written awesome content on both Solutions Are Power and Women Grow Business.

Here is some her best stuff from Solutions Are Power:

Web 2.0 in mostly plain English: a workshop take down

Obama’s White House: forecasts & challenges for digital America

Ego surfs and action plans: your roadmap to transparency

Best of Joe Loong – “King of the Subject Line”

Joe knows how to write a catchy subject line. So much that most of his posts stay in the top read posts. You might call that search engine bait but we call it good content. Joe joined around the same time as Jill and has written some really informative and timely stories as well as providing great coverage of our local events.

Here are a few of his golden “SEO bait” posts:

Fake Your Way to Being a Social Media Expert: Strategies for Keeping Up

Stupid Link Tricks: A Daisy Chain of URL Shorteners

5 Stories of Twittering Gone Bad

Using Bacon and Social Media to Promote Your Business

How to Write Catchy, Clicky Blog Headlines

Looking to the Future

As we begin our journey writing our next 500 posts, we have two new bloggers that will be gracing our pages in the next week. They are Ken Yeung and Michael Dougherty.

Ken Yeung – “Mr. Everywhere”

Ken is someone I have known for about three years and while he was here in DC he was always the guy with a camera taking really awesome photos that showed up on his Flickr feed. I saw him at almost every event and I called him “Mr. Everywhere”. Now that he is living in San Francisco, I consider him our new West Coast blogger and correspondent. Most importantly he is a great writer and brings a new perspective along with new topics that this blog has been looking to expand into for a while.

He has a great marketing background and will be writing about online marketing, and because he is on the west coast, covering events in that region to expand beyond the many DC events you have read about.

Michael Dougherty – “Wicked Java”

Mike AKA “WickedJava” is a long time entrepreneur, marketing expert and social media guru. He has worked on the marketing agency side as well as in corporate marketing departments for large and small firms. His perspective for small business owners on navigating the online and offline worlds of branding, print, web design and social media has been a missing element here and one frequently requested by readers.

In his other life, Mike is also a budding film Director and accomplished screenwriter. In the interest of full disclosure, we are both co-founders of a non-profit film production company called Big Damn Fan Films that is about to begin principal photography on Browncoats:Redemption, a project that is based on the Firefly/Serenity universe created by Joss Whedon. The project will raise money for five select charities and will be released in Fall of 2010.

Our experiences using Social Media and Marketing might be a topic of discussion once in a while but only in the interest of lessons learned that we can pass on to our small business/future entrepreneur readership.

We are excited to have these two new team members on board and the future is looking extremely bright.

The Future Looks Bright

Thanks for coming to the blog, being a regular reader and growing with us. If you found us for the first time with this post, please subscribe because we are only getting started. We are committed to bringing you relevant, informative and CCC content we hope helps you grow your business. We are partners with you in this journey and if there is any topic you want to hear about, please let us know in the comments.

See you at post #1000…

Now, we move on to the Action Plan which covers the “Who, Where and How Much” of your plan. You should look at this section as the “to do list with budget numbers” and separate it into sub-sections or “mini-plans” that are involved in your marketing efforts. They can include but are not limited to the following:

- Publicity Marketing Plan – How do you pitch? I am not talking fastballs, but rather using the media to spread the word about your business. You could also call this mini-plan your media plan and it includes the costs and tasks involved in pitching stories to the press and writing press releases on a consistent basis.

- Customer Marketing Plan – No small business can survive without customers and smart business know that it is FAR cheaper to keep the customers you have than always working to replace them with new ones. This mini-plan talks about what activities you will undertake with your current customers and the types of targeted offers you will be making to retain them.

- Advertising Plan – Now we all know that most traditional advertising is hit or miss and it is  hard to track results. However, there are more and more promotional programs that provide you with a way to measure results that you can create a mini-plan of where you are going to advertise and how much of it you will be doing.

- Internet Marketing Plan – Every one these days has a web site. If you don’t and you are small business, then that is another matter. If you are a small business that is actively engaged on the web to promote your products or services then you need to include a separate mini-plan on Internet marketing that could include search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising and any other online campaigns.

- Promotional Event Plan – Related to advertising and Internet marketing the promotional event plan includes different promotional activities such as, having sales, sponsoring contests, awards, or events.

- Referral Marketing Plan – All small businesses need referral business. In fact, it is how many survive and even thrive. Here is where you need to identify specific programs that will add incentive for those that value your work enough to tell others about you.

Budgeting – The Bottom Line

We all wish we could do awesome and cool marketing campaigns but we are quickly brought back to reality when the limitations of our budgets are staring us in the face. Small Business Notes provides some great advice on putting together your budget.

Estimate the cost of the marketing activities you’ve described in the marketing plan so you will have a budget to keep everyone on track over the course of the year. Typical marketing expense categories are marketing communications, market research, promotions, advertising, events and public relations.

Because marketing needs and costs vary widely, there are no simple rules for determining what your marketing budget should be. A popular method with small business owners is to allocate a small percentage of gross sales for the most recent year. This usually amounts to about two percent for an existing business. However, if you are planning on launching a new product or business, you may want to increase your marketing budget figure, to as much as 10 percent of your expected gross sales. Another method used by small business owners is to analyze and estimate the competition’s budget and either match or exceed it.

The marketing strategy section should then include information that revolves around the “4Ps of Marketing”. Don’t know what they are? Let’s do a quick refresher:

The “4Ps of Marketing” are a few decades old but are the most basic and classic way of slicing up your marketing strategy. They are broken down as follows:

• Product – your product(s)and services
• Price – what you will charge customers for products and services
• Promotion – how you will promote or create awareness of your product in the marketplace
• Place (distribution) – how you will bring your product(s) together with your customers.

Small Business Notes has a great description of the 4Ps that is worth repeating:

Product Description
A product can be a physical item, a service, or an idea.

• Describe in detail your products or services in terms of the features and benefits they offer customers.
• Describe what you need to have or do to provide your product or service (how it’s produced).

Pricing
List the price of your products and describe your pricing strategy. List price ranges for product lines. For example, if your product is a line of cosmetics, include information in this strategy section about your lipsticks “ranging in price from $5.00 to $15.00 per item” rather than a detailed product price list. (You should, however, consider including a detailed price list in the Supporting Documents section.)

Describe any price flexibility or negotiating room, as is common with large purchases such as houses or cars. Outline any discounts you offer for long-term customers, bulk purchases or prompt payment. Also, include the terms of sale, such as “net due in 30 days,” extended payment plans, and whether you accept credit cards.

Promotion Plan
A promotion plan describes the tools or tactics used to accomplish your marketing objectives.

If your marketing objective is to:	Then tools or tactics might be:
Create awareness of baby care products among mothers of newborns.	Advertise in baby care or motherhood magazines. Distribute product samples to obstetricians. Offer free baby care seminars to expectant mothers.
Increase sales of potato chips to teens.	Distribute free samples or discount coupons at high school football games. Sponsor an event attended by teens.

In your Action Programs section, you will describe the steps that need to be taken in detail, when they should be done, who will do them, and so on.

Placement (Sales and Distribution)
In this section, describe how your products and customers “meet” or come together through sales and distribution.

Describe your sales philosophies and methods. Do you employ an aggressive sales method for a large number of quick sales, or a relaxed method where the emphasis is on having customers feel comfortable to come back another time even if they don’t buy now? Do you use contract sales people or employees? Explain your approach to sales issues.

Describe your distribution system. (Where will your product be placed so customers have access to it?) A few points about distribution to address in your marketing plan are:

• Is the exchange of the product made in a store? Through the mail? Through a direct sales representative?
• What are your production and inventory capacities? (How quickly can you make products and how many can you store?)
• Are there cyclical fluctuations or seasonal demands for your products? For example, if you produce Christmas decorations, how will you manage peak production and sales periods as well as slow periods?
• Do you sell to individuals or to re-sellers? Your company may use more than one method. For example, you may sell directly to customers who place large orders but also sell to customers who buy small quantities of your product through retail outlets.

Closing thoughts on your marketing strategy section

Even though this is a separate section in this guide to writing a marketing plan you might want to include it in the same section as the Marketing Objectives that we talked about in the previous section. The objectives you set are the goals you look to achieve over the length this plan is addressing and this strategy supports those goals with the actual plan to execute and meet those goals.

KnowThis web site has a great breakdown and outline of how you might want to structure the objectives section. Please note, some of this outline may or may not apply to your business so use this as a suggestion and not a list of requirements.

Target market objectives

Market Share – total, by segments and by channel

Customers – total, by number/percentage new, by number/percentage retained

Channel Objectives

- Dealers – total, by number/percentage new, by number/percentage retained

- Order Processing and Delivery – on-time rate, shrinkage rate, correct order rate

Promotional Objectives

- Level of brand/company awareness

- Traffic building (e.g. store traffic, web site traffic)

- Product Trials (e.g. sales promotions, product demonstrations)

- Sales Force (e.g. cycle time, cost per call, closing rate, customer visits, etc.)

Market Research Objectives

- Studies Initiated

- Studies Completed

R&D Objectives

- Product Development

Other Objectives

- Partnerships Developed

- Rate of Purchases, size/volume of purchases

- Purchases

Advice on setting your objectives

Remember, these are objectives that you expect to meet so keep in mind that these should be achievable. I have used the SMART approach to setting objectives and that stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-based.

The term SWOT analysis stands for “Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats”. Start with posing these sessions to your brainstorming team: Are your competitors becoming stronger? Are there emerging trends that amplify one of your weaknesses? Do you see other external threats to your company’s success? Internally, do you have financial, development, or other problems?

Let’s break each part down and then wrap up with some the advantages this section can offer you and your team:

Strengths: Here is where you must capture the positive aspects internal to your business that add value or offer you a competitive advantage. This is an opportunity to remind yourself of the value existing within your business. Think about what your company does well. You should address the strengths within your business that add value to your product or your marketing efforts. You should also describe your positive tangible and intangible attributes.

Weaknesses: These are factors that detract from your ability to have a competitive edge. It includes the negative aspects internal to your business that distracting customers from seeing the value you offer or place you at a competitive disadvantage. These are areas you need to enhance in order to compete with your best competitor. The more accurately you identify your weaknesses, the more valuable the SWOT Analysis is to your readers. Some questions to help you get started are: What do your customers complain about? What are the unmet needs of your sales force?

Opportunities: Traditionally, a SWOT looks only at the external environment for opportunities. I suggest you look externally for areas your competitors are not fully covering, then go a step further and think how to match these to your internal strengths. Remember, these are opportunities external to your business. If you have identified “opportunities” that are internal to the organization and within your control, you will want to classify them as “strengths”. Try to uncover areas where your strengths are not being fully utilized. Are there emerging trends that fit with your company’s strengths? Is there a product/service area that others have not yet covered?

Threats: A threat is a challenge created by an unfavorable trend or development that may lead to deteriorating revenues or profits. As with opportunities, threats in a traditional SWOT analysis are considered an external force. By looking both inside and outside of your company for things that could damage your business, however, you may be better able to see the big picture. Competition — existing or potential — is always a threat. Other threats may include intolerable price increases by suppliers, government regulation, economic downturns, devastating media or press coverage, a shift in consumer behavior that reduces your sales, or the introduction of a “leap-frog” technology that may make your products, equipment, or services obsolete. What situations might threaten your marketing efforts? Get your worst fears on the table. A part of this list may be speculative in nature and still add value to your SWOT analysis.

Advantages of a SWOT Analysis – Uncovering Opportunities

This is where you look externally for areas your competitors are not fully covering, then go a step further and think how to match these to your internal strengths. Try to uncover areas where your strengths are not being fully utilized. Are there emerging trends that fit with your company’s strengths? Is there a product/service area that others have not yet covered?

Once you have uncovered these opportunities take each one and discuss how you will market them. Will it be a mixed marketing campaign? A targeted sales effort? What resources will you need (e.g. new collateral, selling guides, web site content, e-mail marketing)?

Advantages of a SWOT Analysis – Address and Overcome Problems

Problems are not necessarily a bad thing. They are just issues that need to be overcome. It is better to get out front of problems that may exist than have them rear their ugly head when you are selling or raising money. Problems could be strong competitors, your product lacking critical features that you are not able to roll out yet or a long sales cycle.

You should list each problem and discuss an approach to overcome them in a sales situation and with specific marketing messages that counter what a customer might be thinking.

The Financial Analysis section is separated into two general areas – sales and profitability

Part 1 – Sales Anaylsis

In this section you need to focus on the current sales that your industry and you business are doing across segments, product categories and various distribution channels. Let’s break it down like this:

Overall Industry and Market Share

- Sales for the Entire Market
- Sales for Your Company
- Sales for Your Competitors

Sales By Segments and/or Product Categories

- Sales by segments and/or product categories
- Sales by company product(s)
- Sales at this level compared to competiton

Sales By Distribution Channel

- Sales for each channel
- Sales for company product(s) by channel
- Sales for Your Competitors by channel

Sales By Geography

- Sales for Each Region
- Sales for company product(s) by region
- Sales for Your Competitors by region

Part 2 – Profitability Analysis

Since we focused on sales which is really revenues, we need to splice this up and see what is actually profitable. Just because you can make money from it does not mean you make a profit. You will need to look across the revenues and include the marketing related expenses. Let’s break it down like this:

Revenue Breakdown

- Use the sales numbers from above but identify realized revenues not just projections

Marketing Expense Breakdown

- Direct Marketing Expenses – These are the expenses that are tied to the product(s) and must be identified in that way
- Indirect or Proportional Marketing Expenses – These are the general administrative and broad marketing expenses that may be assigned to a product based on some criteria like percentage of sales or a pre-determined distribution amount.

Again, stay high level

Since this part of the situational analysis, you are using this sub-section to make your point and support your overall analysis. More detailed financial stuff comes later and in our final posts in the marketing plan we will do it in plain English.